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How God Sees You

26 August 2022

Cheri Strange

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Categories: Prayer

Have you ever walked into an environment afraid you don’t measure up? Wondering why God called you to this spot, or questioning if He has? How can you compete with her? It seems every person you meet has it more together and oozes with greater talents. Sometimes, when you throw a roomful of women together like that, it can become catty, competitive, and cold-hearted. You and I know from experience the times when it has, leaving us cautious and sometimes a hot internal mess when it might. It’s the kind of experience that causes you to forget, how God sees you.

Angst is what it creates—bouts of doubts mentally surface along with the replaying of sundry failures. It’s an internal unsettling of the soul, for sure. Throw in the responsibility of performing in front of said group, and you have a room filled with need.

Thankfully, someone in that room felt the unspoken need of reminding us of how God sees you and me and took action.

Meet Sandra.

I’m not completely sure what prompted her more than an overwhelming sense that those present needed to be reminded of who they were. About halfway through the conference with the performances looming—Sandra seized the moment by asking the leadership if we could stop while she prayed over every woman present.

It was soul-soothing, angst-defying comfort offered at exactly the right time. Her prayer was not rehearsed or practiced. She simply recognized a need and called upon the One who could meet it. Prayer unscripted and unscheduled.

I have asked Sandra to express what the Lord placed on her heart and share it with you. Welcome my new friend. I pray God speaks to you through her offering.

From a heart that wants to remind you how God sees you.

Sandra Jones

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending a conference for writers and speakers.

It was my first time attending. Honestly, I had no idea what to expect, because let’s be honest. When you get a room full of women together sometimes it can be not so pretty.

But this room was different. I discovered at this conference we were all in the same boat. Each woman was just trying to get through day-to-day while fulfilling her calling from God.

As women, we all have crazy busy lives juggling marriage, children, and careers. It can become overwhelming.

That sense of overwhelm can cause us can look at the woman described in Proverbs 3, and internally ask How in the world can I be that type of woman?

That’s the devil in your ear, my dear.

You are bits and pieces of that woman you fear you will never attain.

God sees each struggle you encounter.

He sees each tear you shed.

When you think you can’t go on, He is there.

He is there like a gentle breeze on your cheek, or like a feather floating in the air.

Your Father remains right beside you.

So do not fear I am with you do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my right hand. Isaiah 41:10

Oh, my sister, if you could only see yourself as God looks down and sees you.

You are My beautiful little girl.

You have grown to be a splendid woman of excellence, and

My eyes fill when I see the virtues in your heart.

“Letter From God to Women’’ Author Unknown

As we go through this crazy busy life trying to fulfill all our responsibilities, let me encourage you to remember these words from Isaiah to remind you of how God sees you. Then find your tribe. Find your family outside your family that can remind you of Whose you are, and be there for each other. Lift up, encourage, stand in the gap for each other, and listen without judgment, jealousy, or envy.

God has called each one of us for a different purpose to accomplish His work together. Grab hold of your Father’s hand, load up your tribe, working to accomplish what you can today. Accept the steps you made (or did not get to make) today. Give all these efforts to him at the end of the day, and start over tomorrow afresh, confident in His calling of you as His own.

A prayer reminding you of How God Sees You

Father God,

I come before you thanking you for this woman reading. I request that any weapon formed against her be broken and that she will find time for rest and peace in You alone. Father, lift her up so that she will know who she is in you, and enable her to walk this identity out daily. Thank you for the work you have already begun in her. Continue to grow her. We love you and praise you in Jesus’s name, Amen.

Sandra Jones spent a large amount of her life holding onto a lie the enemy kept telling her. For many years, Sandra chose a road of destruction for herself and her family, until God stepped in teaching her who she was in Him.

Today, Sandra shares what she has learned about her identity in Christ. Her passion is to help women find freedom from the lies of the enemy, regardless of what mistakes or missteps have occurred in life.

Sandra has been involved in prison and street ministry for 16 years, witnessing the deliverance of many and seeing these same individuals bloom into the beautiful children of God they were created to be. To experience God’s hand in the lives of these brings to my heart.

You can connect with Sandra on social media, by visiting her website, or contacting her through email. She would love to share how you, too can find purpose through the Father.

FB- sandrajonesspeaks

Web- sandrajonesspeaks.com

Email-sandrajonesspeaks@gmail.com

Did you know Cheri’s new book, Can You See Me, Now? is coming out soon?

Find out more HERE!

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Asking for Blessing

12 August 2022

Cheri Strange

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Categories: Prayer

Asking for Blessing

Have you ever prayed for a blessing? Is it narcissistic, or might it be exactly what God entices us to do? If you had asked me a few years ago, I would answer that it seems self-seeking and inappropriate. But today, the evidence in Scripture outways my feelings on the issue. The bottom line is that there exists a precedent for asking for a blessing and asking big.

