If Only We’d Ask

If Only We’d Ask

by | Sep 25, 2023 | Sunday Scripture

You do not have because you do not ask God.

James 4:2b NIV

 

The Story: 

 

It was my first trimester of my pregnancy and I was going to do this pregnancy right! I was going to eat a very healthy diet full of all the nutritional elements a baby needs to grow a healthy brain, muscles, and body, I would give this child every fighting chance it could get! It was a challenge, especially during the fatigue of the first trimester but I was committed. Which is exactly how I came to find myself standing inside a Little Caesars, trying to quickly grab a pizza before I could go home and crash on the couch. 

 

My turn came and I ordered my pizza and, “Breadsticks too, if you have them?” The cashier told me it would be a 15/20 minute wait for breadsticks. “Oh that’s ok then, I’ll just do the pizza please.” 

As I said those words another employee stuck his head out from the back and said, “We have the cheesy breadsticks ready. You ever tried them? They’re really good! They have our garlic butter sauce poured over them, then a bunch of cheese melted all over them.”

 

I should probably mention at this point that not only was I priding myself on a healthy diet, I was also priding myself on not being an easy sell. We have a budget. We plan our spending and if it’s not in the budget then sorry- it doesn’t happen. Given that we stick to a budget, I am not easily susceptible to impulse purchases. I have self control- or so I tell myself. My husband is in the sales industry- it’s like he wants to be sold! Someone starts talking about a really great offer and he starts thinking about it- especially if they are using their sales skills really well. Not me, nope. Try someone else! 

 

All of this is precisely why as the words describing the cheesy, goey, garlic smeared breadsticks were barely out of this guy’s mouth I quickly said, “Ok sounds great- an order of cheesy breadsticks too please!” the employee chuckled and pointed to the cashier saying, “See that! That’s how you upsell!” before tossing the box of breadsticks on the counter and walking back around the corner. I laughed, I knew I had been a really easy upsell! But do you know how many people  never ask for the sale? There’s a saying in the sales industry, “You miss 100% of the sales you don’t ask for.” It’s easy whenever you are trying to make a sale to lay out everything before the prospective buyer and think that by doing so, you have asked for the sale- but you haven’t! You have to actually ask, “Ready to move forward?” 

 

The Lesson I Learned

The reason I am lecturing about basic sales techniques, when all you thought you were getting is an uplifting post while you drink your morning coffee, is because this same principle applies to our prayer life too. 

 

God wants us to bring our requests and petitions before Him. Not to just ask Him something once and then move on, but to pursue Him. In fact there are multiple different instances in the bible where because someone pleaded with God, God changed His mind. In Exodus 32 God was ready to wipe out the Israelites, but Moses pleaded with God and God spared them. 

 

What have you been wanting to happen in your life that you haven’t been asking about? In Luke 11:9, Jesus tells us , “As and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” (NIV) The word for ask originally was a word that meant keep on asking, keep on asking, and it will be given to you.

 

Conclusion

 

I am not a heath, wealth, and prosperity evangelist- it doesn’t work like that. Sometimes the answer will still be no. Sometimes the answer will be silence. The bible says in James 4 the Bible says,”You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” you have not because you ask not.  When we come before God humbly, petitioning Him with desire that He has placed on our heart it pleases Him. He wants us to ask. What desire God placed on your heart? If He gave you the desire- don’t you think He wants to give it to you? 

 

Remember that sales principle, You miss 100% of the asks you never make? Sometimes I wonder how many blessings we miss out on because of the requests we never truly make of God. 

 

Disclosure

Please remember that this post contains affiliate links; that means if you click on the link, I will make a small commission at no extra cost to you. It’s a way to support my blog! I will only ever share an affiliate link if I love the product and think that you just might love it too!

 

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What Picking Apples Taught Me

What Picking Apples Taught Me

by | Sep 10, 2023 | Sunday Scripture

Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. 

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

It was destined to be a warm day, the early morning temperature having just broken 70 degrees and the world was starting to awaken. The leaves on the trees were still wet from rain the night before, and the grass was wet with dew. The sun was just starting to break though the morning fog and everything was glistening. The air was cool against my skin, and my coffee was hot in my hand as I walked through my backyard, towards our apple trees. Usually on mornings like this I think, “Today would be a great day to be camping,” always wishing for something other than what is right in front of me. But on this day I thought, “today is a great day to pick apples early in the morning,” which is what I was doing. 

