"The Dime That Lasted Forever" by Rochunga Pudaite [Book Review]

The Dime That Lasted Forever by Rochunga Pudaite
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Story after story came alive as Rochunga shared God's faithfulness in his life. His life of prayer and thanksgiving in all circumstances is an inspiration! Time and time again God met his needs. Rochunga's faith is one to emulate and his story is definitely a "must read". Christians will find encouragement in each page as Rochunga gives glory to our miraculous, mighty, all-knowing God.

Wow. Thank you Rochunga for sharing your adventurous testimony, giving encouragement to all who read it!

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Tuesday's Top Ten (Why Mommy's Should Memorize Scripture)

Part of the women's discipleship process in our church (that is highly encouraged) is scripture memorization. Here's 10 reasons why this is a vital aspect of women's time together: 

1. "For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." (Matthew 12:34) These are Jesus' Words exactly. He rebuked the Pharisees who (after Jesus healed a demon-oppressed man) said, "It is only by Beezebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons." (vs.26) and Jesus (knowing their heart) told them otherwise (that "A kingdom divided against itself cannot stand." In other words, if he was a demon, why would he cast out demons?) Jesus goes on to explain how to know their heart, "...the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. ... I tell you, on the day of judgement people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned." (Ch.12:33-37) Therefore, if I say anything at all, if I offer my children any Biblical encouragement, I want it to be HIS Words, because mine are utterly worthless. If I don't spend time in God's Word, how would I know what He says? And if I don't know what He says then I find myself speaking about nothing worthwhile, and then I'm in danger of that last verse: of standing before God on the day that I meet Him, being held accountable for every word that came out of my mouth. The fear of that alone forces me to take this seriously.

2. "As we focus our minds and hearts to understand the Word of God, the Holy Spirit will continue to illumine it and write it indelibly on our hearts." (Furman, G. Glimpses of Grace, p.170) Gloria Furman tells us that we will gain tremendous benefits from "persisting in prayerful meditation on passages of Scripture." By saying a verse, chapter, or book (yes, book) over and over again we are meditating on His Word and allowing it to seep into our very innermost being. Not only that, but the Holy Spirit will constantly bring it to mind, especially when we need it.

3. "Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer." - Psalm 19:14 The Israelites sang this Psalm of David and those aren't the only words that we should emulate, "More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter than honey and drippings of the honeycomb." (vs.10) They = God's Word. We should desire God's Word above ALL else, through his perfect Word we will be transformed into His image because God's Word is all about HIM.

4. Memorization is Observation. There are 4 key ingredients to studying Scripture: Observation (Author, Audience, Purpose, sentences, word meanings, historical context, etc.), Interpretation (Am I interpreting it correctly?), Correlation (Does my interpretation match up with the rest of Scripture?) and Application (After all that, how does this apply to me?). Observation is the piece that takes the most work and the piece that women struggle with the most. It's our brain. We were designed to connect everything to everything. In studying the Bible that can be a curse and a blessing. A curse because while we should be observing the text, we skip to correlation and sometimes we "correlate" incorrectly. Skipping steps is a big no-no if you want to make sure that you're INTERPRETING Scripture correctly. Which God does not take lightly. It's HIS Word and it was written for a very specific purpose. We often miss apply Scripture because we can't wait to get to verse 10 when we should be meditating on verse 1. By memorizing verse by verse we are in essence forcing our correlating brain to slooooooow down and meditate, which is so difficult for us multi-tasking, thinking-of-100-things-at-once, Mommy brains.

5. Keep  Your Way Pure. "How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word. With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments! I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you. Blessed are you, O Lord; teach me your statutes! With my lips I declare all the rules of your mouth. In the way of your testimonies I delight as much as in all riches. I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word." - Psalm 119:9-16 (Underlining is mine.) This Psalm does not need much explanation, but there are a few things you should know about it: it's an acrostic poem that we lose in translation from Hebrew to English :( and the theme is "The Word of God." Psalm 119 sums up our whole purpose for existence: to know God and glorify Him. There is no other way to know Him than through His Word. The Israelite's memorized this Psalm (alphabetic poems make that easier) so they would always remember that their hope is in His Word (vs.81, 114) and that "it's a light to my path" (vs.105) and and and and... Psalm 119 is one of my favorites and it's worth reading and knowing. In order to keep your life from sin, and to help your children do the same, do as this Psalm suggests: store up His Word in your heart.

