A Soldiers Heart

A Soldiers Heart

At 3:30 a.m. I got the call. It woke me up out of a dead sleep. At first my thoughts were fuzzy and I did not quite comprehend what was going on. My husband lay asleep beside me and I could hear the steady rhythmic sound of his breath as he slept. Awake now I gathered my thoughts. At first I thought I would just go back to sleep all the while knowing that was not going to happen. Yes I could have shrugged it off and drifted back into the welcome warmness and comfort of that place before dawn when you sleep the best but I knew I was being called to do something else. I quietly slipped out of bed. I headed for the living room to the corner of the sofa where I pray these days. I would love to kneel but must sit due to aching knees from years of work and misuse. I sat quietly in the dark with only the warm glow from an antique lamp and the aquarium. I thought about the time that God spoke to Samuel as a child and how at first he did not recognize the voice. The voice that would soon seem all to familiar. It is that voice that I hear now... No not audible but just as clear. I knew that I was being called to pray, for what I did not know. I just wait and listen and quietly utter words of thankfulness and praise and slowly, deliberately I am drawn into a place of deep things where battles are fought and won. I pray for souls and soon feel the deep groaning of the spirit. The groaning of travail. The same kind of groaning felt when babies are being born as the pain absorbs the whole body and leaves one to exhausted to move. I cherish this place because I realize that even though it is painful it is important to the kingdom of God. After a while my agony turns to tears and I feel that spirit wash over me cleansing me and I know that I have touched the very throne of God. I have heard it said that prayers never go away but instead roll over and over and are forever continual throughout eternity, that they ever remain before God reminding him of our every need, of souls who are important to us. I know that every soul is important even the ones we may not have a name for. That is why it is important to care...To cry out for the ones who we don't even know. To pray for the beggar on the street and the drug addict who is lost in the hopelessness of addiction. To pray for the children with no one to love them and the grandmother who has been left alone. You see...We don't have to know them but we know they exist and need us to stand in the gap for them that they might be saved. That is why we are here. To win them. To fight battles for them that they will never even know about until one day in heaven when all will be revealed. So God use me. Wake me up at three a.m.  Help me to never love sleep so much that I don't listen and shun the very thing that I have been called to do. Help me to fight this battle as the war rages on. Give us I pray souls by the thousands and hundreds of thousands. Let my vision be greater than the simple things that I see. Give me I pray a soldiers heart. 

1 Samuel 3:8

"and Eli perceived that the Lord had called the child."

The Spirit of a Servant

The Spirit of a Servant

Tonight I was around a lot of people yet so all alone. Of course when they spoke to me I answered with a 

smile yet on the inside my heart was distraught. The place inside which felt sadness was so because as they sat around cursing and making obscene jokes I was talking to God about their needs, about the condition of their souls. I did not pray aloud as at other times but from my heart to his. I prayed for them and their families, I prayed because the world is a dark dark place. The funny thing is that they will never know that someone sitting across from them in this very public place was crying inside. I bow my knees and my heart. No one notices as I take the back of my hand and brush away the wetness as my eyes fill with tears and I go about my day to day at a public job. Today, this day I feel broken, no not as broken as I want to be as I need to be. I fast so that my flesh will allow the spiritual part of me to cry out, to travail, to weep for my world, my city,my family, your family. Am I crazy? No I yell no but as I read in the Bible about all those great men of God who carried the burden of their time I feel the calling to pray like never before. I feel upon me the spirit of a servant and also I pray that God will never let this spirit depart from me. I am consumed with a fire a passion for the lost. As I pass people on the street I whisper a prayer. As I see people in their cars my heart goes out to them. And then I weep as someone who has lost a loved one with deep groanings which can not be quenched. Again I am encapsulated with travail. And I do not want this spirit to depart. 

2 Chronicles 7:14

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

The Spirit of A Soldier

The Spirit of A Soldier

Today I was in my studio painting and I was so overcome with a spirit of prayer.

Today I had the spirit of a soldier, one ready for battle.

As I was crying aloud for my city for my children for the lost, my husband came in an 

in a state of panic said "What's Wrong" I said oh nothing I was just praying. He said I don't know about you. "I thought someone had died". 

I pondered this as I thought about what it means. It means that at times I am so sad about the lost. The ones

who have never felt the moving of the Holy Ghost, the ones who have not found truth in his name. That lovely name of Jesus. My hope is to be able to  share that name with someone today.

Have you been baptized in that name?

 Acts 2:38

Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

A Spirit of Unrest

A Spirit of Unrest

Today I pray for a spirit of unrest. You might ask why would anyone ask for such a thing.  I feel the burden of the world on my shoulders. I shutter a cry from the depths of my being. Do I want it to go away? No by all means no. I long for a burden for the lost. For a calling to pray, a yearning that will not be quinched. So I cry, I pray that I

will never be comfortable when so many are lost. I hope that I will always feel that Spirt of Unrest as

long as there are souls who don't know Jesus. I pray that God will use me to reach someone,to tell them about bapism in Jesus name and that there is only one way. As I look at a map of Anniston, Al and the surrounding area I feel it consuming me... the burden to stand in the gap and cry out with groanings for souls...Any souls.

 Luke 23:28 But Jesus turning unto them said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children