Let me begin by saying thank you to all of you who prayed for the women’s conference this past weekend at Dwight Baptist Church in Gadsden, Al. To Know Him is to Love Him was the theme and God’s presence was truly amazing! How beautiful it was to watch my new precious friends seek to draw closer to the Lord! Thanks to those ladies, as well, for making me feel so welcome…

“Humble yourselves , therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time.” 1 Peter 5:6

In my Christian walk, I must say that I have experienced the power of God’s hand on many levels and on many occasions. His hand has opened up and poured out blessings so plentiful on me and my family that it leaves me speechless. The countless times His hand has sheltered me from disaster and protected my life from harm are so very memorable. I would say that my favorite times are when His hand comforts me when I am sad and wipes away every tear I cry. But it has been lately that I have realized when I am under His hand, that precious hand, He also presses me to give Him my all. His hand presses me to purge the impurities from my heart so that I can become in His likeness. I have found that being under God’s hand is a choice. It is a choice that is made by faith. The choice is choosing to trust that being ‘under His hand’ will allow me to be ‘lifted up’. And when God lifts your heart, it is the greatest feeling of all time! I am striving to stay under God’s hand. You see, you can’t stand under His hand; you have to kneel. This is the picture of being humble. Being humble is being utterly and totally submissive to God and His will. It is a matter of trust. Some times, we choose to stand around God’s hand because under it, the pressing of the heart can be very intense. We, as humans, don’t like to be told when we are wrong or when we have to change something. And when you submit to His Lordship, expect change. When I am ‘under His mighty hand’, the Holy Spirit convicts me of sin in my life or in my heart that has to be forgiven in order for me to be ‘lifted up’. I have also noticed that when God brings me to the end of my trial (or lifted up), it is perfect timing. Perhaps you are struggling with a trial and see no end in sight. Maybe you are feeling little to no direction in your life. Perhaps you desire to have God’s best for your life but don’t know how to go about seeking it. I can tell you that you can begin by humbling yourself to be under His hand. Trust Him and be totally submissive to His power. And in due time, His time, you will be lifted above your trial and blessed more than your mind can conceive!

Love,

Corrie

My prayer for today: Lord, help me to trust you and be totally submissive to your will for my life. To do this, I know I will need to be under your hand. Mold me and make me to be like you…

“The Lord says: These people come near me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”
Isaiah 29:13

My goal in my life now is to find out how to be as close to God as I possibly can. I want to find this out for myself and to be able tell other people also. I believe that one of the main ways to accomplish that closeness is to use our Bible. I feel like that is one reason we have God’s word. We can actually look at people in the Bible and know what ‘to do’ or what ‘not to do’ based on their lives. Years ago, when God called me to begin Filling the Gap ministry, He led me to “investigate” the lives of two people who had phenomenal (that is the best word to describe) relationships with God: David and Abraham. As I began to study David, I noticed many things. I saw how he failed God with an affair, plotting of murder, etc. But the Bible describes David as a ‘man after God’s on heart’. I wondered, “what does this mean and how can we actually use this to draw closer to God?” I believe that David’s quest in life was to make His heart mirror God’s. I also believe that over time, he did just that. How? He was honest with God about what was IN his heart and David did this by taking God his emotions. I believe that God is telling us in Isaiah that we pray to him and maybe we say the right words but ‘our hearts’ (our emotions) say something totally different. I have thought at times, “God knows my heart, so why tell Him how I feel?” It is true that God is all-knowing. But the important part is for me to know what is wrong in my heart. By wrong, I mean incomplete; not content. Psalm 78: 70-72 discusses how and why God chose David to be a leader of people. Verse 72 says, “And David shepherded them with integrity of heart; with skillful hands he led them.” By definition, integrity means: a state of being complete; honest. God desires us to possess a heart that is complete. He wants to be wanted and needed in our lives. He wants to be depended on. That’s why He gives us free-will. We lie about our emotions to so many people. Why do we lie to God? The one person who can actually do something about the way we feel. I believe the real reason is that we are not completely aware of our emotions that are hidden so deeply. Perhaps they are became hidden because of events in our past or even present circumstances. Nevertheless, God asks us to bring Him our emotions so that He can give us peace of mind and freedom from emotional strongholds. For me, this was a treasure to find. It gives me something else to work on to bring me closer to the God I love.

Love,

Corrie

My prayer today:
Lord, how thankful I am for David. Thank you for teaching me that you want me to tell you everything I feel. You want to be included in every aspect of my life. Help me to remember to tell you my emotions and seek your face in dealing with them…

How wonderful it is to serve a God who listens so intently to our requests and answers us! He continues to amaze me every day by giving me the best for my life. God’s best is always greater than anything I could have asked for or even imagined. That is because I ask and believe God to be faithful to me. But I can’t help but wonder…what does God require of me? I must tell you that over the past few days, God has led me to know exactly what He requires of His children in order to have this wonderful relationship that we so desire.