6.  "Scripture that is read or recited from memory is the purest form of biblical encouragement. As you use the Bible to encourage your children, you are relying on the Holy Spirit to direct your words and God's Word to them. ... If you ask the Holy Spirit to give you something to say to your children, He will. It doesn't matter if your message is ten words or ten thousand. If you offer it in the power of the Spirit, it will be effective." (Clarkson, C. Heartfelt Discipline, p.111) By relying on the Holy Spirit to speak through you, you will emulate the qualities of the Holy Spirit which are love, patience, kindness, selflessness, self-control, gentleness... all qualities that are impossible to have within you all the time because you're an imperfect, sinful human being. By making God's Word the Word of your heart, those are the words you will speak to everyone, and most importantly your children.

7. Memorization is for Multitaskers! For busy mommy's it is nearly impossible to find a time to sit down and actually study God's Word without interruption; you can memorize and do dishes at the same time!

8. There will be battles and we need to be prepared. You may not always have your Bible. So when you need to say something, pray that the Holy Spirit will give you the words to say. Then trust that He will bring it to mind when it's needed. 

9. There are two things God values most: His Word and His Name. "... you have exalted above all things your name and your word." (Psalm 138:2) So if those are the two things He has exalted above EVERYTHING, I want to make sure I pay attention to it and teach my children what God has exalted above all else.

10. The Words are like medicine. And every mommy needs soul medicine, because there will be tough days and if you focus on the hope found in God's Word, those loooong days will seem like milliseconds in eternity. By feasting on the Word and making it your obsession, you will seriously need nothing else.

I always think of the movie, The Book of Eli when I think of memorization. He knew the entire book and the book wasn't lost as a result. It's one of my all time favorites...

The Holy Spirit can and will use His Words, make them the Words of your heart for all those reasons and more.

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After writing this I Googled "Memorize Scripture" and found this website that offers 10 more reasons to memorize His Word: Rooted Families. I thought it was worth sharing because the reasons are phenomenal!

"Please pray for us!"

The Voice of the Martyrs has an email sign up that encourages you to pray for specific individuals who are being persecuted for their Christian faith. We may or may not be able to help each individual with money, food, clothing, etc. BUT we can and should pray for them. Prayer is what each person experiencing persecution specifically asks for from VOM; and I can most definitely grant that request and ask my readers to do the same. 

Sometimes I receive amazing suggestions on how to help specifically, like filling and mailing action packs to persecuted Christians who flee with only the clothes on their back. And this last week's email was no exception. I'm excited to participate in this one act that gives encouragement to our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world! 

PLEASE join me!

VOM has granted the prayer request of the persecuted Christians to whom they reach out by creating a website called: iCommitToPray.com, where you are encouraged to read the stories of these individuals and write a prayer specifically for them. VOM will then print off each prayer and give it to them, showing this request was indeed granted. What an incredible blessing to know that people around the world are praying for you during some of the most difficult times of your life. Imagine one of these individuals greeting you in heaven thanking you for praying for them?! It's such an easy way to bless them and encourage them to hold fast to the faith in Jesus Christ and the hope of eternity with Him. 

One person asking for prayer is Ly Thi Song who lost her husband to Vietnamese authorities who tortured him to death; all because him and his brother moved their families to central Vietnam to establish a church. Her story is one of thousands, millions even, that endure such hardship for the sake of the gospel. She is now a widow caring for their four children! I can not imagine what it would be like to be in her shoes, however, I can imagine the encouragement Christians can give their fellow believers like Ly Thi Song by following through on this simple task of praying.

There are many, many ways VOM offers assistance to these individuals. I highly encourage you to to order a free subscription to this magazine, or if you feel lead to help the persecuted church in any other way, contact:

www.persecution.com
orders and contributions: 800-747-0085
ministry information: 877-377-0302
email: thevoice@vom-usa.org

If you go to the website www.persecution.com you can also sign up for specific prayer requests by scrolling all the way down to the end of the home page, you'll see the "Sign up for VOM's prayer alert" button. Continue to search the website for the many, many ways VOM asks for your help. 

And then pray!

Women are Talkers. And I Need to Work on That.

