A very wise, intuitive, thoughtful, funny, spiritual, and extremely handsome man I know once brought to my attention how many times the Bible uses the word “all.”  In the KJV it is used 5,620 times.  That’s more times than the word “love” and “spirit” combined are used.  It’s even more times than the word “God” is used! 

I love the “all” of scripture. I am so thankful that God did not put “some” where He put “all.”

Maybe you think that such a little word should not get so much attention, but what would you rather have, “some of God’s promises are yes and amen” or “all of God’s promises are yes and amen?” When speaking of troubles, which would you rather have, “the Lord delivers him out of some” or “the Lord delivers him out of them all?” When it comes to sin and sickness which would you rather have “he forgives some of our sin and heals some of our disease” or “he forgives all our sins and heals all our disease?” Are you getting it yet?

Many I know say they believe “all” the Word of God, but live as if they only believe some. They have let their experience dictate their theology instead of figuring out why their theology and experience don’t line up. I see this mostly with sickness.  The Bible is very clear that healing is part of the atonement.  And God did not say all sickness except certain kinds of cancer or heart disease.  He said “ALL.” I believe that’s what He meant. “But, you say,  so and so had faith and they died anyway. So it must have been God’s will.  We all have to die of something.” Jesus never said that. He didn’t leave Peter’s mother-in-law lay and say “Well, we all have to die of something.” He didn’t tell the  woman with the issue of blood, “Well, you have to go somehow. Why not this? Why not now?” He didn’t decide to leave the widow’s son in his casket because after all, he was already dead so it must have been God’s will. Jesus NEVER denied healing to  anyone who asked in faith. Perhaps the reason that we do not see the “alls” of scripture in our own lives is because we really do not have a proper understanding of faith.

We apply “all” when it comes to salvation because none of us want to part of the “some.” But when it pertains to healing, well, God must not have meant all.  He must have just said that in His excitement over saving all. He just “misspoke” as the politicians say when they lie in public. 

Once I got involved in a discussion about God providing food for people. Someone was criticizing God for leaving poor innocent people starving in the Sudan. I disagreed with them. God does not leave people who are looking to Him in faith to starve.  I went on to come across 7 scriptures that supported this idea. The problem is that we receive nothing from God, according to James, unless it comes through faith. When we ask, we must ask in faith, without wavering. We must believe that God meant what He said and that He will do what He said. It doesn’t matter what we see or feel.  It only matters what God said. Granted, this is easier said than done but when we don’t see God’s promises fulfilled in our lives, the problem is not that His Word is untrue or faulty. It’s something in us! And the sooner that we realize and embrace the fact that we’re not all that spiritually, the sooner God can fix us and get His promises to us. God has mercy on whom He will have mercy, but He never ignores true, Biblical faith.  He can’t! Many die and starve, but they are not really looking to God heal. Their “if it be Thy will prayers” are useless. If you want something from God, you first need to know that it’s His will. So how can you pray the will of God in faith if you don’t know what His will is in the first place?  Take some time and determine what His will is. How do you know what it is?  His Word is His will. Find out what scripture says and believe it and expect to receive it. So did those people in Sudan need to die of starvation? I don’t believe so. I believe that if they had been looking to God in faith, He would have provided. He says that He will. Are His promises null and void?  Have they lost their power over time? I sincerely hope not because amidst all the promises that we choose ignore is also the promise of salvation to those who will believe. There are no “special” promises that are greater than the others. 

Our receiving anything from God depends on our standing with God. God does not hear the prayer of the wicked. Therefore all they receive from God is His sovereign mercy.  However, the child of God receives not only God’s mercy, but His blessing. He hears our prayers.  He sees where our faith is and responds accordingly. Sometimes what we get from God is not His full promise but that is not because the promise is faulty. God can only work within our level of faith. Increase you faith and what you receive from God will increase as well. Jesus spoke very plainly about this. Read His Words. 

So where are you today? Are you in need? What does the Bible say about that need? Are you troubled? God promises to deliver you out of them all! Are you needing healing?  He sent His Word and healed all our diseases. Are you afraid? God will deliver you out of all your fears! Are you feeling condemned? God will save all who call upon his name in faith. 

