Author: Christine Wyrtzen

By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host.  Psalm 33:6

When I make something, I begin with pre-existing pieces.  Make a cake and I have a list of ingredients that already exist.  Fashion a piece of pottery and there is clay to mold.  I don’t make the clay.  While I am only an artisan, God is a Creator.  He made the earth out of nothing.  There was nothing there for Him to work with except omnipotent power.  If He wanted water, He made water where there had been nothingness.  Water had never been and didn’t even have a name!

This is what makes God ~ God.  This is where He excels.  He has not changed with time.  His power has not diminished.  This same creative God of Genesis spoke again through the prophet Isaiah and said, “Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?  I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”  Isaiah 43:19  Once again, something out of nothing.

Throughout my life, I have stood (and am standing) on this powerful truth in prayer.  My Father can bring something about when I see absolutely no evidence that such a thing could ever exist.  He can bring reconciliation when there is hatred.  He can bring repentance when there is stubborn rebellion.  He can bring opportunity when others haven’t yet thought of it.  He can bring provision when cupboards are empty.  He can bring recognition when there’s invisibility.

What needs to come to pass that, as of now, shows no sign of happening?  When you pray, ask boldly – but with the mind of Christ and for the glory of His name.   If we are God’s, His power and promises are at work over the expanse of our lives, over the deep and the unseen.

Speak Your Word over my life and bring into existence what is not yet there.  When it appears, I will fall to my knees in worship.  In Jesus name, Amen

He will drink from the brook by the way; therefore he will lift up his head.  Psalm 110:7

From what do I need saving?  The forgiveness of sins was only the beginning.  So much more, as it pertains to salvation, is offered me in Christ.  Do I draw from its waters when I need it?  Or, do I suffer needlessly?  If it’s the latter, the reason is either unawareness that there is help from God’s well or my lack of humility to admit my need and ask for salvation.

 So Lord, I look at the well of salvation that you made available at the foot of the cross.  You helped me see my sin, how absolutely lost I was, so that I ran to the well of your mercy to drink.  I pray for all those I love today who are too threatened to admit their need of a Savior.  Show them the horror of living under Your condemnation and the exhilaration of living under Your grace.

Jesus, the well of salvation is still deep for every spiritual child You are raising.  Am I willing to see my sin and my need?

• Where I feed on my fear and become small, lead me to confess it and drink from your well of courage.  You promise me salvation.
• Where I feed on the torment of past failures, lead me to confess it and drink from your well of forgiveness.  You mercy is new every morning.
• Where I criticize others in order to feel powerful, lead me to confess it and remember your undeserved love toward me when I was condemned to die.  You deeply love the one I am maligning.  Even the unregenerate.
• Where I feel angry over needs yet unmet, lead me to confess my entitlement and drink from your well of promises to the humble.  You know my need and will bend low to save me if I live gratefully.
• Where I feel hopelessness over my own sin, lead me out of unbelief.  I drink from the well of salvation and acknowledge Your power to change the one You created

Make me a child who runs to Your well of provision.  Let me awaken with Your well of resources ever before me.  Let me drink of it as easily as I sit down to eat three meals a day.  Smash my pride.  Enable me to view myself as You see me; both sinful and forgiven.  You see the level of my thirst today.  Do what you need to do to increase it so that I live as one who proves that You are enough.  The abundant life starts at the well of salvation. Deepen my thirst.  Amen

How clearly the sky reveals God’s glory!  How plainly it shows what he has done!  Each day announces it to the following day; each night repeats it to the next.  No speech or words are used, no sound is heard;  yet their message goes out to all the world and is heard to the ends of the earth.  Psalm 19:1-4

The radiance of God’s glory is veiled even though so many of His children, including me, ask everyday, “Show me your glory today.”  I’ve seen enough of it to change my heart but the amount I have seen is a grain of sand in the vast ocean of glory.

What happens when God shows His face and gives more than a small dose?  Apparently, silence.

Job was silenced in his accusations when God became present and started asking him questions.

