The Great Exchange

Roots are for taking in --What happens when you and I do slip away to be with God in study and prayer?  We receive.  We take in.  We are nurtured and fed.  We insure our spiritual health and growth.  When we spend time with Christ, He supplies us with strength and encourages us in the pursuit of His way.

I call this time with God, "the great exchange."  Away from the world and hidden from public view, I exchange my weariness for His strength, my weakness for his power, my darkness for His light, my problems for His solutions, my burdens for His freedom, my frustrations for His peace, my turmoil for His calm, my hopes for His promises, my afflictions for His balm of comfort, my questions for His answers, my confusion for His knowledge, my doubt for His assurance, my nothingness for His awesomeness, the temporal for the eternal, and the impossible for the possible.

A Woman After God's Own Heart by Elizabeth George

A Woman and Her God

O God, you are my God,

earnestly I see you;

my soul thirsts for you,

my body longs for you,

in a dry and weary land 

where there is no water.

Psalm 63a

I pray that as you read those words, you saw not only with your eyes, but also with your heart.  This description is the sacred romance that each one of us is meant to encounter with God.  It describes the purpose of our existence.  Consider again the first few words:  "O God, you are my God."  Is that something that you can say?  Have you encountered Him in such a way that He has become your refuge and strength?  "O God of all the universe, who called the worlds into being, You are mine."

This is a Psalm about intimacy and the relationship that we were born to enjoy with God.  It is a Psalm of prayer and devotion, prompted by the heart.  Many people are motivated by discipline.  Discipline is getting up and having a time of prayer and devotion with God when we are weary from exhaustion.  On a daily basis, however, our heart should yearn to be with Him, as well as our soul.  Our longing and thirsting comes as a gift from the Holy Spirit, and we desire it more than life.  The heart of this Psalm says, "Give me a thirst and a hunger for You, God.  Not just a discipline.  Give me an ache and a longing to know You, to be with You, to abide in You always."

A Woman and Her God by Beth Moore   Get your copy today!

Promises About Sharing Joy

This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of God's people but is also 

overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God.

2 Corinthians 9:12

Do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.

Hebrews 13:16

God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as 

you have helped his people and continue to help them.

Hebrews 6:10

Promises About Friendship

A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.  

Proverbs 17:17

Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves.  

A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

Ecclesiastes 4:12

There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

Proverbs 18:24

Jesus says, "Here I am!  I stand at the door and knock.  

If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, 

I will come in and eat with him, and he with me."

Revelations 3:20

A Perfect Friendship

Friendship is good for your health -- even your cardiovascular and immune systems.  We need good friends even if we have wonderful husbands.  We need the companionship of others in the body of Christ.  We need other women to laugh and cry with.

When we're all anchored in the same harbor, we're able to help each other patch the holes in our boats.  If a friend has hurt my feelings,  I find it hard to be honest about that.  But sometimes speaking the truth about a hurt is very important.  When we can walk through that field with a few thorns in the grass and make it to the other side, our friendships will be stronger and our joy will be real.

Real friendship grows when we are prepared to be there equally in the bad moments and the good, when we weep with those who weep -- and rejoice with those who rejoice.

Sheila Walsh

Promises About Celebrating Your Days

This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Psalm 118:24

Lord, you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure.  The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.  I will praise the Lord, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me.  I have se the Lord always before me.  Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.  Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure.

Psalm 16:5-9

Promises About Joy and Peace

Lord, you establish peace for us; all that we have accomplished you have done for us.

Isaiah 26:12

Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.  His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.

2 Peter 1:2-3

May the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times and in very way.

2 Thessalonians 3:16

I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.

Psalm 4:8