I had an amazing conversation about how women are talkers with one of my friends yesterday and how we can be the most conniving of them all when it comes to “talking.” This has been a common topic in our church as of late, because we are in the process of setting up a women's discipleship group. We desperately want this group to be grounded in God's Word and we most definitely do not want to be guilty of gossip or enter into a conversation that would be hurtful to someone else. So a friend and I came up with an action plan to hold one another accountable and it's one I'm going to use in all walks of life, because women need to change how they talk to one another. We decided to make a conscious effort to ax gossip, the he said/she said crap, the husband bashing, the “children complaining,” and any conversation that tends to lean towards negativity about someone in our life. We didn’t feel we participated in that per say, but on reflection we did find ourselves being sucked into conversations with other women, other friends, or a group of people that were not necessarily healthy.

We knew that needed to change. So we made what we called an “action plan.”

The reason I decided to share this plan is because I think other women will benefit from it and I want my friends to know that I don't want to participate in these types of conversations any more. I need to be held accountable! By talking, I may think I'm getting something "off my chest" but afterwards the Holy Spirit convicts me heavily and I always, always, always feel worse than before.

I feel the need to recognize, however, that women are vocal human beings. We have feelings and emotions that are hard to suppress. Still, the Bible is explicitly clear in terms of talking. (Just visit Proverbs 10:19, 11:12-13, 13:3, 16:28, 17:27-28, 20:19, 29:20; Romans 1:29-30; Ephesians 5:4; Colossians 3:8, 4:6; Titus 2:8, &etc. – that’s just the tip of the iceberg!) So what do we do when we feel like we've been wronged by someone and need to "get it off our chest"? How do we approach it biblically? How can we effectively heal the hurt or put it into perspective without talking? We can't. 

Who we talk to first is VITAL in our pursuit of godly living.

Here's the action plan we came up with and how we plan to hold each other accountable....

1. Women are verbal creatures, BUT we should be verbal with GOD first. Pray, pray, pray. Ask Him to heal the situation. Ask Him to make "what I should do" blatantly obvious. And I'm not just talking one prayer, I mean "sleeping on it" every-time-it-comes-to-your-brain--constant--prayer.

2. After prayerful consideration, take it to your husband. As the spiritual leader (aka pastor) of your home he should give you advice on what to do next.

3. ASK HIM TO PRAY WITH YOU (not just once).

4. Follow through on his advice. Sometimes that means dropping the matter all together, sometimes that means confronting the person face to face, sometimes that means meeting with a PRAYERFUL friend to discuss what should be done next (if anything), sometimes that means starting over with step #1.

If we, as verbal and emotional human beings, either lash out in anger or frustration or viciously gossip about it, we are sinning. Sometimes after talking about it (first to God and then our husband) the hurt we thought was justified is put into perspective and was in reality silly, ridiculous, out of context, or nothing to moan or groan about in the first place. Sometimes, God will help you heal the hurt and you can stop there. Sometimes a husband’s perspective gives you new insight and the issue was never really an issue in the first place. And if all life's problems were handled with prayerful purpose, the problem may never have been a problem at all.

So before you open your mouth - DO THIS!

I hope this action plan will save you from a ton of heartache. If you aren't married, go to your father (because even if you’re living on your own, he is still your spiritual leader). I hope we see a huge difference in the way we talk to one another and even about one another. Our conversations need to change - for the better! I don't think we need to stop being talkers, but we need to talk to GOD first and change our focus on what and who we talk about; and by simply relying on God and submitting to HIS PLAN in our life (even in this problem) I truly believe (with every ounce of my being) that needless drama will be avoided.

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Not 24 hours after making this plan, God tested my resolve. An issue came up and I immediately picked up my phone. I quite literally had to force myself to lay it down and begin praying. Once I prayed I found myself wanting to pick my phone up again; and again had to force myself to put it down and pray about that. I didn't realize how deep rooted the desire is within me to talk to others first RATHER than talking to GOD first, who (in HIS perfect timing) can work out a problem better than I ever could by acting in haste.

The four simple steps seem easy, but IT IS HARD.

Change is hard. The process of becoming a follower of Christ is hard. Still, I feel within the depths of my soul that I MUST work on being a woman of integrity and it must begin with my mouth. I think this difficult process will be worth it.