Consider God’s appearance to Solomon:

At Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream by night, and God said, “Ask what I shall give you.” 1 Kings 3:5

Then Jesus makes the same offer to a blind man:

And Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” And the blind man said to him, “Rabbi, let me recover my sight.”Mark 10:51

Somehow I am able to argue my way to figure that was then and doesn’t mean now and me. But then I noticed Caleb, the one who, with Joshua, believed God would give the Promised Land over to the Israelites. It is said of Caleb that he had a different spirit and followed God wholeheartedly, so he was able to enter the land while all others save Joshua, perished.

Two Times Blessing

Two times in Scripture we learn that this same Caleb has a daughter who was given in marriage to a valiant warrior. For a wedding present, her father gave her some property — but it didn’t have any water. This beloved daughter goes to her father and does the very thing I wouldn’t think to do. She asks for a blessing.

And she got off her donkey, and Caleb said to her, “What do you want?”

She said to him, “Give me a blessing. Since you have given me the land of the Negeb, give me also springs of water.” And he gave her the upper springs and the lower springs. Joshua 15:18-19

The fact that we have this exchange recorded two times in the Bible communicates, we should take notice. Here is a daughter, dearly loved, who just received a fabulous present. But in order for her to make the best use of it, she needs water. Does she sulk, complain, or cry? No. Although she hesitates by trying to send her new hubby on the bold errand, her father directly addresses her–the daughter he loves.

She asks for a blessing.

Specifically, a spring of water. Her father gives her two.

This my friend, is what struck me. The Bible offers us this simple story of a girl given a wedding present, who goes back and asks for more. Does she deserve it? No. But can she more fully live out God’s purpose for her if this need for water is met? Yes. Is this a father who loves giving good gifts to his children? As the only man designated as someone who loves God wholeheartedly, I believe we can say yes.

God sees you and me in the same light this father viewed his daughter. When she asks for such a bold and right blessing, he gives her twice as much as she requested.

That is the kind of heavenly father you and I have in Jesus.

A question for us is then, are we asking like a beloved daughter? In light of the examples given us in Scripture, you and I have the privilege of asking our father for a blessing. It is a good and right thing to pray. Today, I would like to do just that.

A Prayer for Blessing

Lord,

Today we bring to you our desires. Not simply our needs, Lord. On the basis of the precedent we have in Your Word, I am asking, on behalf of my sister, that you give her a blessing. In Your own way, I ask that you communicate how beloved she is to you. Show her her worth in Your sight. Grant my request on her behalf. We know more from You is undeserved. You have given enough. But what if she has a field and it needs a water source to do and be everything You have ordained? What if You wanting her to trust You enough, believing You are good enough to give a blessing for the asking? On the basis of Who You are and what You have done in the past, give her a blessing.

In the glorious and powerfully able Name of Jesus,

Amen

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Don’t forget to check out the latest FREE reading plan available from YouVersion?

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You can meet Cheri on the She Yearns blog for more truth-saturated, Gospel-centered encouragement like this:

Praying for Work

15 July 2022

Cheri Strange

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Categories: Prayer

Praying for Work

In case you are just finding us here, my name is Cheri Strange. Stick around and check out the rest of the site (Be sure to grab hold of the FREE Book Bundle before you leave). I’m so glad you are with me today. The purpose of the blog on Fridays is to take Scripture and pray it over you. Each week I select a short passage or verse from the Bible that is naturally as written, or that can be turned into a prayer. After a short discourse on the page of how the particular passage might relate to you and me today, I offer a prayer over whoever is reading. Today we are praying for work.

The reality is that you may not have people in your life praying for you. As a believer in Christ, I want you to experience the power of God’s Word spoken over your life at least one time per week. I am praying this is five minutes of encouragement just for you.

She Prays

That’s all there is to it. Every Friday you will now find us right here.

Today, I want to look at two verses I have been praying in my own devotional time for a long time.

Scripture for Praying for Work

Let your work be shown to your servants,
and your glorious power to their children.
Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,
and establish the work of our hands upon us;
yes, establish the work of our hands! Psalm 90:16-17

Moses is the author of these words, and he is praying over the people. The first thing we can take from his prayer is that it is well and good to ask God to show us what work He wants us to be about. I’m not talking about employment with pay, but rather any work, vocational or otherwise.

I recognize my own deficiency in this area. Frankly, I’m not smart enough to know what work is the most beneficial for the limited days He has granted me on this planet. I am not serious-minded enough to select the eternal over the superficial ON MY OWN. This prayer beckons me to bring my blank agenda before Him as I am praying for the day, and beyond, allowing Him to make my plan. Right here the Bible offers a precedent to ask, letting His work be shown to us, His people. But this unveiling is not simply for you and me. It’s also for our children.

