Jesus Walks With You
As I read, I pray. Someone needs prayers and assistance with their Mum who is being tested for Alzheimer’s….
Waiting upon test results for themselves for suspected cancer… Someone needing strength to cope with the ravages of cancer…
Some parents just finding out their child has a learning disability and wanting to know the next step for help…. A family asking for prayers because a loved one had died….
Another family asking for prayers and answers for a family member who took his own life… Many families asking for prayers because someone they know who is close to them is depressed…
Struggling financially and prayers asked for… Heartache for loss of employment and don’t know where to get help to pay bills… Petrol so expensive so now walking to work, to the shops… chaos in the government…disruption everywhere…….
Having to sell the family home and move into a nursing home and the mental struggle to accept this… Churches being destroyed, and priests and ministers being killed for preaching Jesus…
Why does the world sometimes seem so bleak, so many problems…
We all need courage just to face the day.
As I am praying, I open the scriptures and Psalm 22 is where my eyes look to.
My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?
Psalm 22:1 AMP
Why are You so far from helping me, and from the words of my groaning?
Or so we think… Reading on to verse 4 and 5
Our Fathers trusted in You (Generations before us trusted and You rescued them), they trusted leaned on, relied on You and were confident and You delivered them.
They cried to You…and confidently relied on you and were not ashamed or confounded or disappointed…..
Psalm 22:4-5
I continued to read on…
My strength is dried up like a fragment of clay pottery; [with thirst] my tongue cleaves to my jaws; and You have brought me into the dust of death.
Psalm 22:15
I may Feel like there is no hope, but You give me the courage to HOPE, to Believe…..
But be not far from me, O Lord; O my Help, hasten to aid me!
Psalm 22:19
So, if Lord You came and rescued them, would you rescue us? Answer our prayers?
So now that I have placed all our needs before Our God, I turn to him in Thanksgiving and Praise.
I acknowledge who He is and what He has done.
Someone on Our Prayer wall wrote this, and I bring this beautiful trusting prayer to His throne.
“You know all of our needs and wants, and You have the overall master plan. Please bless us with Faith and Trust to wholeheartedly embrace your plan for each of us, to go on a faith-filled adventure with You knowing that our needs will be met and those of our wants that fit in Your plan for each of us will come to fruition.”
So just like God told Joshua in the Old Testament, when he was walking into the unknown towards the Promised Land.
Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.
Joshua 1:9 NRSV
So, when you are walking down that hospital corridor to start your chemotherapy for your cancer, know that the Lord is WITH YOU.
When you are packing up boxes, sorting out your house to move, know that the Lord is WITH YOU.
When you see strife, destruction, chaos in your country, know that the Lord walks WITH YOU.
When the news appears bad and there appears no way out of this, know that the Lord walks WITH YOU.
I have it on my heart to pray that the Lord sends His people courage to face the day and that they truly KNOW that HE walks with them.
St Bernard observed, “Express to God your thanks and you will receive from Him more and more abundant graces.”
And so let us give our petitions and requests to Our God then as we lay them at His feet and step back from His throne, bow down and Adore and Thank Him with gratitude for being Our God.
Where do you need to pray your prayer needs and then express your gratitude?
May these jottings from my journal inspire you to believe in and fall in love with Christ- the hope of the world, as stated in Jeremiah 17:7, ‘Blessed is the man who believes and trusts in and relies on the Lord and whose hope and confident expectation is the Lord!’
Love
Rosemary
Every week groups of ladies meet together to chat about the things I raise in my weekly blog post and to chat about life in general. We call these ‘Heart Connect’ groups. If you would like more information please click HERE.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Where do you need to ask Jesus to walk with you?
What do you need to do lay your struggles at Jesus’ feet?
5 Comments
Vivienne
Thank you Rosemary for your encouragement & Faith, that you share with us. Thanks & Praise to our God in all situations. Thanks & Praise, Thanks & Praise. Blessings for you.
