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Today’s Truth

But Jesus often withdrew to the wilderness for prayer (Luke 5:16 NLT)


 


Friend to Friend
I had been in a busy season of ministry and family. I was running perilously close to empty, but I just kept going. One day my husband gently approached me.


“Suzie, you need to fill back up.”


If those who love you the most are noticing, then it’s time to take a pause.


I found a small, affordable rustic cabin not far from home. I put aside technology, ministry, and the things I normally do, and for a weekend, I was alone with God.


When I arrived home, I was renewed.


Jesus depended on prayer often.


“But Jesus often withdrew to the wilderness for prayer” (Luke 5:16 NLT).


By His example, I know that I need this too. While going away to a cabin is

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Today’s Truth

The LORD answered him, “I will be with you. It will seem as if the Midianites you are fighting are only one man” (Judges 6:16 NCV).


 


Friend to Friend


I was born to be an elementary school teacher – period. So, when a total stranger tapped me on the shoulder and said, “While you were singing, God told me that you are supposed to be my Music and Youth Assistant this summer,” I felt sorry for him. He obviously needed to have his hearing checked.


I had just graduated from college with an elementary education teaching degree. A good friend was leading worship for a local church and asked me to sing a solo in the evening service. That’s all – or so I thought.


When the service ended, my good friend introduced me to his good friend, the hard-of-hearing stranger, and said, “You should at least pray about

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Today’s Truth

But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken (Matthew 12:36 NIV).


 


Friend to Friend


During the holiday season, when interaction with family and friends is increased, I find myself with extra opportunities to bite my tongue. Anyone else? Jesus said that the words we speak reflect the true condition of our hearts.


“Make a tree good and its fruit will be good or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit. You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him.

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Today’s Truth

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them (Ephesians 2:10 ESV).


 


Friend to Friend


Pretend with me for a moment. Let’s say you are on an island in the Pacific. Pick an island, any island, but make it a tropical, lush, and beautiful one. You walk out onto the porch and see some equipment laid out just for you. You know what it is, and you know what it’s for. You’re excited! You’ve always wanted to do this, but never had the right gear.


You slip into a black sleek wet suit, zip up the front closure, and most likely marvel at the way it holds everything in. Then you squeeze your feet into squeaky black flippers. I know they’re tight, but go ahead and wiggle your feet in. Next, you strap a

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Today’s Truth

Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him” (John 3:1-2 NIV).


 


Friend to Friend


My study that morning was in one of the smaller books of the Bible tucked in the pages of the Old Testament. I had only read a couple of verses when one caught my eye. It seemed to leap from the page into my heart. Though I was certain I had read this story before, it felt new. I felt a tug to stop and dig deeper, so I did. That verse and the story it unfolded ministered to me for days.


I wonder if that’s how Nicodemus felt the night he met Jesus under the cover of darkness.


“Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at

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Today’s Truth

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you (Matthew 7:7 NIV).


 


Friend to Friend


I have the answer. I have the solution. I know what my husband should do.


Standing back and considering his problem, I want to fix my husband’s situation. I want to wipe my hands and be done with it. I want to solve the issue with quick words of advice. I don’t want to see him struggle. It takes everything in me not to blurt out a precise prescription to his pressing problem. Instead, like a steaming hot pot, I hold the pressure inside. Ahhhhh! This is so hard because I know! I know! I know!


But, I don’t let out a peep, not even a grunt or a sigh. Instead, I listen and I hold it inside because I

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Today’s Truth

This I declare about the LORD: He alone is my refuge, my place of safety; He is my God, and I trust Him (Psalm 91:2 NLT).


 


Friend to Friend


While at my son Preston’s football game, I had a moving conversation with another team mom. It was the first time we’d ever connected beyond socially expected niceties. Between cheers that went up to our football-playing boys, she stumbled upon the fact that I was a Jesus-loving girl and was excited to share about how God has intimately drawn her heart to his over the past five years… how He met her where she was and ministered to her through the hands of others. How He sparked life into her soul through His Son Jesus Christ.


She was radiant and she spoke with excitement, joy in every sentence, praise on her tongue for the God who gives her strength

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Today’s Truth

Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another (1 John 4:11 NIV).


 


Friend to Friend


I could not tear my eyes away from the television screen as the 33 miners began to emerge from the depths of what could have been their mass grave. The men had been trapped for more than two months in the collapsed Chilean copper mines nearly half a mile underground. Everything I have read or heard about the tragedy is extraordinary.


The miners survived the early days by rationing food and working together as a team. Each man was assigned a job, one of which was to maintain peace and harmony until they were rescued. The selfless mining supervisor who insisted on being the last to leave his underground prison showed the world what it really means to put

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Today’s Truth

Jesus said, “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you” (Luke 6:38 NIV).


 


 


Friend to Friend


A sign was posted on a telephone pole by the grocery store: “LOST DOG with three legs, blind in left eye, missing right ear, tail broken, and recently castrated. Answers to the name of Lucky!”


Perhaps you feel just about as “lucky” as that lost dog. Hobbling along. Impaired vision. Broken tail. Well, you get the picture. There was a woman in the Bible who also felt like she was out of luck and had nothing to give. But then God showed her how to fill up so that she could pour out. Her story is found in 1 Kings 17. It begins with a man named Elijah.


Elijah was a good prophet who gave some bad news to a

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Today’s Truth

Yet Jerusalem says, “The LORD has deserted us; the Lord has forgotten us.” “Never! Can a mother forget her nursing child? Can she feel no love for the child she has borne? But even if that were possible, I would not forget you! See, I have written your name on the palms of my hands. Always in my mind is a picture of Jerusalem’s walls in ruins” (Isaiah 49:14-16 NLT).


 


Friend to Friend 


The school called yesterday to let me know my son had been waiting in the office for ten minutes. I had remembered to write the note to excuse him from school for an appointment, but I lost track of time while answering emails and plugging through my to-do list. I sure hope you can relate! I set alarms on my phone, write lists in my planner, and still struggle to remember things.


Thankfully the Lord doesn’t have this same struggle. He has never forgotten anything, ever – except that He chooses to forget about our sin (Isaiah 43:25). It may feel like He doesn’t always respond to our prayers or intervene when we think He should, but He

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"We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well…" 1 Thessalonians 2:8