It is Thanksgiving week, three thousand years later, and there is still nothing new under the sun.

Storms are common in today’s waters. But every now and then, circumstances converge into a perfect storm of physical, personal, and spiritual chaos. 

Father will not waste a single moment of distress. Not one tear will be lost to Him. 

I called out from the cacophony and said, “Father! Do you have any guidance for me? Is there something from your vantage point I can relay to my friends?” 

Do you have a guarantee? Do you have a promise of some sort? Are you under contract with God—or do you have a covenant with Him? Does it matter? 

Only one instrument was of sufficient legal force to bind God’s heart and our hearts inseparably. And, this type covenant exists in perpetuity. 

You can alter both a contract and a marriage covenant, but such is not the case with God’s covenant.

Do you have a promise of some sort? Are you under contract with God—or do you have a covenant with Him? 

These declared aspects of our identity are unconditionally made by God simply because we are His children.

These traits are patterns of your thought, emotion, and behavior and comprise your flesh.

If you fight against the fallout of criticism, what follows is a one-to-one correlation. If the results of unjust critique are not your issue, then the challenge is to generalize from what follows and make application to what does beset you. 

It’s a fantasy if not sheer lunacy that you could sit clueless on the sands of Iwo Jima. Or is it? 

The enemy of God will work overtime to undermine our relationship with our Heavenly Father.

You don’t necessarily feel God’s strength come over you. You don’t gain God’s strength. You don’t get it like a reward. You have it. 

Any endeavor that seeks to know or exalt our Father will be met with spiritual conflict.

We should review: Who are we? Why do we matter? What are we doing?

Our Heavenly Father intends for us to engage this essential: We live in Jesus Christ. If the first essential of life is knowing that Christ lives in us, this is the second essential. 

For all of the various relationships, jobs, obligations, responsibilities, projects, and products of our lives there are two essentials. Only two. 

As this man talked of his short leg it underscored that prayer is more than a posture. In a nutshell, prayer is a discussion with God; an ongoing exchange with our Heavenly Father.

Once in a while I begin a discussion—a time of prayer—by saying, “Dear most gracious Heavenly Father….” And once in a while I say to Dianne, “My dear, sweet wife….”