Awesome Construction

God is the perfect engineer, everything He created must work in perfection; we can clearly see that by observing the nature, the Earth, the universe and our bodies.

When we pray, sometimes we will not receive an immediate response from God. There are a lot of things that need to be done so that the answer for our prayers can be delivered.

If we ask to an engineer that we want a huge, beautiful, modern and impressive skyscraper; surely the engineer will not deliver our build by tomorrow. It may take more than a year of day and night hard work. There will be a lot of work to be done, the engineer will need to see the land, he will have to prepare a floor plan, a quotation of approximately expenses will need to be prepared and approved, buildings permits, he will need to hire workers, purchase material and lots and lots of other things will be required.

In the same way, before God deliver the answer of our prayers, God may need to work a lot in our lives, by molding us, preparing our hearts and removing all “dirty debris” from our hearts and minds. It depends on what we ask from God. In our minds, it may sound a quite simple thing to do. But God do not make anything just anyhow.

I remember when my uncle purchased a land to build my grandmother’s house; the land was a hill! It took almost a year just to make that land to look plain. All that my grandma wanted was a two bedroom house. It sounded very simple, but the land wasn’t appropriated for an immediate construction.

 Likewise, we may ask even for simple things, but our hearts and minds aren’t appropriated YET to receive it from God. And therefore, for some people, a long and hard work might be required, for others, just a little preparation will be necessary. It all depends in how is the condition of our hearts.

All grudges, lies, immoralities, hatred, hypocrisy, falsehood, addictions, pride, slander, judgment, impurities, etc,  needs to be removed so that the Lord can pour down the answers of our prayers.

Once we decide to change, the Lord will do His work in our lives. If we have the patience to wait, we will see the glory of our answered prayers. On the other hand, if we do not supply the engineer of our lives with our constant prayers, faith and perseverance; we are going to end up like those abandoned building, that unfortunately the landlord could not afford to complete its construction.

God can work in us in order to grant our petitions if we keep the flames of our faith on and if we are eager to change.

My dear friend, I encourage you now to make a prayer, ask what you need and tell Jesus that you allow him to do all the necessary work in your life, tell him that you accept all the changes that your life may need and that you are eager to do your part. Persevere in faith and in prayers. By doing so, you will see the marvelous work the Lord will do in your life.

Be a blessing!

Family problems

Every family may have problems and the simple reason for such conflicts are that different personalities are sharing the same house.

Each one of us including each one of our family member, has a unique way of thinking and they may like something that we may dislike it. 

We all have differences and if we are not able to understand that, we will find ourselves creating a war at home. We are not like our spouses and although we “make” our children, they’re definitely not like ourselves.

Some people just miss the point here; they want to determine how their spouse and children MUST be. They act as if their family members are a mere robot; obeying his/hers commands. Obviously it will create turmoil and a family war will began.

It doesn’t mean that we have to remove the correction and order from our house and children; in fact, we have to teach our kids on the right way and never neglected them. Fortunate, the Bible give us lots of instructions towards family matters and I will share some verses here:

Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.

 Proverb 29:17 Correct your son, and he will give you rest; yes, he will give delight to your soul.

Some parents think that they are doing well in removing the correction out from their kids; unfortunately they are doing more harm than good.  We have to be an example, we have to teach them well, correct them when it is necessary and respect them because they have their own personality.

Respect is an important key in solving family conflict, when husbands and wives lose it; the relationship becomes almost unbearable between them. We should respect and understand each ones individuality and personality.

The Bible clearly shows the duty that each family member should have in order to have a health family:

Ephesians 5:22 says: Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.

Ephesians 5:25 says: Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up to her

Ephesians 6:1-3 says: Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right."Honor your father and mother," which is the first commandment with promise: "That it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth."

Ephesians 6:4 says: And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.

Proverbs 14:1says: The wise woman builds her house, but the foolish pulls it down with her hands.

We can see that every family member has a duty, if we fulfill our duties and follow these instructions, we will be able to have a happy family.

