Shameless audacity. So really, how grand is our God? Can He handle our big audacious prayer requests? I’m talking about the ones that move mountains. Can my dear friend’s husbands’ forgetfulness be repaired? How about my adopted daughter’s gut, can that be healed after months of severe damage? Can that job that I’ve been dreaming of for years, finally come to fruition? What about the Prodigal Son who has walked away from you Lord and struggles with drug addiction and mental illness, can you help him? These are huge requests Jesus! Can you truly move mountains to answer these kind of prayers? Or should I just keep them to myself? It is written, God wants us to ask him anything and everything, so He can truly show His glory.

So many times I think about the prayers I don’t send up to heaven. I remember an Evangelist who came to our church years ago. She shared a tale of a man who kept to himself. Maybe a hermit or an extreme introvert. Whatever he was or was not, he said he loved the Lord, yet never shared much with him. As time went on, he became severely ill. During his illness, at no time did he ever ask the Lord to heal him, or give him relief from his constant pain. Not ever did he ask Jesus to send him someone to take care of his failing body. As time took its toll, he began to lose consciousness and fell into a vivid dream. He had died and arrived in heaven. As he approached the throne of God, he asked the Lord where were you? God explained that He was always with him, sitting and waiting for a single request, but never heard one. Then the man asked, but what about these presents? Who are all those gifts for? God said in his soft, quiet voice, those gifts were intended for you. If you only knew, the love I have for you. It is more than immeasurable. Suddenly, he woke up and cried to the Lord. Father, I am so sorry. If only I would have asked!

How many times have we considered keeping our prayers under wrap? What a shame it would be, to be at the feet of Jesus with countless gifts. Oh Lord, I want all that you have planned for me. Every revelation, every miracle, every good gift that you planned for my life. Please let me humble myself so I don’t neglect your best for me.

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” James‬ ‭1‬:‭17‬ ‭

Write it down. Oh this speaks volumes to my heart. The Lord knows that we are, at times, forgetful. And unfortunately our tendency is to remember bad deeds but have lousy recall when it comes to good things.

I remember a friend of mine invited me to be in her inner circle of friends. Okay, I’ll bite. What does it entail besides being a good friend? Ends up that she taught me many lessons. One was on her 50th Birthday. She invited this Inner Circle of Friends and had all of us dress in white. When we arrived, she had a professional photographer who took glamour shots of all of us. This is your birthday Nanhee, not mine. But she insisted. Then she had us write ten things down that we hoped to come true in the upcoming ten years. Hmm, and place it inside her time capsule. Sure enough, ten years later I went to her 60th Birthday and she pulled out the Time Capsule with all our prayers, hopes and dreams. I had totally forgot about this. And wow, did the Lord answer my prayers. A total of eight times. 8/10 requests were met, which I had zero independent recollection of. It was such a great lesson on memory recall or lack of it in my case, and God’s promises. Thank you Nanhee for reminding me of all those answered prayers!

I hope you have a friend, a prayer journal or someway to remind you of all the past prayers that you prayed so fervently for. It is ever so easy to go on with life and forget to acknowledge how the good Lord hears our daily petitions. Sometimes we receive a definitive yes, others not now, and there are prayers that are plainly not God’s will. The latter is always the hardest, but if we consider all the goodness, grace and gratitude that we accept from Jesus, this may just soften the hard answer of no. Thank you Jesus for your heart, and for the many answered prayers. Even the no’s and the ones I don’t remember.

“Write down the revelation and place it on a tablet” Habakkuk‬ ‭2‬:‭2‬ ‭

Don’t pray away. Such an interesting concept. Do we typically ask God, well let’s be real, plead to God to take this pain, this obstacle, this situation away. Rather than consider that God may be teaching us to hold onto hope, faith, acceptance, maybe even build a bit of perseverance, so that when this comes up again, and I’m sure it will, we will be better equipped to walk through it? Maybe He wants us to help someone else navigate an illness or a loss of a child or a messy divorce or who knows what? I can only speculate but golly, there have been too many times I wanted to get out, instead of getting through!