When we bought our house we were blessed by the previous owners with blueberry bushes, grapevines, and a small variety of fruit trees. However with these blessings all of  these trees, bushes and vines, came a heavy workload. The first few years it was just too much. The apples had always been very small and seemed hardly worth harvesting. 

Then the trees started getting very overgrown, and we feared losing this valuable asset if we didn’t do anything with them so we went out a few years ago and did some pruning, more or less guessing if we had taken enough, too little, or too much. The following year we had a baby and fruit trees were the last thing on my mind. 

This summer I hadn’t given much thought to the fruit trees either when my mother pointed out an abundance of apples hanging from the branches. She was right (yes as usual Mom) there were so many apples! The pruning we had done a couple years before had laid a foundation for some healthy growth producing big, luscious apples. 

 I was picking apples and greatly enjoying my early morning picking session and seeing bag after bag grow full with ripe apples. I have always had this fantasy of someday, living on enough land that we could have a small farm if we wanted, although I’m not sure about livestock and chickens. (Check out my post Do You Have the Faith of a Chicken? to see why I’m not sure about the livestock!)  I picture myself having a garden and some fruit trees and canning food, baking pies and waiting for my sourdough bread to rise- and having enough time to do all this! 

I always picture this as a “someday” dream, because while sure, there is always a way to make these things happen, we are also content with where we are now. Still the thought floats through my mind, “Someday we will have more land, and more time and I will do all the things I’d like to do now.”

 Do you have “Someday” thoughts of your own? 

What picking apples taught me that early morning was sometimes the dreams we hold in our heart are closer to our reality than we often take time to realize. Farming and growing your own produce connects you to the earth in a way that nothing else does. When you feel the grass brushing your feet, the damp soil beneath your feet you can’t help but be amazed that the same soil that supports your feet, also supports the tree that grew your food, and carries enough nutrients in it to nourish you, and grow babies into energetic children. 

When you take the time to pick the apples by hand you realize life is fast for everyone- it takes intentionality to slow down enough to savor it. 

As I stood there picking apple, after apple, I realized that this was it- my dream. Sure, I pictured more; more time, more trees, more land, more jars to fill with preserves, but- this was still it. I was picking apples off of my trees, taking time to enjoy the morning, and savoring the slow process that my grandmother did as a child and hope to teach to my child someday. 

So often we dream of someday and miss the beauty that is right in front of us. We forget that just as I laid the foundation by pruning my trees, so God uses circumstances to lay the foundation in our lives to ready us for future tasks He has for us to do. So often we rush through our day to day lives, not realizing that the life we want and love, is right in front of us. 

 

 

 

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The Golden Hour

The Golden Hour

by | Sep 3, 2023 | Sunday Scripture

Likewise, a good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.

Matthew 7:17

I have such mixed feelings about September… Usually I greet this month with a sense of dread. Here in PA this month starts off as hot and beautiful as the previous two months before it but… by the end of this month it will be unmistakably fall and the problem with fall is that it is short. But winter is long. Very long. So, I dread september. 

I hate to see the long summer days end. I dread the ending of summer dinners taken outside as the summer sunlight fades. The warm mornings are ending, and summer flowers are fading, and in just 3 weeks summer will officially be over and the fall stolice will begin. 

The thing is though, in all my moping about how much I hate to see summer end, I love fall! I love the colorful trees, I love how blue the sky looks by contrast, I love pulling out my fall decor. I love pumpkins, chai tea, brisk walks outside, and the smell of wood fires burning. I love fall – I rob this season of its joy but looking ahead to what is to come?

Why am I so busy worrying about the future that I forget the joy of today?

So this year I had a thought. What if instead of dreading fall; I look at it as summer’s golden hour? You know the golden hour; the hour before the sun officially sets and as it makes its descent through the sky and casts a celestial hue over everything, beautifying everything its golden rays touch. 

That’s how I want to greet september. Not at the demise of summer, but as the final hooray, the month of warmth and beauty as the world slowly transforms from summer to fall- which is beautiful in its own right and also a season to be savored. 

I want to intentionally savor the season I am in. 

I want this month to serve as a reminder that every season has its golden hour, and there is much to be grateful for, whatever season we find ourselves. 

We always get the choice in this life, whether to look at our lack or our plenty, the abundance of God’s goodness, or what we wish He would have provided. We can choose to glorify Him or we can choose to be angry with Him for not making our circumstances fit the vision we had for our lives.

