My Savior and Lord, I surrender my “strength” to you today.

Even when our heart is cold and our mind is dim, prayer is still possible to us.

“Our wills are ours, to make them Thine.”   

~~Evelyn Underhill  

This morning’s prayer and meditation for Sally’s healing comes from Take Heart, Oh God: Riches from the Greatest Christian Women Writers of All Time.

She grew up in a strong Christian family and had carried her parents’ values into her adult life. Though she was a caring, loving person, she’d never fully surrendered her life to Christ. “It took a serious marital crisis to show me that I’d been living a ‘Christian life’ in my own strength,” she says, “in the process, my heart had become cold and hard. I had lost the joy. I had lost the will to serve. I needed to find a way to get back to God.”

We have been created by God to draw close to him, but we so often find our hearts cold and our minds dim. As Evelyn Underhill explains, even in those circumstances, prayer is still possible to us. We turn over our will to him so that he can make it his own.

He desires our surrender, our prayers, and our love, not our efforts.

Prayer for Meditation

My Savior and Lord, I surrender my “strength” to you today.

Scripture for Meditation

Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living. Romans 6:16 

Music for Meditation

I Surrender All

 

If you feel led to do so, please post a note of encouragement in the comment section below, or send your note by email to PrayersForSally@gmail.com

Father, I love you for who you are, not for what you give me.

We must learn to seek God’s face and not his hand. 

~~Joyce Meyer  

This morning’s prayer and meditation for Sally’s healing comes from Take Heart, Oh God: Riches from the Greatest Christian Women Writers of All Time.

Dad would come back from his business trips and the first thing we’d ask him is, “Did you bring us anything?”

Smiling, Dad would tell us to go and look in his suitcase and there we’d find them, gifts from his trip. It became such a habit that we anticipated Dad’s return, not so much to see him, but to see the gifts he brought.

Does that sound at all like your relationship with your heavenly Father?

While God delights in giving good things to us, he does not want to be simply a Giver of gifts; God wants to be the Giver of life. He wants you to seek not his hands full of gifts, but his face full of love and protection and guidance. God desires that you seek him for who he is.

Seek God’s face today. That will be enough.

Prayer for Meditation

Father, I love you for who you are, not for what you give me.

Scripture for Meditation

For the spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life. Job 33:4 

Music for Meditation 

I Surrender All

 

If you feel led to do so, please post a note of encouragement in the comment section below, or send your note by email to PrayersForSally@gmail.com

Only the Gardener knows how you will look in full bloom

May we yield to His pruning and know the hand that holds the knife is a wounded one—wounded for you and me.

~~Jill Briscoe

This morning’s prayer and meditation for Sally’s healing comes from Take Heart, Oh God: Riches from the Greatest Christian Women Writers of All Time.

Gardeners understand that pruning is part of the process of growth. They know that they must cut away certain stems and leaves to allow a plant to bloom to its full potential. The plant may look a little worse for the wear for a short time, but when the blooms come, they will be full and healthy.

So it is in our lives. The master Gardener knows us better than we know ourselves. Because he wants the very best for us, he prunes away anything that would stunt our growth or choke our potential.

Perhaps you are feeling the clippers cutting away at you right now. It hurts. You wonder why certain parts of your life are being so drastically changed. Be reminded, dear one that each cut is done with precision and care. Only the Gardener knows how you will look in full bloom

Prayer for Meditation

Loss and change are painful, Lord. Share your vision of when I recover and thrive again.

Scripture for Meditation

“I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more.” John 15:1-2

Music for Meditation

I Surrender All 

If you feel led to do so, please post a note of encouragement in the comment section below, or send your note by email to PrayersForSally@gmail.com

True surrender is not a single action but a posture in life

True surrender is not a single action but a posture in life, yielding ourselves—our whole selves—to God.

~~Margaret Feinberg

This morning’s prayer and meditation for Sally’s healing comes from Take Heart, Oh God: Riches from the Greatest Christian Women Writers of All Time.

Surrender. The word brings to mind wounded and bloodied, battle-weary soldiers trudging back to camp, shoulders hunched and faces downcast. Surrender can mean humiliation and failure.

But surrender can also be a positive word. Surrendering our lives to God is not the result of losing a battle. God does not intend humiliation and failure for us, but rather life in his abundance. When we surrender—we win! This new picture of surrender is not the heads hanging in failure but of hands raised in victory.

And as Margaret Feinberg suggests, this surrender is not a single action. We must surrender daily. Each morning before our feet hit the floor, we surrender to God, asking him to take over, to walk us through the battles, to bring his victory into our lives.

Wave the white flag. Surrender daily. In the end, you win.

Prayer for Meditation

Lord, I trade my posture of defeat for one of victory by surrendering to you.

