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I NEED you to do this, Lord

March 17, 2012 By sami

image courtesy of www.sxc.hu

It’s not often that I asked the Lord for insanely practical things.

In fact, I hate to bother him with things that seem so trivial in light of all the world’s problems. But He does in fact want us to include him in all aspects of our lives and I was reminded of this in a very tangible way today

You may know that our min-van is currently stuck at home after breaking down Thursday night, so we are left having to share our 2001 Camry. Since my husband is typically the one that drives this car, I had forgotten some of its idiosyncrasies.

Case in point:
After finishing up at the radio station, I was on my way to drop the car off at his work since he has to be here late tonight. Our kids spent the day with friends, so Kristen was meeting me here to pick me up and take all of us back home.

Since I hadn’t had lunch and knew I wouldn’t be able to stop at the store today, I made a quick detour to get some chili in the Wendy’s drive thru. I knew the windows hadn’t been working well, but I had just witnessed my husband use them successfully the day before, so it never even crossed my mind to avoid this pitfall.

Yet sure enough, in the middle of a storm, the window went down perfectly fine, but did not respond at my attempt to roll it back up after paying. I dodged rain drops to get to window #2 and worked fervently to fix the wet situation.

No luck.

Knowing I couldn’t very well hang out in the Wendy’s drive thru for longer than 3 extra seconds, I jetted out and wildly went the wrong way into a neighboring bank’s drive thru (luckily, it was closed at the time).

Thankful for the dry oasis. I turned off the car and decided to let it “reboot”, so to speak (can you tell I spend too much time on a slow computer?). After another five minutes of trying every Jedi mind trick I could conjure up, I finally stopped, closed my eyes and prayed for God to help me in this situation.

After finishing the prayer, I opened my eyes, paused to take a deep breath and then said in my most convincing voice possible:
“Lord, I NEED you to do this.”

I waited a few seconds just to make sure He heard me and then turned the car back on to try the window again.

IT WORKED!

Without over-spiritualizing the situation, it reminded me that all too often I try to do things on my own when God is ready, willing and very able to help…if only we’ll get over ourselves long enough to ask!

I was reminded of the story of Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 22 that essentially teaches us that when we simply trust God, He will supply all our needs, from the most critical to even the very trivial.

Our mini-van may not be operational yet, but at least we’re not left with a very wet interior for our one vehicle that does work!

Is there anything you need to ask the Lord for today?

Filed Under: Devotions, Faith, Faith in Action Tagged With: car, devotion, Faith, lord, need, rain, window

Don’t give up on God

January 24, 2012 By sami

I just finished co-hosting the family-friendly morning show with Doug while Jaci Velasquez was off promoting her new album. It was an amazing experience and in the excitement of the morning I realized my gas tank was almost on empty. So I left the station and promptly found a place to fill up.

After pulling in, I watched a homeless man selling papers at the intersection. I felt voyeuristic as I sat in my car talking on my phone paying for expensive gas.

There was something very unassuming about him. Sometimes people in that position seem desperate.

Not him.

I didn’t feel sorry for him as much as I felt compelled to help him.

Not long after that thought, as I still sat in my car waiting for the tank to fill, he walked to his backpack propped up against a nearby sign.

In that moment I felt God say, “don’t give up.”

Was that meant for me? Should I not give up on helping him?

Perhaps I was supposed to tell him to not give up. Should I tell him,”don’t give up on what God has for you?” who was I to be giving any sort of advice in this circumstance?

So instead, after my tank filled, I put my receipt in my wallet and I pulled out a single dollar bill. I went out of my way to drive up to him so that he was right next to my driver side window. Since he had left his post and was hunched over his backpack, I had to summon his attention.

“excuse me sir, may I buy a paper from you?”

If I had startled him, he didn’t show it. Instead he looked up at me with a genuine smile and simply said, “Of course.”

As we made the exchange, I returned the smile and said “don’t give up on what you’re doing.”

I don’t know if that was the right thing to say. In fact I don’t know if I should have said anything at all. But I do know that that was what came out of my mouth in that moment, and I know that God can do more with my words than I ever could dream of.

Have you given up on God lately? Have you given up on what God has for you?
Have you put yourself in a position that you think you know better than God?

