Happy Monday!

Prayer: Father, as I face this new day, I come before you in total surrender to Your will. I ask You to fill me with Your Holy Spirit. Please bring someone across my path whom I can encourage today. Help me understand that the Christian life is not about me, but about You. In Christ’s name. Amen

1 Corinthians 14: 30-31 “If anything is revealed to another who sits by, let the first keep silent. For you can all prophesy one by one, that all may learn and all may be encouraged.”

As many of you know I am a career school teacher. I remember being a first year teacher and trying to listen to what the more experienced teachers would say about how they ran their classrooms. I was encouraged by these teachers to do my best, ask questions and keep the students’ achievement at the forefront of my thinking, planning and instruction delivery. Now I find myself in a position, as a soon-to-be retired teacher, to encourage young teachers in the same manner I was encouraged when I was young and just starting out. There is an art to speaking and waiting to speak. Sometimes I just let them talk until they have figured out whatever they needed to figure out and sometimes I tell them what I would do and how to take care of the problem.

God treats us the same way. God sits and listens to each of us as we work so hard to figure it out ourselves and then when we finally stop talking and begin to listen God encourages us through His Word, through the silence of our prayer time, through other believers, music and in whatever ways we connect with God privately for the alone time with Him.

I spend my private time with God in the car going to and from work each day. I look very forward to these moments alone with God. I ask for God to silence all of the voices in my head except His, then I rest in His presence.

Find some time each day to just be in God’s presence. Spend time praising Him for His goodness, spend time in offering prayers for others, spend time receiving instruction for the day and be mindful of the scripture “Be still and know that I am God.”

Take joy in the journey. Wear comfortable shoes. Count your blessings and say your prayers. Let us continue to lift each other up in prayer each day. Love you all, Bruce, Gaylene, Geni and Travis.

Gcapplenotes@aol.com

I am not moved by what I see. I am not moved by what I feel. I am moved only by what I believe and I believe God.