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

MORE THAN WATCHMEN

Afew years ago as I was studying this passage,

the repetition of 'more than a watchmen' hit me so hard and I knew I wanted to know more.

 After some research about a watchman's duties and reading more passages of scripture concerning watchmen, I knew I wanted to place myself in the watchman's shoes and see what my thoughts were. 

The following is what I wrote. 

I prepare for the night ahead. 

The darkness here in the desert can be quite cold-- 

I cocoon myself in future warmth, layer after layer of protective covering anticipating the deepest, the most penetrating bone-cold winds sweeping across the vast spaces of my soul. 

The night will be long--

I've served this shift before and the moments, the minutes, the hours pass as winter sap from the tree-- 

I look ever so often to the eastern horizon 

Waiting for the faintest sparkle of the tourmaline sky, I pace from one end of my post to the other, 

Ever on the lookout for trouble, for any sign of the enemy. 

At times my heart beats like the flap of the eagles wings 

Once it's spotted prey-- 

The night brings not so familiar sounds-- Sounds I don't want to be familiar-- 

The core of my being raps hard and I look to The eastern realm again. 

And then the quiet, 

The orchestral din of reverberated nothingness--

The clashing cymbal of thought upon anxious thought-- 

One more quick look-- 

Can it be the fringe of amber sun spilling 

Over the horizon onto saffron sands?

 It has come--Hope rises once more. It has come--

Hope rises once more. 

I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in HIS word I put my hope. 

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My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning. Psalm 130:5-6 

This has always been one of my favorite scriptures. I think it so interesting how the last line is repeated. 

In literature repetition is used for a purpose--to make a statement, to get a point across--

The writer is voicing his soul's quest in terms the people of his day can understand. 

If you were this sentry how soon do you think you would want the morning to come? 

How hard would you look towards the eastern horizon? 

That is how I want my soul to wait for the Lord!

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

A SOUL HAPPY IN THE LORD

AN ARTICLE I RAN ACROSS A WHILE BACK BLESSED ME SO MUCH.  I WANTED TO SHARE IT WITH YOU.  IT SPOKE TO ME OF TRUTH.  TRUTH IS HARD TO COME BY THESE DAYS EXCEPT THE TRUTH FOUND IN GOD.

Ajournal entry by George Mueller--

May 7. It has recently pleased the Lord to teach me a truth, irrespective of human instrumentality, as far as I know, the benefit of which I have not lost, though now, while preparing the fifth edition for the press, more than fourteen years have since passed away. 

The point is this: I saw more clearly than ever that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord. 

The first thing to be concerned about was not how much I might serve the Lord, how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished. 

For I might seek to set the truth before the unconverted, I might seek to benefit believers, I might seek to relieve the distressed, I might in other ways seek to behave myself as it becomes a child of God in this world; and yet, not being happy in the Lord, and not being nourished and strengthened in my inner man day by day, all this might not be attended to in a right spirit. 

Before this time my practice had been, at least for ten years previously, as an habitual thing to give myself to prayer, after having dressed myself in the morning. 

Now, I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the word of God, and to meditation on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed; and that thus, by means of the word of God, whilst meditating on it, my heart might be brought into experimental communion with the Lord.

I began therefore to meditate on the New Testament from the beginning, early in the morning. The first thing I did, after having asked in a few words the Lord’s blessing upon his precious word, was, to begin to meditate on the word of God, searching as it were into every verse, to get blessing out of it; not for the sake of the public ministry of the word, not for the sake of preaching on what I had meditated upon, but for the sake of obtaining food for my own soul. 

The result I have found to be almost invariably this, that after a very few minutes my soul has been led to confession, or to thanksgiving, or to intercession, or to supplication; so that, though I did not, as it were, give myself to prayer, but to meditation, yet it turned almost immediately more or less into prayer. 

When thus I have been for a while making confession, or intercession, or supplication, or have given thanks, I go on to the next words or verse, turning all, as I go on, into prayer for myself or others, as the word may lead to it, but still continually keeping before me that food for my own soul is the object of my meditation. 

The result of this is, that there is always a good deal of confession, thanksgiving, supplication, or intercession mingled with my meditation, and that my inner man almost invariably is even sensibly nourished and strengthened, and that by breakfast time, with rare exceptions, I am in a peaceful if not happy state of heart. 

Thus also the Lord is pleased to communicate unto me that which, either very soon after or at a later time, I have found to become food for other believers, though it was not for the sake of the public ministry of the word that I gave myself to meditation, but for the profit of my own inner man.

With this mode I have likewise combined the being out in the open air for an hour, an hour and a half, or two hours, before breakfast, walking about in the fields, and in the summer sitting for a little on the stiles, if I find it too much to walk all the time. 

I find it very beneficial to my health to walk thus for meditation before breakfast, and am now so in the habit of using the time for that purpose, that when I get into the open air I generally take out a New Testament of good-sized type, which I carry with me for that purpose, besides my Bible; and I find that I can profitably spend my time in the open air, which formerly was not the case, for want of habit. 

