...Plain Upon Tablets

In last week's post , I mentioned the booklet Holy Boldness that I received from Great Aunt Blanche. This week, I'm focusing on the short (1-1/3 pages) introduction. Despite its brevity, the reader learns quickly that there is no time to be wimpy in your boldness and that you will be doing BIG things with this boldness. Image by Steve Harvey at Unsplash Let me state that this text was created by the American Bible Society and published in 1995. It was prepared for The Baltimore-Washington Conference of the United Methodist Church. Because there is no expiration date on God or the Word, I'm diving into these words 25 years later still expecting to learn a thing or three. Now, let's jump in... Essentially, the introduction, written by the late Bishop Felton Edwin May, states that there are two prerequisites to Holy Boldness. "First, we need to know what we believe." We need to know and believe that Christ was both crucified and resurrected, and because we know ...

I was blessed to have a grandmother with six beautiful sisters--women who were bold, funny, kind, encouraging, and faithful among so many other wonderful things. Let's get BOLD! In picture: back row l-r: Aunt Caroline, Aunt Lee, Grandma Audrey; front row l-r: Aunt Margie, Aunt Blanche, and Aunt Ethel; missing from pic: Aunt Edna When my grandmother Audrey passed in 1998, one of these awesome women stepped up to encourage me along my journey: my aunt Blanche. My Grandma Audrey and me at my B.A. graduation My grandmother was a fervent believer of God. Never knew anyone who believed more or loved him more (though my mom is close behind her and Aunt Blanche is tied). She was the one who constantly kept me in the faith, and she was the one left heartbroken when I had my moment of disbelief in God. She wouldn't know that losing her and then my grandfather four months later would only deepen that disbelief. My great-aunt Blanche About a year after Grandma passed, Aunt Blanche began w...

(even if my brain needs to get on board): release fear. release worry. release every negative thing (physical and mental) that threatens to drown you, and rest, rest fully, rest completely on the father because he never fails, and he will fight the battles as long as you keep moving forward and keep doing what HE tells you, not the world, not your mind, not your emotions, not your circumstances.

The very last paragraph of Day 4 in Andrew Murray's The Secret of Intercession  moves me: Christian warriors are pleading with God for the power of heaven to be sent down into the hearts of men. Oh, that God might burn into our hearts this one thought: intercession in its power is according to His will and is most certainly effectual!  (19) As Murray states in this chapter, God sees intercession as the  strongest power of man. It is "the highest expression of His people's readiness to receive and to yield themselves wholly to the working of His almighty power" (18). This chapter provides a general narrative of our receiving of this power. We all know of Adam and his role in God's narrative to do as all that was with and through God. We know of the sin, and we know of the world falling under this sin. But God gave us Jesus, and through Jesus, who interceded for man as man, that we are giving this wonderful, empowering, life-changing power to intercede, to ha...