I have two little guys in my life. They are ages 3 and 1. They are my grandsons.  They live close by which makes being a grandparent so rewarding. I can’t even describe the feelings I have when they are around. I love to just sit and watch them play and interact with people. I love the memories that they stir in my heart.  When I see their mother, giving the best years of her life to raise and nurture them the way she does, it warms my heart and makes me proud. She is such a good mother. 

The boys, with their mannerisms, remind me so much of my boys when they were that age and I once again re-live how I loved them and nurtured them, just like my daughter does now. Those seemed like simpler days and it causes me to miss them, for the most part. Memories flash before my eyes and I long to grab my boys up in my arms and just hold them for a little while longer. (Of course, both my boys are taller than I am so that would be virtually impossible at this stage of the game.)  That doesn’t mean that I don’t love them the way my daughter obviously loves the little guys, in fact, in many ways I love them even more. Of course with teenagers, you can love them so much that you think you will burst but still not like the things they do sometimes. They translate that as Mom and Dad don’t love me anymore, but that is so untrue. My big guys were my world for so many years.  I, like my daughter, gave them my best years and I wouldn’t trade that for the world. I just wish that they were a little more willing to receive the affection that I still have for them. I know it’s just a stage and that someday they will, so I just take all that affection and give it to my grandsons for now. ‘

My daughter has a blog called “It’s the Little Things.” It’s the little things in life that make up a life. And in this case, it’s those two little guys that make a whole lot of joy and love in mine and for that, I am very thankful.

Last night was not a good night. I stupidly drank a glass of caffeinated ice tea for dinner and then drank a cup of caffeinated hot tea later in the evening.  When it came time to sleep, I just tossed and turned and tossed and turned. After 6 hours of tossing and turning, my mind started to get pretty squirrely. In my half awake/ half drowsy condition, all kinds of wild stuff made it’s way through my thoughts. I got up thinking that if I was fully awake, it would come back under my control and I could gather those thoughts, toss them out and get to sleep. Now this is not normal for me, and it felt a little weird. I have a feeling that the heart palpitations, the intense hot flashes, and the not normal stuff that’s been going on in my body the last 2 weeks played a part in me ending up in that condition. (Who doesn’t love menopause?) 

Still, even knowing that I wasn’t going crazy or have dementia didn’t soften the craziness. My mind immediately went to the Word of God.  “I will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on me.”  I climbed off the couch and stood up to insure that my mind was fully awake and I began to pray.  As I knelt by the couch, the presence of God settled into the living room and I knew that I was not alone in my struggle. In fact, the end of my struggle was there banishing all that was troubling me and all that was keeping me awake. I rose from the couch, returned to my bed, crawled under the soft quilt and drifted off to sleep.

When questioned about why we never shot a charity match hosted by a shooting club about 1 ½ hrs from our house, we told the organizer that we can’t shoot on Sundays. Her response was “well, God could take that day off.”  As I knelt by the couch, I was SO THANKFUL that God “neither sleeps nor slumbers” and He NEVER takes time off!  What if He had been “unavailable” last night?  What if I had been left alone to try to regulate my hormones and change the frantic thinking that they had caused?  I would be no better off than those in the world who we know are basically unsuccessful at it so they resort to drugs, alcohol, divorce, and even worse forms of destructive behavior.

God was for me the faithful night watchman. I am never alone. He is always there waiting for to help in time of need and He is able and willing to help in whatever way we need Him to.

Today is Sunday! My favorite day! I look forward to church.  It's the highlight of my week.  My peoples are there. My family is there. My God is there in a special way that you just don't notice sometimes through the week. 

Today the sermon was about convictions, persecution, and elevation and all sorts of Biblical terms like that.  i really enjoyed the sermon-and not only because I can't take my eyes off the handsome one doing the preaching. But as I was driving home, I just couldn't think about the text.  It was the story of the three Hebrew children in the firey furnace being delivered by God. I've heard many, many sermons through the years using these scriptures as the text. Today though, the most consuming thought of how big God is was what I came away with.  It wasn't even a main point of the sermon, but that's what followed me home. 

