Fresh Oil

Holding the phone to my ear in shock, listening to the angry and disappointing words come from the mouth of someone I loved dearly. How was I to respond?  My mouth wouldn't open to mutter a mumbling word, my thoughts seemed to be suspended above my head.  I don't recall how the conversation ended, but apparently it did. After hanging up the phone, I sat on the sofa dumbfounded, here I was a new Christian, excited about the opportunity to serve and share my new found relationship with God, with my family and friends, only to be looked upon as a fanatic, someone to be shunned, "one of those people." My friend had just told me that I used God as a crutch in order to not deal with "real," life.  After a few days of pondering why my friend of many years had seemingly turned on me, I realized that her attack was not really about me but it was about our relationship as friends.  We were tight, we grew up in the same neighborhood, went to the same schools, cried w...

For twenty-two years I lived in a small three-bedroom one bath home out in the country, I often referred to it as my cottage in the country. The house sat in the middle of three-fourths of an acre of flat land. There wasn't a neighbor within a half mile radius.   The front of the house faced the west, overlooking a huge crop field.   In the middle of the field stood a huge majestic oak tree, with nothing but crops surrounding it. The house sat far enough back from the road that I wasn’t bothered by the random car or two that would pass through, so I often took advantage of sitting on the front porch on cool crisp mornings. My simple routine on these beautiful mornings would be to put on my robe and slippers, fix my favorite beverage, grab my spiritual journal and just sit on the porch, take in the beauty of God’s creation and breath in the intoxicating silence. Those twenty-two years in my cottage in the country were some of the most formative years in my walk with Chris...

Recently I was invited to be the guest speaker at a prayer breakfast, I hadn't had an invitation to speak at an event in a while, so I decided to accept the invitation.  Knowing that the topic was prayer, I thought to myself, "this should be easy," but it wasn't.  I struggled with what to present as I thought about the audience I would be speaking to, and I struggled with how the Lord would want me to present a topic on prayer.  I had several months to prepare, so I would pray and ask the Lord for guidance, but nothing concrete or coherent came together.  A month earlier I was ready to back out of the invitation, but after much prayer and two days before the event, I finally got direction.  After I finished praying I went immediately to my computer and began to pull the lesson together with ease. I titled the lesson, "I've been Praying and Praying." Philippians 4:6-7:  be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with  than...