What's been your struggle?

I read one time that wisdom is:
"Making decisions today that I'll be glad about tomorrow."

I like that. It's simple and true.
I wish I would follow it more often though!

So often I feel like Paul when he says:

Rom 7:14
I don't understand myself at all,
for I really want to do what is right,
but I don't do it.
Instead, I do the very thing I hate.
NLT

I was reading Romans chapters 7 & 8 this morning and they are such a wonderful reminder of the fact that we can't live for God-without God.

We need Him and His Spirit to help us live this life. Our natural desires are sinful, they rush to sin, but if we belong to God we can rely on the Holy Spirit to help us in these weaknesses.

I encourage you to read those chapters if you are struggling with sin- and who among us is not?!

Romans 7 is a heavy read...but hold on because Romans 8 brings us hope. I re-wrote verses 9-14 into a confession/prayer using the word "I" in the place of "you." I was going to post it, but I think it would be much more effective if you did it yourself.

So, what's been your struggle??
It doesn't matter what the sin you stuggle with is...He already knows about it- in fact He's been talking to you about it (because He loves you so much), so why not choose today to address it.

Wisdom will make choices today that you will be glad you did tomorrow.

July Winner!

And the winner of the JulyPraise and Coffee is:

Alesia!!

I'm not being fed!

Ok, I know I already posted today, but I just read this and I have to post it!

This blog is one of my favorite's and today he hit the nail on the head!
He's talking about people that grumble in church.

Check it out:
“I’m not being fed!”

Women's minds are like balls of string!

That's what my husband tells me.

He had a long drive last night and listened an episode of Focus on the Family. He recommended it so I'm passing it on to you.

Differences That Strengthen

Dr. Walt Larimore and his wife, Barbara, offer insight to couples in a discussion based on their book His Brain, Her Brain: How Divinely Designed Differences Can Strengthen a Marriage.

I haven't even listened to it yet, but I'm going to play it while I get some things done around the house today. I hope it blesses you!

I'm praying for our marriages,
Sue

If your dreams don't scare you ...

they're not big enough!

Habakkuk 2:1-3
I will stand my watch And set myself on the rampart,
And watch to see what He will say to me,
And what I will answer when I am corrected.
2 The Just Live by Faith
Then the LORD answered me and said:
"Write the vision And make it plain on tablets,
That he may run who reads it.
3 For the vision is yet for an appointed time;
But at the end it will speak, and it will not lie.
Though it tarries, wait for it;
Because it will surely come,
It will not tarry.
NKJV


What has God put in your heart that you have been too scared to believe He could bring to pass?


Trust Him today, maybe it's time to take the next step.


Dare to dream big!

Where's the beef and then some!

I'm blogging over at the Internet Cafe',

here's a link to my post about being a woman

who is living her faith out loud!

Where’s the Beef?!


And here is another fun guest post by my friend Denise, click on the picture to visit her blog.

Matthew 5:6 “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for
they shall be satisfied.”

It is summer vacation here on the farm with our four boys. The first day after Memorial Day Monday when I heard the other local bus go by and know I didn’t have to take my boys to school, ah, pure bliss.

I looked forward to days of beach time and fun with my boys and pure laziness….well, as lazy as you can be with four boys and a busy husband and the huge garden and baby chicks and so on and so on.

All that ended that very first day mere moments after I made my boys chocolate chip pancakes. “I’m hungry”, one of them said and soon they were all asking if they could have a snack, if there was anything to eat, if I had more cookies, what was for dessert…..

To give you an idea of how much they ate, on one morning I made them oatmeal for breakfast, they ate half a bag of apples and one and half bunches of bananas BEFORE lunch.

I am pulling my hair out.

I made my famous chocolate chip cookies and HID half of them to last for another day.

By dinner time when my husband gets home from work I am totally frazzled. Years ago, when my husband’s dad – who made all the meals for the family - was alive, I would hear how my father in law would have nightmares of not being able to feed his family of four kids. I always thought that was overkill. I suddenly understood what he had been worried about. I timed my boys, they completely cleared their plates of food (as they had for lunch and breakfast too) and exactly HALF AN HOUR LATER they were asking for something else to eat.

I was bemoaning this fact to someone I had called for a recipe (go figure). “Well,” she said, “they are more active now. They require more food.” I hadn’t thought of that. I was trying to figure out why the sudden huge jump in appetite from when they were in school and this made a lot of sense. More activity, more need for food. Kinda makes me want to make them sit quietly in the house…as if that would ever happen!

As I was making brownies for my boys, a verse popped into my head all of the sudden. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”

Our youngest comes in the kitchen and asks for chocolate milk and I thought “I am the bread of life, he who comes to me will not hunger, and he who believes in me will never thirst.”

I was wishing God would send some kind of manna or something like that so that my boys wouldn’t be hungry and thirsty all the time. As I was thinking how grand that would be, I also got to thinking how I have been anticipating this time, this time alone with my boys, for ever so long. I have grand plans, to get back into doing a devotional with my boys, to read a long list of books together, to just ‘be’ with my boys. To reconnect after a hectic school year so we can go into next year ‘filled’. My boys aren’t getting younger, my time to ‘train them in the way they should go’ is now.

I spent some time in the kitchen chatting with Son number three about how God cares even about the baby bunnies we found in the field, and for my son to remember that God cares for Him. I may be running out of ideas to feed my kids, but I can still be feeding their minds with God’s word as they help me in the kitchen.

I want my boys to hunger and thirst for God. I pray my boys find their ‘fill’ in God. Somehow, I want to instill in them a desire, a hunger, for them to want more and more of God and never think “yah, I’m full” and walk away from Him. Do you understand what I am trying to say here?

And then, as God always seems to do with me, He made it personal to just me. When was the last time I felt like I was hungry for God’s word? To thirst for Him? When was the last time I was starving to get closer to my God, looking to Him to fill me? Beth Moore talks about filling your ‘love bucket’. If I’m not spending time being filled with God’s love, how am I supposed to share God’s love with those who seem to be draining it….like my family?

Things I am contemplating as I bake some more food to fill my growing boys.

July Praise and Coffee Giveaway!!

This month's Praise is this devotional on praise:



You'll also get "Praise and Coffee" label coffee!!
You're going to love it!

PLUS, our good friends at Bayview Cards are giving you a beautifully handmade box of cards!

TO ENTER DRAWING:

~> Post a comment to THIS post telling me you favorite type of book-or name of book you are reading. (I love non-fiction informational books about faith but enjoy Joel Rosenberg's fictional series also)

~> Please make sure that I have a way to contact you-PLEASE!

~> If you have one of my "Praise and Coffee Giveaway" buttons on your blog, let me know and you will be entered twice. Here is a link to all my buttons: Blog Buttons