This is the air I breathe
This is the air I breathe
Your Holy presence
Living in me

This is my daily bread
This is my daily bread
Your very Word
Spoken to me

And I … I’m desparate for You
And I … I’m lost without You This is air I breathe
This is air I breathe
Your Holy presence
Living in me

As I sat with them last night believing for healing – I sit here today still in pain – still believing.

Thanks PK – you guys mean more to me than you know.

Lord move us …

Lord teach us …

Lord show us … Your way.

Lord fill us …

Lord spill on us …

Lord move us … we pray.

Show us Your glory God.

Teach us Your mercy Lord.

Give us Your spirit and Your love.

Oh Lord of mercy, Oh God of hosts

Show us Your power, show us Your love.

Lord God hold us near, hold us here.

Usher us into Your presence.

God we need Your peace, God we need Your grace.

I have mentioned before that on Wednesday nights Jared and I lead the PowerKidz group at our church. This week we talked about the “Rack, Shack, and Benny” bible lesson and related it to present day peer pressure. We talked about how God has made each one of us for a purpose and loves us dearly. We talked about what to do when people pick on you or tease you. Having grown up with the last name Trout – I have some experience with that one. We talked about how God has given us morals to live by and we need to stand up for what we believe in. The days that your friends think you aren’t “cool” – which I am finding is truly becoming a 90′s word – are going to come and go. God will always think you are #1 in His book. Usually we only have about 10 to 13 kids – with 1 or 2 being boys – but this past week we had NINE girls. I think Jared may have felt out of his element but we made it. It is amazing to me the differences that boys and girls go through with peer pressures. Boys tend to pick on the girls more but the girls tend to be more concerned with who is doing what and what clothes are in or out. We had a great night of discussion with the kids.

Before the lesson, Mara – or PM – had them play a marshmallow building game.

It was messy, sticky, and loads of fun.

Later, we decided to make our own tower of sorts.

It didn’t last long, just like the marshmallows.

Caedmon’s Call

Sometimes I fear
Maybe I’m not chosen
You’ve hardened my heart like Pharoe
And that would explain why
Life is so hard for me
And I am sad that Esau hated
Crying against what’s faded
Saying, “Father, please…
Is there any left for me?”

Cast all my doubts
Please, prove me wrong
Cause these demons
Can be so headstrong
Make my walls fall
Please, prove me wrong
Cause this resentment’s been building
So burn them up with Your fire so strong
And if You can before I bail
Please, prove me wrong

I fear maybe this is all just a game
And our friends and our families all play
To harness the young
And give some comfort to the old

Cast all my doubts
Please, prove me wrong
Cause these demons
Can be so headstrong
Make my walls fall
Please, prove me wrong
Cause this resentment’s been building
So burn them up with Yfire so strong
And if You can before I bail
Please, prove me wrong

Don’t let my doubts prove true
Draw me close and hold me near to You
Keep me strong until the day You…

Cast all my doubts
Please, prove me wrong
Cause these demons
Can be so headstrong
Make my walls fall
Please, prove me wrong
Cause this resentment’s been building
So burn them up with Your fire so strong
And if You can before I bail
Please, prove me wrong

Closing – that’s what they call the day that you sign all those final papers to buy your home. I remember it well. It was a long time ago, but, I know that you’re finally allowed to start moving in – after your closing.  You see, we sat with the previous owner in the attorney’s office and I got to write enough checks to wallpaper at least one wall!  Now, they wouldn’t let us move anything in until closing day.  That’s the law.  It was still the home of the previous owner until that day.  But as soon as we left that office the truck could roll, and it did.  And all our stuff could get moved in.  Of course this all has to be carefully timed – one family has to be out before another family can move in, right?  Sure!  What if we had rolled up with our truck and the previous owners were still there?  We can’t both live there!  One has to move out before the other can move in.

I’m Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about “Somebody’s Got to Move!”

Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Hebrews 12:15. God is showing us, here, that there are two things that can’t live in the same house at the same time; actually, in the same heart.  There’s no way they can co-exist.  Here’s what it says, “See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.”  Now, with the stress you have, you sure don’t want to miss God’s grace and His sustaining love.  But this says you can, you can miss God’s grace!  How do you do that?  Well, by having this other guy living in your heart.  It talks about having “no bitter root.”  If bitterness is living in your heart, grace cannot move in.  One or the other has got to go.

Could it be that part of your stress is a poisonous root of bitterness in your heart? Maybe you’ve been hurt, maybe you’ve been rejected, maybe you’ve been abused, disappointed, and there’s a growing resentment in your heart.  Notice – growing.  It says the bitter root grows.  Bitterness and anger never stand still, they keep growing. They start to “defile many,” to spill over into other close relationships.

Just last week a mother told me about how she’d been hurt some years before and how her heart, she said, had grown hard. She said, “Now my hard heart is affecting my husband and my children.”  You see, it was bitterness that turned it hard.  The irony is that a grudge chains you emotionally to the person you dislike.  “I don’t like so and so, so I’ll think about her a lot.”  That’s what happens!  Unforgiveness is like this emotional cancer and it eats you up inside.  It costs you God’s sustaining grace, and they can’t live in the same house at the same time!

Isn’t it time you released that bitterness? Hasn’t it done enough damage? It isn’t hurting the person you’re bitter toward, but it’s hurting you, and probably others you love.  Bitterness can only be moved out by something called forgiveness.  Going to the Great Forgiver, the One who said of those who had just nailed Him to a cross, “Father, forgive them,” and you say, “Lord, give me the grace to release this person, to forgive them, to release them to You.”  Not to excuse them, but choosing to treat them not as they treated me, but as Jesus treated me.

www.hutchcraft.com

Psalms 91:1, 4, 9 and 10

“He who dwells in the shelter of The Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.”

“He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge.  You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, or the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday.  A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you.”

“If you make The Most High your dwelling – even the Lord, who is my refuge – then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent, for he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.”

Reading the word of God and His promises for us, calms my heart and my worries. Open it up – you never know what you might find.