It's "Marriage Prayer Friday!"

Kids all around us are finishing up another school year. They are celebrating accomplishments, friendships, fun experiences and their hopes for the next thing. As you pause for these few moments with us today to pray for your marriage or for the marriage(s) of someone you care about, let's ask the Lord to bring that same spirit of gratitude and expectancy into marriages.

A prayer for your own marriage—

HEAVENLY FATHER, it is hard for me to imagine that You delight in me but Your Word says that you love me like a father loves a child, like an eagle cares for her young and like a groom delights in his bride. I need You to help me recall the ways I delighted in my spouse early in our relationship. Give me courage right now to slow down and remember the sense of anticipation we shared about what our future could be like together. Please cause those good memories to spill out into the current state of our relationship so that we experience new levels of peace, love and joy. Help us to be insightful and intentional about creating new good memories. Help us to have reasonable expectations and plenty of grace for

each other

while having high expectations of You. You are able to do more with our marriage than we could ever ask or imagine. Thank you for giving us a hope and future. Help us to put past hurts and habits behind us and give each of us a teachable spirit so that we can keep learning new and better ways to live by Your Spirit within us. Please cause my marriage to be something you delight in, Lord God! Thank you that I can pray these things in the power of Jesus' name because of His shed blood. AMEN

Something to pray for a friend's marriage—

HEAVENLY FATHER, it is hard for me to imagine that You delight in me but Your Word says that you love me like a father loves a child, like an eagle cares for her young and like a groom delights in his bride. Prompt my married friends to recall the ways they delighted in each other when their relationship was young. Give them courage to slow down and remember the sense of anticipation they shared about their future. Cause those good memories to spill out into the current state of their relationship so that they experience new levels of peace, love and joy. Help them to be insightful and intentional about creating new good memories. Help them to have reasonable expectations and plenty of grace for

each other

while having high expectations of You. You are able to do more with these marriages I am praying for than I could ever ask or imagine. Thank you that each of these marriages on my heart can have a hope and future. Help my friends to put past hurts and habits behind them and give each of them a teachable spirit so that they can keep learning new and better ways to live by Your Spirit within them. Please cause these marriages to be something you delight in, Lord God! Thank you that I can pray these things in the power of Jesus' name because of His shed blood. AMEN

FINDING GLORY Wednesday — New Community Opportunity

Starting today, we will be posting one scripture and discussion question every Wednesday from the 7-week study resource titled Finding Glory in the Thorns: Group Discussion Guide. People around the world are learning what it means to experience God in adversity and share that within their communities facilitated by Finding Glory resources. Whether or not you’re already a reader of these resources, we hope you’ll help us get the ball rolling on this online expansion of the Finding Glory Group ministry.

Many people reading and commenting here will be current and past participants in Finding Glory Groups. They will have used the 7-week curriculum Finding Glory in the Thorns: Group Discussion Guide in a support group, book club, adult education class or small group. Others joining the conversation may have read the original book Finding Glory in the Thorns and want to explore more deeply what God has been teaching them. However, anyone is free to get involved and we hope many will! God does powerful and beautiful things through the intersections of our lives.

Here are today’s scripture and discussion question:

“The Lord told Joshua…’Give these instructions to the priests who are carrying the Ark of the Covenant: When you reach the banks of the Jordan River, take a few steps into the river and stop.’ The priests will be carrying the Ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth. When their feet touch the water, the flow of water will be cut off upstream, and the river will pile up there in one heap. Now it was the harvest season, and the Jordan was overflowing its banks. But as soon as the feet of the priests who were carrying the Ark touched the water at the river’s edge, the water began piling up in a town upstream called Adam…until the riverbed was dry. Then all the people crossed over near the city of Jericho.” JOSHUA 3:7-8, 13 and 3:15-16

In what way might God be challenging you, as He did Joshua, to take a step of faith? What assures you that taking that step would be God’s way to go?

For more information about Finding Glory Groups, visit http://www.findingglory.com/findingglorygrou.html.

