God Moments

Yesterday morning as I woke up, music was playing on my alarm, which is quite rare as usually I'm awake long before it goes off :) The sunlight was already beginning to shine through the blinds and the words that were playing in the songs were "How great is our God, sing with me, how great is our God...then sings my soul my Savior God to thee...Open the eyes of my heart God, open the eyes of my heart, I want to see You...Holy holy holy I want to see You....Hallelujah what a Savior, He is everything to me.." What a great way to wake up! ♡ I love waking up when my heart is so in tune right away with the things of God and feelings of peace and contentment just wash over me! So, I got up out of my bed with my heart/mind singing all these songs and opened the blind to this amazing sun rising above the rooftop of the house behind me. Right now the words on my alarm are saying "Just look at the sun for a moment and think the Lord's glory is 10,000 times more intense than that sun." Wow!! I love that!!! ONLY GOD can time things like that and speak so directly in a single moment! Oh how I praise Him! ♡

When I opened my Bible, it opened to the passage in Psalm 119 and my eyes fell upon verses 145-149 which have been my situation many times "I pray with all my heart; answer me, Lord! I will obey your principles. I cry out to you: save me, that I may obey your decrees. I rise early, before the sun is up; I cry out for help and put my hope in your words. I stay awake through the night, thinking about your promise. In your faithful love, O Lord, hear my cry; in your justice, save my life." ...and I will add 'save my children's and loved ones lives too.' How perfect is that to read those words on this beautiful morning. It's often in the place that I've been...staying awake, rising early, crying out for God's help, putting my hope in Him and His words, wanting God to answer me, thinking about His promises, etc...
Right now the words on my alarm are singing.."how I long for that day to see You face to face and I will see you and touch you in that day...my heart yearns for you, great will be that day, oh God we wait on You, my eyes are turned toward You...great day when the sun/Son is rising, great when the day is fading and we wait on You.. "...yup my heart is full first thing that morning and it is longing.....is yours? ♡

I rise early, before the sun is up;
    I cry out for help and put my hope in your words.

Psalm 119:147  NLT

This verse especially rung deep in my soul as that is often the case for me...I'm usually an early riser, before the sun (in winter) or right after the sun (in summer) and placing my petitions before God and putting my hope in His promises. Right now my daughter Alysha is travelling and will be home soon. I get a little more nervous when she has many connections to make and flights to catch...but I know that God can do a better job at looking after her than I can. :)  She's had a tremendous experience travelling and has made incredible memories...from Bible school at Capernwray to staying at a friends over Christmas in England, to making new friends there, to travelling throughout Europe to staying at friends in Switzerland - friends that we had JUST met this past summer...another God ordained moment in our lives...which there are many of! :) We met in summer, Olga is a sister to my friend Helena, so now Alysha was in Olga's home in Zurich and we got to SKYPE the other day! SO THANKFUL! God is amazing!! :)

This past Sunday, which was Palm Sunday, we had a great day starting with church and being given Palm branches to use during worship. The passage of Scripture from John about the people laying down palm branches on the road in front of Jesus as he rode on a colt into Jerusalem was on my mind and I had wonderful memories of being in that place while I was in Israel this past March. I couldn't help but go through some of my photos and post a few. :)  Then we had a lovely lunch and visit with our son. Love it when he comes home! ♥ Then we ended the day by going to a Christ in the Passover presentation (put on by www.jewsforjesus.org) which took us through a Jewish Passover meal. It was wonderful and gave us more understanding of what Passover is and how it is celebrated by Jews all over the world. Once we got home, we also watched a documentary put on by Day of Discovery of how a Jewish man came to receive Jesus and believe that He is the Messiah. It was great to see all the Scriptures that led him on his journey to this decision. It is not always easy for a Jew to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, as many are still waiting for a messiah to come.

But it is also so interesting to me that right now in Bible study, we are journeying through the Book of Revelation as well and learning more about the end times. On the night of Passover, a lunar eclipse happened where the moon turned a blood red. Many believe this is prophetic of the end times being much closer than ever before. Four blood moons will be happening in a row...now, then in September 2014, then April 2015 and again in April 2015 with a solar eclipse happening right in the middle of the 4 blood moons. No one knows the day or the hour when Christ will return but it sure will be interesting to see what will happen in the world during this time. I enjoyed reading this blog post on the explanation of these blood moons.  John Hagee also has much teaching on these four blood moons. I believe it's definitely a sign of the times. I hadn't seen the eclipse personally but there have been many pics on Instragram and Facebook. Here's a few of them that I put together in a collage...I have the names of all the people who took them if you need to know. :)
It's always interesting to me the timing of things...and it's no coincidence that we're taking Revelation right now, with Passover happening and this lunar eclipse happening. 

So I will go back to my verse posted above, that I've chosen in the Scripture memory challenge I'm involved in....I will lay my petitions before God and put my hope in His words....we don't know what will happen tomorrow...or today..but we can rest in God's promises and trust in HIM to work all things out for good.