I love President Bush!  There,  I have said it!  I have been to his library on the campus of Texas A&M and spent hours just reading about him when he was a boy, when he and his wife fell in love and the political career that ensued after that.  I have especially lingered at the pictures where they greeted dignitaries with their springer spaniel sitting,  waiting patiently for them  until  they were through with all that official stuff.  You know you can really tell a great deal about a person by the way they treat their pet!  And that pet, with its body language, will tell you everything about their master. 

When I heard President Bush  was ill and in the same hospital my mother was in for her open heart surgery to correct a valve problem, I immediately remembered the furniture, where you check-in, the doctors and nurses, the feeling of getting out of the car when you visit to be met by the valet and the feeling that comes over you as you walk in knowing what you are going to see.   My heart went out to him and his entire family!

Yesterday, I grabbed hubby and said, “We have to pray for President Bush,  now!”  I felt such an urgency in my spirit.  We did pray and for a while after that I continued to pray in the spirit.  I was truly downcast about the whole thing!  Today, as I looked at the news I saw where his spokesman said, “President Bush says, “Please, put your harps back in the closet!”  I hooted!!  For those of you that don’t know what that means, in Texas terms it means I had a really good laugh.  Then the blog came to me.

God spoke to me and said, “I have told people to come to me with thanksgiving in their hearts and to enter my courts with praise.  Instead many come in cast down, crawling and begging, and playing their harps to the tune of ‘Woe is me’.  When do I get the praise I have commanded and that I deserve?” That stopped me in my tracks!  You know you can tell a lot about a person by what they say and how they act.  It doesn’t take long either.

I had someone write me not long ago.  Not a word he said made sense and at he end he put beside his name “wounded, weary, warrior” and called himself the “www”.  He tried to sound so spiritual, but I knew immediately this guy was full of ‘whoeey’.  If he is weary, he hasn’t spent time in prayer and praise.  He hasn’t spent time with God.  How do I know?  Because the Bible says, in His presence is FULLNESS OF JOY, not weariness!  The Bible  says those who follow God will mount up with wings as eagles, THEY SHALL RUN AND NOT GROW WEARY THEY SHALL WALK AND NOT FAINT!  He told on himself  by what he labeled himself!  Always judge the fruit, not the person, by the Word of God!  But, you better use discernment, too….that is why God gave it to you!  God does not want His children fooled or partnering up with people who are all show and no go.  In other words, for the rest of their lives they will live in the dumps and you will NEVER be able to pull them out.  I know this from experience.

Everyday is a different symptom, a different catastrophe, a different trauma and they are grabbing you “wanting help” and not doing a word you say.  I know a woman who is always in some kind of mess.  One day the Lord spoke a word to me to give her.  I gave it.  Now, this woman is a prayer warrior, she has spoken words to other people and they have been right.  But when it comes to her life, she stays in a “begging, woe is me” mode.  God told me how she could get free and be happy and full of joy even in the worst conditions and see those conditions turn totally around!!  I went to her and told her what He said.  She had been sobbing quite a bit, the tears were just streaming down her face.  When I told her, she wiped her eyes and with a voice as steady as you can get, she looked at me and said, “I’m not going to do that!  It just isn’t me!”  Well, now we see the problem.  She is going to approach her problems and God according to the comfort zone of her personality, not according to obedience to God and His word!

Precious reader, it isn’t my personality to raise my hands, say “Glory to God!” or sing praises!  I cannot sing, raising my hands is something I put my personality down and lift my spirit up to do to surrender to my King, and saying, “Glory to God” is what flows out of MY SPIRIT NOT MY PERSONALITY!  If it is in the word, you better get it in your spirit and then you better start living out of YOUR SPIRIT instead of your PERSONALITY.  Stop and look back and see what your approach to God through what YOU THOUGHT got you  instead of living out of what HE says!  Besides, what do you have to lose???

Put your harp back in the closet!  Get out the timbrel!  Truly set aside your personality and problems and worship!!  Thank God for what has gone right if the only thing you can find is you are breathing today!  “Let EVERYTHING THAT HATH BREATH, PRAISE THE LORD!”  What is the meaning of praise in the Hebrew?  It is “to praise, to thank; rejoice, boast about someone. Halal  which is where we get hallelujah, usually conveys the idea of speaking or singing about the glories, virtues, or honor of someone or something.  It does not mean to bawl, squall and beg.

Please don’t forget to praise and continue to thank God for President Bush’s healing and full recovery! You are blessed, dear reader!  Let that be your preoccupation in your mind today!  See you soon!!

Categories: DEVOTIONS

Tags: Bush family, George H.W. Bush, God, Lord, Texas