30-Day Husband Encouragement Challenge

Yesterday, my cousin Tammy wrote on her blog that beginning January 1st, she will be participating in a 30-day Husband Encouragement Challenge (Written by Nancy Leigh DeMoss at www.ReviveOurHearts.com) and then invited anyone who wanted to, to join with her!  I thought this sounded like a great idea, so I’ve decided to take up the challenge as well – but if you know my husband, don’t tell him – I want to see if he can notice a difference on his own! 

Essentially, the challenge is to say only positive things about your husband when speaking to others, and to also only say positive things to him personally – building him up with your words in both public and in private.  Additionally, there is a prayer guide for the 30 days to supplement the daily challenges.  Here are the documents you’ll need if you’d like to participate:

30 Day Husband Encouragement Challenge
31 Days of Praying for Your Husband

Are you in?  If so, feel free to join in on the discussion here at “Far Above Pearls”, at my cousin’s blog “Tammy Is Blessed” or by writing your thoughts on your own blog!

Apostolic Blogging

A while back, I read a series by Shawn Blanc about Aposotlic Blogging, where he was challenging writers of the blogging world to recognize that they have a voice and to use their blog as a platform for proclaiming the message that God had given them. This started me on a journey of asking myself the question, “Do I have something of value worth saying?”

At the same time, ever since I began to seek to write with purpose and ask God what message He would have me proclaim, I have had the constant reminder of what Shawn mentioned in a post about the necessity for a life of encounter with God in order to have an apostolic blog.

…you have to fight for that secret place with God. You have to fight for time with God. Time in the Word. Time in Prayer. This is your only hope for so much more than just a good weblog. You have to live a life of encounter.

This has really challenged me as a writer and a blogger because if I truly desire to be a prophetic messenger through the medium of the Internet, then I cannot rely on clever words and posts while having a shallow relationship with God and no depth in the Word. This has propelled me to seek God in a new way, to seek after His heart and find out what He is saying and what He is doing. Over the last couple weeks, He has been speaking to me on several different topics as I’ve been studying and praying, yet I’ve been reluctant to write about any of it yet. I want to allow Him to place a burning within me and I want to be able to write with authority that can only come from long hours of meditation and communion with Him. Allow me to quote Shawn once more…

Call me logical, but you can’t say something without first having something to say. And if you really want to touch people then you have to have more than just words. You need a reality. You need sincerity and anointing. You need a genuine encounter with God…Remember, intimacy with God comes above everything else. If you have a burden to use your site to touch deeper things in God, then you need to have an even higher vision for your own heart.

So while I feel the itch to write and it sort of bugs me to go for longer periods without posting, these words ring true with me – intimacy with Him must come first. I’ve been enjoying the revelation He’s been touching my heart with more than ever and I truly hope it will be worth the wait. I desire His anointing to be a messenger in this age, whether it’s through blogging, through singing at our house of prayer, or through coffee with a friend – I want to be a voice that is more than a “clanging gong” and actually has substance that comes from time spent in the secret place.

I love my husband!

So, I had been planning to prepare a romantic candlelit dinner for my husband tonight, just because I love him, when to my surprise, he came home early from work!  I was a little bummed out, because I had hoped to have everything ready for when he came home and now I wouldn’t be able to execute my plan!  Plus, I still had to finish working for the day.  When it came time for me to start preparing supper, I had to work longer than I planned, so I gave my husband the option of waiting until I was done and we would have supper later than usual, or he could go ahead and start getting it ready while I finished up.  Well, he offered to make supper and then took on his role very seriously!  He began to play the role of a waiter at a really classy restaurant and took my order, speaking in an English accent the whole time – lol!  When it was ready, he came to escort me to the table with a towel draped over his arm and then told me he would go fetch my husband for me.    The lights were dimmed and he had candles lit and the meal presented beautifully in our serving dishes.  He then returned as my husband and we joked and bantered about what a lovely restaurant this was and how excellent the meal was and wasn’t the atmosphere just perfect?  He did such a fabulous job and made the evening so special – it was like the Lord knew what was in my heart to do, but then flipped it around on me and brought it to fulfillment in a completely unexpected way that totally touched my heart.  I love God and I love my husband!

Delicious Pumpkin Cookies

I found this recipe while blog-surfing at “Jesus and Dark Chocolate” and it sounded good, so I tried it out today, with a couple minor modifications…

Ingredients:
1 cup of pumpkin
1/2 c. of butter (softened)
1 1/2 c of sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
2 c. of white flour
3/4 c. whole wheat flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. salt
1 c. of raisins (to soften, boil 1/2 c. of water and add raisins, and let sit about 5 min., drain, and add to mixture) **I substituted the raisins with chocolate chips, ’cause I don’t like raisins & I love chocolate!**

     
1.  Pre-heat oven to 375.  In a large bowl combine, granulated sugar, pumpkin, butter, egg and vanilla.
2.  Beat at medium speed until well blended. **It looked kinda chunky to me at this point, but I blended it as well as I could & I think it turned out fine. **

