Lord make today’s rough places smooth…

My mom always prayed for Him to smooth our days using this scripture: Isaiah 45:2
“I will go before you and make the rough places smooth.” Let Him carry you today, He’ll smooth your day!

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Smooth Your Day

My mom always prayed for The Lord to smooth our days using this scripture with us in devotions:

• Isaiah 45:2 “I will go before you and make the rough places smooth.”                        

Let The Lord carry you today,  He will smooth your day!

A smile a mile wide.

Gwen loved to recite little ‘diddies’ as she called them.  One of her favorites she attributed to Aline Manget (as quoted in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution).

“Someone gave me a smile today.  I tried my best to give it away, to everyone I chanced to meet as I was walking down the street.  But everyone that I could see would give my smile right back to me.  When I got home, besides one smile I had enough to reach a mile.”

Our Response

In going through my mom’s writings I came upon a complete surprise … something my father wrote. I never knew he wrote out any of his thoughts.   Dad would have been 91 on August 5th.  He wrote this in May, a couple of months shy of his 52nd birthday.

Scribbled on the back of an offering envelope was written:

“I’ve washed my robe and made it white in the precious blood of our Lord.  I’ve carried my load and made it light with the strength of my precious Lord. The way is clear our Lord is near, repent and be saved today. You’re only to hear our Lord has led the way. So wash your robe and make it white in the Precious blood of the Lord.”
Sunday night, 5/22/71 … by Harry Belle Isle

He’s no longer here on earth so I cannot ask him exactly what he meant. I can only surmise my interpretation.   But, knowing my dad,  I think he was saying that it is all there for us, we just need to respond.   It is our action of acceptance that the Lord needs.  He’s waiting.

Today’s Thoughts

Attitude can make or break you. 

We either get bitter or better.

God teaches us in every situation.

We can always afford LOVE.

Money can buy a mighty fine dog, but it takes LOVE to make it wag it’s tail.

Who Am I?

Who am I at this point in time? I’m ____________________ (insert name)

• God’s word says I’m fearfully and wonderfully made
• Royal blood flows through my veins
• I’m a child of the King
• I will be eternally with Him
• As long as I’m ‘green’ I will grow
• When I quit growing I will start rotting

What I have learned:

1. God is in Control
2. There are no surprises to Him
3. He makes no mistakes
4. He has the answer
5. He cares

People ask me if I am alone in my big house?  I’d be alone in a little house. Actually I’m not alone, I have my Heavenly Father with me.  You see, I have a FULL house – God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost are here

Today’s Thoughts:

• Jesus loves me with an everlasting love.  To Him I will never be old.  Psalm 39:5 says my age is nothing to Him.
• Some people have something money can’t buy – POVERTY in that they have NO SALVATION.
• God teaches me in every situation.  CALM and PEACE in the midst of the storm.
• I’m not looking forward to the sunset, but to the SONrise.   It’s great to be alive and as a Christian I am always alive.

We’re Just Practicing for Heaven

Valentine’s Day, 1996

We all love hospitality.  It is so pleasant to enter a home and feel welcomed.  You know these people have an open and giving heart.  Hospitality is an important Christian trait. 1 Timothy 3:2 tells us that even the Elders in the church are to be hospitable. The secret of hospitality is love.  Perhaps we do not celebrate enough or grandly enough.

God gave us emotions and they make life more enjoyable and richer.  We can always celebrate our personal relationship with God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, both individually and as the Trinity, three in one with praise because of our love for Them.   By showing our love to others we are praising Them.  We are just practicing for Heaven by loving them and praising them.

God loves us and He tests our Faith to strengthen us and increase our faith for the future.  He refines us and purifies us and allows things or people to come along and be our “Heavenly sandpaper”.  This is how we mature in Christ.  It is for our good and we learn to trust Him more. 

Psalm 138:7 “Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve my life; you stretch out your hand against the anger of my foes, with your right hand you save me.”

As Christians we are to be good stewards and seek the mind and will of Christ in matters of stewardship of all that He gives us.  We are always on assignment.  We all encounter family problems.  Jacob in the Bible deceived his father Isaac and received the blessing of Esau.  Yet God made a saint out of Jacob.  God can turn anyone around.  In each of our families there is someone who we want desperately for God to turn them around.  Jacob lied and he failed to trust God.  When he turned to God he was cleansed and found the path that glorified God.  Do we know someone like Jacob?  For a child of God, there is always a future.

