Time with Me Is the Foundation - Journaling Prayer by LaWanda

LaWanda – ♪♪ Jesus, Jesus, how I love you.  How I’ve proved you o’er and o’er.  Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus, O for grace to love you more.” ♪♪ O Jesus, how beautiful is your grace.  Thank you for your love that covers me and fills me.  Thank you, precious Jesus. O for grace to love you more.  This is my prayer today, Lord.  This is my prayer.

I see you today, Lord, watching over my life.  Not just now, Lord, but from the beginning.  You see the timeline of my life in a nano-second.  But in that nano-second, you have seen it all, for you were there in it all.  The outcome was never in doubt, nor were the ups and downs.  The times when I loved you and the times when I ran away from you.  Times of ecstatic joy and times of horrific, deep desperation.  I do not know why you reached over that cliff and grabbed my collar as I tried to commit suicide.  The desperation of the moment was so great, Lord.  The pain that I was in was the lens through which I saw my life, my future.  And it was not a place I wanted to live in and so I took those pills.  But you knew.  You knew that despair and carried it for me on the Cross.  And that is why you saved me - You had already carried that despair.  You, being separated from your Father, and me being separated from my true self.  O Jesus, you knew my pain.  Thank you, Lord, that my desperation was not the end of my story.

Jesus – O LaWanda, my dear one, my precious, precious one.  I do see the end from the beginning…and everything in between!  I saw you as a child getting ready for church, and no one would take you. I saw when you got baptized because your older brother did.  I saw you at the Billy Graham Crusade when you walked that aisle for real.  O yes, dear, I saw you surrender for “special service” not even knowing what that was, except that I had touched your heart so deeply that you had to respond.  Fast forward to the present.  For this “now” is where we have been going.  It is where we have always been headed. 

In this “now”, you are hearing me in ways you never have before.  What is left for you is to OBEY.  When you obey immediately, you will reap a very rich blessing from this “don’t think about it, just do it” obedience.  Sometimes delayed obedience is disobedience, but not always.  You will know the difference.  Don’t cheat yourself of this blessing.  Remember that I have told you that you work for Me now.  Do not take this lightly.  You really do work for Me.  Not just in the spiritual realm but in the physical realm as well.  View typing these journals as a priority.  Do not let “worthless” things like TV, internet, email, Facebook, etc. get in the way of: 1) your time with Me and, 2) your time for Me.  Both are important and both are filled with blessings that will not come to you any other way.

Time WITH Me is the foundation upon which time FOR Me is built.  As I reveal Myself to you, as you know Me on deeper and deeper levels, and as you obey what is put before you to do, doors will be opened in ways you cannot even begin to comprehend or imagine, understand or know.  They will require only one thing from you, LaWanda – for you to walk through them.

Morning, noon or night, I do not care when, just come and reap the harvest of the seeds you have been sowing into My presence.  And even as you do, continue to sow into your future with more of them, more offerings to Me. Seed offerings of time, money and love.  I was not kidding when I said, “There is much for you to do.”  But don’t beat yourself up when you miss the mark, for I will not.  Just come to Me.  Repent where you need to…and start again.  There are many stops and starts along the road, but as I have said before, there will be no more detours.  You are on the right path at this, the right time, for it is My path for you.  You do your part, and I SURELY will do Mine.  I surely will do Mine.

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I recently found a verse of Scripture that explains two-way dialogue with God beautifully.  Like happens so often, it is a verse that I had read many times but…this time…it was different.  I felt like Jesus was saying to me, “This verse perfectly describes what happens in Journaling Prayer.  Share it.”  The verse was Ephesians 3:18-19 in the Passion Translation.  If you already do two-way journaling, you will immediately see the truth of what He said.  It truly is the essence of hearing the voice of God in this way.  If you do not yet do two-way journaling, I hope that it will inspire you to try it and experience for yourself...”The great magnitude of the astonishing love of Christ in all its dimensions,” and an intimacy with Jesus greater than anything you can imagine.

Ephesians 3:17-19, TPT

“Then you will be empowered to discover what every holy one experiences – the great magnitude of the astonishing love of Christ in all its dimensions.  How deeply intimate and far-reaching is His love!  How enduring and inclusive it is!  Endless love beyond measurement that transcends our understanding – this extravagant love pours into you until you are filled to overflowing with the fullness of God!”