Good morning! Hope this finds you well. I’m anxious to tell you about our weekend but it will have to wait...today is a busy day! (I can tell you it involved a weekend trip to South Carolina to see our boy!) In the meantime, I wanted to share this short but impacting message I received this morning from one of my favorite devotional writers…Jon Walker of Grace Creates.
God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.
~ Psalm 46:1 (NIV)
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God is our strength; he does not give us strength.
In other words, he doesn’t take our tattered strength and prop it up with support beams and steel cable. Instead, he moves into our weakness and he is strong.
Where we are weak, there he is strong.
My friend Steve Pettit tells an amusing story related to this. The storied missionary to China, Bertha Smith, came to speak before his small Kentucky congregation. She sat down with several people to pray, and when one young man said, “Lord, I just need strength; please give me strength,” blessed Bertha looked up and said, “Young man, God does not give us strength. He is our strength. Now pray it right.”
You can take away from that either a gladness that you never voiced a public prayer in front of the late Miss Smith, or a desire that there be more prayer warriors ready to teach us how to get it right when it comes to understanding Jesus working within us.
You, my friend, could be one of those teachers. Do you believe God can make you so? Your answer to this question reveals where the blockage is because God wants to transform you into a mother of the faith, or a father of the faith.
God believes in you, but he’s waiting for you to let him be your strength. I can’t, but God can.
(If you’d like to receive these devotionals regularly, visit www.gracecreates.com to subscribe.)
Monday, February 9, 2009
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16 comments:
Tracy, thank you for sharing this! I often pray, please give me strength for today...I'm changing it to Please, be my strength for today. Blessings to you!
This has been such a focus of mine in my prayer time and in my scripture memory work this month.
Yes, He is my strength, my ever present help in trouble. I love the reminder to not give me strength,but to be my strength. that will be my prayer!
Thank you for sharing this today.
I love this. Thank you so much for
sharing. I pray for strength all the time. I so needed this.
Hope you have a wonderful day.
Tammy
Thank you so much, Tracy, for your sweet words of congrats. We are really excited about this new chapter in our lives!
Such a beautiful devotion! Thank you for sharing these thoughts....
Tracy, this was a great devotion! God truly is our strength. I love the idea of Him stepping in and being my strength instead of giving my weak self something of its own...I cannot stand without Him! Can't wait to hear your news. I got the cards - you are so precious! Thank you, dear friend!
What a wonderful devotional! Thanks so much for sharing this today!!!
To my dear sweet Tracy,
You will "NEVER" know how much you blessed and touched my heart so deeply today.
I recieved my beautiful stationary and that card, oh my...
You are just the SWEETEST and most THOUGHTFUL person!
I'll remember this always.
And then I get the treat of reading this awesome devotional.
Blessings and more blessings are coming your way!
♥THANK-YOU SO VERY MUCH♥
I admire Bertha Smith taking a stand and making a statment like that. What a good reminder for me. The longer we go in our lives, the more we truly do learn that He alone is our strenth.
You know, I know from Scripture that that the Lord IS our strength, and yet have prayed for years and years what I've heard other believers praying (that He'd give us strength).
Guess it's time to take a look at some of the things I just repeat without thought in my prayers.
I just love this Tracy. For a long time I didn't get it either. I remember how liberating it was to realize that it's His strength. I love the way you put it.
"He doesn’t take our tattered strength and prop it up with support beams and steel cable."
That is just the way I felt for a long time.
I have a post coming out later this week that is the perfect example of this. God Bless!!
Of course, as soon as I received your news about your friend's new blog, I went directly there. You are right, I do really like their Valentine's creations. What a great idea! I will be visiting it again, thanks to you. I like blog updates.
Yee haw.....will you and I answer the call, His call?
What a great thought provoking, encouraging find, right here at my cup runneth over, thank you.
Lovingly,
Yolanda
Tracy,
I wanted to let you know that this is a lesson I've been learning the hard way. GOD MOST DEFINITELY IS our strength.. we just have to move out of the way and let HIM be. So I "amen" what you said. =-)
I hope you're having a BLESSED week!
Great devotion. It makes so much more sense for him to BE OUR STRENGTH.
Thank you for the note cards. I love them. You are one talented girly!
Thanks for including me in the Pay it Forward.
Hugs,
Cheryl
Oh Tracy! That is so what I needed to hear today... I just feel tired and weary, and as though I have no strength... and then I read this and it is as if the Lord is speaking directly to me telling me how I need to pray today! Thank you so very much!! I am going to pray for Him to be my strength today!
Blessings!
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