A DIVINE MEETING-What Happens When We Intercede

W hen we consider what happened on the cross after 4000 years, it's no wonder that the veil was RIPPED from top to bottom, the earth shook, rocks split, and some tombs of holy men and women of God emptied forth their dead and these people went walking about. 

 For in the words of Dutch Sheets in Intercessory Prayer, this is where 

 "Mercy met judgment 

 Righteousness met sin 

 Light met darkness 

 Humility met pride 

 Love met hate 

 Life met death 

 A Cursed One on a tree 

met the curse that originated 

from a tree 

 The sting of death met 

the antidote of resurrection." 

 and these meetings were head-on meetings--no mealy little clash of one against the other. 

 Sheets refers to the scripture in Proverbs--

 It is better to meet a she bear robbed of her cubs than a fool in his folly. 

 The Hebrew word paga is used here for the word "meet." 

 It is the same Hebrew word that is used many times for the word "intercession." 

 When we intercede for others or things, there is a meeting--a heavenly clash if you will 

such as a mother bear and the one who comes between her and her cubs. 

Try to imagine just for a moment what that "meeting" would be like. 

 We've all read stories of hikers in Yosemite or Yellowstone who got in the way of just such a mother--I won't go into details but the outcomes usually are very grim--life changing for sure if not life taking. 

 The "meeting" produced an outcome. 

 As Sheets says, "When Jesus cried, 'It is finished,' don't think for one minute that he was talking about death when he spoke that word. 

The Greek word tetelestai, interpreted 'It is finished' was stamped on invoices in that day meaning

 'Paid in Full!.'

 Jesus was shouting 'The debt is paid in full.'"

Jesus has paid the price. All that's needed to be done has been done for us to be more than conquerors.

Now it is up to us to pray the prayers that let these victories be loosed. We are God's hands and feet. He wants to use us. 

Pay very close attention to this scripture--it seems as though I usually dwell on verse 17 the most but look at what it says in verse 18-- 

2 Corinthians 5:17,18 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 

God reconciled himself to us through Jesus 

He has given US the ministry of reconciliation.

When we intercede for people we pray for a "meeting" between God and this person--this meeting provides the opportunity for them to be reconciled. 

Once again, Jesus did all the work--we pray to release His works. 

You've heard of prayer meetings--think of the "she bear" again and that meeting-- Prayer meetings were aptly named. 

Every time I pray and ask God to "meet" with me, I will imagine 

HIS righteousness meeting my sin head on, 

His mercy meeting what judgment I deserve, 

His light meeting satan's darkness that tries to overtake me, 

His humility meeting my pride, 

His love meeting my hate, 

His life meeting my certain death without him. 

I speak of spiritual death here. 

I will never be able to pray "meet with me" again without expecting a collision of the highest sorts, 

A collision that will release the victory that has already been won for us. 

I know sometimes God's answers come right away and sometimes they take years. 

I don't care how long it takes, 

I will pray and not give up 

for the certain victories that I know 

have already been appropriated in heaven. 

I will not give up on any situation in my family. 

I will not give up on the salvation or victorious living of any one of the precious ones for whom I pray. 

I will pray. I will intercede. And there will be a meeting!

Love and faithfulness meet together; 

righteousness and peace kiss each other. Psalm 85:10 

Thank you Lord for sealing the greatest meeting of all with a kiss. 

Through Jesus Christ's sacrifice for our righteousness, we have peace with Him. 

Now His righteousness and my peace can kiss-- 

And it is so sweet-- This sealing of our meeting with a kiss.  

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© ALL ART, PHOTOGRAPHS AND TEXT PROPERTY OF ELIZABETH DIANNE UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, 2008-2026

MOTHER WAS A "HUMMER"

My mother was a hummer.

No matter what she was doing, she hummed — and it was almost always hymns filled with joy and truth.

If she was hanging clothes on the line, she hummed.
If she was cooking, she hummed.
If she was sewing, she hummed.
If she was cleaning fish after my daddy had an especially good day at the fishing hole, she hummed.

I remember one of my college friends who spent quite a bit of time at our house. Mother’s constant humming nearly drove her crazy. One day she finally said to me, “Can’t you shut her up?”

But I didn’t want to shut her up. I loved it.

The interesting thing is, this all began after she came to know Jesus as her Savior.

I knew my mother before Christ changed her, and I knew her afterward.

Before, she was unsure of herself. She had been forced to quit school in the ninth grade because of a long illness, and I think that deeply affected her confidence. She was sweet, kind-hearted, and loving, but fearful too — lacking that deep-down joy and peace.

She accepted Christ when I was five years old, and even at that young age, I noticed the difference immediately.

From that day forward until I left home to marry, I never saw her lose her temper. I never knew her to be afraid — not even of the devil himself. There was a steadiness about her, a quiet joy that stayed with her no matter what life brought.

And she hummed.

I started thinking about all of this the other day because I realized something about myself.

I am a hummer too. Sometimes a singer. But somewhere over the last few years, the humming had gone silent.

Life has a way of doing that if we let it.

At my age, challenges seem to come daily, and they certainly do not lessen as the years go by. But when I realized the song in my heart had grown quiet, I didn’t like it.

I have a dear friend of over fifty years who has walked beside me through some hard seasons. Every time another burden would arise, she would gently remind me:

“Don’t forget to sing.”

Lately, my humming has returned.

I catch myself singing the same lines over and over again — almost as though I am singing them until my heart fully believes them.

“I’ve never seen the righteous forsaken or His seed begging bread.”

The other day, I must have sung that phrase a hundred times.

Then there are the old hymns:

“Tell me the old, old story.
Write on my heart every word.
Tell me the story most precious,
Sweetest that ever was heard.”