Throughout the Bible, God tells us many characteristics He desires us to possess, certain behaviors to implement, and even ways to cope with our thoughts and emotions. But “require” is quite a strong word. By definition, it means to ‘demand as necessary’. That means that God demands this of me. And for that, it was worth looking into. When reading Micah 6:8, “to walk humbly with your God”, caught my eye. I began to research the word ‘humbly’ and found it to mean: offered in a spirit of submission. I then knew for me to be obedient, I had to really understand submission. Submission means to ‘yield oneself to authority or to ‘consent to abide by the opinion of another.’ God began to reveal to me that walking humbly with Him meant that I had to be submissive to His Lordship. I had to yield myself to His opinions, His way, His will. This sounds easy enough. But I thought about all the times I had begged to be close to Him but wanted to do things my way. Today, I have learned that He requires me to trust Him…to have faith in Him. It’s not an option. I am REQUIRED to believe Him. How often do we doubt Him then think that we should be patted on the back for having faith? I Corinthians 4:2 says, …”now it is required of those who have been given a trust to prove faithful.” God has entrusted me with a relationship with Him. Full access to the God of Abraham, the Almighty, Consuming Fire…God! He has also entrusted me and you, as His children, to tell others how they too can know Him. A long time ago, just catching glimpses of God was enough for me. But now, I want to walk with Him. I want to feel Him near me. So, I will remember what is required of me and that is to be submissive to His will for my life. I don’t always understand it. But He has never, ever given me reason to doubt Him. Will you be submissive to His will for your life? Can you turn over controlling areas of your life that are consumed with fear? I hope you can. I plan to try. Why? Because there is nothing greater than walking side by side with God.

Love,
Corrie

My prayer for today:
Lord, I commit today to surrender to being submissive in all areas of my life to you. Forgive me for holding back parts of my life that I thought didn’t matter and only I wanted to handle. I will be mindful to be humble. Help me to see others through your eyes. Help me to listen to you. Be clear and show me your will for my life…

In the last few years, so many things have happened in my life. Both blessings and trials have left me forever changed. But the one thing that has changed my life, has been getting to know God. I had no idea that this God, who I gave my heart to at five years old, wanted a relationship with me; a friendship. I open my Bible now and I feel like I am reading a personal love letter… straight from Him to me. And it all began several years ago with one question in my mind…Who is He? I realized that the person I wanted to spend eternity with, was someone who I didn’t even know. I have recognized that other Christians feel this way. This is the very reason for God founding Filling the Gap Ministries. In Matthew Chapter 8, Jesus has just calmed a terrible storm while on the boat with His disciples. I can’t imaging their eyes when Jesus simply told the winds and the waves to basically just ‘hold up!” (Corrieology for ‘be still’!) As God spoke to me through this passage, He pointed out something I had never realized before. The DISCIPLES are the ones who make the statement, “what kind of man is this?” Not people who are strangers and just meeting Jesus for the first time, but the ones who had agreed to follow Him on a daily basis. To me, this is very symbolic of us as Christians. Many of us don’t know the one who we accepted salvation from. What about the relationship? If you are a Christian but you don’t feel close to God or you don’t feel as though you know Him the way He intends or the way you see that other people know Him, please decide to change this. I can guarantee that this relationship will change your life forever. How can you find comfort for grief if you don’t know the Comforter? How can you find answers to a broken relationship when you don’t know that restoration is one of His specialties? How can He tell you what to do about a job or financial problems when He isn’t asked? I feel as though God laid it on my heart to write this today for someone who wants to close distance between them and God. I am finding out that a REAL relationship and REALLY walking with God takes much more than just being ‘in the boat’. What kind of man is this?…that is the question.

Love,
Corrie

My prayer for today:
Lord, how I praise you for wanting a relationship with me. I can’t even believe at times that you would even want to talk to me when I forget about you or ignore you. Yet, you remain the most constant in my life. How wonderful it is to know you have a personality and you want to be my friend…

Sunday is Mothers’ Day. While I am very thankful for my mother and honor her on this day, I find myself giving alot of thought as to the mother I am or want to become for my son, Canaan. I feel as though our society causes mothers to sometimes feel that giving birth is the end of our “job” and we are just needed to “find stuff” around the house or bandage up ‘boo-boos’ or to solve problems quickly. I have met woman who look and feel tired or used and who don’t understand their value as a woman or as a mother. I must encourage all of you who read this to know that God considers women and mothers very valuable. In 1 Chronicles, David is getting ready to basically hand over his kingdom to his son, Solomon. As I read David’s advice to his son, I was humbled that this great leader’s only advice was to KNOW God. David tells Solomon to ‘know the God of your father’. This means that David was bold about his faith in God and he gives his son the very key to his success…knowing God and having a relationship with Him. I believe that this is the greatest gift we can ever give to our children. We strive so hard to give our children a “good life”. But what does that mean? Will our children remember how we told them that the key to being happy and fulfilled is to know the God who made them? I know alot of moms who work and alot of moms who work at home. Either way, our job is the same: to show our children (young and old) how to know God. David was a man who made mistakes. Many mistakes. He was human. But he is described in the Bible as a man after God’s own heart. This, to me, means that he knew God’s heart and wanted his heart to mirror God’s. That is what I want. And most of all, I want the opportunity to lead my son to Christ one day. Do you? The way I will be the greatest mother is to have a close relationship with God and make it so appealing that my son will want the very same thing…

Love,
Corrie

My prayer for today:
Lord, thank you for blessing me as a woman and as a mother. Help me to seek you in raising my child. Even when he is old, I pray that he will remember me as a mother who put God first in her life and tried to teach him your ways. I pray for those mothers who are struggling today. Help them to move close to you. Shield them, comfort them, love them…