Day 5 Devotion: Prayer "Whispers with God"

Day 5: Prayer

I begin the new year with reading the Power of a Praying Women by Stormie Omartian and I’m simply reminded more each time how God wants our first thought to be communication through prayer. He created communication for our relationships, they are based upon talking to one another and as I read through this book every year my heart craves talking with Him in the most simplest ways, but as the year went on I used to fall back into a boring selfish routine of coffee and social media or mindless activities, but this year I made it a point to have endless devotions and scripture right with me that I could read and dive into before the kids would wake up and sometimes they cuddle next to me, as I read and I have seen a difference when I spend my time with Jesus and when I simply put Him aside when I awake. Prayer is the most intimate and personal way in which we have to communicate with our God, there is a direct line of communication that we take for granted in our day to day activities. My children and I do the ACTS prayer in the car A-adoration C-confession T-thanksgiving S-supplication and although they choose crazy things or sometimes all the same things it gets Jesus real in their life and in our day. Think about ways you can make Jesus real in your life today through prayer not just over food, a big decision or at bedtime, but over a tough car ride, traffic, bills, vacations parties etc.in all things bring Him along in your everyday life, don’t allow the devotion or bible to close without inviting Him to join you in your ongoing life.

Verse: Evening and morning and at noon I will pray; and cry aloud, and He shall hear my voice Psalm 55:16

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Prayer: Lord Jesus, we come to you today in Adoration for you alone are worthy of all of our praise, We Confess we get busy our minds get filled with nonessential thoughts and day to day struggles that we think we must handle on our own and we forget about you and your promises. We Thank you for never walking away from us, for your protection, steadfast love and your forgiveness. Lastly Lord, We bring our Supplications before you, asking that you guide us from day to day, that we learn to seek your will and purpose for our lives and in so doing we shine a light into this dark world that would be a representation of your Great Love. Thank you Lord for your word that we can read it, study it, and rely on it to bring us closer to you, Amen.

Joy Bracero: Daily Devotions for Women- Aligning Your Everyday Life According to His Plan and Design

Day 3 Devotions: Blessings...count them one by one:

Day 3: Blessings...count them one by one:

Stop right now and consider the blessings you have just today (share your thoughts or your list) but stop and think, sometimes it’s so hard to remember the blessings as we go about living in this crazy world we live in, the negative headlines, the sickness, the accidents and the list can go on, but let’s stop and start counting our blessings. Naming them one by one - each child, each laugh, your daily food, your senses in which to take in His great beauty, even as I write this my heart is overwhelmed with His great love for me. I hope you have that feeling the LOVE HE HAS FOR YOU! Don’t let the trivial things keep you from the joy’s of the Lord, we have so much to be thankful for that I want you to refuse to fall into the trap of having a “bad day” many people in the bible had “bad days” we’ve all had those days too. The lesson we need to learn is how they seeked wisdom and clung to God’s promises while proclaiming His holiness and faithfulness. Job is one I think speaks to me he had horrible days of losing everything  mostly testing of his faith, but because he was faithful throughout it all God blessed him more than ever and he did lose everything: is family, wealth, his friends he lost everything but his breath and faith in God.

Verse: Psalm 103:1 Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name!

Isaiah 25:1

Proverbs 10:22

Job 5:17

Prayer: Dear Heavenly Father, I’ll be the first to say Thank you for blessing my life even when I know I don’t deserve any of it, thank you for the love you show each of us, may we see it and feel you close to use in good times and bad and help us to always keep our eyes on your blessings given to us. We ask that you guide us in using our blessings to bring glory and honor to you. We pray that we choose to live wholeheartedly for you and your kingdom. Amen

Joy Bracero: Daily Devotions for Women- Aligning Your Everyday Life According to His Plan and Design

Day 2 Devotions: Seeking WISDOM

Day 2: Seeking WISDOM

Oh Wise one where are you! Let’s take time to think about life, have you ever thought I shouldn't have done that or I knew better?  Am I the only one that has more of those thoughts than the feeling of wisdom. Wisdom does accumulate with age, experiences and life lessons but wisdom does not just evolve. True wisdom as to living a life according to His will means us asking for Him to guide, lead and direct us. So many times when in trouble or at a fork in the road of our life, we go to a friend, google it or ask what would you do on Facebook or simply stress out or worse make the wrong decision out of pride and fear, when our first response should be praying for Wisdom in all things.

God wants us to have Him as our first responder our 911 call not just sometimes but everyday of our life in every situation, how much greater would your life be if you first prayed before acting. Wisdom means having a clear insight and understanding, it means knowing how to apply that in all situations. making right choices, turning back from a dangerous edge, learning to listen to the voice that already knows the path before you and learning to walk that path is made possible through daily choices of connecting and seeking God’s great council.

How we gain Wisdom:

1. Be in the Word Proverbs 2:1-5, 5
2. Pray for wisdom James 1:5
3. Acknowledge Him Proverbs 3:5-6
4. Be humble Proverbs 11:2
5. Seek His wisdom  1 Corinthians 1:20-21

Verse: Psalm 25:4-5 Show me your ways, O Lord; Teach me Your paths. Lead me into Your Truth and teach me. For You are the God of my salvation; on You I wait all the day

Prayer: Dear Heavenly Father, Thank you that you see the whole picture and you have the directions for our lives already mapped out, teach us to stop and seek You first. Please guide us today as we take on our daily duties and help us seek Your will before even opening our mouths. Thank you for loving us even when we wander to those edges You’ve warned us about and the situations we should have learned our lessons from and for those of us still struggling with the same issues may today be the day that you seek your wisdom and when we seek it from You and Your Word our path becomes less bumpy and more joyful no matter what else is going on. Amen.

Joy Bracero: Daily Devotions for Women- Aligning Your Everyday Life According to His Plan and Design

Day 1 Devotion: PRIDE is it good or bad?

Day 1 - PRIDE is it good or bad?

Strange how a word such as pride can have 2 very different definitions or connotations, what was the first thing that came to your mind? I often think of the pride comes before the fall, but there is another kind of pride, the pride that we can take in our motivations, self-respect and dignity, the pride that can motivate us to take care of our health and appreciate of our personal talents and strengths. Then there is the flipside the pride that I know I often think about first, the pride that leads to our fault, containing self-centeredness and boasting in ourselves, rather than building us up we tend to pave a path of destruction for ourselves with arrogance, egotism and conceit.

I”ll remind you of another word that has 2 connotations in our daily life and that is diet, do you see diet as a restriction of food or simply the daily food you put into your body. This word controls so many individuals and much like pride you can choose to see the word diet for what it is; fueling your body with nutritious food or you can choose to allow diet to guilt you into feeling bad about yourself and your food choices. Much like pride depending on the way to use it, sometimes diets build up your health and others diets tear it down. Diets can lead to your downfall and rob you of true happiness.

Verse: 2 Chronicle 26:16 But after Uzziah became powerful, his pride led to his downfall

Focus: What do you take a healthy pride in? your job, children, abilities and talents? turning our feelings of pride into feelings of being truly humble is going to be our focus today, how do we cultivate the right kind of pride in our lives? similar to deciding to choose a healthy diet and the right balance of food, we must choose to look for ways to choose humility with the right relationship with God. We must choose to see the wonderful gifts He has given us, we must choose to cultivate healthy pride not in ourselves but in Him who has given them to us.

Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord. 2. Corinthians 10:17

Prayer: Dear Heavenly Father, I thank you for allowing us to dig into your word daily and draw closer to you. I ask that you bring each women here into your arms of comfort and peace today. Please help us seek your will with the talents and blessings you have given us. Guide each women here to choose to be humble and only boast in your name. I also pray for our earthly bodies that we learn to use our words and choices wisely and would honor you with our diets, our activities and our words so we can humbly come to you more energized, more focused and ready to be filled each day with your word and blessings,. Amen.

Joy Bracero: Daily Devotions for Women- Aligning Your Everyday Life According to His Plan and Design

Day 1: Thoughts, Prayers, Fitness and Cravings - Loving His Masterpiece

Day 1: Thoughts, Prayers and Cravings

OK, so I made it through my first day of competition eating plan and waking up at 5:25am to press play, Oh my goodness I don't know but I bet you can relate tell me I can't have something and I think about it all day long. I was not hungry, but my kids have left over Valentines hearts with chocolate candy in them I literally wanted to toss them out because I wanted them so badly, but honestly I didn't my mind thought I deserved just 1 right! Mind over Matter for sure.

My devotion today was focused on Solomon in Ecclesiastes 1:12 - 2:11 searching for more that he had, a man full of wisdom and treasures untold, anything He wanted he had except that one thing the thing that made everything else in his life feel empty and lonely. To look around and continually seek something you can't see but earn for greatly makes one live in that place of here but not here, my mind is reaching and thinking of more of the empty space that is inside I know who wants to fill it but I am still searching and I feel I need to seek more to be more and to do more I feel I was made for more. I guess my question is what will truly fill this space of more and will I be satisfied when I find that thing I'm looking for or is it really nothing and I should stop trying.

My prayer: Lord, I want to seek You in all things my desire is to understand and be thankful that everything is a blessing from You to show your love to me and as I continue to seek and search for something more my prayer is that I do not place my hope or future in my work, money, others, positions or my surroundings but I continually seek You and follow Your will that I will find true happiness in You.

Fitness: Today was ok it was a Plyo with weights day my legs hurt my head lightheaded but I made it through because I'm determined to push past excuses, for too long I just go through motions of most everything thinking of the next thing on the list. My goal is to focus on my muscles, my heart, my mind and truly see our cool God's creation is and how much I limited myself due to my thoughts and whispers of "I Can't"

Nutrition: I touched on this earlier, I thought it would be harder than it was I understood it was a mind over matter. When I saw something I would have normally grabbed and taken a bite or I drank more water  and when I was hungry I ate my portioned containers. I felt good I felt energized all day and I was proud that not one thing was off even on day 1. I know I have 20 more days of this and it will test me but I also know this is help me CRAVE HIM more and the desire to grab things my body doesn't want nor need will be replaced with HIM. Cravings? No! Desires yes! we don't tell ourselves NO enough, do you agree?


I do like this idea of pushing past all of my excuses and limitations that I place on myself and I look forward to taking this one day at a day #21DFE 

Renew your goals: Success or Failure It's Your Choice

Happy 1st day of Summer

So today I'm going to do a 6 month check-up on my 2014 goals. I invite you to do the same, because the hype of the New Year and resolutions are just a few faded memories that sounded good at the time, we dreamed of the what if's. The I'd be debt free, I'd be fit for summer, I'd have my degree, I'd be off my medications, I'd have enough money for our family vacation, I'd be in a church family. I'd be married, I'd be starting a family.

First step of my review: Do my goals align with what God is showing me He wants for my life?

I know this is my hardest questions because I tend to have the "I'll do it myself thought" and then God says "hello, I'm still here and in control and this is not the time, the situation, or your choice, it's mine" So first and foremost bring your goals and dreams to prayer and ask for God to guide and direct you in your life. He wants the best for you, but he always wants your complete obedience along the way. I have to tell myself He wants to give me the desires of my heart, but only when my desires begin and end with Him as the center of my life. I can not expect Him to bless my life if I only sit and ask things of Him without asking Him to take part in my daily life.

Secondly I must ask if they are what I feel God wants me to do, my calling and mission than why am I not giving it my all?

I can sit here and blame so many things, someone told me I couldn't, I don't like being told no, I'm not good at this, I don't have the right people in my life, I'm not good enough, I'm too busy, I'm not creative, I thought I was outgoing...I'm not, too many upsets.

You might want to blame the world, blame your job, blame the busy gym, blame the church for making you "feel unwelcomed" or the school for not having classes that "fit" into our schedule, our family situation was not ideal to make things happen, we ran out of money before the month. Yes, all those are real life situations, so ask yourself how did you use those inconveniences and feelings, as excuses to throw in the towel? or as a catalyst to get out and get it done, to find a new way?

Making things happen is usually inconvenient why? because we take ourselves out of our comfort zone and it's not a popular place to be. To succeed you must reach failure, not to throw in the towel and give up, but to make the choices to push through and make it happen to get up and move past your failures. I've had more failures in my life than I can even get on here, but I'm learning that with each failure I turn to love it and push pass the urge to give up and change my goals, .If I did that I would be choosing to keep myself wishing, hoping and dreaming for the "What Ifs". God will Bless the path you chose if you are walking it with him by your side, if it's not the path for you He will start putting of road blocks, I didn't say inconveniences or a few pebbles to step over. I mean real hard road blocks that will leave you with no other choice but to say "I need a new direction God". You will find that a different path might lead you to your goal but it's with a new purpose at the end. All we do should point to Him; His love, His Compassion, His Salvation, His Guidance and His strength for we can do nothing truly well without Him.

Today think back on your 2014 goals and resolutions are you even close to checking off 1? if not why? Renew yourself today first to God ask Him to be your leader and your partner on this path and allow yourself to fall and fail, but get back up and keep pushing forward for in the pushing you will succeed. you will fall, you will fail and you will be tempted to give up but if you don't you will be stronger and on your way to success, you're future self with thank you.

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