Rest

Pastor Jeff recently talked about experiencing a day of rest and making that a rhythm in our lives.To rest is not a weak thing but to say I know you are God and I will cease to keep trying and trust in you. Lord teach me to build rhythms of rest in my life and for my family. I don’t do this well and I’m oh so tired.Amen!

Be a Mother

it wasn’t the most profound piece of advice. In fact I had heard it before and knew it. But the Lord needed me to hear it that day:
“Don’t try to be their friend. What they need is a mother.” Said dear Robbie as sh turned to me at BSF.
Boy was that from the Lord! Profound? Yes!! New? No!
Conviction: I wasn’t being their mother. They need me to have boundaries, set clear expectations, to nurture them, employ them to grow, challenge them in the Lord, show them what walking in faith looks like, feed them, cuddle them, look in their hearts, pray for them, and much more. I was missing the backbone and my kids were feeling it. I was feeling it.
So begins the journey, Lord, what does our routine look like? How can I be faithful to teach them and love them and rest in the fact that you will turn their hearts. How can I provide a sure foundation? By experiencing you first and foremost myself and to boldly live it out each moment of my day. Please Lord give m you Jason as I venture into this unfamiliar territory of motherhood. May there be fruit for your glory alone! Amen!

(Pilot MC) Prayer: Family

Father God,

You are perfect in all your ways. Your deep love for your children compelled you to give up your son so that we may be redeemed to you again. Oh how you love us! Thank you Lord Jesus that you were humble enough to come for us. In your perfect obedience you display your love for us. Thank you for being the perfect big brother allowing me to be adopted into your family, the Father's family. Thank you that you love me so you are still at work today interceding for me. Thank you Holy Spirit that you came to empower me, I'm not left to my own accord; that you do the work in and through me; that you are interceding for me too at this moment because you love me! Nothing (including all my failures as a parent, my sins and my own condemning thoughts) can separate me now or in eternity from your love. 

Thank you for the BSF leaders who faithfully show up each week to serve and bow our knees to you and the work you are doing. Help us to be faithful, and allow your work to be done through us. May we not find our success in our own selves doing but in the humble faithfulness of resting in you and allowing you to work. Thank you that they have shown me what it looks like to pray, what it looks like to be a friend and what it looks like to depend on the Holy Spirit, that it is your work not mine to take over. Please bless us servants today as we show up to love your people.

I confess I have been struggling to remember the depth of your unconditional love for me Father. That your love solely is because of what you have done, nothing I have, am or will do. The condemnation I pass on to my children is disgusting. Holy Spirit, help me to believe your love for me, to rest in it and to reflect it to these little ones that you have gifted me. Father forgive me for all the wrong I have done.

I also confess the idea of community is exciting as it will draw me closer to you (I hope) but I fear the time commitment, the messiness of living with other people and that I don't have it all together. I will no longer be able to hide. Help me to trust in you that you are at work in all things and begin to let go of trying to control everything.

"Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!"

Amen!

(Pilot MC) Prayer: Community

Lord, I thank you for your loving kindness. That almost 5 years ago I prayed for friends. I confess, I've tried to live most of my life, christian life especially, alone and by myself. My pride let me think I could press forward on this race alone. That I had it taken care of. Thank you for revealing this sin to me. Thank you for even dying for this. I'm so grateful for your forgiveness and willing to go to the cross fo me. But you had other plans for me, a community of friends and now a community of servants that I'm so blessed to live with. You are tearing my pride down each day as I try to grow as a friend. You can't be a good friend and be prideful, it's like oil and water. I have to learn to love the other person as you see them and suffer with them as they suffer. It's hard.
I believe you've made me strong in studying God's word and encouraging others. Please help me to see other ways you have gifted me so I may share that with others.
We have not really embraced Doxa Church as our family. We are still hiding and believing we can do life alone and justifying why that's okay. I ask for your forgiveness Lord and the provision as you lead us during this pilot group to guide us into walking with our brothers and sisters in Christ. Bring together a group of believers who can call each other "family." Please continue to reveal any areas I still am sinning in or deceiving myself about the idea of community.
In Jesus' precious name, Amen!