What Has God Put In Your Heart?

Hello Sisters of Scripture!

Some might ask, "Why do you do a summer study?  There's no time...summer is too busy."  I say, we do a summer study to continue to be 'found' by God.  Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. James 4:8

We enjoyed our 2nd session on Wednesday!!  We started with a praise and worship song, click here, then reviewed the week of homework, watched our video lesson 2, answered questions from the video and closed with a prayer together.  The link and a few words about the video are below. :)

In Day1 Kelly took us through a brief history of Jeruselum before Nehemiah felt the need to return to rebuild.  It's easy to have a heart that breaks for matters that personally affect us, but how many of our hearts can break for others?

As Kelly took the time to really look at Nehemiah's prayer, (Neh 1:5-11) in Day 2 and 3 of the homework, we talked a lot about prayer.  Nehemiah praised our God of Heaven, Yahweh, our Great and Awesome God and one that never fails in love.  It's this great unfailing love and goodness that propels us to love him back and then to want to confess our sins as he not only confesses his sins, but the sins of the children of Israel.  Nehemiah then intercedes in prayer for his Jewish brothers and sisters.  We are reminded that praying for others is an honor and divinely attaches us to one another!!  Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.  Col 4:2

Nehemiah then prays 4 months before he approaches the King about what is in his heart to do!!  As we sometimes fear what God is trying to put in our hearts to do, so did Nehemiah.  It's not always easy following God's plan to grow us!!  We just have to ask for wisdom and guidance and have the perserverance and patience to wait.....  He will always answer us.

When Nehemiah does ask the King for his blessing, I love that he chose a time when the Queen was present too. :)  He could have been killed for approaching the throne of Persia!  Surely God was softening the King's heart.  Nehemiah approached the King with great faith and boldness, just as we are to approach our Father.  We can be confident that we will always be welcomed to His throne. :))
1 John 3:20-21

Kelly invites us to follow God outside ourselves.  Consider the needs that surround us and listen closely to what breaks our hearts.  A broken heart is often the very thing God uses to restore the broken.  My question to you~Who is the broken?  Is it the served or the server??

You can find the video here. You won't want to miss this one! I'm reminded of James 2:18 ~"Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works."  We saw Kelly's sister in the video serving those in the Amazon.  She says her life has never been the same after she discovered how "selfish her life was."  Some of us wish for a checklist of how we can live for God and less for ourselves.  I don't have that, but maybe just a small prayer.  "God, what can I do to serve you today?"

Blessings