That same God that delivered the Hebrew children has not changed one little bit since he walked in the midst of the furnance.  He would do it again today if the sitation presented itself and it would have the same effect. As I pondered this, I realized that I don't give God enought credit.  I don't think about His bigness that goes above and  beyond what I think it will take to take care of the particular need I am praying about. I don't remember that nothing is too difficult for God and that He does what He pleases. I forget that what pleases him is faith in His ability to meet any challenge and to win any battle. Sometimes Bible stories seem almost surreal and I forget that these were real people who were just like me and what God did for them He will do for anyone who believes Him the way they did. 

Therein lies the key. I must believe like they did. I must know and place my full dependence on God and God alone.  When I do, He will move in the greatest of ways. I may not be in a furnace, but no matter where I am and in what situation I am, He is the same God that walked amongst the flames with Shadrac, Mishak and Abednigo. He is the same God that made sure they stepped out of that fire without even one hair on their head singed! And not only does He walk with me, He lives in me! What a thought! What a God!

Sometimes life throws you things that you wouldn’t count as funny or valuable, like sudden trips to the emergency room after you step on a piece of glass and no one in your family or your group of friends is able to dig it out of your foot, even after several tries. 

When my boys were small, I bought a product called Urine Away or some such descriptive name that came with a blacklight.  Evidently, you can turn out the lights and shine this light around the room and it will show you where there is urine so that you can spray Urine Away there and get rid of the smell.  First of all, I never recommend walking around in the dark in a bathroom shared by two growing boys unless you are in a hazmat suit. Secondly, as a mother, I needed to know where the smells were coming from but as a normal person, I was very sorry that I found out. I had nightmares dreaming about how that urine had gotten where I found it.

Anyway, back to the broken glass that eventually ended up in my foot. They need to come up with a system, such as Urine Away, to find shards of glass on floors when one gets broken.  They could call it Emergency Room Away.  They  could even charge $50.00 for it and I would buy it because that would be half what I had to pay to go to the emergency room, sit in an exam room that happened to have a broken tv remote and waste the last three hours of my weekend.  (What was more concerning was that the tv remote and nurse call button were all on the same unit.  I was tempted to push it just to see if I was as on my own as I felt, but I resisted.) So in order to change from watching Steeler football to a sappy Christmas movie, I had to get out of bed, limp to the tv on the wall, reach up and change the channel. Now I grew up doing this, so for me it was not that big of a stretch, but to those who have only used remotes to operate a tv, it would have been very frustrating.  I’m not even sure that my kids know that you can actually use your fingers and manually operate a television. 

About the limping. It just doesn’t seem fair that the person in the emergency room with a foot injury should be the one with a broken remote. I could hear others happily flipping through the stations as their loved ones sat by their bed. Not me.  I had driven myself to the hospital with a chunk of glass in my right heel.  I avoided putting pressure on my heel because I didn’t want the glass to go further in so driving was a bit interesting.  I played in my head what I would say if I happen to get pulled over by a cop.  “Mam, where are you going in such a hurry?  What have you had to drink tonight?” “Ummmm...officer, I’m going to emergency room because I have an emergency.  I haven’t had anything to drink.  It must be the epson salt water that soaked into my system while I was softening up my skin so that someone could dig in my foot with a needle and tweezers to try to remove a chunk of a drinking glass that got broken (which by the way, sir, did not have anything alcoholic in it) that is causing my erratic driving. I decided that if he asked me why I was driving myself to the emergency room, I would just burst into tears and tell him that my family was too busy to do it which is kind of the explanation I got when I asked if someone could drive me. (Actually, I wasn’t real upset about having to drive myself until I realized that they were going to have to make another incision in my foot to get that glass out because it was in there pretty deep.  It was then that it dawned on me that I might not be able to drive myself home and the thought of being in the emergency exam room with a broken remote,  two cuts and a needle hole in my heel until someone’s schedule freed up enough to pick me up was just more than I could bear!)

To pass the time, I texted a friend. Now she and I go way back and we have spent more than one night in the emergency room together. It’s just tradition that when someone I love goes to the emergency room, I show up to provide some comic relief….oh and help of course. Of course! I told her not to bother since I figured that if I could drive myself to the emergency room I was probably going to live but she ignored me and came anyway. She brought her smart phone, which by the way worked way better than my hospital remote, and showed me this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP4zgb9H3Cg  When you get a chance, watch it.  If you haven’t been to the emergency room lately, it may amuse you but since we were sitting in the emergency room experiencing the same things this comedian talks about, we were laughing hysterically to the point that we thought the staff would come in to make sure we hadn’t found  some drugs somewhere. I was also secretly wishing that they had thrown a few of those blue pads under me because I wasn’t sure I could limp fast enough to make it to the bathroom while laughing so hard. 