When God does something incredible in my life, the event doesn’t happen in a vacuum. For sure, it can be a private matter. But I can ask that God be demonstrative with it, like Moses. I can ask that it be so flamboyant, in your face, apparent that God is working through me and my surroundings that my children can’t help but see His glorious power through it all.

When God moves in your life and those in the next generation witness the change, the experience builds their belief and trust in a God who is worthy of it. And if these two elements were not enough, Moses offers more we can utilize in our own lives.

Oh, Yes! There’s More

We can ask that He show us favor in these endeavors and that we not fail. Moses calls on God to establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands! In other words, grow it down deep. Keep us from giving up. Give us what we need to do what He calls us to do.

Who doesn’t need a powerful and effective prayer that asks for God to establish your work, to make His power and presence in it to be recognizable, to grant favor in the working, and the strength to keep going until it is finished? What a gift we have in this Psalm.

Write these verses down. Get them into a place you can use them in your prayer time regularly. See what God will do when you begin to pray His Word back to Him. And do let us hear about it!

Praying for Work

Lord,

Today we bring to you our efforts, our agenda, and our life endeavors. I specifically life up my friend reading. Illuminate the work you have specifically hewed out for her using her skill set, background, deficiencies, along with her faith to rely on you for what she cannot do. Let it be known to her. Make your presence be so apparent that her spiritual and physical children cannot miss or deny your power through it all.

I ask for favor on behalf of this one. Whatever is standing in the way, clear it. If there are problems work them out. If she has fears, calm them. Doubts, reassure her. Give her the favor of the Lord our God and establish this work you are entrusting her to do. Establish it long and deep. Help her know it is from You, bringing with it a confident hope and a longing for Your eternal purposes for her life.

In the glorious and powerfully able Name of Jesus,

Amen

Have you received my FREE gift to you? Get 3 resources to help you experience more of God in your everyday life. It’s filled with practical helps for living out what really matters.

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If you would like to become a part of the private FB group, She Prays, we would love to have you. Click the image to join.

Don’t forget to check out the latest FREE reading plan available from YouVersion?

Did you know Cheri has over TWENTY different reading plans for you to choose from? Just click on the images below to check them out:

You can meet Cheri on the She Yearns blog for more truth-saturated, Gospel-centered encouragement like this:

Praying for Boldness

1 July 2022

Cheri Strange

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Categories: Prayer

Praying for Boldness

Did you know that the most popular foods in America are hamburgers? Hot dogs, French fries, and Oreo cookies fall in line right behind burgers. I’m sort of disappointed tacos did not make the top ten, but I find these statistical matters interesting. A researcher and question-asker, I am at the core, so it shouldn’t surprise you that today’s prayer focus resulted from hovering over some revealing data points. Today, more than ever, there is a need to pray for boldness.

In the past year, Pew released alarming findings on the number of people in the American population who have no religious affiliation. That segment has grown to 29%. This upswing results from an increasing secularization of society, which affects church attendance as well as beliefs and practices. In the past ten years, attendance has decreased by half. (I think those numbers might be askew considering Covid driving most to virtual participation, but I cannot ignore a significant decrease.)

With a rising percentage of those with no religious affiliation, there has never been more of a need to share our faith and be involved in discipleship. George Barna and his colleagues would agree. They found Christians avoid making disciples. A large percentage said they have never been asked, and another chunk confessed they had never given it much thought. Barna writes:

“Interestingly, a lack of external motivation becomes the chief obstacle for Christians who are being discipled themselves but aren’t helping someone else grow in the same way.”

In other words, they found Christians often just need a push to engage in relationships ripe for disciple-making. Among hesitations like feeling ill-equipped, they lack boldness. That’s where you and I come in.

How do we attain such boldness?

Boldness is not a magical quality in Christians just because you follow Jesus, but it is required. Paul and others recognized that to be a part of God’s work in making disciples, boldness was required and that they could not possess it on their own.

Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold. 1 Thessalonians 2:2

So how did they possess it? Paul gives us a clue in his letter to the church as Ephesus.

Paul’s Request

and also (pray) for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, Ephesians 6:19

I get the rub. This is easier to write on a blog in the safety of my office than to walk next door to get flat rejected. But here is what you and I must determine: If we truly believe that Jesus is Who He says He is, and He can do in others what He has done in us, then we cannot remain timid but ask God to do something in us that is supernatural.

Today, let us follow Paul’s example to pray for a boldness we do not possess to proclaim the gospel wherever and to whomever God chooses (even the difficult neighbor next door). Pray for me and I will pray for you.

