When struggling with temptation in our lives, sometimes we just don’t know exactly how God would have us deal with it – not to say we shouldn’t:  We should!  But sometimes situations lend themselves to a temptation element but are not easy to go against because of extenuating circumstances.  Someone’s reputation might be compromised; someone’s friends or relatives may appear to look bad.  Sometimes we really don’t know what to do.

I knew someone one time who was caught in a web of not only temptation, but sin.  How did this person get out of this web?  By using God’s Word, the scriptures.  This person made God’s Word her mantra during the difficult time.  Although it is unknown as to how she used the Word, she perhaps memorized it, reviewed it constantly, stuck to it, put herself under its authority in her mind and actions.  Perhaps the constancy of it is what she found most useful.

But she had to choose to do these things.  When dealing with our oh-so-human ability to get caught up in undesirable actions or thoughts (although seemingly so desirable), we have to choose “right.”  The right.  If we don’t make conscious choices about it, right-ness will stay just out of reach, like a gold ring on a silver wand, attached to our foreheads. 

Even in our pro-life service, we may need to choose the best, the positive, over what seems perhaps more interesting or more enjoyable.  Not that this is sin, or even temptation in the strictest sense of the word; but there may be a type of temptation to do less than God’s will and more of what we feel is more appealing.

Lord, let us not get into a habit of ignoring Your best.  You Yourself, Lord, dealt with temptation – but not sin!  Help us to know how to deal with the sin and temptations in our lives.  Help us be true to Your Word and to claim it for ourselves over and over and over when we need it the most.  Help us to not run away from it or ignore it, for then we are ignoring You in our lives, Lord.  Help us use Your words for strength – not as something to brush aside so we can go on in our own wayward ways.

Topics:  Pray to use God’s Word in every way possible to strengthen our witness for Him in pro-life work and all other done in His name.
The United States Marines, to have a pro-life outlook in their plans and activities

How encouraging this scripture passage can be. 

Let’s consider this to mean steps of a good person, not just a man; ladies can enjoy the ordering of their steps by God also.  Let’s also consider that a good person is one who is dedicated to God here.  Otherwise, how could one’s steps be ordered by the Lord?

I wonder how many millions of steps an average person will walk in an average lifetime.  Any guess?  Well, maybe billions. 

Let’s imagine that each one of those steps was “ordered” by God.  No step ever got out of bounds; no footprint can be seen pointing a few degrees off center.  Wow.  What a walker.  If one could be so fortunate to walk in this manner, what marvelous achievements would be brought about in his lifetime!

Well, why can’t we make this a goal?  What would it mean to each of us if we kept in mind that God can order our steps.  What father would not want to be able to direct a child on a pathway that delights himself as the father?  When our Father is God, we know that we will never go off of the planned pathway, that pathway that will always be good in and of itself, and rightly oriented.

To think of ourselves walking such a road is exciting.  Wow.  Maybe I can make even more of a difference here in this world than ever thought.  Why?  Because my steps are being planned by the Maker of the universe.  This is not only exciting, but very comforting as well!

Lord, help us to know how to work into our pathways Your perfect desires for our lives.  Help us to know how to listen to You so that we will know each foot print to leave in the sands of our lives.  Just help us listen, Lord!  And when we consider our plans for pro-life happenings, help us listen especially for Your voice.  Then we can step out knowing that we are heading perfectly in the right direction, millions or billions:  Yours.

Topics:  Pray to listen to God for direction in our lives.
Local boards of education to remember LIFE as created.

Yes, a good man’s way is guided by the Lord.  But even then there may be things that grab his attention unexpectedly – seemingly at random.  I saw such a thing today.  It was a photo of a baby shoe that had been bronzed (to keep for “posterity,” a sort of retro way of preserving memories of our little children.  The shoe looked very pretty, and it was positioned on some type of base along with the ashtray. 

The ashtray!  The ashtray??!

Yes, an ashtray.  This baby memento was mounted on a base next to an ashtray.  Not that the maker of the piece should not sell such an item; that is their business.  But I could not help but be struck by the incongruous message seen by my glance there:  A memory of a new or young life; a picture of potential death through smoke.  It took me by surprise.

Yes, in our world, even when our steps are ordered by God, we run into rather odd combinations in life.  Of course, we just keep on walking when the odd combination is of little real importance, such as this ashtray thing.  But maybe we need to pray that these arrangements made by human beings are really the lesser things that they are, and also we could pray that babies being birthed soon will never pick up a cigarette or other form of tobacco.  We certainly don’t want a little one’s baby shoe mounted by their own smoking-gun killer.

Lord, this is a small instance of human indiosyncracy.  But there is no idiosyncracy in Your plans for every baby being carried in the womb today.  We just pray that you will help us humans limit our deadly dealings with illness and human-caused death so that every baby can live their potential life until the very end you have planned, without the attendant problems that can come from smoking and other habits. 
 
Topics:  Pray for healthy habits for all babies, throughout their lifetimes.
Our nation’s governors

When digging around in this scripture for meaning, there is a study in opposites.  It’s not the first one in this passage.  We know that God’s mighty arm brought the Children of Israel out of Egypt.  This is huge and great.  We also know that he took them to Himself, tenderly, to protect them.  This is smaller, more tender.  But now, look at another contrast.  He mentions to them that he has brought them to Himself, and in the same sentence, he says that He owns them as His special people, and then, “for all the earth is mine.”

They were His.  The world is His.  There is contrast.  He seems to go from close/personal on to the outreach of his arm over the entire Earth.  He speaks of drawing them close and that they are His above all others.  They can be His, in part, because the entire entity of the Planet Earth is His to own.  Personal, intimate God:  God who orchestrates the big picture.

It is the same for us.  He desires very greatly to draw us close.  When He is rescuing us from our trespasses, this drawing-close can mean something most special.  We as the failures that we often are in His sight, know how this feels on our end of things:  Most wonderful, to be taken back and held close.  And to be included in the same thought as the entire Earth being His – well, we just want to praise Him and say, “Thank You, Lord.”  We want this huge inclusion!

Lord, we can’t really understand all about this, and because that is a sign of your greatness, we really don’t ask to understand it here on this Earth.  Some day in Heaven, we’ll understand.  But for now, dear Lord, we just praise You that you think so much of us to claim us as Yours, as part of everything you own – which is everything.  We are so privileged, Lord, to know you in this way and to be thought of at all.  Please let women who are making choices about pregnancy know that you feel this way about us and want to include them in Your plans for Planet Earth and Your ownership of it.

Topics:  Pray for God to reveal through pro-life efforts how much He loves this world and wants to pull all of us into His endless love.
Community leaders