God's Sovereign Alignment

Isaiah 60:20-21 

20 Your sun shall no more go down, 
nor your moon withdraw itself; 
for the Lord will be your everlasting light, 
and your days of mourning shall be ended. 

21 Your people shall all be righteous; 

they shall possess the land forever, 

the branch of my planting, 

the work of my hands, 

that I might be glorified. 

I recently met with a friend and shared the various ways I have seen God working in me and around me. Many of these ways have been more than coincidence or happenstance and better than fortuitous. In faith, these events and opportunities are markers of what I call God’s sovereign alignment. 

The military organization in which I serve suffered 16 suicide fatalities last year. My organization has fought to re-establish an identity that strengthens unit morale and stops the loss of life to suicide. Many of us recognize the relationship between suicide and a person’s spiritual life; others speak of the greater spiritual engagement of the spirit of suicide. As we received much-needed aid and resources, our senior leaders desired God to get the glory. 

I recognize God’s work at hand to bring actions in this dire situation and establish a new cohesive identity across multiple distinct units. On June 6, 2022, my organization was re-organized and affectionately named the “Arctic Angels” Division. I see God’s marker in establishing the “Arctic Angels” Division on a date that some find numerologically fascinating. 

We started this year with one suicide fatality in January. Since that loss and into the advent of this new organization and all the resources coming in, we have had no suicide fatalities. An important fact is knowing the efforts of Christians praying for us internationally, including a Christian school in Vancouver, Canada. Our desires as leaders are that beyond whatever actions come our way, our suicide fatalities cease, and God gets the glory. God’s grace is evident, and His mark is seen through the sovereign alignment of His will. 

Prayer: Lord, we thank you for your gracious mercy and the protection of your shield of faith around us in the battle of things unseen with real effects on our lives. May you open our hearts to receive your love in overflowing ways that touch the hurting souls around us. 

Thought for the Day: Jesus is present with us as faithful believers, even when we are gathered as two or three geographically dispersed. 

Prayer Focus: Our mighty God hears our prayer.

Is God in All?

“The eyes are the window to the soul.” 

Everyone has a soul, but does God live in everyone? 

I am on a journey seeking to see God in all things... and therefore also in every person. Honestly, this has been hard. I try to look into people's eyes to see their soul and hope to see God, but I have not been successful. It’s hard.

Is God not in those who have not the Spirit?

Are the soul and the Spirit different? 

Can a person have spirit, but not have the Spirit?

Was God always in me... even before I became I Christian... before I asked Jesus into my heart... before the Holy Spirit came into my life? 

I’m thinking not. I had a soul, but I had not the Spirit.

The US Army seeks to develop holistically fit Soldiers, which includes being spiritually fit. Man can take concepts of spiritual development and growth, even by Christian approaches, to nurture a person’s spirituality and even try to nurture a healthy soul, but this is similar to using Christian ethics to develop moral character in people. It falls short. Doing is not the same as being. Man is in the doing, God is in the being.

As I into their eyes will I see God? When people look into my eyes do they see God?

How can I see God in all things? How God I see God in the life of any person?

God Is Love

7Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.8Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.11Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

13By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 17By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. 18There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. 19We love because he first loved us.

- 1 John  4:7-19

The Love that We Share, the Love that We Know, the Love that We Need

A Little Bit of This

Pets, like dogs and cats, are great!

These animals are more than pets, 

they are family.

They aren't human family, 

but sometimes it's hard to tell the difference.

We scold them, we nurture them, we train them... 

and they train us.

We give them names, we take them to the doctor, 

we take them on trips, we send them to school... 

they sleep with us, they go on trips with us, 

they cuddle with us, they even warn us.

But why are our pets like family?

Love.

It's about the Love that we share with them.

Not only do we Love them... but they Love us, 

at least we sense that they Love us, 

which may be the most important thing about Love....

that we believe that we are Loved.

A Little Bit of That

Doug Britton, author and Marriage and Family Therapist says, 

The key is to enjoy God's love.
If loving yourself is not the answer to a negative self-image, 
feelings of inferiority, or sense of failure, what is?
Is self-hate the opposite of self-love?

No. 

That clearly is not God's desire.
The answer is to understand the depth of God’s love, 
mercy, forgiveness, and grace. 
He demonstrated this love in the most powerful way possible 
when he sacrificed Jesus on the cross to die for our sins.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, 
that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 
(John 3:16)

But because of his great love for us, God, 
who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ
even when we were dead in transgressions — 
it is by grace you have been saved
(Ephesians 2:4-5)

When we understand God’s love, when we deeply know he loves us, 
we don’t need to focus on loving ourselves.
The more we experience God's forgiveness and love, 
the more we think of him and the less we think about ourselves.
When we are excited and secure in his love for us, 
we don't need to try to find meaning by loving ourselves.
We can rejoice and say, "I am loved."

A Little Bit of Grace

from 1 John 4:19

We love because He first loved us.

A Tiny Resource
The section from Doug Britton comes from his website.
Did Jesus say "I must love myself first?"

Tiny Bits of Grace

A Bit of This

There is so much to do today. 
There is always so much to do. 
My mind is consumed with a list of tasks and activities that 
I have planned to accomplish today... 
and then I get a call, or an email, or a text... 
or I get distracted by a Google search or a Facebook post. 

And now my busy day is absolutely cluttered 
and the very first thing I wanted to do 
as I woke up this morning... forgotten. 

Pause... 

Pause... 

I must pause...

That very first thing I wanted to do this morning... 
it's really what I needed to do. 

Pause... 

Stop...

Breathe...

Pause and be in the center of His will...
Breathe and live in the midst of His presence... 

Where do I need to be? 
What do I need to do? 
I need to be with Him. I need to be with God. 
I need to be with Jesus. 

Right now, I need to live in the Spirit. 
Right here, I need to remember His faithfulness.
Great is Your faithfulness, O God.

A Bit of That

Asherita Ciuciu shares a prayer for first thing in the morning. 
Here is the beginning of the prayer.

Good morning, Lord!
Thank you for a new day. 
Thank You that Your compassion is renewed 
every morning. 
Great is Your faithfulness 
and Your steadfast love, o Lord!
I don’t know what all is going to happen today, 
and how much I’ll get done, but You do.

A Bit of Grace

From Lamentations 3:22-26

Because of the Lord's great love
we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, "The Lord is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him."
The Lord is good to those whose him is in him,
to the one who seeks him;
it is good to wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord.

Tiny Resources:

Here is a link to the video of the full prayer from Asherita Ciuciu. 
A Prayer for First Thing in the Morning