The foot is sore, but it will heal in a couple of days and it is completely glass-less! Yeah!

To sum this up.  I am so thankful for friends who will drop everything to come keep me company at the emergency room, even if I’m not there for a real “emergency.” I’m thankful for people who would bring something to cheer me while I waited for them to poke and probe and charge me out the wazoo for something I would have done myself for free if I could have gotten a good angle and had been able to see. There’s just nothing like knowing that you have people who love you enough to sit in an uncomfortable chair beside your bed for hours on end just because they want to even when your family and perhaps common sense would tell you that it’s not necessary. It might not have been necessary, but it sure was nice!

I posted this a year or two ago….but it is still near the top of my things I’m thankful for list.

As I closed my Bible after reading this morning, I just pressed it to my chest and said "Lord, I'm so thankful for Your Word!"

 Everyday I'm so anxious to open it.  When I close it, I just feel different. I'm more at peace, more settled.  I feel full and satisfied yet more hungry, looking forward to the next time I read it all at the same time!  I'm so thankful for men, inspired by the Holy Spirit who took time to write it, for those who copied it and re-copied it all through history so that it would be preserved.  I'm humbled when I think that it cost people their lives to guard it, to keep it and to hide it as well as to publish it in a language that I could understand!  How could I ever treat it as common?  I'm thankful that Paul didn't waste his days languishing away in a Roman jail, but he used that time to write.  If he hadn't we'd be without a majority of the New Testament!  I'm thankful for the Jews that recorded and wrote down all the acts of God throughout history, the teachings of Jesus Christ, and the acts of the Holy Spirit.

The Word is my truly my source.  When I am hungry Jesus beckons me to go there and a table is already spread just waiting for me to come and eat until I'm full.  When I'm frightened there are admonitions telling me "do not fear", at least enough for one every day of the year.  They call out to me and comfort my soul by reminding me that the one who said it is well able to handle anything that concerns me that day.  When I am hurting, His words soothe my soul, pouring out the oil, the balm that soothes, heals and restores. When I feel deserted, His Words surround me and that cloud of witnesses calls from it's pages to remind me that I am not alone.  When I've allowed unbelief to cloud my way and my strength to persevere is gone, His Word comes running to me and picks me up and runs the race right beside me reminding me to be strong and courageous for He is with me. 

His Words are like cool water after a long, hard day in the hot sun.  It quenches the spiritual thirst in me.  And just as water strengthens and rejuvenates from the blistering heat, so His Word reaches and soaks into every fiber of my being and fills me up giving me strength and energy to continue on. The promises on those pages are sure.  They are a rock beneath my feet, a sure foundation.  They are guardrails to keep me on the straight and narrow path away from harm that awaits me if I wander.  They are the lamp that shines on the road I am to take and they are the light at the end of the tunnel, my destination, my great reward!

I'm so thankful that I don't have to wait til the next Sunday meeting, the next Bible study, the next chance meeting with another believer to receive all that I need at any given moment.  It's there sitting on my nightstand always working, always powerful, always true!  It's hidden in my heart by the Holy Spirit who brings it to my remembrance so that my mind is stayed and in peace.  It never ceases to amaze me at it's accuracy, it's pertinence, it's ability to pinpoint whatever is going on in my life and to give instruction, encouragement, and revelation.  

Jesus said that "I and the Word are one."  What an incredible thought!  When I pick up that book, with it's worn cover, smudged pages and colorful markings, smelling of glue and tape that has put it back together so many times, I am conversing with Jesus Himself.  I'm hearing "power words" that are active and working in my life.  

My Bible, the Word of God-truly the pearl of great price, truly a treasure worth selling all to have.

Thank you God for writing it all down for me but for not leaving me alone when I read it.  Of how many other books that we own can we say that "every time we read it, the author is sitting right there with us"? 

Lord, I'M SO THANKFUL FOR MY BIBLE!