Matthew 7:17 reminds us that every good tree bears good fruit- what kind of fruit are we bearing when we only think of the negative of our situations and neglect to dwell on all the goodness that God has blessed us with? 

The attitudes with which we greet the world are often the only evidence to the world of who we really are. Are we being good representatives of Christ? 

Perhaps you will join me in asking God to help us to see the bright side of things- the abundance of season we are in, rather than worrying about the next season. May He help us to shine His light into the world, no matter the season.

 

 

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Amazing Grace

Amazing Grace

by | Aug 27, 2023 | Sunday Scripture

If I say the best-known hymn of all time what hymn comes to mind? If you said Amazing Grace, you’d be correct! From wall signs, to many other songs rifting off this hymn, you’d most likely be able to recognize snippets from this song a mile away. But what about the author of this song? What do you know about him?

 

John Newton was born in London in 1725, son of a sea captain and a God-fearing mother. Unfortunately, his mother died when John was only seven and his father and stepmother did not continue to bring him up in the faith so he slowly drifted away from his faith. When John was 19, he fell in love with another godly woman named Mary–although his absence of faith presented an obstacle to them moving forward in their relationship. It was while traveling to see Mary that John was taken captive and press ganged into the British Navy. When someone was press ganged into the Navy, they were hauled onto the ship without being able to say goodbye to their family, or gather any of their belongings–and not allowed to leave until their time of service was up. John was miserable; he wanted to get back to his life, and his Mary, so he decided to try and run away. 

 

John was caught and hauled back aboard the ship, where he was then ruthlessly flogged. It was a dark time for John as he vacillated between thoughts of how to murder his captors and thoughts of suicide. John became wild, known for his drinking and ruckus behavior. It was in this season that John was transferred to a slaving ship and began his work in the slave trade, ripping people from their family and selling them into a slavery much worse than his own experience of being pressed into the British Navy. 

 

It was in this dark season for John when a terrible storm hit the boat, totally without warning and they feared they would be shipwrecked. During this long night, the teaching of John’s mother came back to him and he surrendered his life to Christ. John’s behavior started to change–he grew in his faith, and finally returned home to marry his long-awaited sweet heart. 

 

However, some change takes time. For a while John continued his work in the slave trade, even as he grew in his faith. It was sometime before John’s life was totally transformed but slowly it did.

 

John left the slave trade and became a pastor of a large church in England. He even wrote some songs, including a little hymn you might know by the name of “Amazing Grace.” John eventually joined the abolition movement, and teamed up with William Wilberforce, and the two men were instrumental in ending slavery in England–a cause John spent the last years of his life championing. 

 

John became a Christian, but he didn’t become perfect. He continued the heinous act of selling humans as slaves for a while before he became convicted of his actions and changed. As Christians we are not made instantly perfect, we are simply made children of Christ. But just as Christ worked in John’s life and continued to convict him and clean up his life so He works in our lives too.

 

Disclosure 

Please remember that this post contains affiliate links; that means if you click on the link, I will make a small commission at no extra cost to you. It’s a way to support my blog! I will only ever share an affiliate link if I love the product and think that you just might love it too!

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The Hiding Place

The Hiding Place

by | Aug 20, 2023 | Sunday Scripture

Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against Thee.

Psalm 119:11 

 

I have a hard time killing ants. Yes, those pesky little black insects, I feel bad killing them. While my soft spot for them might not be quite as big as it is for those goofy-looking little stink bugs that get flipped over on their back, and then flop around helplessly until someone flips them over, I shudder every time I kill one of those hard working little ants that can move 10-50 times its body weight. What in the world would make me hesitate to kill an ant? To answer I would ask: Have you ever heard of Corrie Ten Boom? 

 

The Ten Boom family were watchmakers and repairers living in Amsterdam in the early 20th century. Corrie Ten Boom helped her father in his watch shop and had won some acclaim for her work. But then life started to change. Hitler took over the country of Germany and, while the Ten Booms were not Jewish, they noticed the mistreatment happening to their Jewish friends and family. 

 

Corrie started getting involved in the underground movement to save the Jews by getting them out of German-controlled territory. Seeing an even greater need, the Ten Booms were approached by members of the underground asking if they would be willing to hide some Jews in their home. It just so happened that the pieced together construction of their home leant itself perfectly to a secret room being constructed behind the wall in Corrie’s bedroom. The Ten Booms found themselves hiding six Jews. 

