Sharing a Conversation

Dear Lord; Happy Tuesday Father!

Today Father, I’m honored to be hosting a guest “Email to God” from a good friend of mine and fellow blogger, Lisa Phelps from “A Moment with God”.  Lisa’s site is wonderful Blessing to me Lord; she brings Your message of faith and hope to her readers each day, and at the same time teaches and enlightens with a whimsical spirit.  It’s such a gift for me to have her sharing a conversation with You here on PhatherPhil.org, and I hope it Blesses all those who get to read it.

Good morning Father,

First of all, I want to say thank you to Phil for allowing me to share my conversation with You on phatherphil.org.   I’m so thankful that I have come to know Phil.  Through his words and actions, I am learning more about what it looks like to live as Your servant.

Father, thank you for the awesome service we had at church on Sunday.  You taught me so many lessons through those few hours we spent worshiping together as Your body.  As you know, Father, I sometimes struggle with leading worship.  I want to make sure that we all sound good and flow together in unity.  As I was thinking about these things before the service started, you clearly spoke to my heart.  You were asking, “Why are you here?” or more specifically, “Why are the people here?”  You wanted me to understand that if they had come to hear perfect vocals or rousing music, we might be able to provide on some level, but they would leave disappointed.  As Your church, we are to love and encourage one another, but if the people came just for the fellowship, they would leave disappointed.  But if they came to encounter a Holy, Living God, then you would meet them and they would leave filled and satisfied.  Thank you for reminding me that the world doesn’t need to see me, they need to see You!  

You also reminded me that you have called us by a new name.  You don’t see us the way we see ourselves.  In the secret places of our hearts, we may call ourselves unworthy, unloved, unforgiven, or a disappointment.  But You reminded us that, through the blood of Jesus, we are now called Dearly loved, Forgiven, Righteous, and Children of the Most High God.  Father, thank you for reminding us of Whose we are and help us to listen only to Your Voice of Truth.

And finally, Father, you spoke to us about the sunrise.  We know that as Your children, our future is secure; we will spend eternity with You in Heaven.  But You have called us to see the sunrise.  The sun rises each morning, signifying the start of a new day; the old is gone and the new has begun.  So it is in our walk with You.   The old is gone and You have given us new life.  

“For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.” – Isaiah 43:19

Father, you are truly amazing.  I love that You bend down and speak to Your people.  Help us to keep our hearts and minds fixed on You that we might always hear Your still small voice.  Thank you for giving us a new name and a new identity through Jesus Christ.  I pray that each one reading these words today would forget about the past and focus on the new thing You are doing in their lives.  Father, help them to see themselves the way You see them.  Remind them that You have come to give them Hope and a new beginning.  I ask all these things in the precious name of Your Son, Jesus.

Amen.

Let Your Light Shine

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” – Matthew 5:14-16 (ESV)

As followers of Christ, we’re called to not only follow in His example but to also share His light in our hearts with those around us.  When we allow Jesus’ love to permeate our daily lives and become a part of everything we do, His presence within us becomes obvious to those we interact with.  Letting the light of Christ be seen through our words, our decisions and our actions fulfills His desire for us, and glorifies God’s influence in our lives.

Meditations Monday: The Glue That Binds Our Hearts

Dear Lord; Happy Meditations Monday Father!

To start off our week together Lord, I want to thank You for the many Blessings You graced my family and I with this past weekend.  As I still wasn’t feeling very well, we spent much of Saturday at home, save for a much-needed grocery shopping trip, and finished the evening off by curling up on the couch together and watching the final chapter in the Harry Potter movie series.  Sunday we started our day with an inspiring worship service at Ewell’s St. Paul, and then joined some close friends for a brunch to celebrate the birthday of one of their children.  The afternoon was filled with a marathon of housework, homework, bill-paying and laundry, but at the end of the day we were all able to relax a bit before bed, and enjoy some quiet time together.  You know Father, as my Walk with You progresses, I find myself appreciating those times of unity with my family more and more.  I’ve always enjoyed “family time”, but the more connected I become with You, the more connected I feel to them as well.  🙂

In her message this weekend, Pastor Kris made a statement that’s been churning around in my head ever since.  She told us that one of her seminary professors had once said that if you look at the Bible as a whole; the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Gospels, the one underlying concept that’s consistent throughout and that ties it all together, is love.  Now Father, while initially this may seem like an awfully simplistic and obvious statement, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it was a fundamental point that quite often we miss.

Throughout the Scriptures as well as in our lives today, we see many examples of the wide range of ways You show Your love for us.  Some are obvious, and come in the form of Blessings that clearly enrich our mortal lives and bring us immediate joy.  Others however, may be perceived as negative events that seem to complicate our lives and cause us difficulty.  The point that we need to remember however is this; just because things don’t always go as we expect or desire them to, it doesn’t mean that it wasn’t an act of love on Your part nonetheless.  I liken it to when I have to discipline my children.  I certainly don’t enjoy reprimanding or punishing them, but in my desire to be a loving, caring and responsible parent, sometimes it’s necessary for me to correct and guide them by providing a response that makes the point apparent and relevant to them.

In one of the most beautiful, and I believe powerful passages of the Bible, the Apostle Paul describes this love that You’ve given us, and the importance of it in our lives:

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” – 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 (ESV)

I view love as the “glue” You use to bind our hearts to Yours Father.  You bestow it on us freely, and through Christ’s example, You lead us to share it with others in a similar fashion.  Such an overwhelming gift Lord, and one that grows more and more prominent as our walk to You progresses.

Heavenly Father,

We thank You Lord, for the love and Blessings You give to us freely and abundantly each day.  Please open our hearts and our minds, that we may more fully come to recognize Your acts of love in our lives; both those that fill our hearts with overwhelming joy, and those guiding actions which while sometimes painful, are done as the caring, loving, responsible Father that You are.

In Jesus’ Name we pray,

Amen.

~Phather Phil

Teach Them Diligently

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to 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. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” – Deuteronomy 6:4-9 (ESV)

Cultivating a love of the Lord in our children’s hearts is an important part of our role as parents.  And while instructing them in God’s Word is an integral part of that nourishment, we also need to remember that our children watch and emulate our words and actions as well.  The best way to raise God-loving, respectful, humble, giving children is to live our own lives that way.  Do you show your children the light of Christ each day, or is it “Do what I say, not what I do”?

Swamped by the Waves

“And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. And they went and woke him, saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing.” And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. And the men marveled, saying, “What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?” – Matthew 8:23-27 (ESV)

Like the disciples in that boat, often in our lives it feels as if we’re in the center of a raging storm with no safe harbor in sight.  If we lay aside those fears and doubts and place our whole trust in Christ’s benevolent desires for us, those crashing waves and battering winds soon lose their strength.  In His loving embrace we can always find the peace and fortitude we need to face our worldly trials.