Isaiah was silenced when He saw God in all of His glory.  Immediately, he pronounced himself unclean.

Habakkuk tried to speak and nothing came out.

John, as well as he knew Jesus, saw him in his glorified state and fell as dead at His feet.  Jesus had to touch him and bring life back to John’s body.

One day, all of us will stand before God.  We will see him in all of His glory.  It won’t be the same as standing before human judges.  There, we are often acquitted, even though guilty.  Our judges are fallen and we grow cynical of earthly laws and their consequences when we are tempted to discount those in higher authority.

The most eloquent will be silenced on the day they see God.  He who has been self-impressed, insistent that his good deeds outweigh his bad deeds and are enough to earn him a place in heaven, will tremble and lose his voice in the presence of holiness.  Even the most faithful of God’s children will bow low in humility.  God is more glorious than any human description; more holy than flawed people can even conceive.

As a fallen woman, I can not imagine what perfection is like.  For now, I see glimpses of Him and it stirs me to worship and defer my will to His.  Since I was created to worship and to love God, this is the most exhilarating experience I will ever know in this lifetime.  Any of Satan’s counterfeits pale in comparison.

Let me see as much of Your glory as I can see and live.  Please, Lord. Amen

O LORD, you have examined my heart and know everything about me.  Psalm 139:1

Our family has moved many times over the years.  We, like many of you reading this, have had to learn how to make different kinds of places ‘home’.  We have been involved in various kinds of churches, assorted in denomination.  While we enjoyed making new friends, there was always a challenge.  The new affiliations we made didn’t know our history.  They didn’t know the places where we grew up; the schools, teachers, and the life experiences that shaped us.  They didn’t know our parents.  They never walked the grounds of our childhood home.  Their ability to really understand who we were was compromised by a lack of history.  That was often isolating and lonely.

I can never say to God, “But you just don’t understand.”  He was involved with me from the beginning and that relationship started even before my conception.  He knew every subplot of my story before I even lived it.  He was an active participant early on even when I was unaware of His presence.  He knew me when I was a slave to sin and He knew how I would respond internally to imprisonment. He took note of it all as I lived it and with every step into dark places, He wrote redemptive opposites into my story line.

I am still under transformation.  There are things, even today, which puzzle me about myself.  I get frustrated at times and wonder why I respond to life like I do.  But now, I know who to run to.  “Reveal myself to me, Lord”… is a prayer that started turning my life around some years ago.  Because He has been my God throughout the course of my entire life’s history, He has divine insight into what makes me the person I am.  He is gracious to reveal why certain things shut me down, why I can be shy, or stubborn, or overcompensating.  Oh, it is a comfort to be in a relationship with One who not only knows me, but loves me.

Some are intimate today with someone who knows too much about them and uses the information against them.  Oh, they are not like God.  We must be careful to make God our refuge.  Only He deserves the abandon of childlike trust.  Only He should be given the power to write and shape someone’s identity.  People come and go.  God remains in my history past – and will be in every part of my history future.

I give you all the power to re-write my past and reveal my future.  In Jesus name, Amen

For my words are wise and my thoughts are filled with insight.  Psalm 49:3

Encouragers are hard to find.  Discouragers are everywhere.  One look, one word of criticism, and someone already fragile wants to throw up their hands and quit.  Yet, when most of us think of someone who encourages, we picture a person who compliments and gives positive feedback.  That is a weak translation.  True, encouraging words are designed to penetrate to the core of anothers weakness.

I have to know someone well to give them comfort.  I must know their life, their work, and enough about their family to understand where their sources of joy and pain exist.  To know where to infuse spiritual courage, I have to be intuitive; knowing with just a look that they are not themselves on a certain day.  If they put on a good face, I will see through it and not let it slide.

Ron and I hold a neighborhood bible study in our home each Sunday night.  We are challenged each week to not allow the generic “good to see you!” to be the extent of our interaction.  Ron and I want so much to engage like Christ would if He were the teacher of a small group.  We have ruled out the assumption that to encourage is to give shallow compliments and parrot clichés.  They don’t impart anything but anger and loneliness.