Take for instance my illustrious backpacking treks; the ones that always have some sort of pain, suffering and agony attached to them. Seriously, there is not a single trail that I have hiked that didn’t have some component to it that made me second guess my love for long-distance hiking. The Pacific Crest Trail was over five months and the last 200-300 miles was nothing but glorious rain and snow, in mid-September. Then the illustrious Appalachian Trail had much more mud, muck and rocks than I had signed up for! I kid you not, I was asking God why in the world and who was I to testify to? This sucks! Yet when I look back at these arduous months, the endless ribbons of dirt, I can assure you that the Lord was walking me through it daily! I seldom felt lonely or even scared, as most people seem to think a solo hiker would feel. At the end of each journey, I never said, “Lord why did you take me through that?” Rather I thank Him for each skinned knee, twisted ankle, punctured knee, and all the Poison Oak that I found along the way. Well, maybe not in regards to Poison Oak. That stuff is miserable!

In the end, I want to make sure I experience every bit of pain, suffering and discomfort that is needed for me to appreciate what is to come. Think of what you are experiencing right now, at this moment. Is there a purpose for it, is there a chance that instead of fighting it, you can lean into it? As Jesus was questioned in John 9 regarding the blind man, “Who sinned, this man or his parents?” Jesus set the record straight by saying what really was in play. “This happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.” Isn’t that beautiful! I can only hope that as I am walking in whatever this world throws at me, instead of praying my way out of it, maybe I can redirect my prayers and ask God to walk me through it.

“The primary purpose of prayer is not to change circumstances; the primary purpose of prayer is to change us!” Mark Batterson author of Draw the Circle

Amazing things. What is the Lord up to? It’s easy to worry or be concerned by the world’s affairs. Wars, famine, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, oh my. I could go on and on. But really, is this something that I have any control over? Thank goodness the resounding answer is no! Yet, so many of us, myself included, consume ourselves with things so out of our control. Why do we feel that we should cloud our minds with such things that only make us anxious? Today, all we truly need to trust, is that the Lord has a plan!

Our job is simple and actually quite painless, surrendering all of ourselves to be in God’s will. The word consecrate has many meanings but the one I lean on is letting God do for us what we can’t do for ourselves. It is a complete and utter surrender to Jesus, completely. Not just for one thing or one purpose, but for all things, big or small. So what does that look like, you may ask? Knowing that your perfect and wonderful Creator came to earth, to make all things right. To forgive us, to cancel our debts, to free us from the burden of guilt and shame. To set us apart and to know that we belong to Him!

Prayer is the action, the catalyst that allows us to let go. When we share, when we yell or scream, when we cry to the Lord, He is not offended. He is the one we can pour our heart out to, who honestly knows what we are going through, usually way before we even do. There is not an emotion or feeling that Jesus has not felt. He has been rejected, whipped, beaten and nailed to a cross, while his dearest disciple and friend, Peter rejected him. Not once but three times! This is an extreme illustration but when I consider what I have experienced in life, it makes me pause. How can I deny the love that has been given to me, way before I was even born? So surrender, Lord, I can do that!

“Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you.”‭‭Joshua‬ ‭3‬:‭5‬ ‭

Established by God. I love this. It reminded me of the story of Job when God started questioning Job, his faithful follower.

“Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb…Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place, that it might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it?” Job‬ ‭38‬:‭8‬, 38:13‬‬‬. The Lord continued to provide a commentary of who He is, what He created, and reminds us of where we would be without Him. Lost!

Thank you God that you are in charge and I am not. So many times the plans I’ve made, are redirected by the Lord. I love the one sentence “In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day” that states “God is in the business of strategically positioning us in the right place at the right time, but it’s up to us to see and seize those opportunities that are all around us all the time.” Countless times, He has brought me to the well, and then I miss the water that is staring me right in the face! Lord, open my eyes so that I can see what you have intended for me to grab hold of. Direct me in the ways that are Christ-like, that place a smile on your face as I walk in your presence.

