Saturday, August 17, 2013

ENTER ONLY....



always a ramble...


ENTER ONLY









 The other day I went for a run and found myself at my daughters school.  My oldest daughter will be starting intermediate school this year ( I guess it is the junior high before the junior high?) I am already aging myself as we had three schools growing up: elementary, junior high, and high school.   If you read through some of my previous posts, we have done the home schooling route and for now, it isn’t what our family feels we should be doing. I went to public school and became a Christian at the age of 15 through Fellowship of Christian Athletes and Young Life. I am forever thankful for those ministries.

As I was on my run, visions of my senior year came to me and remembering what had happened and recalling  reading the book “She Said Yes” (http://www.amazon.com/She-Said-Yes-Unlikely-Martyrdom/dp/0743400526) The story about Cassie Bernall who was shot in the 1999 shootings, for saying she believed in God. I graduated in 1999 and remember the Columbine  school shootings and since then, every year or so, another school is affected by some tragedy. Including this past year, the Connecticut shootings, which also happened a week after we sent our two daughters back to public school. These thoughts were  what brought me to my daughters school. 

I found myself running full circle around this school.  I prayed for each window, each class room, every sign I saw for the office, the gym, the auditorium, everything up to the back entrance and the side walk, I prayed over.   I ran around it and PRAYED. I prayed for God to be invited into this school. For my daughter  to be a light there. For me to be involved and  to stand aware of how to be used there. I prayed for instruction on how to continue to raise my daughter to be a Christ Follower. I prayed For protection of the students and for the teachers.  I prayed For Him to BE THERE!  Just as He was there for me the fall of 1997 when I prayed for him to be in my heart at a Fellowship of Christian Athlete meeting that was held  IN A PUBLIC SCHOOL! 






With my run around it the story of Joshua came to mind and how he was called to march around the city of Jericho.  

I plan to go back before school starts and run around there each day and pray for God  to break down the walls that have been placed there for Him not to be allowed in there.    The day before she starts I want to do 7 laps and  give a loud shout for Him to be there not just for this year but for the remainder of time until Jesus comes back.

Joshua 6:16-17 "The seventh time around, when the priests sounded the trumpet blast, Joshua commanded the army, “Shout! For the Lord has given you the city! The city and all that is in it are to be devoted to the Lord"


I am praying the students, the parents, the teachers and the administration of my school district hear this shout and begin to hear and feel God’s presence and see restoration to where so many things are broken in our school system.  I pray against the evil that will also feel His presence and that it wont be allowed into our schools any longer, as it has been in the past, and has been allowed to bring in a spirit of fear and anger.  

I am looking forward to being involved in anyway possible to bring our faith into our school district. Believe me I am prepared for the fight and rejection.  I am looking forward to seeing my children be light in their school.  

Please join me by marching around your community’s schools. As groups of churches, as groups of parents, as just YOU.  

As I finished my run around the school,  I noticed the “ENTER ONLY” sign to the parking lot. I made my final prayer, and asked God to “ENTER ONLY into this school”.  

I then walked home.  If you are a runner there is something so hard about stopping in a run to walk. It is so defeating, not to mention, when it is the run back home, you know you are almost done.  I walked home thinking about how Oswald Chambers said, “There is no thrill for us in walking, yet it is the test for all of our steady and enduring qualities.” He also wrote this....



Having the reality of God’s presence is not dependent on our being in a particular circumstance or place, but is only dependent on our determination to keep the Lord before us continually. Our problems arise when we refuse to place our trust in the reality of His presence. The experience the psalmist speaks of— “We will not fear, even though . . .” (Psalm 46:2)— will be ours once we are grounded on the truth of the reality of God’s presence, not just a simple awareness of it, but an understanding of the reality of it. Then we will exclaim, “He has been here all the time!” At critical moments in our lives it is necessary to ask God for guidance, but it should be unnecessary to be constantly saying, “Oh, Lord, direct me in this, and in that.” Of course He will, and in fact, He is doing it already! If our everyday decisions are not according to His will, He will press through them, bringing restraint to our spirit. Then we must be quiet and wait for the direction of His presence.




Friends He has actually never left....He is just waiting for us to march for Him and to get out of our fear and anxiety that has left us so broken as a country.....




Joshua 6 (NIV)
(http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Joshua+6&version=NIV)
1Now the gates of Jericho were securely barred because of the Israelites. No one went out and no one came in.
2 Then the Lord said to Joshua, “See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men. 3 March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days. 4 Have seven priests carry trumpets of rams’ horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets. 5 When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have the whole army give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the army will go up, everyone straight in.”
6 So Joshua son of Nun called the priests and said to them, “Take up the ark of the covenant of the Lord and have seven priests carry trumpets in front of it.” 7 And he ordered the army, “Advance! March around the city, with an armed guard going ahead of the ark of the Lord.”
8 When Joshua had spoken to the people, the seven priests carrying the seven trumpets before the Lord went forward, blowing their trumpets, and the ark of the Lord’s covenant followed them. 9 The armed guard marched ahead of the priests who blew the trumpets, and the rear guard followed the ark. All this time the trumpets were sounding. 10 But Joshua had commanded the army, “Do not give a war cry, do not raise your voices, do not say a word until the day I tell you to shout. Then shout!” 11 So he had the ark of the Lord carried around the city, circling it once. Then the army returned to camp and spent the night there.
12 Joshua got up early the next morning and the priests took up the ark of the Lord. 13 The seven priests carrying the seven trumpets went forward, marching before the ark of the Lord and blowing the trumpets. The armed men went ahead of them and the rear guard followed the ark of the Lord, while the trumpets kept sounding. 14 So on the second day they marched around the city once and returned to the camp. They did this for six days.
15 On the seventh day, they got up at daybreak and marched around the city seven times in the same manner, except that on that day they circled the city seven times. 16 The seventh time around, when the priests sounded the trumpet blast, Joshua commanded the army, “Shout! For the Lord has given you the city! 17 The city and all that is in it are to be devoted[a] to the Lord. Only Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house shall be spared, because she hid the spies we sent. 18 But keep away from the devoted things, so that you will not bring about your own destruction by taking any of them. Otherwise you will make the camp of Israel liable to destruction and bring trouble on it. 19 All the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron are sacred to the Lord and must go into his treasury.”
20 When the trumpets sounded, the army shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the men gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so everyone charged straight in, and they took the city. 21 They devoted the city to the Lord and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.
22 Joshua said to the two men who had spied out the land, “Go into the prostitute’s house and bring her out and all who belong to her, in accordance with your oath to her.” 23 So the young men who had done the spying went in and brought out Rahab, her father and mother, her brothers and sisters and all who belonged to her. They brought out her entire family and put them in a place outside the camp of Israel.
24 Then they burned the whole city and everything in it, but they put the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron into the treasury of the Lord’s house. 25 But Joshua spared Rahab the prostitute, with her family and all who belonged to her, because she hid the men Joshua had sent as spies to Jericho—and she lives among the Israelites to this day.
26 At that time Joshua pronounced this solemn oath: “Cursed before the Lord is the one who undertakes to rebuild this city, Jericho:
“At the cost of his firstborn son
    he will lay its foundations;
at the cost of his youngest
    he will set up its gates.”

27 So the Lord was with Joshua, and his fame spread throughout the land.

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