I have some rich encouragers in my life.  And because I have experienced the power of Jesus in their words to me, I love to encourage others.  I can’t wait to meet a stranger, hear their story, ask them where they struggle, and leave them with the words of Christ for where they faint.  But if I’m drowning in my own challenges and don’t know how to abide in Christ, then I have no courage to give away.   I have to work through my own issues with God because the promises of God, strategically spoken, are the lifelines others need. Encouraging words are meant to penetrate the darkness of anothers despair.

Out of your perfect knowledge of people, give me the Your words for them.  Make them as honey for others wounds.  In Jesus’ name, Amen

Contend, O Lord, with those who contend with me; fight against those who fight against me. Let them be like chaff before the wind, with the angel of the Lord driving them on. Let their way be dark and slippery, with the angel of the Lord pursuing them. Psalm 35:1,5-6

Imprecatory psalms are those that cry out for judgment and for God to bring calamity upon enemies. The thought of that can be off-putting if I believe that God is loving but not necessarily just. If I believe that He is only loving, I focus completely on forgiving and forgetting. But if believe that He is also just, I know that I’m invited to cry out for God’s judgment upon those who persecute the saints.

If I’ve wronged others and suffer their retribution, this is not righteous persecution. Therefore, prayers for judgment are not mine to pray. I am the one who is under judgment until I repent. But, if I am afflicted unjustly because of my faith, imprecatory Psalms are allowed. Prayer is in my arsenal, not revenge.

Lest I salivate at the thought of God letting my enemies have it, there is a catch. For whom am I offended? If I believe I deserve better than this, that I have rights, and I am indignant that any one should rise up against me, then I am enraged solely for my sake. God is not in my thoughts as I dream of revenge. I rise up to be the judge and to judge. But, if I am offended for God (and this takes some soul searching), imprecatory psalms are there for me and David teaches me how to pray them.

The next time I am spoken against, rejected, or mocked because of a kingdom clash, I need to ask myself why I’m angry. Naturally, personal pain will be my instinctive reaction but spiritual maturity is to be able to move past that to view God’s perspective. God sees the offense but understands that it was committed because we’re His children and Satan’s enemies. If I set out to really hurt someone, I will be most effective if I hurt one of their children. Satan knows this principle. He can’t lash out personally at God for he is a defeated foe because of Christ. So how can he wage war? By going on a rampage against God’s precious children. He thrives on carnage. As the saints in heaven see earth’s martyrs and cry out, “How long, O Lord?”, Satan hears and this lament is his opiate.

Don’t let me pray for Your intervention and judgement until it is a holy prayer. In Jesus name, Amen

  Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit.
Psalm 34:13  

How many marriages implode because couples can’t talk honestly about their parents? It’s hard to ‘leave and cleave’. Childhoods are sacred unless there has been unhappiness we’re anxious to leave behind.

There comes a point in every person’s life when God calls us to see the truth about our family. I am to embrace the good, acknowledge the bad, and cling to God for grace as I grieve and make different choices. I am to love God more than my ancestors and love truth more than I love the ‘family way of doing things’. If everybody did this, it would be easier but only a minority face the truth of their families and are willing to live as God’s son or daughter. They risk being the only one in their families who are willing to be sanctified, ‘set apart’, from everyone else.

There is an unwise way to talk to our spouses about their parents. It’s when past hurts affect my tone.  Legitimate complaints are disregarded because my words are vicious. Every conversation that exposes ungodliness in family needs a lot of prayer beforehand. You know the truth of the phrase, ‘Blood is thicker than water.’ It’s hard to hear someone else, even a spouse, talk about my parents and siblings and not immediately think, ‘How dare you!’

Few scriptures are more well known that this one. “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” Never is this more true than when I see my family as God sees them. When I embrace the truth of my origins, endless spiritual possibilities open up before me.

