Dear Lord; Happy Tuesday Father!<\/p>\n
You know Father, You\u2019ve been quite \u201cchatty\u201d<\/em> with me as of late.\u00a0 I mean, I \u201chear\u201d<\/em> from you rather often in general; through quiet whispers on my heart, subtle \u201cout of track\u201d<\/em> thoughts crossing my mind, and by recognizing Your guidance in the Blessings around me.\u00a0 Lately however, Your \u201cnudges\u201d<\/em> have become more and more regular and in many cases, the message has been the same\u2026<\/p>\n \u201cPray for them.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Now Lord, when I see someone obviously in need of Your help, I always try to lift them up in prayer.\u00a0 Lately however, You\u2019ve been telling me to pray for people in situations where my first inclination on how to react is certainly not prayer\u2026<\/p>\n A client who my staff and I bent over backwards to help is complaining and arguing about the bill…<\/p>\n \u201cPray for them\u201d You told me.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n In the midst of some marital turmoil, the wife of someone I care about is saying and doing spiteful and selfish things to her spouse and family\u2026<\/p>\n \u201cPray for them\u201d You told me.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n An employee of a close friend of mine\u2019s business is feeling \u201cput-upon\u201d,<\/em> and is saying and doing sneaky and hateful things to him and his company\u2026<\/p>\n \u201cPray for them\u201d You told me.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n A lady that my wife used to consider a friend has begun lashing out at her and others with petty, demeaning and insulting exchanges and actions\u2026<\/p>\n \u201cPray for them\u201d You told me.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Ok Father\u2026 Message received.<\/p>\n But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. \u2013 Matthew 5:44-45 (NIV)<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n While I never really considered these people \u201cenemies\u201d<\/em> per-se, apparently my heart had passed judgment all the same, making my perspective the same nonetheless.\u00a0 Lifting these situations and those involved to Your mercy places them into Hands that can truly mend lives, and fulfills Your Will for my role as well.<\/p>\n Thank You so much for these convicting reminders Father, and for all of Your guidance in my life.\u00a0 I\u2019m most certainly a work in progress, but I pray that through Your direction I continue to emerge from my broken shell into Your Light.<\/p>\n Amen.<\/p>\n ~Phather Phil<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dear Lord; Happy Tuesday Father! You know Father, You\u2019ve been quite \u201cchatty\u201d with me as of late.\u00a0 I mean, I \u201chear\u201d from you rather often in general; through quiet whispers on my heart, subtle \u201cout of track\u201d thoughts crossing my mind, and by recognizing Your guidance in the Blessings around me.\u00a0 Lately however, Your \u201cnudges\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":538,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[724,1688,168,419,12,1687,1692,516,107,286,132,649,829,1691,915,36,741,752,4,173,1051,619,228,1332,1180,21,444,707,140,298,104,133,1690,1689,283,355,141,1525,392,55,217,1685,205,69,1686,46,591,732,836,1330,114,730,157,504,816],"class_list":["post-1243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-emails-to-god","tag-actions","tag-bent-over-backwards","tag-bless","tag-blessing","tag-blessings","tag-blessings-around-us","tag-broken-shell","tag-business","tag-care","tag-child","tag-children","tag-client","tag-company","tag-convicting-reminders","tag-dear-lord","tag-direction","tag-evil","tag-exchange","tag-family","tag-father","tag-father-in-heaven","tag-feeling","tag-friend","tag-gods-voice","tag-gospel-of-matthew","tag-guidance","tag-happy","tag-hateful","tag-heart","tag-judgment","tag-light","tag-love","tag-love-your-enemies","tag-marital-turmoil","tag-meaning","tag-message","tag-mind","tag-niv","tag-obvious","tag-perspective","tag-pray","tag-pray-for-them","tag-prayer","tag-quiet","tag-quiet-whispers","tag-rain","tag-righteous","tag-situation","tag-situations","tag-spiritual-nudges","tag-thank-you","tag-thoughts","tag-wife","tag-will","tag-work-in-progress"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/Praying-Hands-1-Cropped.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p18mMc-k3","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1243"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1245,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1243\/revisions\/1245"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}