Category: Journal

Ask of Me, and I will assuredly give [You] the nations as Your inheritance, And the ends of the earth as Your possession. ~ Psalm 2:8

Andorra 🇦🇩
Afghanistan 🇦🇫
Azerbaijan 🇦🇿
Bahamas 🇧🇸
Belarus 🇧🇾
Belgium 🇧🇪
Benin 🇧🇯
Bhutan 🇧🇹
Botswana 🇧🇼
Burkina Faso 🇧🇫
Burundi 🇧🇮
Central African Republic 🇨🇫
Chad 🇹🇩
Comoros 🇰🇲
Cuba 🇨🇺
Cyprus 🇨🇾
Djibouti 🇩🇯
Dominica 🇩🇲
Equatorial Guinea 🇬🇶
Eritrea 🇪🇷
Fiji 🇫🇯
Finland 🇫🇮
Gabon 🇬🇦
Gambia 🇬🇲
Guatemala 🇬🇹
Guinea 🇬🇳
Guinea-Bissau 🇬🇼
Guyana 🇬🇾
Holy See 🇻🇦
Hungary 🇭🇺
Iceland 🇮🇸
Iran 🇮🇷
Kazakhstan 🇰🇿
Kiribati 🇰🇮
Kyrgyzstan 🇰🇬
Kuwait 🇰🇼
Laos 🇱🇦
Latvia 🇱🇻
Lesotho 🇱🇸
Liberia 🇱🇷
Libya 🇱🇾
Liechtenstein 🇱🇮
Madagascar 🇲🇬
Maldives 🇲🇻
Mali 🇲🇱
Marshall Islands 🇲🇭
Micronesia 🇫🇲
Monaco 🇲🇨
Mongolia 🇲🇳
Montenegro 🇲🇪
Morocco 🇲🇦
Namibia 🇳🇦
Nauru 🇳🇷
Niger 🇳🇪
North Korea 🇰🇵
North Macedonia 🇲🇰
Palau 🇵🇼
Papua New Guinea 🇵🇬
Palestine (State of) 🇵🇸
Saint Lucia 🇱🇨
Samoa 🇼🇸
San Marino 🇸🇲
Senegal 🇸🇳
Sierra Leone 🇸🇱
Slovakia 🇸🇰
Somalia 🇸🇴
South Sudan 🇸🇸
Sudan 🇸🇩
Syria 🇸🇾
Tajikistan 🇹🇯
Timor-Leste 🇹🇱
Togo 🇹🇬
Tonga 🇹🇴
Turkmenistan 🇹🇲
Tuvalu 🇹🇻
Uzbekistan 🇺🇿
Vanuatu 🇻🇺

Congo
DR Congo
Cote d’lvoire
Eswatini
Say Tome & Principe

According to Google, there are 195 nations in the world. Since making my blog “public” two years ago, it has now reached 125 of them. It fills me with joy to know that it has gone where I have not been able to. Even so, I still have a deep desire to go and teach the Word, love on and pray for people, and see God move in mighty ways. But there has been no green light when opportunity arises these last years.

As we entered the Easter season, I began a forty-day fast. Then a couple of days in came the pandemic. What a challenge! But God gave me two prayer warriors whose prayers helped carry me through. And then at the end of the fast I heard this from the Lord. “Tarry there until you are endured with power.“I didn’t understand it. Tarry where? Though I have prayed and pondered and preached on the Holy Ghost, I still wasn’t exactly sure how it was applicable to me. This morning I wrote these words as a part of my prayer. I believe as He often does for me that God speaks to me as I write things.

“Old dreams with new anointing by the power of the Holy Ghost will carry you into this next season and usher you through. You will go deep but you will also be required to navigate the currents in the deepest and sometimes lonely places. You will think you are drowning, but take comfort in My heart and relax as best you can. Though it will be hard, try to stay above water and wait there…until you are endued with power. Then I will come pull you from the riptide. When I do and you are safely back on shore, when you come to, you will see that during the time of struggle this turned into a season of dreams come true…My dreams in you.”

So what are the old dreams? I dream of a life of missions. Is it crazy that in this hour, I just want to GO?!!! I dream of teaching the Word and fulfilling our call to disciple. I dream of praying for others and seeing the miraculous. I dream of igniting others with the desire for prayer and the Word that He placed in me. I dream that God would take my writing (such as it is) and do a work. I dream of writing by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. Missions, the Word, prayer, the miraculous, writing! It seems all over the place, but it is all very precise.