    
3.  Add flours, baking soda, baking powder, spices and salt.
4.  Beat at low speed, until soft dough forms.  **My blender’s lowest setting isn’t very low, so at this stage I ended up with little chunks of cookie dough splattered over my work area!**
5.  Add chocolate chips (or raisins).
6.  Drop dough onto cookie sheets.  **Normally, I would want to form my cookies into perfect little balls, but this dough is VERY sticky, so that didn’t work!**

 
7.  Grease cookie sheets.  Bake for 10-12 minutes, until cookie is set. Cool completely.  **For my first cookie sheet, I set the timer on the microwave but apparently I forgot to press ‘Start’!  So I’m not sure how long they were in the oven – they got a little crispy on the bottoms.  For my second cookie sheet, I baked them for 12 minutes which seemed perfect.  Then for my third cookie sheet, they looked done already at 10 minutes!  I’d say keep an eye on them & take them out when they are just golden brown.**

Now for the frosting/icing!

Ingredients: 3/4 c. packed brown sugar 1/4 c. butter 1 1/4 c. icing sugar 1 to 2 TBSP. half & half  **I just used milk** 1 tsp. vanilla
		1.  Melt butter in small pot. 2.  Add brown sugar and cook over medium heat until mixture can be stirred smooth. Do not allow it to boil. Remove from heat. 3.  Add remaining ingredients. Stir until smooth. 4.  Spread frosting evenly on cookies and ENJOY!!!

I personally found the icing difficult to spread on the cookies, as it’s very sugary and not very spreadable.  It tastes good but is a little too sweet for me.  But the cookies were great!!  With or without the icing!  I would definitely recommend them.  I’m now going to bring them to my friend’s birthday party tonight and see what everyone else thinks of them. 

Will He find faith?

A passage that has been floating in my mind lately is Luke 18:7-8, which says, “And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”

This brought a rather sobering question to mind – is it possible to be in the house of prayer and crying out to Him day and night for Him to bring justice, yet still be missing what He will be looking for in my heart?  When it says that the Son of Man will be searching for faith on the earth, what does this mean?  As I was reading some commentary from Matthew Henry, here is how he interpretted this passage…

Now, when he comes, will he find faith on the earth? The question implies a strong negation: No, he will not…In particular, he will find few that have faith concerning his coming…Even his own people will begin to despair of it, and to conclude he will never come, because he has passed their reckoning…But this is our comfort, that, when the time appointed comes, it will appear that the unbelief of man has not made the promise of God of no effect.

It seems to me that this is very true of the Church today – that there are “few that have faith concerning his coming”.  Honestly, my faith wavers all the time!  I don’t think I doubt that He will come someday, but I am still constantly tempted to believe that it’s unlikely that He’ll come in my lifetime.  Now, this is also the type of faith I was instructed to have – we should believe He’s coming, because the Bible says it’s so, yet it’s foolish to have faith that He will come during any given period of time.  The popular opinion is that many have thought He was coming on a particular day and the doomsday preachers have tried to predict His coming countless times, yet always been wrong.  This I agree with, for it’s clear in scripture that even Jesus does not know the day of His return, however, He also rebuked the scholars of His day for not perceiving the signs of His first coming (Matthew 16:1-4).  I was also taught that the day of His return will come like a thief, catching all of us off guard, which will be true for the unbeliever, but Paul said, “But you, brothers, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief” (1 Thessalonians 5:4). 

I believe that it is the desire of Jesus to find His bride with not just a casual belief about His coming, but a strong, steadfast faith in His return!  He desires to find a bride that is watching and waiting expectantly for Him, with no doubt in her heart that He is coming for her!  And not only for her to be watching, but for her to be ready and prepared for it – not caught off guard and scrambling to put herself together (Matthew 25:1-13).  In fact, I have had several dreams where I dreamt that I knew Jesus’ return was imminent and fastly approaching and I was filled with regret and panic, feeling like I wasn’t ready for Him to come, knowing I hadn’t lived my life “worthy of the calling” (2 Thessalonians 1:11).  In one dream in particular, I woke up in my dream, somehow knowing that that day Jesus was going to come.  Foolishly, I was scrambling for my makeup case to try and make myself look pretty for Him, the whole time, knowing full-well that He does not look at the outward appearance, but He looks at the heart.  The same could be applied to our outward acts – I don’t want to be one who does all the right things and says all the right prayers and looks good on the outside, but in my heart, have Him find that there was no actual faith that He would come and actually answer my prayers!

Lastly, there is a verse in Hebrews 11 that always convicts and challenges me.  It’s the infamous “Hall of Faith” passage, describing all the men and women who under the most horrible circumstances somehow had strong and enduring faith in the promises of God, so much so that the “world was not worthy of them” (vs. 38).  But the striking thing is the next verse which says, “These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised.”  This is the type of woman I want to be – someone who believes with fierce assurance until the very last second before I take my last breath, even if I don’t see the promise of what I was believing for.  I do not want to be one who wavers in my faith, always doubting, “blown and tossed by the wind” and “double-minded” (James 1:6-8) – I want to be a woman of faith, specifically one who has faith in His appearing and that He will be true to His promise.  I want Him to find faith in me, whether it’s when He returns to the earth or when I die and come before His judgment throne.  Either way, I want to hear Him say, “Well done, good and faith-ful servant.” (Matthew 25:21)