Filters…

Today’s PrayerPoint ~ Filters

What do they do for us?

Air filters capture the junk we might end up breathing in.

What about other types of filters? You can filter what you might say by taking out the junk you might want to instinctively say — similar to an air filter. Or if you are talking about pictures and altering the way something looks you can use a variety of filters on Instagram to convey a mood. You can simplify or distort with little effort. What about the filters we use when we watch an interaction (and maybe read more into it than is there) or when we are listening to someone speak and we hear words of condemnation when they really weren’t intended in such a manner.

Have you noticed when you have a certain sensitivity that it makes its appearance in many situations? Maybe that is your filter? Sometimes filters add and sometimes they take away. I think we all have a history of interactions and many of them do come up from the depths at the least expected times.

FILTERS:

* Need to be changed or cleaned regularly

* Protect the air we breathe

* Can slant how we hear or view things

* Alter reality in subtle and not-so-subtle ways

If we would use a filter before we speak what could it do for us? What could it do for others?

Filters help a very verbal person like me have less regret for what I say.

What about using a filter when we LISTEN?

Do we hear what exactly is said? Do we add or subtract based on our history? Do we filter out any positives because we are determined to hear the negatives?

Filters can help my relationships not be exasperated but they can also skew the truth. There is always a level of filtering we do when we hear and when we speak.

As you go about your business today, think about how your perspective and experiences might filter the way you see and hear things. If you are the type of person who finds yourself with many verbal regrets consider pausing before you speak and put a filter in place. Not everything we think needs to be spoken!

Ga$ price$ are high, but I cannot complain…

I won’t lie. I did let out a groan as I drove by all the gas stations yesterday and saw $4.19 at the pump. But if I consider, for just a moment, all of the things that have happened to others that I am not experiencing, it helps me keep my perspective.

There has been nationwide flooding; many people losing their lives and homes to tornadoes; homes lost to wildfires; earthquakes, tsunamis, and nuclear issues in Japan; and many lives lost in war. You surely know of other incidents of devastation that I haven’t mentioned here.

In comparison? I live in a home that has heat and air and we have an income that allows us to use these ‘extras’. We typically don’t go hungry (and we could stand to once in a while). Our family is in good health and our kids love to learn. I feel incredibly blessed.

With everything else going on in the world, I do feel like the gas prices are relatively minor–they have been this high in 2008. I certainly hope they will go down but this might be the new normal. Who knows?

You are free to complain, but when I honestly take a look around at what is happening to families I know and love, around my community and state, in the US, and across the ocean, I am compelled to do three things:

1) pray for those who are impacted by all of those devastations;

2) figure out how I can pitch in and help someone navigate through a tough time;

3) be thankful for what I have been blessed with.

What are you going to do?

Would you be willing to add someone to your prayer list? Her name is Karolina. She is from Hungary. She is 20 years old. Her dad is very ill. Her mom died several years ago. She is an only child. She has some big things to tackle in order to be able to come back to the US for school in August. Please pray the way gets paved, if that is what God wants. And pray for her dad’s health.

God’s blessings on your week!!

Liz

What is Your Prayer Perspective?

God has provided you with a unique prayer perspective based on your station in life and all of your experiences. God can use all of your adventures (both good and bad) to nurture your heart for prayer. For example, if there is divorce in your family, you have thoughts regarding how it impacts and family, relationships, etc. If you were abused as a child, you likely have a heart for victims of abuse and, due to your circumstances, you have a unique perspective.

There are people God has placed in my life that either need or have requested prayers for a variety of situations, some I relate to well, others I can only imagine the difficulties. I have found that when I just ponder a circumstance, as little as I may know about it, God will bring to mind different angles of the situation that could use prayer.

My mom died after a long battle with cancer. At the moment, I have a prayer perspective for people supporting their parents as they age, navigating all the medical issues, dealing with an estate, being long distance in all of this, trying to keep the siblings connected, being supportive to stressed siblings, etc…..

Think about the things that you have experienced in your life and how God can turn those into a ‘prayer perspective’ for someone in a similar situation. A general prayer is great–I see it as a sketch. But when I think of covering someone in prayer, I think of covering the angles that I see (from my perspective) and it is like coloring in the prayer.