The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for BababaBobalog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 5,400 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 5 trips to carry that many people.
This week’s portion of the 40 Days in the Word adventure is the “Picture It”devotional method. The challenge of this week’s quiet time is to allow the story to come alive by placing ourselves in the action.
Here is the first story,
“A man with leprosy came and knelt in front of Jesus, begging to be healed. “If you are willing, you can heal me and make me clean,” he said. Moved with compassion, Jesus reached out and touched him. “I am willing,” he said. “Be healed!” Instantly the leprosy disappeared, and the man was healed. Then Jesus sent him on his way with a stern warning: “Don’t tell anyone about this. Instead, go to the priest and let him examine you. Take along the offering required in the law of Moses for those who have been healed of leprosy. This will be a public testimony that you have been cleansed.” But the man went and spread the word, proclaiming to everyone what had happened. As a result, large crowds soon surrounded Jesus, and he couldn’t publicly enter a town anywhere. He had to stay out in the secluded places, but people from everywhere kept coming to him.” (Mark 1:40–45, NLT)
My prayer of response to picturing myself as part of this story,
Allow me to be one of “the crowd” that actually reaches the place where you are touching people. Even though I don’t have uncleanness others can easily see I still am in desperate need of being restored, and of just being with you.
What kind of experiences have you endured when you knew you needed a touch from Jesus? If Jesus touched your need, did you tell anyone about it?
So it is Day 5 in the 40 Days in the Word experience for me. Each day is a joy to spend in God’s word, reviewing truths I know and confessing forgetfulness of truths I learned previously but forgot.
Today’s verse is,
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. Philippians 4.6, NIV
My application,
My gratitude is often overwhelmed by anxiety. Being anxious limits my ability to be thankful. My conversation (prayer) with God leaves me without peace because I take ownership of things that belong to Him. Just like a two-year-old I insist, “Me do it” even when I know I cannot.
“Anxiety” is the key word. Defined, it means
..an abnormal and overwhelming sense of apprehension and fear often marked by physiological signs, by doubt concerning the reality and nature of the threat, and by self-doubt about one’s capacity to cope with it…
I suffer from the projected outcomes of situations. I am able to extrapolate with reasonable accuracy the outcomes of present situations; situations I know for certain I cannot control. God does control the future. I am commanded to come in the reality of my present, offer it honestly to God in conversation and then thank Him for my present and that He is managing my future.
What a blessed challenge.
What causes you to be anxious? Do you have trouble remembering to honestly talk to God about what is concerning you? Do you struggle with being thankful for your present?
For many at Main Street this is Day 3 in the 40 Days in the Word experience. Others are just beginning, some have yet to commence. I am so pleased the excitement is building and some of the response I have heard thrills my heart. God’s people are finding His Word again, ancient and still eerily relevant.
The verse for Day 3 in the Pronounce it method:
For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him. Philippians 2.13, NIV
My application:
I am so busy with work, I neglect the truth that the work is not my own, but God in me. I also must remember that it is His work in others and not my own.
Oddly enough, I was anxious to share God’s message to me for yesterday’s verse…but was too busy to write. That frustrated me immensely since writing is one activity I enjoy doing.
What kind of things to you enjoy but don’t do because of the obstacle of “work” or “busyness”?
Today marks the first “official” day in Main Street’s 40 Days in the Word experience. Some have already started, others will begin later this week, but the family here is beginning 2012 spending time with God day by day by allowing the truth of His ancient word to speak to our modern hearts. For the first seven days we are practicing the “Pronounce It” method of devotional study.
Today’s verse is Philippians 1.6, “Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (NIV)
My personal application,
I must refuse to be stressed about accomplishing things for me. I must trust God has the ability and tenacity to see all things through.
I am by nature a long-range planner. I like to look sometimes years ahead and make choices today that should impact or direct me to my intended destination. I struggle with “being confident” in God to shepherd me to where He wants me to be at the time I am supposed to arrive. My struggle often results in impatience, or worse, in an attempt to assert control over my life’s direction.
How do you trust God to complete the good work that he started in you?
Once upon a time there was a people who fed on imagination. God gave them the gift of perceiving reality. God gave them the strength to resist being mired down by the difficulties of the day. This people drew from the Well of Creativity and invented and improvised and immersed themselves in all “the possibilities” imagination could inspire.
The Adversary hated this flourish of resemblance to the Sovereign of the Universe, so he set into motion a scheme to destroy imagination. From his trunk of untruth he withdrew a powerful and insidious weapon. It is called Pretend.
Pretend should be a beloved child of imagination, but like many children, Pretend grew up to be an ugly, rebellious and violent adult. Rather than take its place as the respectful subservient, Pretend forcefully supplanted the immeasurable possibility. Like a voracious weed, Pretend took over the garden of the human mind.
The calendar tells us that it is the Holiday Season. Does anyone recall that “holiday” means a period of exemption or relief? Only a very few! Instead we bow low to the god of Pretend. We pretend to be happy, we pretend to have money, we pretend to experience wonder, we pretend to love (or at least care for) each other, we pretend to be generous, we pretend to have time. We work diligently, fervently, passionately for Pretend. The color of imagination dims day by day under the glaring glitz of all our activity.
Is this Peace on Earth? Good will to those whom God favors?
This season is the Season of Advent. Expectation of celebrating the arrival of the gift of Love and the return of the King. My family at Main Street will together imagine the great possibilities of excusing Pretend.
God’s voice is glorious in the thunder.
We can’t even imagine the greatness of his power.–Job 37.5, NLT
 | Luann Becker on Uncomfortable Application… |
 | Roberta Lee on 40 Days in the Word |
 | Jeff Herron on Uncomfortable Application… |
 | Carol Howard on 40 Days in the Word |
| Jeff Herron on 40 Days in the Word |
