DIGGING DEEPER DEVOTIONAL JAN. 9, 2025
Christianity
DIGGING DEEPER DEVOTIONAL JANUARY 6, 2025
21 Days of Fasting and Prayer 2025…Day 1
Every year for the last two decades or so, our church has hosted a 21 day fast. Each year is a little different, but each year is a time of deep spiritual introspection for our church, as each of us fast and take time to pray privately And corporately.
This this year, we are partnering with The Worship Room House of Prayer in our hometown of Winchendon. The Worship Room is hosting three hours a day of prayer for the next 21 days.
I just came from my first two hour prayer session of this fast. I am sensing that this year. God will use this fast to prepare us for a move of supernatural signs and wonders, miracles to take place over the coming year.
I do believe miracles happen. I also believe they are about to happen to us.
DIGGING DEEPER DEVOTIONAL JAN. 4,. 2025
DIGGING DEEPER DEVOTIONAL JAN. 3, 2025
DIGGING DEEPER DEVOTIONAL 1-2-25
2025…WORDS TO LIVE BY
I am sitting at the dining table eating left over Chinese food, thinking about the year past and the year ahead.
2024 was a hard year. I don’t think I have really stopped to meditate on just how hard it was. I certainly haven’t allowed myself to feel the hardness. It was a year of death and a year of sickness for our family. It was a year that brought earth shaking change to our lives, identities and ministries. We are not the same people we were at the end of 2023.
Last night we celebrated the New Year as a family at The Vicarage.
New Year’s Eve was our gift exchange this year. I got designer coffee! My son Joe got tools. The kids got play dough and toys. The ladies got winter clothing. James got a book he had been wanting to read. It was a good night topped off by our traditional meal…. Chinese food
It was also a game night.
To say I am not a good game player is an understatement, but other members of the family are. It was a quiet and comforting way to spend the last day of this very difficult year.
Today I am catching up on chores, and putting Christmas away. As I write this note between loads of laundry I am thinking about what the Lord has already told us about 2025.
My personal words for the year are: PRACTICE THE PRESENCE…
AND ENGAGE IN THE PROCESS
Here are some other things we have learned about 2025 from the last few months of 2024.
Amanda has heard- Focus and Watch. 1 Peter 5:8 State alert for your great enemy the Devil stalks about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. Focus on the right thing not similar distractions because there will be good things and God things. See the potential particularly in our children. Don’t overlook the small things in life or neglect the potential of small things. Watch is the word, Gregorio. Its definition is- Keeping your eyes on the truth.
Melanie has heard-We are to be beacons of light. We have been preparing to maintain our light in the hour that is coming.
James has heard- We are children of THE KING. The time has come to act like it. We are an already not yet people. We have the victory but we now have to posses this in the Spirit. We need to use our spiritual authority.
Joe has heard-Go! Luke Chapter 10… “Pray the Lord of the harvest that he would send for the laborers into the vineyard…. Go I am sending you.”
Kristine has heard-Dwell! Dwell in the presence of the Lord and the presence of the Holy Spirit. Claim the victory. Psalm 139 teaches us that God is all knowing.He knows every detail of our lives and even when we don’t see it, He is working in our lives. We need to remember that He knows the end of our stories and the progress of the journey.
Yesterday my sister and I were on Messenger talking and this prophetic word came –
And this is what the Lord says, open your eyes, I am bringing you into a spacious place. This is the culmination of over a half a century of My work. I have hidden this from the enemy as I have hidden this from you, but this is about neither of you and both of you. The enemy can see the size and shape of this thing, but even he does not know what it is any more than you know what it is. you were chosen for this. your family was chosen for this. You each have your part to play. I have prepared you. I have called you by name. Now prepare yourselves. Gird yourselves and answer me like a human, where were you when I laid the foundations of the storehouses of the snow?
As I embrace this first day of 2025. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt….this is going to be a year for the memory books.
DIGGING DEEPER DEVOTIONAL 12-31-24
DIGGING DEEPER DEVOTIONAL DEC. 30, 2024
INFLECTION 35. INFLECTION 57
Birthdays have never effected me much. Mostly they were just numbers in a series. 16 didn’t feel very different from 15 other than the fact the State recognized I was old enough to start driving. Honestly, that didn’t excite me much. 18 was the same as 17 except for the whole registering for the selective service thing. 21 passed me by without even a tip of the hat. I was married and in Bible college. The “BIG 21”. celebrations so many people make of that birthday never even crossed my mind.
I do remember 35, though. It was a tough birthday. I wasn’t prepared for it. I thought it would just pass me by like every other birthday, but it didn’t .
I can only speculate what changed, but when I turned 35 the weight of what I at first called “adulthood” suddenly fell on my shoulders, and that weight was HEAVY. In fact it was crushing.
By 2002 I had 3 kids ages 13, 12 and 11. I had been married for 15 years. I had owned two homes and been through three careers, finally settling on the work of ministry. It’s not like I was suddenly introduced to adulthood that year. I had been adulting as far as I understood it for over a decade. But honestly….
Maybe, it was that, in 2002, for the first time I felt a sense of permanence. Maybe, it was at 35 that I first understood my course was set and I had passed the point of no return.
Maybe, it was at this point I understood that I was going to follow the call of ministry no matter where it led me.
Maybe, for the first time I was clear on the fact that the calling was not about “professional ministry”, but about a walk of faith with God that would cause me too fulfill an office of the church no matter what my job ended up being.
Maybe, it was in this year that I began to fully realize I was answering destiny’s call.
Maybe that was what felt like a weight.
Maybe it wasn’t the weight of “adulthood” I felt at 35, but the sudden realization I had been caught in the full influence of destiny’s rip tide.
Maybe….
maybe…
maybe….
There are a lot of maybes as I look back. I am certain that whatever hit me at the age of 35 almost drowned me…. could have drowned me with all that it set in motion….maybe even should have drowned me….BUT GOD.
35 was an inflection point for me.
2002 was not the year of actual change, but as I look back it was the year when all the changes that have played out since became certain. I felt it back then. I just did not understand what it was I was feeling.
I only mention all this because here I am having just passed a birthday…my 57th birthday and I am feeling 35 again…not in a “I am returning to my youthful self” way…but in a “Here I go again” way.
I sense that the tide of destiny is about to take over again. I sense that this time it may be more than just me standing at an inflection point. I sense we not just me are at an outpouring and upsurging all at once of ….BUT GOD.
Notes From the Vicarage 