But the song that has settled deepest into my spirit lately is Praise the Lord.

Especially these words:

“Praise the Lord,
He can work through those who praise Him.
Praise the Lord,
For our God inhabits praise.”

How true that is.

The enemy wants us defeated. He wants us fearful, discouraged, and silent. He wants us to forget who we belong to.

But we are children of the King.

And sometimes the greatest act of faith is simply to praise God while standing in the middle of the battle.

Jesus Himself told us:

“In this world you will have trouble. But take heart — I have overcome the world.”

So today, if life has knocked the breath out of you… if you feel overwhelmed, frightened, weary, or unsure how you will make it through what you are facing, may I encourage you to do what my mother did?

Sing.

Hum.

Praise the Lord anyway.

Because praise does something powerful inside the heart of a believer. It lifts our eyes above our fears and reminds us that God is still faithful, still present, and still worthy.

And somehow, when we praise Him, the chains lose their power.

I hope you sing today.

© ALL ART, PHOTOGRAPHS AND TEXT PROPERTY OF ELIZABETH DIANNE UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, 2008-2026

AND ALL THE TATERS UNDER THOSE HILLS

My pastor preached the house down this past Sunday. So, so good--encouraging, uplifting, faith-building, God-glorifying--He always makes me think which I love but he made me smile, reminisce and think when he said "God owns the cattle on a thousand hills and all the taters under those hills. 

 It took me back to the late 1940's--to a simpler time--a time when my aunt and I (she was 5 months younger than I) would go behind my grandfather (her father) and pick up potatoes that he had unearthed with his trusty ole mule and plow.

I remember his booming voice when he would yell instructions to the mule--"gee" and "haw" meant right and left.  Many of the working mules in those days understood these vocal instructions and would turn the right way at the end of a row with barely a tug on the lines.  

From an article I read:

"Instead of pulling hard on reins, 

experienced farmers often guided the animal mostly with their voice.

A well-trained mule knew those commands so well that it could turn almost automatically.

The words themselves are centuries old — 

farmers in both United States and United Kingdom 

used them long before tractors became common." 

My grandfather’s mule obeyed so willingly that it reminded me of Psalm 32:9:

“Do not be like the horse or the mule,
which have no understanding
but must be controlled by bit and bridle...”

The picture is of an animal that must be pulled and forced instead of willingly responding to its master. 

I cannot help but wonder if that is how God desires to guide me. Do I respond willingly to His gentle nudges and quiet leading, or does He sometimes have to pull the reins a little tighter to get my attention? Something worth thinking about.

As Christians, the Lord longs to lead us with love, wisdom, and gentle direction. The closer we walk with Him, the more sensitive we become to His voice. 

Obedience born out of trust is always sweeter than obedience forced by struggle. 

Perhaps one of the marks of spiritual maturity is learning to follow His leading willingly, quickly, and with a trusting heart.

Perhaps that is part of the lesson hidden in ‘all the taters under those hills.’ 

So much of what God is doing in our lives is underground work — unseen growth, hidden provision, quiet transformation. 

The mule did not have to understand the whole field; it simply learned to trust the voice guiding it row by row. 

Maybe obedience is often like that for us. 

We may not always see what God is growing beneath the surface, but we can trust the One leading us.

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© ALL ART, PHOTOGRAPHS AND TEXT PROPERTY OF ELIZABETH DIANNE UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, 2008-2026

Honorig the Fallen-Memorial Day

ANOTHER LOOK AT PSALM 23

My quest today was to try to find out something about Psalm 23 that I did not already know.  I came acroos this article and with permission I print it here:

One of the most overlooked things in Psalm 23 is that it is not really a “peaceful countryside psalm” until the very end.

 It is a wilderness psalm. A survival psalm. A psalm written by someone who knows danger intimately. 

David was not imagining green Kentucky pastures. The shepherds of ancient Israel led sheep through dry, harsh terrain where grass appeared in scattered patches after rain. 

“Green pastures” were rare gifts, not permanent conditions. 

So when David says: “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures…” he is not describing abundance everywhere. 

He is describing God’s ability to provide enough in a barren place. That changes the entire Psalm. 

The miracle is not that the wilderness disappears. The miracle is that the Shepherd sustains the sheep within it. 

And there is something else hidden in the structure of the Psalm that many people miss: 

 In verses 1–3, David speaks about God: “He leads…” “He restores…” “He guides…” But when he reaches the valley: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me…” Notice the shift. David stops talking about God and starts talking to Him. 

The valley changes the grammar. Sometimes people discover God’s attributes in green pastures, but they discover God’s nearness in valleys. 

Another beautiful detail: The Shepherd carries both a rod and a staff.  The rod was not gentle. It was a weapon — heavy, brutal, protective. The staff was curved for rescue and guidance. 

So when David says: “Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me…” he is comforted by two things at once: God is tender enough to guide him. God is strong enough to defend him. 

Many people want one without the other. Psalm 23 says true comfort is found in both. 

And perhaps the most astonishing line in the whole psalm is this: 

“Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.” 

Not after the enemies leave. Not once the battle is over. Not when life becomes peaceful. 

God serves a meal while the enemies are still watching. 

The Hebrew image is one of settledness, honor, and belonging. It is almost defiant peace. The Shepherd does not merely help David escape fear; He teaches him to sit down in the middle of it. 

That may be the deepest promise in Psalm 23: Not that God always removes the wilderness, the valley, or the enemies — but that His presence becomes so real that fear no longer gets the final word.

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© ALL ART, PHOTOGRAPHS AND TEXT PROPERTY OF ELIZABETH DIANNE UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, 2008-2026