Fellowship

After some of the best conversation of my life Saturday night with our friends Mark and Julie my husband Dustin and I are praying in a whole new way. Mark and Julie Have a real testimony of stewardship. They inspire us to ponder our maximum effectiveness as we seek to be stewards of all we have been entrusted with. Not merely maximizing our money but everything we've been entrusted with! Our talents, our passion, out time.... each breath we take is entrusted to us. We have a choice. Will we glorify God or ourselves?

Folks, something is happening to us that we can't even explain. I don't know where it ends but I do know that it's BIG. We are simply getting to the point in life where we cannot know about hurting people in the world anymore and do nothing about it. Christ is everything to me! If I don't share His love and tell others about Him what does that make me? Of course my heart burns for people around the word but just the other day I was driving on a PHX freeway when I saw a man at the exit holding a sign. I looked at my purse knowing I had no cash in there (usually don't) and then I unrolled my window and told him, "Sir I have nothing to give you but I offer you blessings." He smiled and said thank you. The light changed and I drove off. Yet, I was sick inside. I KNOW prayer is vital. I know God cares about that man and that He heard my prayers for the man. I think what God did in my heart was tell me that I could offer more. Maybe not in the case of the man at the freeway exit but in the future I want to be ready. I want God to prepare my heart to truly meet the needs of others. It's fine to offer someone blessings in the form of prayer (in fact we must because we are commanded to do it) BUT many people need blessings in the form of a full belly and a listening ear which offers compassion. They need a friend who will speak to them about the love of Christ in words AND deeds.

God I pray you make me and Dustin an Isaiah 58 kind of person For your glory and fame. Not ours.

Life is sad and so broken. It's hard. It can be overwhelming but it IS all worth it in Christ.

Isaiah 58-
1 "Shout it aloud, do not hold back. Raise your voice like a trumpet. Declare to my people their rebellion and to the house of Jacob their sins.
2 For day after day they seek me out; they seem eager to know my ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its God. They ask me for just decisions and seem eager for God to come near them.
3 'Why have we fasted,' they say, 'and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?' "Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers.
4 Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists. You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high.
5 Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for a man to humble himself? Is it only for bowing one's head like a reed and for lying on sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD ?
6 "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.
9 Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. "If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.
11 The LORD will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.
12 Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.
13 "If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the LORD's holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words,
14 then you will find your joy in the LORD, and I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob." The mouth of the LORD has spoken.