daily prayer

Good cold cold morning! I have a critter under the floor trying to get in! Don't know what it is but it is persistent. Interesting that we try to do the same. No not chew on the floor but seek warmth and will work hard for it. We seek that warm touch, that loving place where we rest warm and secure. The interesting thing about that thought process is where people look. Man it sure breaks my heart to see people look everywhere but where the world says it isn't. That is exactly where we find that loving warmth, in the arms of Jesus. Talked to a family that lost everything yesterday morning to fire. Then there is the couple who's baby is still in the hospital, the people suffering with all sorts of disease and illness, the family struggling with eeking out an existence, they all seek the same thing; love,a love that is stable and ever present, a love that assures when all seems lost, a love that protects and a love that inspires. The only place one finds that love is with Jesus. Do we love with word only? Do we despair and spit over our woes? Sure as humans we briefly ask why and kick the rocks but after the tantrum, do we thank God for what we do have rather than crab about what we don't? How can we do this? By remembering past victories. By remembering what good has come. Nothing stays the same so we might as well just get on with life and keep seeking God's love or we will end up bitter and mired in mud. This isn't easy most of the time but relying on HIS strength instead of ours we will come out the other side and what did we deposit on the way? Crabbing and deplorable behavior or did we leave encouragement for the others who are or will pass through the same place? Think about that as you face your troubles.

1 John 3:11-24
This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother's were righteous. Do not be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him. And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.
NIV

remember Andrew and Stephanie and little Manny...remember Rex and Kitty...Rebacca's family at the passing of her Dad...Billy Allen...The Grace family

Heavenly Father,
We come before you to ask for comfort for the ones who need it. We ask for your intervention in lives that seem so enveloped in despair. We do praise and honor you and thank you for knowing our plight and redeeming us from the plague of evil rampant on earth. Lord we hurt for our friends and neighbors. Help us be the sons and daughters of a loving God that you are. Help us see needs and act as we should. Grant us the means to help physically and grant us the wisdom to help spiritually and mentally. We praise you in all thing, and in Jesus' name we pray, amen