Tag Archives: South Dakota

Presidential Prayer Team

Presidential Prayer Team; C.H. – Eager to Serve

Leave a comment

ppt_seal01

The newly-christened battleship USS South Dakota headed towards the Pacific to join the war in the summer of 1942. It carried new recruits eager to retaliate for the attack on Pearl Harbor. None were more willing than twelve-year-old Calvin Graham – an underage boy wanting to do his part to fight for his country. Somehow, Graham slipped through the cracks, telling the Navy he was seventeen. This young vet ended up with a bronze star and a purple heart at thirteen.

That the leaders took the lead in Israel, that the people offered themselves willingly, bless the Lord!

Judges 5:2

When someone is willing to risk their life in such a way, people take notice. In today’s passage, Deborah sings praises for a military victory over Israel’s enemies. She thanks God for effective leadership and for her people who, like Calvin Graham, proved ready to “willingly offer themselves.”

Praise God for the presidents who have led this nation into battle with a strong hand. Thank Him for the many men and women who choose to join the armed forces in order to protect this country. Ask Him to strengthen the current leadership of America and prepare this country for His plans for the future. Then ask for special blessings on the many United States veterans.

Recommended Reading: Judges 4:14-24

Our Daily Bread

Our Daily Bread — Hyperseeing

Leave a comment

Our Daily Bread

Romans 8:28-30

When He is revealed, we shall be like Him. —1 John 3:2

Sculptors have a term for the artist’s ability to look at a rough piece of stone and see it in its final, perfected form. It is called “hyperseeing.”

Gutzon Borglum (1867–1941) is the sculptor who created many well-known public works of art. Probably the most famous is Mt. Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota. Borglum’s housekeeper captured the concept of hyperseeing when she gazed up at the massive faces of the four US presidents on Mt. Rushmore for the first time. “Mr. Borglum,” she gasped, “how did you know Mr. Lincoln was in that rock?”

Hyperseeing is also a good description of our all-seeing God. He sees all that we are and more. He sees what we shall be when He has completed His work and we stand before Him, holy and without blemish: the exact likeness, the very image of Jesus. The God who started this great work in you will keep at it until He completes it on the very day Jesus Christ appears (see Phil. 1:6).

God will not be denied! He has such a longing for our perfection that nothing can or will remain an obstacle until He has finished the work He began so long ago.

If only . . . if only we will put ourselves in the Master Sculptor’s hands. —David Roper

Doubt whispers, “Thou art such a blot;

He cannot love poor thee.”

If what I am He lovest not,

He loves what I shall be. —MacDonald

God works in us to grow us into what He wants us to be.

Bible in a year: Leviticus 13; Matthew 26:26-50