 

Then, in the middle of the night, their home was raided by the Gestapo. Even though the Jews were safely hidden, the Germans took the Ten Booms to the concentration camps. For a while Corrie was held in solitary confinement. She had no one to talk to and no one for comfort… no one that is, except for one little ant. This ant would come crawling into Corrie’s cramped cell, and instead of killing it, Corrie watched the little ant and made friends with it. During her time of solitary confinement, the ant was her one reminder of life outside her cell. 

 

Corrie was eventually released from her cell and allowed to join the other women being held, including her beloved sister Besty, who was also taken captive. Corrie was lucky in that while being searched upon entrance to the concentration camp, she was roughly shoved forward and wasn’t searched. She was therefore able to keep the little Bible she had concealed beneath her dress. 

 

Corrie and her sister were able to covertly share the word, and even have a Bible study of sorts while in the concentration camp. But even more than that, Corrie was able to share the gospel with other people, not only because of the Bible she held in her hands, but also because of the knowledge of the Bible that she held in her head and heart. 

 

Psalms 119:11 tells us to, “Hide thy word in our hearts that we might not sin against thee.” Memorization and Bible study are important, not just so that we don’t sin against God, but so that we also can knowledgeably share His word with others. I pray we never find ourselves thrown into a concentration camp or prison, but are you prepared if that should ever happen? Do you have enough of His word hidden in your heart that you could knowledgeably share the gospel with someone on the spot, even if you didn’t have a phone or Bible in your hand? 

 

There you have it–the very long explanation for why I struggle to squash an ant, as the ant reminds me of Corrie Ten Boom. She helps to remind me to always have His word hidden in my heart.

 

Disclosure 

Please remember that this post contains affiliate links; that means if you click on the link, I will make a small commission at no extra cost to you. It’s a way to support my blog! I will only ever share an affiliate link if I love the product and think that you just might love it too!

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Just In Time

Just In Time

by | Aug 13, 2023 | Sunday Scripture

“Let us all say grace,” George Mueller said, but the 300 orphaned children sitting around the table were not convinced. They had heard the housemother whisper that there was no food in the orphanage. Why say grace when there was no breakfast to be had? 

George Mueller had founded and ran the orphanage in 19th century England. George insisted on living by faith–the orphanage relied on God’s provision in the form of whatever spontaneous donations came; they did not accept regular donors or sponsors. Because of this, they were forced to rely solely on God for any and all provision. God had always come through, but now here they sat–saying grace for a breakfast that had not yet appeared. 

 

As they bowed their heads for grace, there was a knock at the door and Mr. Mueller went to answer it. It was the baker; he had been awakened in the middle of the night and prompted to bake three batches of bread for the orphanage. They started rejoicing. Just then another knock came–the milkman’s cart had broken down in front of the orphanage and he had to do something with all the milk or it would spoil–could they use a cart full of milk? There was just enough milk to satiate 300 thirsty children. 

Just like God provided for the Israelites in the middle of the wilderness wanderings, so He still provides for us today. God gave the Israelites just enough manna to get them through the day, and once a week just enough to get them through two days. If they gathered more, it would spoil. God always provides in His time. Not always in the way we want but always in His time, and often just in time. 

This kind of reliance on God takes faith. It can be scary, but in these times it’s important to ask ourselves if we truly believe in God’s provision? Do we trust Him to take care of all our needs? I am not saying that we shouldn’t work and do what we were put on this earth to do–we most certainly should, but when our plans have failed and we have fallen short of what we need, do we trust God to close the distance?  

So many times we see the need coming and we panic. Before the need has even arrived, we look down the pipeline, and we do everything we can to close the gap. When these plans work, we congratulate ourselves for solving our problem. We take God out of the equation. We neglect to realize that God is the one who allows the circumstances to come together. 

Have you ever been in the middle of a scary situation that you were itching to jump in and try to solve and you felt God urging you to wait and to trust him? Have you listened? Or have you rushed ahead with your plan of how to solve things? How did that work out for you?

The next time things aren’t going the way you want and you feel like you’re trying to fix everything, and nothing, absolutely nothing, is working, pray that you will remember the faith of George Mueller, and then stop and ask God what His plan is, and then allow Him to show you. It could be that He wants you to work harder; it could be that He wants you to work differently; it could be that He wants to you to just wait and trust that He will come through for you—just in time. 

 

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