I used to consider the time spent in walking a loss, but now I find it very profitable, not only to my body, but also to my soul. The walking out before breakfast is of course not necessarily connected with this matter, and every one has to judge according to his strength and other circumstances.

The difference, then, between my former practice and my present one is this: Formerly, when I rose, I began to pray as soon as possible, and generally spent all my time till breakfast in prayer, or almost all the time. 

At all events I almost invariably began with prayer, except when I felt my soul to be more than usually barren, in which case I read the word of God for food, or for refreshment, or for a revival and renewal of my inner man, before I gave myself to prayer. 

But what was the result? I often spent a quarter of an hour, or half an hour, or even an hour, on my knees, before being conscious to myself of having derived comfort, encouragement, humbling of soul, etc.; and often, after having suffered much from wandering of mind for the first ten minutes, or a quarter of an hour, or even half an hour, I only then began really to pray. 

I scarcely ever suffer now in this way. For my heart being nourished by the truth, being brought into experimental fellowship with God, I speak to my Father and to my Friend (vile though I am, and unworthy of it) about the things that he has brought before me in his precious word. 

It often now astonishes me that I did not sooner see this point. In no book did I ever read about it. No public ministry ever brought the matter before me. No private intercourse with a brother stirred me up to this matter. 

And yet now, since God has taught me this point, it is as plain to me as anything, that the first thing the child of God has to do morning by morning is, to obtain food for his inner man. 

As the outward man is not fit for work for any length of time except we take food, and as this is one of the first things we do in the morning, so it should be with the inner man. We should take food for that, as every one must allow. 

Now what is the food for the inner man? Not prayer, but the word of God; and here again, not the simple reading of the word of God, so that it only passes through our minds, just as water runs through a pipe, but considering what we read, pondering over it, and applying it to our hearts. 

When we pray, we speak to God. Now, prayer, in order to be continued for any length of time in any other than a formal manner, requires, generally speaking, a measure of strength or godly desire, and the season, therefore, when this exercise of the soul can be most effectually performed is after the inner man has been nourished by meditation on the word of God, where we find our Father speaking to us, to encourage us, to comfort us, to instruct us, to humble us, to reprove us. 

We may therefore profitably meditate, with God’s blessing, though we are ever so weak spiritually; nay, the weaker we are, the more we need meditation for the strengthening of our inner man. 

There is thus far less to be feared from wandering of mind than if we give ourselves to prayer without having had previously time for meditation. I dwell so particularly on this point because of the immense spiritual profit and refreshment I am conscious of having derived from it myself, and I affectionately and solemnly beseech all my fellow-believers to ponder this matter. 

By the blessing of God I ascribe to this mode the help and strength which I have had from God to pass in peace through deeper trials, in various ways, than I had ever had before; and after having now above fourteen years tried this way, I can most fully, in the fear of God, commend it. 

In addition to this I generally read, after family prayer, larger portions of the word of God, when I still pursue my practice of reading regularly onward in the Holy Scriptures, sometimes in the New Testament and sometimes in the Old, and for more than twenty-six years I have proved the blessedness of it. I take, also, either then or at other parts of the day, time more especially for prayer.

How different, when the soul is refreshed and made happy early in the morning, from what it is when, without spiritual preparation, the service, the trials, and the temptations of the day come upon one!

George Mueller was a preacher, evangelist, and director of the Ashley Down orphanage in Bristol, England. 

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

SOME TRUST IN HORSES

SOME TRUST IN HORSES --I had a dream one night several years ago that I was riding a mighty horse--

We were flying through the forest at an incredible speed, the horse's hooves barely landing on the ground before accelerating into mid air again--the feeling of exhileration was like being on some kind of an endorphine high and I felt as though the horse and I together were one and could accomplish anything. 

 It is really hard to describe how I felt especially since I have always been uncomfortable around horses--not actually afraid of them, just not comfortable. 

 After a time the horse pulled up short and I knew something was terribly wrong. I jumped off to examine the horse and where the breast of the horse joins the legs, the horse was bleeding terribly and all the skin was torn back exposing bone and raw flesh. 

 I didn't have a clue as to the meaning of the dream until after waking I read the verse I have included at the bottom of this post. 

 Was I or am I trusting in something besides God? 

 Anything I trust in apart from Him will never bring true security. 

God is my refuge and my strength--a very present help in time of trouble. 

 This morning during my devotional time I read this verse again and was reminded of that dream. May we only place our trust in the One true and Living God! Ps 20:77 Some trust in chariots and some in horses,but we trust in the name of the LORD our God. NIV

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Since it has been many years since most of these posts first appeared, I’ve decided to begin sharing some of my older blog writings again.

Many of them have been revised and updated over time, particularly with new photographs and illustrations.

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