Not that this has not been a great winter in my neck of the woods- it's been very mild with very little snow and ice for which I am very thankful. But I am yearning for some color to the landscape.
And so, I wait with anticipation ....
While I'm waiting, it's a good time to reflect on the things I've been blessed with ALREADY! The Friday's Favorite Five posts are a great way to do so. Choose five of your blessings or highlights of the past week and share:
1. Great spiritual food served at my little church congregation. I've been so blessed with both services last Sunday being special times of worship. The Holy Spirit is at all of our services - of course! - but times of special manifestations of His presence are so appreciated and needed. As a worship leader, my heartfelt longing is for the Spirit to make Himself known during worship. The times you feel the glory of the Lord so weighty and heavy are the times you do not even notice if you make any mistakes during the song service. I'm all about that! I do not want the worship team to be noticed, I want all attention on Him!
My pastor is continuing his series on prayer based on the book, "The Hour That Changes The World," by Dick Eastman and it is definitely giving me food for thought. I love it when I'm challenged!
2. Great quote from C.S. Lewis,shared by Proverbs31 speaker, Zoe Elmore:
“Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.” — C. S. Lewis… seen on twitter
It goes along with last week's Tozer quote:
"Sadly, too many Christians are strangers to the wondrous side of prayer: expectation!"
I love it so much, I had to share it again. Pray expecting big things because we have a big God!
3, Great Italian food: For our monthly fellowship dinner last Sunday, I made this casserole: Weeknight Ravioli Bake. Click on the link for the recipe - it's super easy and awesome. If you like lasagna, you'll like Kraft's spin on this.
4. Great resources: This week, I've been using a plethora of tools to help me. I downloaded two great books: "The Hour That Changes The World" and "The Writer's Book of Days" by Judy Reeves from Amazon to my kindle app on my iPad. I've used Bible Gateway and E-Sword and S.O.A.P. for bible study. How blessed I am to take advantage of all these tools!
A word about S.O.A.P. - I've been mentioning S.O.A.P. a lot. It is a method of bible study I first learned about at Amy Fritz' blog-post, How S.O.A.P. Changed My Life. You can also Google the subject and see how many people are using it. I've been making up my own form to use it, naturally, and I call it S.O.A.P. tables. When you see me write that, now you know I'm referring to a method of bible study.
These tools have enriched my life and I would never have known about them were it not for being online. The Internet. It is a wonderful thing!
5. Great coffee: I found a new love to enhance my coffee experience:
It. Is. So. Good! Oops, sorry, Yoplait!
This ends another week on the Journey. If you would like to share your week, visit the lovely Susanne at her blog, Living to Tell the Story, and link up!
It's a blessing to have the Spirit hover over services of believers. I too know what you mean. :)
ReplyDeleteLove the quotes. I love Oswald Chambers.
I loooove coffee and creamers! I bought a new one today. Toffee and Almond and it's goood! Have a blessed week!
The soap method sounds like a good one. Don't you love those great Sunday-go-to-meetins?
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean about creamer...mine MAKES my coffee experience!
Have a great week.
It's so wonderful when you're aware that God is really meeting with you in worship, public or private.
ReplyDeleteI love Italian food -- I am craving some right now!
(Forgive me if this comes through twice -- the first time I got a "service unavailable" window.)
Hi Jerrelea, I finally found time to sit down and visit FFF's. I enjoyed reading about your favorites. Last Sunday was a hankie day for me at church. It really was a wonderful service. Now you have me wanting a plate of Italian food! :)
ReplyDeleteHope your weekend is going well!
Almond Joy coffee cream?! Be still my coffee loving heart! Unfortunately we don't get most of those awesome flavors up here in my area. But maybe just maybe we'll get this one.
ReplyDeleteI checked the last time you linked to S.O.A.P. and thought it would be great to use.
The series on prayer sounds really good.
I can sense your joy and thrill of the sense of the Lord's presence with you all in your church. So good. And those are great tools we have, aren't they?
ReplyDelete