Perhaps in these next years, I will be able to touch the other 70 nations in some way. Wouldn’t it be so amazing, when it is time to go to my heavenly home, to have touched every country in the world and to be greeted in heaven by those same nations? That is my “impossible” dream!!!!

Father, would You give me the nations? As I pray for them and find out more about them would You show me how to use this tool to reach those across the world? Lord, I know it is an awfully big dream. I fully knowing it is something only You can do. Is it Your dream, Lord? I ask again today for the nations as my inheritance…according to Your Word….in Jesus’ holy and precious Name!!! Amen!!!

——

On the list below are the nations touched by the blog. I always put up their flags and I hope on your device you can see them. Being in possession of a nations flag symbolizes victory. That is why I do it. Plus, I think they are beautiful.

——

The Reached

A
Albania 🇦🇱
Algeria 🇩🇿
American Samoa 🇦🇸
Angola 🇦🇴
Antigua 🇦🇬
Argentina 🇦🇷
Armenia 🇦🇲
Austria 🇦🇹
Australia 🇦🇺

B
Bahrain 🇧🇭
Bangladesh 🇧🇩
Barbados 🇧🇧
Barbuda 🇦🇬
Belize 🇧🇿
Bolivia 🇧🇴
Bosnia 🇧🇦
Brazil 🇧🇷
Brunei 🇧🇳
Bulgaria 🇧🇬

C
Cambodia 🇰🇭
Cameroon 🇨🇲
Canada 🇨🇦
Chile 🇨🇱
China 🇨🇳
Colombia 🇨🇴
Costa Rica 🇨🇷
Croatia 🇭🇷
Curaçao 🇨🇼
Czech Republic 🇨🇿

D
Denmark 🇩🇰
Dominican Republic 🇩🇴

E
Ecuador 🇪🇨
Egypt 🇪🇬
El Salvador 🇸🇻
Estonia 🇪🇪
Ethiopia 🇪🇹
European Union 🇪🇺

F
France 🇫🇷

G
Georgia 🇬🇪
Germany 🇩🇪
Ghana 🇬🇭
Greece 🇬🇷
Grenada 🇬🇩
Guam 🇬🇺
Guernsey 🇬🇬

H
Haiti 🇭🇹
Herzegovina 🇧🇦
Honduras 🇭🇳
Hong Kong 🇭🇰

I
Iraq 🇮🇶
India 🇮🇳
Indonesia 🇮🇩
Ireland 🇮🇪
Isle of Man 🇮🇲
Israel 🇮🇱
Italy 🇮🇹

J
Jamaica 🇯🇲
Japan 🇯🇵
Jordan 🇯🇴

K
Kenya 🇰🇪

L
Lebanon 🇱🇧
Lithuania 🇱🇹
Luxembourg 🇱🇺

M
Macedonia 🇲🇰
Malawi 🇲🇼
Malaysia 🇲🇾
Malta 🇲🇹
Mauritius 🇲🇺
Mexico 🇲🇽
Moldova 🇲🇩
Mozambique 🇲🇿
Myanmar (Burma) 🇲🇲

N
Nepal 🇳🇵
Netherlands 🇳🇱
New Zealand 🇳🇿
Nicaragua 🇳🇮
Nigeria 🇳🇬
Norway 🇳🇴

O

Oman 🇴🇲

P
Pakistan 🇵🇰
Panama 🇵🇦
Paraguay 🇵🇾
Peru 🇵🇪
Philippines 🇵🇭
Poland 🇵🇱
Portugal 🇵🇹
Puerto Rico 🇵🇷

Q
Qatar 🇶🇦

R
Romania 🇷🇴
Russia 🇷🇺
Reunion 🇫🇷
Rwanda 🇷🇼

S
Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦
Serbia 🇷🇸
Seychelles 🇸🇨
Singapore 🇸🇬
Slovenia 🇸🇮
Sri Lanka 🇱🇰
Solomon Islands 🇸🇧
South Africa 🇿🇦
South Korea 🇰🇷
Spain 🇪🇸
St. Vincent and Grenadines
Suriname 🇸🇷
Swaziland 🇸🇿
Sweden 🇸🇪
Switzerland 🇨🇭

T
Taiwan 🇹🇼
Tanzania 🇹🇿
Thailand 🇹🇭
Tobago 🇹🇹
Trinidad 🇹🇹
Tunisia 🇹🇳
Turkey 🇹🇷

U
Uganda 🇺🇬
Ukraine 🇺🇦
United Arab Emirates 🇦🇪
United Kingdom 🇬🇧
United States of America 🇺🇸
Uruguay 🇺🇾

V

Venezuela 🇻🇪
Vietnam 🇻🇳

Y
Yemen 🇾🇪

Z
Zambia 🇿🇲
Zimbabwe 🇿🇼

Perhaps a decade ago, a man sent me a message via Facebook, because he thought he might know some of my family from Rutherford County, NC from back in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. As it turned out, this man, who I have known as Pastor Clyde, did know some of my family back in the days of their youth. He moved away from NC and spent his life pastoring in FL and TN. We became FB friends and shared stories and testimonies of life. He started checking in here and there, and every single morning from the very day I “met” him, he sent me an email titled, “Message From The Mountain.”

This morning the “Message” was missing from my inbox, and since that was so odd, I looked on FB and read that Pastor Clyde had gone to be with his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

I will miss him and the messages. They were not airy,  feel-good, or even in-depth philosophical devotionals written by a minister with a huge following. Instead, each message was a deep heartfelt fresh Word, written by a man who passionately loved his Lord and loved and cared for his reader’s personal and spiritual lives.

From the hills of Tennessee, Pastor Clyde woke up each morning, got his coffee, and sat before his PC with his Bible. There he allowed the Holy Ghost to speak through him. He brought Words of exhortation and comfort, prophetic and teaching Words, very often Words of correction. His messages were driven by the eternal and unchanging Word of God – always!

On rare days, Pastor Clyde would give only a statement that the Holy Ghost didn’t give him anything to write for that day.  “Maybe God wants to speak to you directly today,” he would add. And you know, I think I appreciated that honesty and humility and encouragement more than anything else. What a lesson!!!!

Thank you, Pastor Clyde, for reaching out to someone from your hometown, just because my name peaked your interest. Thanks for your years of caring and for serving our great God and our Savior, Jesus! What a divine connection it has been.

The “Message From The Mountain” has now gone silent, but I will take what God gave me in this last decade, and I will not only continue to move forward, but I will also do my best to run with all that was imparted.  Maybe God wants to speak to me directly today.

He shall choose our inheritance for us, the excellency of Jacob whom He loved. Selah.” ~ Psalm 47:4

The Lord has been so gracious to allow me to be in His presence in places where He has chosen to show up through His signs, wonders and miracles. I know I am blessed and that He has used these times and situations to increase my faith. I have seen miracles of healing, miracles of food multiplied. I have experienced and seen deliverance from depression and anxiety and addiction. I long for the day that those that are God’s own children will not be as those from Jesus’ hometown, expecting so little and so receiving and seeing little of God’s power in their lives and communities.

After a wonderful Sunday where God moved through our church so mightily, I have been pondering His call on my life and how to apply His Word. I know now in part what God can do through prayer and I am confident in the Word and that He can do infinitely more….but there are times when I wonder how it will all come to pass in my own life since the roadblocks and closed doors and the “waiting” seems endless. Will I go to my grave reminding myself of what I have seen but wondering if I ever will again…and if not, why? Will these roadblocks turn out to actually be the steps to what has been prepared? Though I am a person that is pretty focused most days and committed still I wonder a lot.

I was thinking along these lines Monday morning and I felt my Father pose a question to me. He told me upfront that it was hypothetical but to take it seriously nonetheless. The question was this…Excluding praise and worship, reading my Bible and prayer and excluding all other human opinion, if I could do only ONE ministry for Him all the days of my earthly life, what would I do and why?

It was early so I had the time at 4:30am to ponder, but it wasn’t necessary. I immediately knew my answer. If I could only do one thing of service — I would feed the hungry. I know you may think I am talking feeding the hungry spiritually and that is there but I am actually mostly talking in the physical. I would feed the hungry real solid food and pray that God, in His mercy, would give me also opportunity and ways to feed them spiritually as He saw their need, and mine.

Why?

Because long before He told me to preach or pray, He told me “you give them something to eat” from Matthew 14:16, Mark 6:19, and Luke 9:13. When God spoke this to me, it was one of the first times I ever heard God speak directly to me through His written Word. It stuck with me. On looking over those years, I have found that from my obedience to “you give them something to eat” has come most of the miracles, signs and wonders that I have been allowed to see and from obedience to that command, I have been given opportunity to share the Word and pray with people and I have been able to see people saved. Real true lasting fruit. From obedience to that command, I have met people that live in their cars and in the woods and I have met former CEOs driving BMWs but arriving as hungry as the poorest of the poor. I have also met hungry ministers. I have been allowed to minister to those that have given their lives for the Gospel but found themselves being fed through my hand but in that moment of divine appointment (and I believe that is what it was), I found them there feeding me in such beautiful ways. Truly I tell you, from obedience to that command “you give them something to eat” I, myself, was fed and sustained by God and felt the presence and LOVE of GOD HIMSELF through them toward me. It was never just me allowing the love of God through me. He gave me love through them. I thought it was something I would be allowed to do forever…but then the season changed.

I find myself now in a season where this kind of ministry seems to have almost dried up for me and while I try to press on and I preach here and there, pray and try to remain faithful in what I am given for the now- there are days I still grieve for that season that was. Not because I miss a ministry or a place that once was so much…but because I miss the people and what they brought into my life. I miss the faith that desperation brings into a people. I miss the mutual need. God transformed my heart of prejudice and gave me love and understanding. He took my lonely heart and He gave me compassion and ears to hear theirs. In return so many of the people also accepted me and loved me. Once a month, as they were allowed to come for food, I was friend or mama or prayer partner. They were daily in my prayers and that kind of prayer always creates bonds. I look for them even still when I drive the streets of Gastonia and I am so hopeful when I don’t see them out there on a cold day. I made it a point to know their names, their children’s names, and their situations. I made it a point to know their hearts. I miss their hearts. I miss their hugs. I miss their stories. I miss how they bonded to others and how they helped their neighbors. They were rich in ways I think few know. They taught me more about ministry than I ever knew they were.

A verse that struck me this morning in these early hours with the Lord is this: Psalm 47:4, “He shall choose our inheritance for us, the excellency of Jacob whom He loved. Selah.” I have always loved that promise. I have always asked the Lord for the nations but my inheritance is His choice. When someone leaves you an inheritance it is their choice as to what they leave each person. The poor and the poor in spirit are my inheritance…this I know.

I admit Monday morning I couldn’t grasp how God wants me to take care of this inheritance He has left me. But then….

Monday I had the opportunity to go to the food bank for Thanksgiving turkeys. Yesterday I had the opportunity to work in the food pantry straightening and stocking shelves. Today, Lord willing, I have the opportunity to help give Thanksgiving boxes to those that come to our pantry. Lord, send us the hungry, that we might be your hands and feet and give them something to eat.

Selah! [pause, and calmly think of that]

But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’” ~ Matthew 4:4

At times in our walk with God, there are certain words or phrases that become “proceeding words.” Basically, that means if we are to move forward there is a Word from the mouth of God that we need so we can proceed. It brings to mind a traffic light at a busy intersection. You cannot continue until the light turns green. Last year I found that I was led by several proceeding Words. A few of these were “be still,” “be quiet,” and “wait.”

It seems odd to call these three Words “proceeding” after all they seem to reflect something that would be more like a red light than a green. However, through obedience and to be honest some disobedience to these phrases, I discovered there is no end to what God can do when I follow His directions. As I would still and quiet myself and release my rights to speak on a subject or to move in any direction at all based on circumstances surrounding me, I would find myself being carried through that River of Life I wrote about yesterday. In the times of disobedience, I would feel more like I was stuck in the mud on the banks of a river than flowing in the River. Valuable lessons. Sometimes the only way to proceed is to actually stop proceeding (in the natural).

Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth. ~ Psalms 46:10

Psalm 46:10 is a familiar scripture and an obvious one on being still. But when I study all of Psalm 46 my heart stirs. It was written in the context of war – a song of victory with its emphasis on the Presence of the Lord with His people and the difference it makes when we trust Him completely during difficult times.

In times of crisis, some tend to pull away and some get busy. But He says, “Be still and know that I am God.” That is not talking about being passive. It takes work to be still in the middle of trying times. Even harder work to remain quiet. But hardest of all is probably to wait on the Lord. It is easier to get up and take action or to say something to try to change something of our circumstances.

I recently read a revealing story concerning this:

A company of American soldiers in Vietnam was pinned down and surrounded by the enemy. During this fierce battle, it appeared that the company commander was taking a nap! All ended well as help finally arrived, and the company was rescued from certain defeat and death. However, the commander was brought before his superiors to determine if he was guilty of neglect of duty and be court marshaled. The commander explained that he was not sleeping at all, but getting still and focusing on three questions: 

        – What is going on around us?

        – What is not going on around us?

        – What can we do about question 1 and question 2?

Instead of barking orders and reacting to what was going on around them, that commander got still so he could get the wisdom to keep his company alive until help arrived. Indeed, he was a very wise man and his ‘being still’ and ‘being quiet’ and ‘waiting’ saved the lives of his soldiers.

But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. ~ Isaiah 40:31