Whatever the case may be just remember this: there is someone watching over you every moment of the day and He’ll give you exactly what you need when you least expect it… and He will never give up on you.

Filed Under: Devotions, Faith, Faith in Action Tagged With: christian, give up, god, homeless

Family New Year’s Resolutions: Tommy Nelson Blog

January 3, 2012 By sami

I’m back on the Tommy Nelson Blog today with a post about Family New Year’s Resolutions!

Does your family set New Year’s Resolutions?

I realize the New Year is typically a time for people to reflect and re-evaluate, but how often do you include your kids when you set such goals? After all, aren’t we supposed to model God’s standard of behavior when it comes to health, wealth and happiness?

I think one of the fatal mistakes we make when it comes to setting goals and changing behavior is that we try to go it alone. Whether it’s an accountability partner to help protect your relationships or a running buddy to help you lose weight, teaming up has proven to increase your chances of actually sticking to your goals.

Read the entire article on the Tommy Nelson Blog….

Filed Under: Articles, Faith, Faith in Action, Family, Kid Tip Tagged With: Family, Kids, new year, resolution, tommy nelson

Kids Prayer Poster

January 1, 2012 By sami

Cone Kids Prayer Poster

If you’re looking for a tangible way to help your family pray together on a consistent basis in 2012, consider making a Kids Prayer Poster.

When I first became a Christian in my 20′s, I quickly realized I couldn’t possibly pray for everyone all the time. So while I knew there would always be spontaneous and continuous prayer in my life, I also knew I needed to get some sore of system going to make sure there was consistency in my prayer life, especially surrounding the people and causes I care for.

So I created categories I would pray for each day, week by week. Again, that didn’t mean that I couldn’t verge from or ad to my prayers, people and categories, but it simply gave me a nice template to structure my prayers around. Which made me think, why couldn’t I do something similar for my kiddos?

Since they don’t carry a planner or smart phone around yet (thankfully) and are more captivated by pictures than words, I though a prayer poster would be the best solution. Plus, I had also been trying to devise a way for them to remember extended family that we didn’t see very often, so this fit the bill perfectly!

Here are the step by step directions for our kids prayer poster (you’ll want to supervise, but make sure your kids do as much of this as possible so that they know it’s theirs!):

1. Take a plain old sheet of white poster board and turn it horizontal.

2. Have the kids write a title across the top and then skip a space and write the days of the week across under the title.

3. Under the days of the week, write the category of what/who you’ll be praying for that day.

4. Find and print pictures to represent those categories/people, so you have a visible reminder of who/what you’re praying for.

5. Display the prayer poster in a prime area and reference it during your designated family prayer time (before school, before bed, before nap, etc)

You can come up with your categories any way you see fit, but for a point of reference, here is what/who we pray for each day:

Sunday: Church (including pastors, missionaries, non-profit causes we support, etc)
Monday: Work (our jobs, co-workers, etc) & School (teachers, classmates, etc)
Tuesday: Our Family (this is just our nuclear family)
Wednesday: My husband’s extended family
Thursday: My extended family
Friday: Friends (including other couples, kids’ friends, etc)
Saturday: Our nation (and issues surrounding our government and culture)

Again, this is only a template, but it works for us. It’s also been fun to have the visible reminders and go down picture by picture to pray for individuals, especially extended family and long-distance friends.

Does your family do anything like this? What categories for prayer would you add that I missed?

Filed Under: Faith, Faith in Action, Family Tagged With: christian, Faith, Family, Kids, poster, pray, prayer

Family Prayer Shield

December 31, 2011 By sami

Cone Prayer Shield

I’ve been getting asked about our family Prayer Shield a lot lately, so I thought it only fitting to share about what it is, how it got started and how we plan to refine it for 2012.

I first learned about having a prayer shield from one of my mentors and colleagues, Catherine Hickem. Though I know we are to called to cover each other in prayer, it was the first time I’d seen someone be so intentional about rallying others in protective prayer on a consistent basis. While she asked others to cover certain areas of her ministry in prayer, I thought it fitting to do something similar for our family.

Thus the Cone Prayer Shield was born! What we decided was to find someone (or a family we knew, loved and trusted) to commit to praying for our family on the same day of each month. In return, we would commit to pray for them and their family on that same day every month.