Praying for Boldness

Father,

As we near the celebration of our national independence, please hear this prayer of our dependence. There are so many in our midst that do not know Who you are or what you can do. In fact, there may be more than ever before. So, today, we take your Word and lift up this request for you to make us bold. Specifically, I am requesting a supernatural boldness for my sweet friend to possess and know how to utilize. Give her a confidence to engage in spiritual conversations, have a willingness to ask and answer the difficult questions that arise, and point people to Jesus. Let her be a strategic part of turning the numbers back on themselves—bringing those in her sphere of influence to the saving power you, alone, offer. Help her trust that You can do this. Give her opportunities. Remove her timidity and reassure her with your presence that You are worth any risk.

In the glorious and unmatched name of Jesus.

Amen,

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You can meet Cheri on the She Yearns blog for more truth-saturated, Gospel-centered encouragement like this:

A Prayer Against Distraction

10 June 2022

Cheri Strange

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Categories: Prayer

A Prayer Against Distraction

She Prays on Fridays

What’s your plan for the day? I’ll bet you are multitasking and fighting to get everything done on your “To Do” list. How’s that going? If you and I are anything alike, half the battle is me and my personal wanderings. I spend too much time fighting against distraction, landing in a wilderness—miles, and miles from where I intended to go.

The “what if’s,” “maybe I should,” “ooh, look at that,” “oh, I forgot about X,” cat videos and social media scrolling, creep in, seeping into my thoughts and my thumbs, turning my actions away from my original agenda, and often in an opposing direction.

I know you get it because current data supports my predicament. Researchers have found that 47% of our days are spent in this wilderness wandering. Apparently, this wandering is so common and natural that we don’t even realize it is happening.

This finding shouldn’t be surprising in light of John 10:10.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

How better for the enemy to steal our focus and attention, far from experiencing the life Jesus came to give, than to lead us into distraction before we realize it’s even happening?

If you and I desire, not only to become the most productive versions of ourselves but women who live in abundance through Christ, we need to do what is unnatural, spending our efforts working against distraction.

The Good News in our Battle Against Distraction

The good news is that we are not alone. This recent discovery by researchers is nothing new. We don’t have a discourse on the thinking behind David’s writing of Psalm 119, but we can deduce where his problem areas surfaced. He aggressively attacks the battle with thought and action.

He recognizes the problem.
Then he sees the solution in seeking hard after God.
In that process, he prays –affirming his battle plan.

I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. Psalm 119:15 ESV

But fixing his eyes and mind on God’s truth is not his only defense. Not only does David go on the offensive, he makes some defensive moves.

Turn my eyes from looking at what is worthless; give me life in your ways. Psalm 119:36

This one Psalm has found its way into my prayers regularly – for the sole reasons I expressed above. I can’t make good decisions without divine intervention. My deep need and depravity and longing for what seems natural – overpowers me and I lose.

Unless I do exactly what David models here.

How to Win Against Distraction

Recognize the problem

Attack the problem by doing what is not natural

Praying for God to enable me to be victorious in seeking Him over that which seeks to weaken me, shrink my reach, make me ineffective, and live a life absent of abundance.

I find Proverbs 4:25 to be helpful as I think and move and pray.

Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you. Proverbs 4:25

We could go on looking to other places in the Bible that illustrate this same fight – and hear from different people from various centuries who knew the battle well. From Job to the writers of Psalms, Solomon, Luke, Matthew, Peter, Paul, and the author of Hebrews, to name a few, the battle against distraction is as old as time and common to all peoples.

Today, let’s advance toward abundant life in Jesus through prayer – to help us do what we cannot and experience what we might miss otherwise.

A Prayer Against Distractions

Lord,

I am so thankful for your timeless Word that meets us in our culture, our circumstances, and our need. Today I pray over my friend what I, myself need. Help her to recognize her need to move away from distraction and toward You. And as she does, make her away of what is stealing her attention and affection from you. If it’s too much on her agenda, give her the wisdom to know what NOT to do.

When her mind wanders into the wilderness of wastefulness, help her see how and when it’s happening. Instead, draw her focus to your word. Make it clear, easy to understand, and enable her to embrace what you give over every natural inclination that beds down in her heart. Show her how to meditate on you and what it means to fix her eyes on you. And at the same time, turn her attention away from all that will not last. Supernaturally enable her to look directly forward, and gaze on you and the eternal purposes you have planned. Give her life in your ways, and nothing less.

Thank you for transforming her thought life to experience the abundance that lies in you.

In the glorious and unmatched name of Jesus.

Amen

Have you received my FREE gift to you? Get 3 resources to help you experience more of God in your everyday life. It’s filled with practical helps for living out what really matters.

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If you would like to become a part of the private FB group, She Prays, we would love to have you. Click the image to join.

Don’t forget to check out the latest FREE reading plan available from YouVersion?

She has over TWENTY different reading plans for you to choose from. Just click on the images below to check it out:

You can meet Cheri on the She Yearns blog for more truth-saturated, Gospel-centered encouragement like this: