#191 - Keeping the WORD at the Forefront

Good morning! I pray you are having a blessed day so far as I am! Finished Day #2, back writing/editing first thing when I wake up.... it feels so productive! Praise God for counsel from others. :) OK... let's get going this morning....

Proverbs 7:1-3 - MY SON, keep my words; lay up within you my commandments [for use when needed] and treasure them. ²Keep my commandments and live, and keep my law and teaching as the apple (the pupil) of your eye. ³Bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart.

Deut. 6:5, 7 - ...love the Lord your God with all your [mind and] heart and with your entire being and with all your might.... teach and impress them diligently upon the [minds and] hearts of your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down and when you rise up.

Proverbs 31:14 - She is like the merchant ships loaded with foodstuffs; she brings her household's food from a far [country].

Keep my commandments & live. I am on a bit of a time schedule this morning, but the Holy Spirit assured me that He had a Word for today. I was impressed, as I often am, that the Holy Spirit did quickly pull together His Word from God's Word. Often in the Bible, like in Matthew 4, the Word of God is compared to food. In Matthew 4, Jesus is being tempted by Satan to turn rocks into loaves of bread to eat. Jesus uses the Word in His defense and tells Satan that the WORD of God IS His food. Proverbs 7 this morning begins with keeping and observing the Word, God's commandments, for doing this we will live. Further, if we flip back to Deut 6, we are told to even impress and continually teach our children the Word. To impress upon their minds, daily, consistently, upon waking and upon going to sleep, we are to remind our children AND in doing so, we remind ourselves that we, "Love the Lord with all our heart, soul & might." By saying it outloud, we remind our MIND, and as we continue in the Word, those words we tell our children begin to take ROOT in our hearts. As we do this, we are "raising up a child in the way they shall go, and when they are old, they will not depart from it." Verbalizing our love for the Lord, our commitment to love and be obedient to him, plants something powerful in our hearts, plants something powerful in the pliable hearts of our children. Pliable: easily bent, flexible, easily influenced, adaptable, adjusting readily to change. As our children grow older and older, the world will want more of a say in how they believe. As parents, we have a responsibility, like it talks about in Deuteronomy 6, to TEACH them early on, to raise them up in the Word of God, to instruct them of God's commandments, to abide & follow them. We are raising up a godly generation that this world so desperately needs!

I looked at Proverbs 31:14 in a new way this morning, thanks to the Holy Spirit. "She is like the merchant ships loaded with foodstuffs." The Bible often refers or likens "food" to the "Word of God," in this situation, I could see how it may be doing the very same thing! Our Proverbs 31 mother, is LOADED with the Word of God! "She brings her household FOOD from afar." Our Proverbs 31 woman acts with a purpose. She is purposeful. She is planting the WORD of God into her children and anyone who is in her household! She comes, DAILY, bearing the Word, just like it commands us to do in Deuteronomy 6. Upon rising and upon going to bed, planting the Word, setting reminders of the Word, remembering the Promises of the Word.

I'm reminded of how important is the REMEMBER the Word. In Proverbs 7, it talks about binding the Word on your fingers, placing them upon the tablets of your heart. Setting out reminders! Remembering the Word. Today.... what does that mean to us? For Tyler and I, it often means setting reminders on our cell phone. Our cell phone rings often throughout the day to remind us of one of God's promises, to remind us of a Word that we are standing on for our life. For you, it may mean, writing the Word on your bathroom mirror, putting a scripture on the door as you leave for work, putting a scripture on the dash of your car so you see it as you drive. Setting out those IMPORTANT reminders, keeping the Word at the forefront of our minds.

What is going to be YOUR reminder today of God's promises in YOUR life?? Hold on to them! They are hope! They are true yesterday, today & forever!

Have a blessed day! :)

#91 - Are you RISING while it's yet night?

Good morning! I pray that today finds you SUPER blessed! :) Well... I will be excited to show you pictures of the boy's play room soon. It is definitely cutie! He is BLESSED!!! Yesterday he got a BALL PIT! Yes, a ball pit! It is huge! It's super fun though! He really just got introduced to it yesterday, so today will really be the day he gets to play in it. I'm sure it will be very entertaining to watch! Blessed and HIGHLY Favored!! Praise the Lord!!! :) 

Proverbs 31:15 - She rises while it is yet night and gets [spiritual] food for her household and assigns her maids their tasks 

Psalm 56:4 - By [the help of] God I will praise His word; on God I lean, rely, and confidently put my trust; I will not fear.

Psalm 86:1a - INCLINE YOUR ear, O Lord, and answer me... 

Psalm 116:1 - I LOVE the Lord, because He has heard [and now hears] my voice and my supplications. 

Well... today's word comes as a bit of that .... hum... what do you call it... constant reminder of what you NEED to be doing, but maybe aren't doing. Have you ever had something like that come up in your life? The word that is RINGING in your ears, that thing that you know you NEED to do but you keep avoiding it. Well, for me, that is today's devotion. We'll see if it is something that rings in your ear too... maybe like me, this will be something that you have known you need to do but until now have not commited to the action of DOING it. 

She rises while it is yet night. The Proverbs 31 woman is rising to get food for her household. She is included in her household, she is also getting food for herself. What kind of food? We can talk specifically about two kinds of food. 1) Spiritual Food, 2) Physical Food. Not only is she spiritually spending time with the Lord and getting filled up spiritually, but she is also preparing the food for her household for that day. Both are areas that I can improve on! 

Have you ever had someone in your life that was not accountable? Someone that you could not rely on? I recently was reminded of that from someone in my life. I was reminded that the person had good intentions and they were a good person, but I could not count on them to follow through with what they said that they would do. Most likely, this person is stretched too thin and overcommited. Well, to RELY on, LEAN on and CONFIDENTLY put your trust in someone, it first is going to take you KNOWING that person. Right? If you do not know then, you automatically are not going to have confidence in them. Psalm 56 talks about having CONFIDENCE and RELYING on the Lord. Like the Proverbs 31 woman, it is going to take SPENDING TIME with Him to get to know Him. Specifically, I would anticipate that the Proverbs 31 woman rose while it was still night, earlier than everyone else in her household because it was still quiet. The busyiness of the day had not begun. The hussle and bussle had not started, and she could have some quiet time, just her and the Lord to get direction for her day. 


I have been around "stay-at-home" mom's or mom's in general and everything seems to always be a world of chaos. Everything is either an emergency, chaotic, stressful. It's like you can feel it in the air, like a spirit of stress. It almost makes your heart tighten just to be in the environment. One mom, I asked her specifically how things were going with her Quiet Time and her time with the Lord. She told me the answer that I expected, she was not having a quiet time. Things had gotten so busy, that she had not been "fitting it in". And, it was evident in the constant state of stress that she appeared to be in. Lack of peace. 


To have CONFIDENCE in YOUR FATHER, for us to have confidence in OUR FATHER, we need to spend time getting to know him. Before the kids are up, before the spouse is awake, before the obligations of the day begin. The Psalmist in 116 says, I LOVE the Lord, because He has heard. Don't YOU want the Lord to HEAR YOU!? Don't you want to KNOW that you have been HEARD?! I know I do. 


The second aspect. Physical food. I have DEFINITELY not been the poster child for this one. Waking up and "fixing breakfast" for my husband? Wow! I know this is something that he would LOVE, but it is definitely something I have not done. But... why haven't I? It says it in the Bible. It says that's what the Proverbs 31 woman does, so why haven't I done it? One easy answer, sleep. I sleep in later than Tyler. Granted, I still get up at a decent time.. usually between 7:30-8:30, but he is always up before me. What a suprise it would be for him to wake up and I was up, had already spent time in the Word and had BREAKFAST for him!!! WHOA! One of my NEW goals. It allows another way for me to serve and love my husband. Not in a demeaning way, "wife being the dormat" way, but in a way that Jesus would do. Serve. What is the verse that talks about that says, the least among you are the greatest.... and it's through serving! 


One final thought... what about the maids? In Proverbs 31:15 it talks about she assigns the maids their tasks. Well.... I believe her SPENDING TIME with the Lord is a key to having maids. Sure their are wealthy, non-believers who have maids but, if you are a Christian and don't have them.... then maybe in your time with the Lord, he will reveal to you how you will have them. Imagine not ever having to do a load of laundry again, or scrub a toilet. Could you find something more fun to do with your time than that? Well.... I believe it is there for you if you want it. And... it begins with that commited time with the Lord. 


OK.... I'm going to do it. I'm going to work on getting up earlier and EVEN making breakfast for my husband. If you see me... you can check up on me... ask me how I'm doing! I can definitely use the accountability! 


XOXO. Have a blessed day!


Amy J