When my heart is open, I can hear Jesus prompting me to follow His lead. So I’ll end with this. When the Lord places someone on your heart, do you call them or text? When your neighbor is outside, do you go out and talk with them or walk inside? When someone is having trouble, do you help or assume someone else will? These divine appointments are invitations to be the hands and feet of Jesus. Our job is to do what He would do. He makes the appointments, and then all we need to do is follow through. So what appointment has our sweet Lord placed on your calendar today?

“In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.”
Proverbs‬ ‭16‬:‭9‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Get Ready! What a first day. I grabbed my coffee and outside I ventured. I have a lovely patio in my front yard that Zoey, my dog, and I have a daily ritual of sitting, reading and listening. There are a few birds I’ve started to recognize. They always arrive in pairs, doves, swallowtails, small black birds and one solo hummingbird which investigates my flowers. It’s their routine.

Today when I began my Forty Day Challenge, I had no idea how God would show up. But did He ever! The premise of today’s reading was “get ready.” As I read the story of a Christian Camp Counselor turned Political Leader, I was taken back by the sheer fact of his namesake, Lankford. My Dad’s last name is Lankford and he also was born in Oklahoma. No, that’s not a coincidence Lord. The story continues as God kept placing on his heart to “get ready”. Get ready for what? And then the Lord followed it by announcing “this is it”. What? You want me to run for office? Before long, James Lankford ran for Congressman and eventually, State Senator of Oklahoma. To this day, he meets with his constituents, and other leaders and is frequently found in the hallways, leading prayer.

So what does this have to do with me? Well the more I poured into Day One, I kept hearing the word “NEIGHBORS”. What Lord do you want me to do with the neighbors? Surely not lead a Bible Study? Well, maybe you can start with a BBQ. When I finished reading, I check my calendar on my phone and start typing BBQ and before I could write anything else, it self-populates “for neighbors”. And that’s how God takes over. You are something more than spirit-like. Yes, He surely is. To be exact, he is the Holy Spirit and He knows how to use I-phones!

“If you pray to God regularly, irregular things will happen on a regular basic.” Mark Batterson

I have been asked, do you blog when you’re not hiking ? A resounding NO is what comes to mind, but the Lord says, why not? And there lies the problem. Do I listen to my brain, or do I listen to Jesus? That shouldn’t be a hard decision yet I tend to have reservations. What do I share? Is there anything that is worth writing? If I listen to the lies of the enemy, I have nothing worthy to put down. But why would I let Satan rule me. As scripture tells us, “But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind of things of God, but on things of man.” Matthew 16:23 and so I will write.

I am embarking on Forty Days of Prayer with the guidance of a book called “Draw the Circle” by Mark Batterson. A dear friend of mine, Kim Rackham from Foresthill – a small town in NorCal, encouraged me to start this journey with a community of faith-filled women. And so I am answering the call to prayer. Pray for my relationship with the Lord to grow deeper, to pray for my family and friends, to pray for our Nation. And to pray for God’s presence to be so real, that it is tangible. As the author Mark Batterson states, “the true purpose of prayer is to get into God’s presence so He can outline His agenda for us.” When we pray fervently, the Lord will open our heart and mind to see what He placed deeply in our hearts.

Beginning Sunday, October 13th, I will begin my intentional prayer with Jehovah God Almighty. Each morning will be dedicated to hearing the Lords agenda for the day. Everyday is anew; a new sunrise, an afternoon breeze, a glorious evening sunset. Daily prayer is the true route that the Holy Spirit taps into us and reaches us at level in which He has the one and only access key. What an intimate time that is shared when we dedicate our time to our Heavenly Father in prayer. So in the posts that follow, I may not be hiking a trail, but I will be following my Lord to highest of mountain tops, and possible the lowly valley floors below. Wherever we go, it will surely be an incredible journey.

“If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” ‭‭2 Chronicles‬ ‭7‬:‭14‬ ‭NIV‬‬