We say thanks to the participants and encourage everyone to join in for still more prayers.
http://forthrightpress.com/2014/12/01/naprawrimo-2014/
On the BPrayer site, we managed to post a prayer every single day during the month of November. Continue reading
We were seated in a booth at a favorite fish restaurant eating our food when I spotted him. He was sitting at a table slightly behind and to the side of my husband. A big, football type man, he was seated with two women. Their food came, and I didn’t mean to be looking at him, but I’m glad I glanced his way. He took his hands and put them together in a prayerful position. He held them up to his face and bowed his head to give thanks for his food.
Somewhere there is a mother that years ago taught a little boy to give thanks for his food and how to fold in his hands in prayer. For a minute I saw her child, and I salute her. She would be proud.
“Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6).
Sierra, our youngest granddaughter, was about six when we went to visit her family in Texas. She had agreed that Mama Lala, her great-grandmother, could sleep in her room. Sierra offered to sleep in a sleeping
bag on the floor in her older sister’s room. Continue reading
Psalm 106 
describes the wonderful salvation of the Christian so well that it must be prophetic of the salvation we all share.
Its theme statement is, “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, who he has redeemed from the hand of the adversary,” (Psalm 106:2). Those who have obeyed the gospel through faith, repentance, confession and baptism and remain faithful have been redeemed, or bought back, from sin.
This is something we just can’t keep to ourselves! God has extended his lovingkindness to us by saving us from sin and spiritual death! We should extol his wonderful grace and mercy to everyone we can reach.
The psalmist wrote an accurate picture of what the redeemed were before God made them his. “They wandered in the wilderness in a desert region; they did not find a way to an inhabited city. They were hungry and thirsty,” (Psalm 106:4-5 NASB). Doesn’t this show what we were before we were saved from our sins?
In 1988, several students and I decided to leave Tennessee and go to New Orleans, La. to find work. The stretch of interstate highway between Montgomery and Mobile, Ala. was the most uninhabited landscape I had ever seen. There might have been people there, but it didn’t look like it. There were few exits from the road, few gas stations, and few restaurants. We felt abandoned.
Before we obeyed the gospel, we wandered in the lonely land of sin. It was like a deserted place. There might have been people with us while we were in sin, but it was a lonely existence for us, wasn’t it? There might have been places that advertised refreshment, but there was none for the soul.
NOW, however, we have been rescued from the desert of sorrow and sin. We are refreshed (Psalm 106:8-9). We have been released from our bondage to sin (Psalm 106:13-14).
We should offer thanksgiving for God’s wonderful salvation today, shouldn’t we? When we sing, let us lift up our voices like never before! Let us lift up our hearts in prayers of thanksgiving to God for his lovingkindness! The Psalmist wrote, “He sent his word and healed them, and delivered them from their destruction. Let them give thanks to the Lord for his lovingkindness, and for his wonders to the sons of men! (Psalm 106:21).
Amen, and may it ever be so!
The Lord is good (see below). I know the Lord is good because He takes care of my every need (Philippians 4:19; cf. Psalm 23:1)
Praise the LORD. Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures for ever (Psalm 106:1-NIV).
Praise the LORD, for the LORD is good; sing praise to his name, for that is pleasant (Psalm 135:3-NIV).
Let us give thanks for the Lord’s goodness toward us.
I am sure there are others on this list who have been to mission fields where one must be careful when making comments of praise when in homes. I had been told to be careful with praise when in Ukrainians’ homes. If you make a highly praised comment about a picture or item of clothing you just may leave with that item. It is considered proper hospitality to offer something the guest finds attractive or interesting. And it is taken as an insult if you refuse to take it.
On my second trip to Ukraine I was invited to a non-Christian’s home. This young couple had met me on my first trip. They had even named their first child after me (I still do not understand that one…). They lived in a very small apartment. It had 2 rooms. They had very little earthly possessions. They were so excited that I accepted their invitation and had prepared a wonderful meal. While the wife was serving our soup, I noticed she was using one of those very colorful painted spoons that you normally see in gift shops or as decoration on walls. I made a comment that it was the first time I had seen such a spoon used. She asked me if I thought it was pretty. I acknowledged that I did indeed find such spoons beautiful. When I was preparing to leave their home, the woman brought me the spoon and told me it was now mine. I told her that I never intended to give her the idea that I wanted the spoon (she only had one more). She insisted I take it as thanks for being in their home. While I wanted to argue and refuse the spoon I knew I could not without insulting them. I treasure that spoon as much as anything I have ever obtained overseas.
Our Lord physically visited our world. He lived as a man so that he might die as a man for our sins. What do we give him as thanks? Does the gift of the non-Christian Ukrainian woman make our gifts of thanks appear small and trite?