How long it took for me to see the faults of the family I love; even longer to see my own faults. Thank you for not giving up and continuing to bring the truth before my eyes. Amen

The LORD preserves the simple; when I was brought low, he saved me. Psalm 116:6

No matter how I feel about today, You are teaching me to walk like You. Teach me humility through obedience and wisdom through observing. In Jesus name, Amen

My soul clings to the dust; give me life according to your word.  Psalm 119:25

There is the expression, “Something in me died.” Sadly to say, I have experienced it personally a number of times in my past.  It was my soul talking.  I remember the sinking feeling, a kind of bending toward the earth.  My body felt like lead.  The first time the sensation came over me, I discovered my mother was going to die.  It happened again some years later when I uncovered a plot of betrayal by someone I trusted in ministry.  Once more when traumatic news reached my ears about a family member, and then one last time when I was disappointed beyond what I believed I could survive.  My soul clung to the dust and I wondered at the possibility of passing the next many decades in front of me with a body very much alive but a soul that already felt like it had expired.

How was I revived?  By nurturing the only part of me that contained the powerful seeds of life ~ my spirit; the place where the Word dwells.  “His word is alive and sharper than any two edged sword.” His Word is more powerful than any disappointment or disease.  His Word mends a heart that appears irrevocably ripped in two.  His Word has cured the sick and even raised the dead. Whether that death is physical or spiritual makes no difference.  By surrendering my thoughts and feelings to the power of the Word, and then by asking God to open my heart to breath His very life into me, I began to experience my own resurrection.

I can make a mistake reading scripture.  I can perceive that David’s words in today’s text is just a bit dramatic.  If any of us have lived near someone histrionic, we run away from strong emotional statements and tone them down, at least 50%, to arrive at the truth.  But if you’ve faced the dark times, you know that David’s expression is literal.  “The living dead” describes those who breathe but live as though dead.  Ah, but the Word shakes us out of our graves if we lean on it with all of our weight.  It promises life abundant if we put all our hope in it.  Finally, I remember that ‘it’ is not a Word, but the very person of Christ.

Every day, I decide to put all my hope in You.  There is life in no other.  This is not depression, this is my commitment to live abundantly.  Thank you for teaching me this – though the way was hard, Lord.  Amen

Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee?  Psalm 85:6

I’ve known periods in my life that I would have described as a wilderness. I couldn’t seem to hear God’s voice. I believe that my pain veiled His whispers. He was there with me but I couldn’t sense it. He was guiding me but I couldn’t discern it. I felt alone and it was a spiritual battle to just believe that I wasn’t alone.   Many times, I lost it and my theology went south

I’ve also known periods where God seemed very much alive and engaged with me. So much of what I read impacted me like electricity to my spirit. Answers to prayer came in quick succession. My pen couldn’t seem to capture the litany of things I was being taught by God. I lived on a mountaintop for almost the entire year of 2008. Every day of my journal reads with the intensity of someone in love.

But then there is that place in the middle – in between being fully alive and fully exiled in the wilderness. It’s called ‘no man’s land.’ There may be inspiring moments but mostly, ‘no man’s land’ requires spiritual discipline to walk faithfully. It’s confusing, too. You’d be hard pressed to describe what is wrong. It’s a nagging malaise. Your heart is dull. Nothing seems to thrill and spiritual appetite is just absent. After so much time in ‘no man’s land, you’d give anything just to feel again.

What precipitates a journey into numbness? The crash after a mountaintop. The day after a victorious battle. The period following prolonged stress. A season during which multiple changes are occurring. The flesh is tired. The heart is spent. Only God knows how to restore and revive.

Praying David’s prayer is the beginning of healing.

“Revive me, Lord! I’m bringing my lifeless heart to you. Something has dulled it. I don’t know myself well enough to even diagnose why I’m in this condition. All I know is ~ I want to want You again. I want to be thrilled by Your voice. I want to be alive to Your Word. I’m a long way away. You are my Physician and Counselor and can give life to my lifeless heart. Revive me, I pray. In Jesus name, Amen”