It’s as simple as that. We sent an email out (this was before Facebook) asking if friends, family, co-workers, etc would be interesting in committing to do what we described above for one year; that’s right, we asked for a 12 month commitment. I also promised to send out an update at the beginning of each month with what happened in our family in the prior month and what we coveted prayer for in the coming month (something I’ve been woefully behind in doing and hope to get better at in 2012).

We then filled out the names of the parties who agreed on a form and posted it in an easily visible, highly trafficked area (for us, that meant the fridge, as seen above). I also made smaller copies of the shield for me to carry in my purse organizer and put in the car (though I may now make one for my iPhone in 2012).

I’m also purposing in 2012 to contact the people we’re praying for in some way on the day we pray. I’m not pretending to think I’ll be able to call them each time (since I’m a horrible phone person), but it may be a text message, Facebook wall post or a quick email.

I’ve gone so far as to create a very basic (VERY basic) family prayer shield for you all to get started as well, if you wish. It’s simply a Google doc, and some of you would be able to create something much prettier on your own, but for those of you without computer software or know-how, I wanted you to have something you could simply and quickly print out today.

You would be amazed at what can happen in your life when you know your family is covered in prayer each and every single day of the year. it doesn’t cost you anything: only faith and commitment. So what’s stopping you from starting today?

Download your free family prayer shield

Filed Under: Devotions, Faith, Faith in Action, Family Tagged With: cone, download, Faith, Family, month, pray, prayer, shield

Familiar

December 27, 2011 By sami

There’s a level of familiarity we have with close friends and family that’s comforting, but can also backfire on us.

I’ve come to observe that my 7 year old, while almost always polite, is often much more thoughtful when speaking to her teachers and strangers than when talking to me, her own mother.

While I appreciate that she’s so comfortable with me that she can say whatever she wants, her mouth often can get her in trouble.

I’m not talking rude, but simply speaking before she thinks.

But then it made me think about how I’ve spoken to my own mother over the years.

I can’t say I’ve always given her the respect she’s deserved. As a single mom for the majority of my life, she sacrificed more than I’ll ever know…yet I often probably treated her as if I deserved it all…and more.

How often did I thank her for the everyday? How often do I now take time to call her and show my love and gratitude for who she is and all she has been to me?

The answer is: not enough. Yet she loves me anyway.

We assume that those closest to us will automatically have to forgive us of our faults, but realistically, how often can someone take the same thoughtless words and behavior over and over before they crack?

I’m thankful that we have a Lord and Savior that we can bring our burdens to, yet who will not crack under our pressures; one makes Himself familiar to us, but who knows us better than we could ever know ourselves.

You have searched me, LORD,
   and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
   you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
   you are familiar with all my ways. ~ Psalm 139:1-3

Filed Under: Devotions, Faith, Faith in Action, Forgiveness Tagged With: devotion, Faith, familiar, Family, talk

Influence

August 23, 2011 By sami

As I was driving out of our apartment complex the other day, I noticed some interesting parking configurations.

In one section, someone had parked at an angle, going over their line boundary. SO the person next to them overcompensated and went even futher outside their lines.This trend continued for two of the subsequent cars, soon leading to someone else’s parking space being unable to be parked in.

In the next section, I noticed another car that had veered over their side line. But instead of the next car followint suit, it tried to correct the situation and balanced the difference so they left enough room to get in the original car, but didn’t cross over their own boundary. Hence, the adjoining car barely had to adjust it’s trajectory and as a result, the fourth car in line was able to park normally.

I thought it painted an interesting picture of how we let others influence us. The parking situation succintly illustrates how just one can influence many, both positively and negatively.

In the first situation, when one person went outside the norm, it seemingly gave permission to tohers to do the same…and to a greater degree.

But in the second set of cars it amazed me how when one person made a slight correction and the next does the same, you can see the positive influence over a very short period of time.

I find this so true in my daily life. It may be something as simple as diet. I’ll say that I’m going to stop eating sugar, but then I find myself at someone’s birthday party and I’m handed a plate of cake and ice cream, so I eat just one bite.
But then since I ate a bite of ice cream, why not eat a piece of pizza that’s leftover since they didn’t have anything else for me to eat. Before you know it, I’ve rationalized my way to cheese biscuits!

