Friday, May 24, 2013

Start Praying

Our lives and our communities are filled with problems in need of being corrected. Do we sit around and complain about them or wait for someone else to take to do something about it? Nehemiah was a man who saw a problem and took action to fix it in spite of the many obstacles standing in his way. Learn how he accomplished this task and how we can do the same, in this week’s program.


Scripture: Nehemiah 6-15-16
So the wall was finished on the twenty-fifth day of the month Elul, in fifty-two days. And when all our enemies heard of it, all the nations around us were afraid and fell greatly in their own esteem; for they perceived that this work had been accomplished with the help of our God.


Renewing Reflections
It is our prayer that Renewing Reflections will be a blessing in your life this coming week. This quote is taken from the sermon Why I Keep On Praying delivered on Christian Crusaders July 30, 2006.

As you are constant in prayer, you discover in looking back, that, though you may not have felt it, you never were alone. God was there to carry you all along. It’s like that old story about the footprints in the sand. Looking back, we see only one set of prints. But God reminds us, “Those were the days when you weren’t alone; I was carrying you.” Sometimes, when we are constantly in prayer, God not only can change things, but change us in some wonderful ways. Mother Theresa said one time, “Prayer enlarges the heart until it is capable of containing God’s gift of himself.” Keep on praying. Keep on praying.


Happy Memorial Day
On this special weekend, we pause to remember and give thanks for those who have paid the ultimate price for our freedom while serving in our nation’s service.

The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

– Abraham Lincoln’s address at the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery November 19, 1863.


On the Light Side
When Emilie Ann was about three years old, her mother took her to bed one night and asked what she would like to pray about. Promptly the child answered, onions. So they prayed about onions.

The next morning, when Emily’s mother asked why she wanted to pray about onions, she quickly answered, “Because our Sunday school teacher told us we should pray for things we don’t like.”

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