So, in other words, there is a path that we can choose that will waste our life, deplete our energy because what we will spend our lives doing is attempting to outrun whatever we believe is chasing us, because we are unstable and are relying on things that will never be stable. And we can have all of that, all of that can be ours if that’s what we want. God will wait on the other side of that for us to return to Him. But we are also given a path of making that choice now, returning to Him now. And so, instead of running away from what is chasing us, we stop and run to God and collapse there and find rest. And Isaiah gives us a picture of what that could look like. And I quote, “whenever you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear this command behind you. This is the way, walk in it, then you will defile your silver-plated idols and your gold-plated images. You will throw them away like menstrual cloths and call them filth.” So, what is Isaiah telling us, direction is available. Clarity is here. It’s all right here, if we’ll calm down, return to God and rediscover where our source of strength comes from, and if we will live from that place under the shadow of His wings, as it were, we will see what is false and what we’ve been trusting in. We will see the imposters, we will see what we’ve been trying to outrun, we will look at these things and its delicate right because the Bible’s so graphic here and what it’s trying to tell us that we will look like, how our vision will change. It will change so much when we find this place of quiet confidence of rest, under the shadow of the Almighty. That we will look at the former ways that we were trying to navigate in our own strength and consider them to be used menstrual sanitary objects. Right, I mean, that’s graphic, that’s delicate and it's…it’s probably that way for a reason right, because nobody collects that kind of stuff and saves it. Right, that’s…that’s thrown away. That’s disposed of. And maybe that’s how we begin to look at how we have navigated our lives in an attempt to be our own master. We see this story repeated over and over in the lives of the children of Israel in ancient times, we see the back and forth over and over and over. And we can think they’re dumb. But we can look at our lives and go this is our story over and over and over, then maybe it’s not really going anywhere. Maybe God is God, maybe God is all-powerful, maybe He actually does know our name. Maybe He actually does know how many hairs are on our heads. And that’s an ever-changing thing for me and I’m sure He has to use subtraction on a daily basis for that. But maybe He really does know, maybe He cares enough to know that. Maybe He loves you enough to know how many hairs are on your head. Who else loves you like that? What are we doing here friends, let’s return to God and find rest for our souls and rediscover that we have a strength. It’s just not our own. It’s the strength of the Almighty, all things are possible.
Prayer:
And Father, we let go of all of it. This garbage that we are carrying around trying to sort out and process, like we can’t, You can. And so, we’re running to You, we’re running to You. And we are not running to You so You will pat us on the butt and tell us we will make it and it will be okay, so that we can go back and desert You again, back into our own strength. We are running to You saying enough is enough, I’m not living this way anymore. You are my God, I will serve You, lead me where I should go. I’m trusting in that, it’s the only safe thing to do in this world. You are the only truly trustworthy person being on this planet and I trust in You. Come, Holy Spirit, make this true in the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.
Prayer and Encouragements:
Hey fam, this is Nancy. I’m calling from Alberta and I’m asking for prayer from all you mighty prayer warriors for a good friend, Jason, who was in a motocross accident on Sunday evening. And his brain is swelling, incredibly bad. And they had to remove part of his skull to relieve some of that pressure and it’s just not going down. He has broken both legs and the main concern, the biggest concern right now, is this brain swelling. It’s just an 18-year-old kid, who goes to our church and been a friend of our families for a while now. Appreciate the prayers and please keep him and his family in your prayers. The sister was supposed to be getting married in two weeks and not sure what’s happening with that right now. Because they’re over in the hospital in Calgary, here in Alberta. So, keep Jason Slingerlynn in your prayers as well as his parents, Dave and Colinda and the whole family. Thank you so much. Love you guys.
Hey, Daily Audio Bible family. I have emergency request. My husband is a police officer here in Texas and we just found out one of our friend’s granddaughters or grandsons who is one years old, had an accident where he somehow got outside into the pool and they found him, essentially face down in the pool. He has been resuscitated, he has a heart rate, he’s breathing. But I don’t know how long he was down for, and we don’t know much else than that. So, can you guys please pray and just lift this little boy up and just ask the Lord to just heal him and give him life to the fullest, with no deficits, according to His mercy and His love. Thank you so much, family. It’s The Sun Is from Texas. Love you, bye.
Hey family, it’s Beloved in Bakersfield. I was just offering a prayer request for my friend Jacqueline, we’ve been friends since kindergarten, so I see her like a sister. Her father-in-law has had some complications with his heart surgery, and he had to get transferred to USC emergently because he had coded after a few days in the hospital, post the heart surgery. So, anyway, prayers for the family, for his healing. Prayers just financially for the, for his wife who’s needing to stay in Los Angelas. There’s also just for my friend Jacqueline, her husband is obviously wanting to stay and support his mom and dad. Which is requiring him to lose time from work. And it’s, she said it’s been putting a strain as far as like his job situation of possibly being let go. If he loses too much time from working. So, prayers just for, for God just to provide the financial means necessary, the healing necessary and just the peace in this whole situation. Their last name is Treheo, so if you could just remember the Treheo family and just be covering them in just God’s wisdom and peace during this time for them. I would appreciate it.
Hey DAB family, this is Anna in the Trenches. It’s been a long time, but I’ve been out here listening and praying for ya’ll. I’m calling because I’ve entered into a kind of stressful season. It’s exciting but it’s stressful. We are buying our own house. When we first bought a house 15 years ago, we bought a house with a group of people, and we were living in community. Over the years, our ministry has shifted from neighborhood and home and providing places for, you know, people in recovery to live and things. To more of the prison ministry of our church. So, I’m very excited about my family having a house that’s just my family in the house. And so, it’s a huge answer to prayer but I’m really stressed out about moving a family of five, including a disabled son and you know, packing and stuff. So, if you guys could just pray for my mental health during this time. And that I would trust God for all of the loans to come through and just for people to come help us move, for it to all go smoothly. That would be awesome. I’m also praying for my mom. She has Alzheimer’s and is deteriorating kind of horribly, it’s just hard to watch. So, love you all. Bye.