Psalm 100:3 ³ Know that the LORD is God.
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

One of life’s greatest needs is to feel loved.  Mark Twain once wrote, “Always do right.  It will gratify some and astonish the rest.”  There are greater reasons for doing right, not just because we want to be loved, but because we love God.   Joseph is a good example.  When he resisted the advances of Potiphar’s wife, he set himself on the road to the throne of Egypt.  Had he given in he would have set himself to the road to ruin.  Oh how we need to do right.  Love God and love what is right.  There is always more at stake then we know.

Favorite Sayings and Thoughts

• A man with a heart for God is a wonder; a man with 2 hearts is a monster.
• I believe in saving money no matter how much it costs.
• Sometimes it rains on my parade and spoils the plans I have made. But soon the storm goes rolling by and I see God’s rainbow in His sky.
• The place to find a helping hand is at the end of your own arm.
• A church is not a museum for saints, it is a hospital for sinners.

• As children of the 20th century we move as graceful as we are able through the complicated steps of the dance of circumstance. We march with the multitude to booming music that keeps us in step and adds a bit of pleasure to the effort. As I draw closer to the Lord and find there are no longer smart or ignorant, modern or old, fashionable, crude or cultured, white or black; in His presence I am just a woman.

• Who was the best financier in the whole wide world?  NOAH – He floated his stock when the whole world was in liquidation.

Oh Lord I want to be:

1. Mentally Alert
2. Physically Sound
3. Emotionally Stable
4. Rejoicing in You
5. Rubbing Off On Other That I May Be A Walking Example For Your Glory

Prayer

• Prayer moves the Hand that rules the world
• Most prayers deal in the natural – However, the Holy Spirit’s highest desire is to give you what belongs to you – 1 Corinthians 3:21b -23, “…all things are yours, ²²whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, ²³and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.”  We have to seek with all our heart.  Ask Jesus to give you  through the Holy Spirit what He has for you.  You can call on your Lord through His Lordship of your life.  You can only say Jesus is Lord when the Holy Spirit is in control of your Life.
• Ask for liberty like you have never known before – “Lord I long to know your Lordship, your liberty.” Free from the law = liberty. Sin shall not have dominion over you.  Romans 8:2, “because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.”
• Quit seeking deliverance and start seeking the deliverer.
• Quit seeking salvation and seek the Savior.
• The Holy Spirit wants to use you – ask the Lord to make you a light in a dark place.
• Ask the Holy Spirit to open your understanding for you are not saved by works – Titus 3:5 “he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit”.
• As you yield to the Spirit of God daily, He guides you. Romans 8:14 “…because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.”
• Pray big prayers because you have a big God!
• There is mighty power in prayer. Jude 20, “But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit.” There is a big difference between praying in the Holy Spirit and praying with the Holy Spirit. Pray in the power of God through the Holy Spirit who guides us as we pray.  Philippians 3:3, “³For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh.” God wants to give us the power to pray in the Spirit and worship Him in Spirit.
• Worship is highest form of love.  Worship your Lord through prayer.
• Acts 13: 2, 4 They fasted and prayed and knew the power of God’s calling. “²While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.’ ³So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.⁴The two of them, sent on their way by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia and sailed from there to Cyprus.”

Fast and pray and know the power of God’s calling in your life!

Be Satisfied

March 31, 1987

Oh God when I start to criticize and other folks faults, I itemize; may I look at what is really me, and try to be what You want me to be. Walk uprightly, as best I can hopefully filling out Your plan; that all along You had for my life, being satisfied to be a mother and a wife. Enjoying the blessings that make up a day; when I long for months that are six weeks long. Help me to sort out the right from the wrong. And do the things that are necessary to be done, that will be profitable in the long run. Laying aside unnecessary chores and things when “too much to do” only confusion brings. Get my Bible read, before I start the day. Getting direction from You, to go my way. What a settling time it’s bound to be, when You order my day and are guiding me. Oh, to be yielded to Your sovereign will.  It’s so hard for me to just sit still. And listen to what You would have to say, cause You know, I think I can go my way. Without any help from Your loving hand, some how I hope You understand. I know You do and I love You so; what more can I pray, as I onward go?