Unfortunately, I’ve also seen this happen in much graver situations like sexual purity. I’ve mentored girls that said they weren’t going to kiss someone until they got married; but after they experienced a moment of weakness and broke that promise, they figured there wasn’t anything stopping them from going all the way.
It breaks my heart even more to meet girls who have been abused sexually and thus feel there is no longer a reason for them to have sexual boundaries.

When it comes to influence, the most important step you can take after the wrong step is the next step.
The way you respond to adversity or mistakes says a lot about who you are as a person. The biggest difference in this scenario is mistake vs. regret.

One of my mentors (and founders of Intentional Moms), Catherine Hickem, summarizes this so effectively when she explains, “WE will all make mistakes, but it is possible to live life without regret.”

So will you let your mistakes define you or will you be an influencer who lets your next step guide you and others back onto the right path?

Filed Under: Devotions, Faith, Faith in Action, Temptation Tagged With: devotion, Faith, influence, mentor, parking

Delight Yourself in the Lord

February 9, 2011 By sami

“Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.” – Ps 37:4

I was reading Kariss her daily devotional before school this morning and it had a picture of a little girl picking off petals of a flower; remember those days of, “He loves me, he loves me not”? The focus was wishes – instead of wishing for what we want, wish for what God wants FOR us. When we align our hearts with His, He grants those desires.

Is this really possible? If we delight ourselves in Him, will we receive our greatest desires? Sometimes this seems too good to be true, but it is absolutely God’s promise to His children. The key is to delight ourselves IN HIM and His way, not in the mall, the internet or the person we share our lives with. When our will matches up with God’s will for us, we receive blessings beyond what we could have asked for ourselves. What does he ask for in return? Complete and reckless abandon to Him.

I find myself telling my kids this a lot, but I wonder if they see me modeling it frequently enough. When I focus too much of my attention on my work, our home, or even them, I’m communicating that God is not the priority. Instead, I’m transmitting the notion that somehow I have a better idea of how life should work than God does. While schedules and priorities are necessary, they should never take the place of complete and reckless abandonment towards God’s desires for our life.

What are you hanging on to? Who are you clinging to? If your answer is anything besides God, take the time now to confess and release it to Him. Sometimes it’s just the idea of someone or something that keeps us from claiming the blessings God has in store for us…

Filed Under: Devotions, Faith, Faith in Action, Joy, Reviews Tagged With: delight, devotional, Faith, Family, Kids, Parenting

From Darkness to Light

January 1, 2011 By sami

This week we woke up before most people normally do to get on the road early and travel to Florida for a funeral. It was dark, cold and slightly ominous to be on that highway by ourselves.

As dark as it was, there was a quiet comfort inknowing that the sun would eventually emerge and take us from darkness to light. Even as the first shade of gray broke through the black, it encouraged us to press on.

I commented on how much easier it is to drive in the darkness in the morning as opposed to the night. There’s something difficult and somewhat depressing about driving a long distances in the dark during the evening, knowing the night sky is never-ending.

Isn’t that true in life also?

When we face trials and find ourselves smack in the middle of the darkness, it’s easy to focus on that alone. However if we can instead turn our attention to the light we can’t yet see, it makes getting through those dark moments much easier.

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. – Philippians 3:12

Filed Under: Devotions, Faith, Faith in Action Tagged With: darkness, devotion, Faith

The Living, Breathing Word of God

November 17, 2010 By sami

“As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” – Isaiah 55:10-11

As fall turns to winter and rain turns to snow, I hear many of my friends longing for spring already! I on the other hand long for this weather. In fact, I think I was the only one who got excited for rain when we lived in Florida because I could look outside at the gray skies and pretend it was cold outside!

This weather reminds me of the promises we find in Isaiah 55:10-11. God’s Word is not only true, it is living, breathing, and powerful for equipping us today.

What God speaks, He will accomplish.

The important thing to remember is that He uses us to accomplish His will here on earth. This is incredibly encouraging to me…especially on the days that I feel less than adequate to live up to such a task. It reminds me that while He needs my willingness, He does not need my capabilities.

Go out today knowing that the same God who created the universe has a specific purpose for you and it will be accomplished in your life when you believe in the power of His Word.

Filed Under: Devotions, Faith, Faith in Action, God's Will, Reviews Tagged With: devotion, Faith

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