Monday, August 21, 2006

God Bless "her".

Dear Lord, my devotion this morning was about praying for difficult people. I do not have many difficult people in my life, but there are a few. There are those that are difficult and I want to pray for them so they won't be so difficult to the Lord - I am not closely tied. And then there are those that are difficult to me and I find it hard to ask God to bless them because of my frustrations - I feel closely tied to them whether I want to be or not.

I read this morning in Ex. 32, the whole chapter, about Moses having to pray for those Israelites and Aaron that "fashioned" a calf while he was up on the mountain meeting with the Lord in a great and real way. The Lord warned him on his way down to present the 10 commandments His people had turned from Him and are now worshipping another god. Moses was so angry when he ran into the situation that he ended up having the Levites, ones that said they would follow with Moses, kill 3000 of their own brothers and sisters that would not relent. Moses had to pray for these very difficult people, ones that he was very closely tied to. While he may have wanted God to wipe them off the earth, more than the 3000, he prayed for God to deal with him the same way He was going to deal with them.

There are those in my life no matter what can not see any good in decisions I make or can never believe my heart. We all have people in our lives whether we know it or not. To me those are the most difficult ones to pray for. But God will put those people directly in my path urging me to pray blessing in their lives all the while trying to pull some character refinement out of my life. It is so obvious when He does it. Even though Moses was a great leader, there were many people not supporting him and certainly trying to make his life difficult. Through this situation and many others that he encountered, Moses was being refined over and over again. He could have walked away and asked that God burned their houses down and destroy those people. But no, Moses learned to be bigger than his own selfish desires. He prayed for God to forgive, protect, and bless these difficult people.

Lord, I know that I am a difficult person in many people's lives as well. Change me Lord and make me a blessing to others. And for those that I see as difficult, I pray that you bless them and allow me to grow bigger than my own feelings for them. Lord do a supernatural work in my life so that I can honestly be happy for the things You do in their lives. Bring out the refining tools to shape me into the vessel You can use both in action and in prayer! May I never try to fake my way through this relationship with You, but really live this "thing" out. Living out the Joy of Jesus! Thank you for today!

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