Valerie Simms
Thank you Rosemary for jotting your experiences, Scripture readings and prayers down. For sharing with us! Well it seems like it’s no coincidence that indirectly, a Scripture verse came up in my Personal Prayer today. As I was waiting while meditating as to what the Lord wanted to say to me today a few words popped up…. ” Do not fear, I Am with you… It was just last night that I had prayed to the Lord through Bruce’s message concerning praying for my needs, those of my family, loved ones and friends as well as those of the world. When I prayed for those of the world, I brought to the Lord all the disasters that I am seeing on the news lately and the suffering and damage it is causing to all of God’s creation! I prayed for the Lord’s intervention as several of these disasters are out of our control. In particular I prayed for the fires and drought, as well as the decreasing water levels I have never seen in these countries before! France, Italy, Germany as well as Spain, Greece and Portugal. Elderly people dying from heart failure due to the extreme heat waves not commonly experienced in their country!
Before I started my Personal Prayer I opened the Bible with my eyes closed and asked the Lord what He wanted me to know, what He wanted to say to me. I opened to the Book of the Prophet Joel. I thought to myself this is not a big book so I read it all.
As I got to Joel 1: 19- 20 I knew that this related so much to my prayer last night!
To You, O Lord, I cry.
For fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and flames have burned all the trees of the field.
Even the wild animals cry to You because the watercourses are dried up, and fire has devoured the
pastures of the wilderness.
As I continued to read on in the Scripture passage with the subtitle God’s Response and Promise I began to feel hope deep down in my spirit! Especially in the Scripture verses Joel 2:22- 23
Do not fear, you animals of the field, for the pastures of the wilderness are green; the tree bears its fruit, the fig tree and the vine give
their full yield.
O children of Zion, be glad and rejoice in the Lord your God; for He has given the early rain for your vindication, He has poured down
for you abundant rain, the early and the later rain, as before.
Well you could imagine how surprised and elated I was to receive this! This brought me back to the time when I was praying on my knees
for the Lord to intervene in the fires taking place in Australia and especially in NSW! As the sky where I live had turned a smoky haze of orange! I was volunteering then at a Catholic Aged Care Facility. I remember I would go into the Chapel and pray by myself sometimes. I would take out one of the Bibles and do exactly what I did today. The Scripture passage I read stated to ask for rain! The next day there would be a gathering of elderly residents at the Chapel who would come and pray the Holy Rosary. Before we started praying, I went to one of the Sisters to show her the Scripture verse and asked if we could pray for rain. She said yes. So we all prayed for rain. The following day I didn’t go to the Aged Care Facility but the following day I did. The Sister who I spoke to came running towards me and said that last night the rain had started to fall! Not long after, the rain fell where it was most needed, where there were bushfires!!! Rosemary I am placing my trust in the Lord again!!! That He will intervene and rain will pour where it is most needed!!! That if the Lord who makes all things possible, is making this possible, He can make possible changes in my life and in the lives of my loved ones too!!! All according to His Perfect, Wonderful Will!!! And I will be thanking my Loving God in advance when I pray !!! May the Lord bless you Rosemary, Bruce and family along with all who are in the ministries, abundantly!!! You all are doing good work for the Lord and for us all too!!!
Claire Monique Godin
Dearest Rosemary
The Lord be with You
You are so sensible to the Holy Scriptures! But what strikes me the most is how you help us incarnate (in-carne; in the flesh) the Word of God in the every day Life, in the smallest things of the ordinary Life! Thank you for that vertue you have chosen to live, because it is a personal decision to follow Christ and live according to his will and Gospel. The Lord is truly with you, where you are! As says Bruce all the time “God is with you, in the place where you are!” It is like you and him are humble bridges between Heaven and our hearts! The little Teresa of Lisieux used to say: Our Good Lord does not ask us for great things… only abandon and gratitude!!
Throughout the adversity we need to abandon ourselves to our God and wait humbly for the miracle to happen! not what we want, not our own will, but the miracle God wants to create out of us!!! According to His plan of Love!!
Yes may the peace and blessings of the Lord be with you and upon all the ministry, and let the angels respond: and with your Spirit!!
Tenderness , from Quebec Canada
Claire xx
Rosemary Downes
Well dear claire, it was you who pointed me to Psalm 22 and it felt so appropriate to respond to so many prayer requests with the feelings expressed here but then to step away and with gratitude praise God for whatever is response would be love to all my beautiful ladies- God IS WITH YOU.
Carla Villafana
Dear Rose.ary.
Thank you.
At present our family members are dealing with so much. I pray to God for courage and strength to trust Him. I am ready to step back and thank Him for being there for me.
Thank you again. May God grant you the same strength.