Wednesday, July 16, 2008

God had big plans for wednesday...

I sent the following out in an email to my hope group today, but I thought I would post it here too:

PLEASE listen to the Sermon Podcast from Sunday if you couldnt be there like I couldnt...
it is SO beautiful. SO BEAUTIFUL.
I listened to the Podcast of sunday's sermon earlier today. You have no idea how encouraging it was to hear. I am surrounded by non-believers here, and it just breaks my heart! The sermon was also convicting, because sometimes I find myself getting angry with their sinful lifestyles instead of loving them.
And I absolutely love psalm 1. LOVE IT. Before I left for Europe this summer, mark henry (i dont know why i always call him Mark Henry and not just "mark") gave me a copy of Living By the Book to study while I am here. This morning I read about reading meditatively, and then Butch's sermon confirmed that need with the part in psalm one about meditating day and night on scripture. It was so encouraging, and convicting, because I need to be even more Scripture minded then I am being. the Lord has ROCKED my world this summer, especially through prayer. It is just SO exciting!! But I have been experiencing EXTREME spiritual warfare these past few days/ weeks. And I just realized that I need to be meditating CONSTANTLY on scripture in order to prevent the lies instead of just using scripture to fight back when they are already in my head. Dont get me wrong, I DO need to use scripture to fight...but meditating constantly wont even give the devil a chance to get in.

thank you again for all of yours prayers. they mean so much to me. and i just challenge ya'll with everything butch addressed in his sermon. about love. about being broken for non-believers. about going against the flow. for taking a stand. for stopping sin. it sure is challenging me!

ahhh it was just so sweet to hear his voice, to hear his wisdom. it makes me so sad that he is so persecuted.

the Lord really spoke to me today. He encouraged me through Butch's sermon about decisions I am make here about how I choose to live. He spoke to me about my relationship with Brian. And he encouraged me with an email from Butch LESS THAN 2 HOURS after I listened to his sermon. It was just a short note of encouragement, but Butch and I have never emailed before. And it was right after such a moving message delivered by him. OK it might not sound all that cool here, but it is SO cool in my head. Just clearly an answer to things in my head.

I have a lot more clarity now. Basically just in that the Lord is the only clarity I need. I dont need to see His hour-by-hour planner of my life (though all of you know how appealing that sounds to ME cuz im a freak about planning)...I just need to trust him completely. He will show me the next step in His timing.

Today was BEAUTIFUL.

1 comment:

blaire blanchette said...

Whitney,

thanks for the honesty. I will listen to the sermon as well as that I wasn't there on Sunday.

Also, thanks for the brief snip it on finding 'clarity.' It encouraged me and reminded me of what 'clarity' truly is in comparison to what I think it means.

love you!