I ask, I believe, I receive! That is the way I first started getting My Poems From God, and subsequently started this blog. Jesus said, “Believe in Me!” And in Mark 11:24 as He was instructing about prayer He said, “Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.”
Late 2007, I believed that God could use my writing for His honor and glory, and I asked Him to “give me poetry” for that purpose. I believed in my prayer, sincerely wanting to be a servant in God’s kingdom here on earth, believing that He could and would use me for His own purposes. And the next morning as I was in my journal with Him, He started “dictating” my first poem from Him and it has continued ever since.
I believed that He wanted me to share these poetic blessings He bestowed upon me with the world. I believed He wanted me to share these poems in a book to the world. When that didn’t seem possible, and an opportunity came along for my own blog, I believed He wanted me to go in that direction at the time, so I turned my attention to that and look where it has brought me; right to the doorstep of the world!
As I have been having trouble with my computer for the past month, I am now believing Him to keep me going somehow, for my joy and His here with you. As the laptop kept crashing and I didn’t have the money to get it fixed, I believed if I kept trying to get it up and running myself, I could and did. (You and I have my older brother, two years younger than me, to thank for my being able to post again. I was without a power supply for my laptop for two days and in a panic because your comments are coming in greater than 100 a day now, and I needed to get this post on the air. When I called him yesterday about my power supply being dead he fit it in to his busy schedule and his wallet to help get me back up and running today. What an angel in disguise this wonderful Christian man is to his sister, his employees, his church, and missions work over the world! Not only did he deliver my new power supply to me this morning, but also two chicken biscuits for me and my roommate! I am forever indebted to him for his kindness, brotherly love, and getting me back here to you! His name is Scot, and if you are reading this I hope you will offer up a prayer of thanksgiving for his kindness.)
My brother is not a man of great wealth, but of great heart, sometimes to his own detriment, but this first poem is about something he lives out in his life on a daily basis and is what I strive to do for you here in this blog:
Give and Give 4/17/08
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Matthew 6:19-21
God’s gracious blessings from above
Show us His awesome merciful love,
Are to be used by us so wisely,
And not to be kept so miserly.
We must pass on what we’ve been given,
To those who on much less are living.
It is best to be the giving blesser,
And give our gifts to the poor lesser.
Most of us have more than we deserve,
And hold and withhold in reserve,
When we could give to those who have not,
Instead, we let what we have rot.
All we have from God is on loan,
None of it is ours alone to own.
Instead of saying, “This is mine,”
We should be saying, “This is Thine!”
So if this is His, why do we hold,
So tightly ’til our fingers are cold,
That which was never meant to be,
Only for I, myself, and me?
Give and give, some more ’til it hurts,
For what is a man really worth,
Who accumulates treasures and things,
What in the end does it really bring?
If you can’t give your things, give your time,
For that is also God’s Divine.
He gives you your days and length of years,
So spend them all wisely, my dear.
The point I’m trying to make, at last,
Is that our lives all go so fast,
And when our time on earth is done,
What is it that we want to have won?
Copyright 2008 by Brenda LaVelle
Always, in all ways, to God the honor and glory!
Our awesome God is a “Giver!” And we have all things through Him while all He asks us is to, “Believe!” In John’s gospel, the word, “believe,” is used in one form or another 101 times. Don’t believe me? Take your own Bible and circle all forms of the word in John and you will see. (I have mine done and just went back and counted them for you.) Is “seeing,” :“believing?” In this instance, yes, but God asks us to believe by FAITH! And I have found that when I believe by faith, that faith is rewarded by “seeing.”
But you are going to tell me, “I prayed for something, really believing, and my prayer wasn’t answered!” Ah, but were you praying for God’s will to really be done in your life, or were you praying for your own will? And another question: Are you sure it wasn’t answered? I believe God answers all prayers. It’s just that sometimes the answer is, “Yes,” sometimes, “No,” and a lot of times, “Wait!” And many times our prayers are answered, not in the way we wanted, so we don’t SEE the answer because we’re looking elsewhere for the answer that is right in front of our eyes because God will answer with HIS will. I believe that we miss many answers because of our own expectations of how we think our prayers ought to be answered. How many times do we go to God and tell Him, “I want what I want and I want it NOW!”
And when we get what we want, what do we do with it? Do we share with others, or do we hang on to it so tightly that it becomes our sole obsession and love, forgetting Who it was who gave it to us? Think about this:
Give it Back 2/16/08 (Revised 3/11/08)
What is Thy will
Oh Lord. this day?
You say, “Ask,”
And so, I pray.
I know not what
You have in store.
I know You want me
To ask for more.
You want me to trust
In You alone,
Expect You to give me
All You own.
When I hold tightly
To my own selfish ways,
I don’t give You control
Of my nights and my days,
Who gave me not only
The moon and the stars
But also the Savior
With all of His scars,
I don’t come along
To life with You,
And see everything
As being brand new.
You want to give me
Your own holy ways,
Strengthen my faith,
Brighten my days.
I have to want You
More than anything else,
Belong to Jesus,
Forget myself.
And then, only then,
In my life will appear,
All You have loaned me
As being so dear.
My life, my breath,
ALL that is Your’s.
Your love and Your grace,
Through my soul will course.
All that You’ve given
I’ll give back to You,
Because that is what
You want me to do.
What You have given
Is not mine to keep,
But to give back
And place at Your feet.
Give to the poor,
The hungry, the lame,
Remember the Savior
And why He came.
I am to be
His hands and His feet,
And on this earth
Other’s needs to meet.
Your love, so sweet,
So dear to me,
Must always be
Returned to Thee!
Copyright 2008 by Brenda LaVelle
Always, in all ways, to God the honor and praise!
When I ask for God’s will in my life and don’t insist on my own limited wants, I know I am opening myself up for God’s best. He doesn’t want me to settle for “good,” or “better,” but only His best. And I truly believe when I asked Him for poems for His honor and glory, it was a pleasing prayer because He answered it promptly. Yes, I was asking for myself, but He revealed to me the truths in the above poems about giving my blessings to the world. And His rewards as far as strengthening my relationship with and understanding of Him have been great!
Before I gave my life over to Jesus, I was running it on my own limited thinking and perceptions of this world. My quest before seeking God’s will in my life was for instant gratification and selfish desires., Today I see the blessings I missed before. What greater lover could we have but God Almighty and what better Friend on our side than Jesus? I am not saying my life today is “easy,” because it isn’t in so many ways, but the journey with God is the most joy I have known in my life.
Saturday, June 2, 1012;
It’s time to get down to the business of getting this posting finished! I have had many distractions lately, but this is the first day of the rest of my life, and I’m making a new start! I WILL be getting down to answering a lot of your comments and returning answers to questions! God is giving me a break from some of the frustrations in my life and I am going to make the most of it! He and you are becoming my number one priority from this time on! I will be getting this website updated with more content, some graphics, a sign-up for a newsletter, recommendations for some good reading and a way for you to have access to it, and much more! Look for revisions coming up soon and hopefully still the type of quality posts you have complimented me on. One of my main goals is to try to make this one of the best websites in this category and give you all my best effort in that. I’m getting a lot of feedback and suggestions for things you are looking for here and will be adding new features and giving you at least three posts a week, so be ready to visit more often and have more of what you want here.
Please note the “DONATE” button at the beginning of every post on the right-hand side of the page and all help to keep this website up will be greatly appreciated, as my income is very limited and I have many needs that are unmet at this time!
Copyright 2012 by Brenda LaVelle
With the love of Christ, I wish you all blessings for this weekend and will be updating very soon!
Always, in all ways, to God the honor and praise!