Listen to what others are saying about their experiences in a Finding Glory Group:

“I was scared to relive heartbreaking memories but (the discussion) did the opposite…affirmed that Jesus has a purpose for my journey.”

“I am learning how to glorify God, not my problems.”

“Our Sunday School class started (a Finding Glory Group) because things from your experiences sparked a commonality…willingness to dig deep and have courage to share makes the experience richer for everyone.”

“Your question opened up some important conversation in our group about the need to recognize those who are hurting and need hope. Our group facilitator reminded us that even people within the church have struggles but may appear to have it all together on Sunday morning. We need to invest in each other’s lives.”

Vision Correction Needed

Like many children with neurodevelopmental challenges, our daughter Carly has vision problems. She has some of the more traditional issues like astigmatism, near-sightedness and strabismus. But one of her significant challenges involves immature and inefficient central macular vision. In other words, she has hyper-peripheral vision. It is actually a very common but under-diagnosed problem among people with autism and other learning disorders and this is tragic because there are therapies to help, problems that can be avoided and potential to be unlocked. Even if you don’t know anyone with this problem, please stick with me and keep reading. I’m developing an analogy here.

Hyper-peripheral vision creates many challenges for Carly and for us. Because of her tendency to rely too much on her peripheral vision, her depth perception is compromised (also contributing to instability when she's walking) and she is inclined to "play" with her vision in self-stimulating ways that create a ripple effect of other problems.

Twelve years ago when Carly was almost 2 years old, we began to learn about how to do some simple daily therapies designed to help her develop stronger central vision. We're so grateful for all the progress she's made in this and other areas even while we keep working the process and praying toward complete healing. In the meantime, Carly's vision therapies have provided a great opportunity for us to learn some important things about God and the way HE sees things.

One of Carly's therapies involves wearing special glasses for a few minutes a couple of times each day. The glasses restrict some of her vision while stimulating her macula. The brain receives some visual information but needs to fill in the missing pieces. I still find it fascinating to put those glasses on myself and wonder about how they work and the complexity with which God created us. Despite the fact that the glasses only allow visual input to come through a few tiny pin-sized holes, my brain takes only a few seconds to fill in the missing pieces so that what I PERCEIVE is the complete picture of what I'm looking at in the room. I’m hardly aware that something is missing.

It strikes me that we operate like this in our faith. We don't see the whole picture of life but God does.

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. HEBREWS 11:1

We are taking in limited information with limited understanding and, oftentimes, with an immature spiritual perspective. Yet, because God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and ever-present, He has a different perspective about everything than we do and can be fully trusted. God's ways are higher than our ways and we don't need to see it all. But we can benefit from developing God's perspective.

Jesus, Himself, benefitted from taking God's perspective. As recorded in Mark 14:35, Jesus could say with complete confidence, "But let what you want be done, not what I want." With Jesus’ human perspective, he faced the prospects of suffering and death with an overwhelming desire to be rescued. Yet, when He viewed his circumstances through God’s eternal Kingdom perspective, Jesus could willingly surrender Himself and trust in a greater purpose.

It's tempting to go through life frustrated by unanswered questions — the things we can't easily understand or "see." One of the very best gifts that comes out of growing intimacy in our relationship with Jesus Christ is an increasing understand of God's perspective. The more deeply we know God, the more we share His eternal Kingdom perspective and appreciate that something much bigger than ourselves is at stake. Things like suffering take on new meaning and we carry into life's challenges a new kind of anticipation and appreciation.

"And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit." 2 CORINTHIANS 3:18

"So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." 2 CORINTHIANS 4:18

LORD JESUS, no ears have ever heard nor eyes ever seen a God who is greater than You. No God but You acts for the good of those who trust You (Isaiah 64:4). Thank you for having the vision and power to create complex things and involve them for great purposes. I want to have more of a Kingdom perspective on life — in the details and in the larger picture. I want to know You more and see how You see. And, Lord, when I don’t see well, help me to trust that You are actively involved in the unseen to ensure that all things are working together for Your glory and for my good. AMEN