God's Blessings

It seems that God has the Griffiths family very focused on prayer lately.  Heidi and I started attending a class called Prayer Partners a couple weeks ago at Jodeco Road UMC (our home church).  The class has been great and it has really opened my eyes to the importance and power of intercessory prayer.  It made us very aware of the impact of our Prayer Warriors in our ministry and their task of praying for us as a missionary family. We have been so blessed.

God has been blessing us, and moving us out of our comfort zone in so many ways, too. Just when we think, "Okay, we have cleared that hurdle and now we have some time to get back to normalcy."  God says, "I have another thing I want you to rely on me for - FULLY rely on me.".  Sometimes all we can do is pray and ask God to lead us.  He always blesses our efforts and reliance on Him. This makes me think of 1Chronicle 4:10, The Prayer of Jabez:

And Jabez called on the God of Israel saying, “Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain!” So God granted him what he requested.

I have always thought that the prayer was a little presumptuous and demanding, so I didn't give it a lot of thought.  Until a couple weeks ago when Heidi had given me a book by Bruce Wilkinson called The Prayer of Jabez.  She said, "This little book is great and it's a quick read, only about 90 pages, you'll love it.".  I was a little hesitant, you see, "enlarge my territory" always sounded bossy and materialistic to me, but Heidi was pretty excited about the book, so I figured I'd give it a chance.  Wow, I am glad I did!  The way the author breaks down the Prayer of Jabez is just amazing!  One of the many messages I got out of the book is that God has great things planned for us.  We just need to be open to His blessings and be willing to move from our comfort zone into to the bigger plan He has for us.  In other words, rely on Him. 
The book was so fascinating, I read the whole thing in one night (about 3 hours of reading), which is some kind of record for me (I'm not the world's fastest reader).  After I finished reading that evening, I prayed the Prayer of Jabez asking God to bless me, enlarge my territory, be with me and protect me.  Wouldn't you know, the next day our house went under contract.  It is amazing!  God has blessings stored up that He is waiting to give us. Thank You Lord for opening my heart, my soul and my mind to receive Your blessings.