Wednesday, April 14, 2021 PM

People.

And I was asked to define auspicious by a lady up front.

To me, it's a well -revered individual or group of individuals, people of

stature and reputation and integrity.

You're embarrassing me.

And Red's getting embarrassed.

He's never been talked to like that before.

But we're here.

Brother Michael is filling in for Mrs. DeForest and with the tagamuffins, as he

calls them.

I think that's quite appropriate for some of those little ones there.

Well, we're going to have an extended time of prayer this evening.

But we're going to do things differently.

So if that's a problem for you,

get used to different.

Well, I'm going to start with a word of prayer.

And we'll continue on.

Heavenly Father, we come to you with many joys and many burdens.

We come to you desiring to hear from your word and from encouragement from each other.

We pray that the Holy Spirit will minister to ourselves and our brothers and sisters

in Christ and those who don't know you yet.

May healing and rejuvenation and restoration and just the

love of Christ become evident in their lives and in our lives.

We do pray for our tag group tonight.

We pray that as the word is taught, and it is taught and taught rightly, that

we will plant seeds in these little ones' hearts.

And we ask these things in Christ's name.

Amen.

It seems as of late, our little body of believers has had

more than our share of opportunities to go to our knees.

But, you know, that's life.

But sometimes God does that to remind us that he is working.

He is working all the time.

Sometimes we don't see it.

I want to read you a little story.

Comes out of a portion of my Bible that talks about helping others cope with change.

But this is just reminding people that God is working.

Even when our lives seem out of control, God is working his plans for our lives.

Who does great and unsearchable things, wonders without number, we read about in

Job 5 .9.

When change is unwelcome, these words remind us to be open and

alert to God's varied and unusual ways of aiding us and working on our behalf.

This story is of the sole survivor of a shipwreck, teaches us a useful spiritual lesson.

In the 17th century, a sailing vessel was crossing the Pacific.

It was battered and broken by a fierce typhoon.

And the one and only survivor managed to land upon a small uninhabited island.

He was able to do this by desperately clinging to a wooden beam from his ship.

After much trouble and considerable effort, he built a crude hut where he placed

all the belongings that had washed ashore from the sinking ship over time.

Each day, he prayed to God for deliverance and he continually scanned the ocean horizon to hail any ships that might

pass by.

One day, however, upon returning from a search for food, he was horrified to find his hut

was in flames.

Everything, which wasn't much, he had was gone.

Feeling that things could get no worse, the man looked to heaven and he cursed God.

About three hours later, however, a ship arrived.

And the captain, upon coming to the shore, said, we saw your smoke signal.

God helps us and guides us in unusual and unexpected ways.

So don't fail to recognize that God's activity, because of rigid expectations

and our resistance to change.

This group has lived through change and knows you

are mature enough and experienced enough and wise enough to know that this change is not

going to stop.

And we can seek Lord and how to handle that change or we can resist him.

We can even get to the place where we curse God and say, why are you letting this happen?

But that's not how life goes.

So tonight, what I'd like to ask us to first do is, I know many of you are prayer warriors.

I'd like to hear from you, if there are scriptures that you go to

that help you in your times of prayer.

Are there scriptures that are favorite to you?

Are there scriptures that encourage you or you use to begin prayer with or end prayer with or

during your prayer time?

So it's an open conversation here.

Yes, sir.

So I

read

love.

Amen.

And I got that right, it's 1 through 11?

Yeah, 11.

OK.

Yes, Mrs. Berry?

So getting still is the beginning of my days when I get there and

see what he's going to say.

Getting still.

Who else?

Yes, ma 'am.

Psalm 119.

For the

heavens

are

higher than

the

earth, so

are

my ways.

Preparation.

The humbling.

Yeah.

And he's faithful.

Yes.

Yes.

And I don't remember.

I was trying to find it, and I don't remember where it's at.

But in the scriptures of give thanks in all things.

It doesn't matter whether it's good or bad.

In all things, give thanks.

That's like kind of preparation.

Every time, you know, you smash your finger or the sun pinches your finger.

It is.

And so you say, you know, this hurts like all get up.

In all things.

Yep. Yep.

Lamentations.

We were talking about that over at the table today.

Amen.

Amen.

Sister?

Mrs. Nelson?

You give glory.

And that's where I try to get my focus now, and know how I feel with you.

Uh -huh.

Like, a lot of this started when I first decided not to answer you.

And I read this verse in Joshua 1 .9.

Have I not commanded you to be strong in a good courage, to not be afraid, to not be dismayed?

For the Lord your God is with you in every endeavor.

And for me, that's very important to remember that I'm never alone.

He's with me.

He is. Always.

So these are just brief things.

But we have Philippians 1 .1, 1 through 11.

Praying for others.

And you know, you can do that any time.

Someone's name comes to mind while you're driving or while you're preparing a meal or

doing work.

Just whenever.

And be rejoicing.

Rejoice and be thankful.

Remind yourself of what you already know.

There's enough that you already know that you can have a foundation.

Praying through the scriptures.

Psalm 30, yes.

Maybe two more.

Well, as you pray, are there scriptures or thoughts that you use to help

the beginning of your prayer or in the midst of your prayer, to close your prayers?

What focuses you on prayer?

Particularly scripture.

I

pray

to the

Father

and I will be praying in the

spirit.

And I think we can pray not in the spirit because we're praying on a wheel.

And the Lord's teaching me and taught me a little bit about how

not to worry about tomorrow.

And I pray still tonight.

Yep.

It's been so good the last couple of weeks.

Today, he brought it all into a combination of trusting

and praying and crying now.

You know, with my mental health, I thought it counted about, it was a year ago almost to the day that I did this.

And God, God knows.

He sure does.

He knows what my family needs.

The elders wives pray.

We have a running text that has been such a blessing in

years, but especially more recently, we've all had either something that we're

going through, whether it's a health concern or our parents or whatever it might be.

And those verses that are shared are just their

life and their life and there's such a comfort.

And you can't get that from an individual.

You can only get that from God.

You know, I'm so thankful that God uses his word to impress other people and share with

you.

Because I've always tried to do that with some of them.

One of the neatest things I've had, and this is not to go on, but if you're a

phone person, you can have a keyboard that has the scripture in it, a robot, and you can look at

scriptures this quick.

And I truly believe that Lord uses that when people are going that either text me or

call me, I need help with this.

And I just, and it's just like, it not only blesses them, but it really blesses me

because his word is accurate and always for the

situation.

Well, look who's on top.

Yes.

Got out of having a surgery, you know, tomorrow.

So it's, we're done.

We're done.

Amen.

So we got a praise right off the top.

For those of you may or may not.