THE SECRET of ABUNDANCE

Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land, and feed on his faithfulness. Delight yourself also in the Lord, and he shall give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:3–4.

Many Christians have a theology, brimming with trust, but a heart full of suspicion.

One morning I was showing a group of men how to use a prayer journal. I had my own journal open on the table in front of me, and I turned the pages to show them in the prayers I had marked off as answered. There were hundreds of them. A big guy across the table leaned over, grabbed the journal, and peered at it in disbelief. “You don’t tell me that you’re supposed to pray for things you want!” he almost yelled.

“ That is what I am telling you,” I said. “ Why would God want you to pray for what you don’t want? Think of something you really want. God will answer. He’ll either answer yes or He’ll say no. If it’s wrong and harmful for you, He’ll say no. Or if He wants to give you an opportunity to learn something important, He might give it to you anyway. But He’ll be delighted that you trusted Him enough to ask.”

I encourage you to bring all your request – – spiritual, emotional, and material – – to God in prayer. Count on the proven fact that your Father’s nature is to be faithful and generous, always seeking your best. He wants to give you the desires of your heart. With this kind of Father, you can’t be too candid or specific. He won’t chide you or turn away.

Great asking always starts here – – with genuine trust. After all, you would ask your best friend, not the neighborhood bully, for help. You’re convinced of your friend’s, motives and affection for you. You have established a reason to believe that only good will come of your request.

Once trust takes root in your heart, you are ready to take the next, bold step into the blessed life. I think of it as Jabez’s secret of plenty: Plead with Him to grant you what He wants to give you.

You are like a daughter, who kneels before her father, hands open, waiting. When her father ask her what she wants, her reply is simple. “I’ve been thinking,” she says, a little hesitantly. “I want lots of things but… but what I want most of all is what you really, really want to give me!”

If just the thought of such a bold and open-ended request, makes you quake, I understand. Amazing things will happen when you pray like that. But if you fear that God will loose on your head just the kind of miserable life you dread, look again at your friend. Take measure of his character and his love for you. Remember his record of loyalty to you. Let go of all your unfounded suspicions. And tremble instead because the super natural life of fulfillment and influence you’ve been looking for is about to unfold!

The secret of true abundance is to want what God wants. I encourage you to repeat that secret to yourself throughout your day. Let it’s truth rearrange your priorities, and change the way you think.

From my own experience, and that of so many others, I know what will happen as you move forward in this part of your Jabez adventure. God will prove himself to you so much that your trust in Him will grow by leaps and bounds. Your desires will be increasingly in line with His will, and you will identify more and more with His values and His wonderful purposes for you and His world.

And one day you will look at your life in happy disbelief. You’ll realize that along the way you developed a habit of abundance. Why? Because His power to bless you and to bless others through you was unleashed and unhindered in your life.

My Jabez journal: The secret of true abundance in my life is to want what God wants. What are two or three wonderful things God wants for me?

Catherine Marshall said: the purpose of all prayer is to find God‘s will, and to make that will our prayer.

============Taken from: The Prayer of Jabez=================================

This chapter certainly seems to prove that the secret to a great Christian life is to have our desires for what God desires in our lives. With all the chaos and confusion in our world today, what a wonderful truth to realize, and to practice in our Christian lives. That certainly would take out so much anger, depression, fear, and so many others if we could just simply want our prayers to be what He wants us to be.

Faith and I had the privilege of traveling to Lexington, Kentucky on Wednesday and enjoyed a few days at a Wood sibling event. We were so blessed to be able to go to the ARK on Thursday and spend most of the day there just flabbergasted at seeing how Noah was able to understand the directions given by God to him to save humanity. We were able to take so many wonderful pictures, and to be on the three floors of the ark and to actually see how they raised their own food there and how that they took care of all the animals. We saw the structures that were made to House each individual Set of animals. It was an amazing day. That was something that David and I had on our bucket list to do in 2023. We actually had already bought the tickets and were going to go and enjoy the day together.

If you have never had the opportunity to visit the ark, I would encourage you to try to see it. It is a great encouragement to see the power and wisdom of God to see how He could get Noah to construct a facility like that to house all of Noah’s family and all of the animals.

To realize again, the faith of Noah and the criticism he received during the years and years of construction – – was truly a blessing. Sometimes in our Christian lives we get discouraged because we have witnessed several times to the same person throughout the years and the answer is always no, but can you imagine 120 years of witnessing and telling the people of the actual event that was going to happen, and to not have a convert in all those years. How discouraged that must’ve been for Noah, but he simply obeyed and did what God ask him to do..

I am going to attempt to put a couple of pictures that we took just so you can see a little of the beauty of the ARK