I know that it is not easy to bring peace to a family that has been deteriorated by constant war. In a war people get hurt and wounded. God can heal your wounds and He can restore the love, peace and order in your family, but it is necessary prayers, faith and forgiveness.

You can experience a transformation in your family by repeating this prayer wholeheartedly and in faith:

                Dear Lord, restore the love and the peace in our family

                Give me wisdom to teach our children in the way they should go

                Give me love and patience in order to build up our family

                Restore our marriage and teach me to forgive the past

                Heal our wounds and replace all the tears for joy

                Dear Lord, give me insight to see my own mistakes

                And to do not judge others

                Lord, I need you. I cannot do it alone, I need you my Lord.

                I place my family into your Holy hands

                I believe that you have the power to transform our family into a blessed family

                Thank you my Lord

                In Jesus Name, Amen.

May God bless you all

Storms of the life

Frequently we have the bad habit of “exalt” our hardships; we can easily confess that our problems are bigger than our strength and beyond any solution.

I grew up listening from my parents a certain phrase that is totally true and it says: do not make a storm in a glass of water.

This means that very often our problems are not bigger than a mere glass of water and we end up creating a storm with so little water in it.

Some people may read these words and may think: you speak like this because you don’t know what I’m enduring in my life right now.

Yes, I really don’t know, but one thing I know: you are probably exalting your problem as the hardest to solve, the most difficult, the mostly painful or the most everything that you can put it up there.

The Bible gives us many examples of people who really endured tough problems and how they overcame their hardships and I will show just a few of them:

Queen Esther: She had a severe problem; she was a Jew and in that time the King was compelled by his wicked servant Haman, to ordain that all Jews should be killed.And the letters were sent by couriers into all the king’s provinces, to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate all the Jews, both young and old, little children and women, in one day, on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar, and to plunder their possessions. Esther 3:13 NIV

The Jews were in great pain and agony, however, the Queen Esther preferred to trust in God and she decided to fast before taking any measure in order to help her people. Esther 4:16 "Go, gather all the Jews who are present in Shushan, and fast for me; neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day. My maids and I will fast likewise. And so I will go to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish!"

After fasting, Esther waited for the right time to talk with the king and denounce all the evil that the King’s servant was plotting against her and her people. God has power to change any situation and to transform any heart. Her act of faith towards a bad situation granted a victory for the Jews.

Esther 7:8 Then King Ahasuerus said to Queen Esther and Mordecai the Jew, "Indeed, I have given Esther the house of Haman, and they have hanged him on the gallows because he tried to lay his hand on the Jews.

Our Lord Jesus calms down a storm: Mathew 8:24-27 And suddenly a great tempest arose on the sea, so that the boat was covered with the waves. But He was asleep.

Then His disciples came to Him and awoke Him, saying, "Lord, save us! We are perishing!"

But He said to them, "Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?" Then He arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.

So the men marveled, saying, "Who can this be, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?"

A great tempest in the sea is indeed a tough problem, the disciples were all afraid of death. Our Lord Jesus was sleeping.

  How could someone sleep when a boat is about to shipwreck?  The response of Jesus was to teach the disciples and to teach us as well, how to deal with the storms of problems that may come to us. He didn’t bother that the boat was about to sink. He didn’t bother with the problem!

O you of little faith! That was Jesus words for all of us. In the midst of our problems, we should not lose heart. It is a common thing to stop praying and fast when things go badly rough. However, that is the only way to overcome our hardships.

I can give many other examples of people in the Bible who had a hard time and overcame it; we can speak about King David when he overcame the giant, we can speak about Joseph who was sold as slavery from his own brothers, we can also say about Jacob who fled from his brother and he had nothing to eat and the only thing he had was stone as his pillow and how about Lot, who just lost EVERYTHING!

But all of them had just one thing in common: FAITH.

We should not lose heart, when things are just too bad we should grab Jesus’ hands instead exalting how big and tough our problems are.

God Bless you all