Scripture for Meditation

Show me the right path, O LORD: point out the road for me to follow. Lead me by your truth and teach me, for you are the God who saves me. All day long I put my hope in you. Psalm 25:4-5

Music for Meditation

I Surrender

If you feel led to do so, please post a note of encouragement in the comment section below, or send your note by email to PrayersForSally@gmail.com

Aren’t you glad God doesn’t give up on his dreams for us?

Father, may all your dreams come true. I don’t want to get in the way or hinder You from fulfilling any of the plans You had for me when You dreamed me into being.

~~Robin Jones Gunn

This morning’s prayer and meditation for Sally’s healing comes from Take Heart, Oh God: Riches from the Greatest Christian Women Writers of All Time.

Everyone who dreams big knows the disappointment of a life that falls short of those dreams. The higher we pin our hopes, the more devastating when they come crashing down. Sadly, to safeguard ourselves, we tend to keep our hopes low, or we may stop dreaming altogether.

Aren’t you glad God doesn’t give up on his dreams for us? The Bible says God’s ultimate dream, his predetermined plan, is for us to be made like Christ—that we take on the image of our older brother.

That was God’s plan when he dreamed of you. When He called your name, he said, “I want her to be just like Jesus. I have some great things for her to do.”

Let’s not get in our own way by hindering God’s plans for us. He dreamed big. So should we. Working together with God, all of those dreams can come true.  

Prayer for Meditation

Work on my heart, Jesus. I want to be like you.  

Scripture for Meditation

For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. Romans 8:29

Music for Meditation

I Surrender All 

If you feel led to do so, please post a note of encouragement in the comment section below, or send your note by email to PrayersForSally@gmail.com

Size doesn’t matter to you, Lord. Little becomes much in your hands.

Because of who he is, when Jesus touches anything, there is blessing.

~~Rebecca Manley Pippert

This morning’s prayer and meditation for Sally’s healing comes from Take Heart, Oh God: Riches from the Greatest Christian Women Writers of All Time.

In the little boy’s hands it was simply five loaves of bread and two fish. In God’s hands that same one-boy picnic fed over five thousand people, with twelve baskets of leftovers!

We don’t feel like we have very much to offer. Our resources are limited. Our talents are few (and not really all that great). Our time is full.

Like the disciples, the world says, “That’s not enough to make any difference to anyone.” Jesus says, “Give it to me.” Then he blesses it and sends it out to change the world—maybe just for a little bit, maybe just for a few people. But those few people in that moment in time feel the touch of God.

You see, God hasn’t changed. He loves it when his children hand over what they have so that he can go to work making miracles happen. 

Prayer for Meditation

I’m glad size doesn’t matter to you, Lord. Little becomes much in your hands.

Scripture for Meditation

After this, Jesus crossed over to the far side of the Sea of Galilee, also known as the Sea of Tiberias. A huge crowd kept following him wherever he went, because they saw his miraculous signs as he healed the sick. Then Jesus climbed a hill and sat down with his disciples around him. (It was nearly time for the Passover celebration.) Jesus soon saw a huge crowd of people coming to look for him. Turning to Philip, he asked, “Where can we buy bread to feed all these people?” He was testing Philip, for he already knew what he was going to do.

Philip replied, “Even if we worked for months, we wouldn’t have enough money to feel them!”

Then Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up. “There’s a young boy here with five barley loaves and two fish. But what good is that with this huge crowd?”

“Tell everyone to sit down,” Jesus said. So they all sat down on the grassy slopes. (The men alone numbered about 5,000.) Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks to God, and distributed them to the people. Afterward he did the same with the fish. And they all ate as much as they wanted. After everyone was full, Jesus told his disciples, “Now gather the leftovers, so that nothing is wasted.” So they picked up the pieces and filled twelve baskets with scraps left by the people who had eaten from the five barley loaves. John 6:1-13

Music for Meditation

I Surrender All 

If you feel led to do so, please post a note of encouragement in the comment section below, or send your note by email to PrayersForSally@gmail.com

I Surrender All

Our prayer and meditation this morning for Sally's healing comes from A Book of Prayer: 365 Prayers for Victorious Living by Stormie Omartian.

Prayer for Meditation

Lord, I know you have real purpose for me and a plan for my life. Open my ears to hear Your voice leading me into all You have for me. Align my heart with Yours and prepare me to understand where You would have me to go and what You would have me to do. Help me to hear Your call. If my expectations and plans are out of alignment with Your will for me, I surrender them to You. I let my desires for myself die. I would rather endure the suffering of that than the pain of never realizing what You made me to be.

Scripture for Meditation

But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are a kingdom of priests, God's holy nation, his very own possessions. This is so you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light. 1 Peter 2:9

Music for Meditation

I Surrender All by the Newsboys 

If you feel led to do so, please post a note of encouragement in the comment section below, or send your note by email to PrayersForSally@gmail.com.