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God’s love

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When you’ve prayed and prayed for something: My new book on marriage now available in PRINT!

me & Ray

me & my husband Ray

Have you ever prayed and prayed about something, and it seemed like your prayers were just bouncing off the ceiling and weren’t working? That God was too busy, on vacation somewhere, or didn’t care?

That isn’t true, but sometimes when you pray so hard and nothing seems to be happening, that’s how you feel. I have felt that way many times about my marriage of almost 23 years to Ray.

Ray and I have been through so much together. From day one of our marriage, the enemy Satan has tried to destroy it because of the ministry calling of God on our lives.

Here’s just a few of the spiritual battles we’ve faced:

  • Adultery
  • Pornography
  • Financial crises (including our home foreclosing and bankruptcy)
  • Step-family issues
  • Ray’s career problems
  • and much more.

Currently the challenge we’re facing is that we’re trying to buy our rental home. We don’t know if the house loan is going to be approved or not, so we may be moving (again!). We’ve had multiple moves in our marriage, and it’s NOT fun–very stressful. Please keep us in prayer and I will keep you posted!

What are some of the problems you’ve faced–and overcome–in your marriage or in the marriages of those you love? With a frightening statistic of almost 50% of marriages ending in divorce, even for Christian couples, it’s hard sometimes to have faith and hope that your marriage will last “’til death do us part.”

The answer is always JESUS. Don’t stop praying! Being a believer doesn’t guarantee you’ll have an easy, happy marriage, but God can and will help you as you cry out to Him and walk in humble obedience to His word.

He’s able to do the impossible in your marriage, healing and restoring it, and making it resemble a beautiful, stained glass window, a picture of Jesus and His spotless, radiant Bride, the Church. 

Stained Glass & Marriage cover
Here’s a few tips from my new book on marriage, Stained Glass & Marriage: Reflections of Light and Hope by an Imperfect Wife:

  • Forgive daily. This is really hard sometimes, but God has forgiven you and me of so much. We need to extend that love and forgiveness to our spouse. Ask God to help you agape (unconditionally) love your husband or wife, the way God does you. This is a powerful prayer!
  • Pray for each other and with each other. Prayer can help to divorce-proof your marriage. One great resource I recommend isThe Power of a Praying Wife by Stormie Omartian. Often as we pray for others, God changes our own hearts, convicting us of sin. It’s also hard to stay mad at someone that you’re praying for! Your prayers are powerful. (James 5:16) God wants you to have a happy, blessed, fulfilling marriage. 
  • Have fun together. Go on regular dates. When you first met him or her, you did fun things together to get to know each other. After you marry, you both get busy, work, take care of the kids, do chores and errands, etc. Make time with each other–without the kids-a  priority. Dream again. Go have some FUN!
  • Learn to communicate well, not just yell (or ignore each other). Ray and I recently attended a marriage retreat in Kansas City, Kansas, taught by Roger and Laureen Traver of Mountain Top Marriages ministry. In the teaching sessions, they have couples volunteer to demonstrate effective communication versus bad communication. You can use “I feel” statements instead of saying, “You always” or “you never,” or express how you are feeling, without attacking, accusing, or blaming. Listening to your husband or wife is an important key because most spouses don’t really hear each other–the words or especially the HEART message. I encourage you to consider attending the Travers’ marriage retreats. This was our second one and we’d love to attend more.
  • Don’t give up. Satan is attacking Christian marriages hard today because he knows his time is very short and that Jesus is coming soon. What he’s really after is your children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren–your godly seed. (Malachi 2:15) Don’t give Satan or the people giving you ungodly counsel to just go ahead and divorce “to be happy” the satisfaction of your marriage being destroyed. (Even some Christian marriage counselors, family members, or so-called friends will tell you this!) Don’t quit! Too much is at stake spiritually.

These are just a few of the tips I cover in my new marriage book, which compares marriage to the traditional art of making stained glass windows. God wants to make your marriage like beautiful, multi-colored stained glass windows, displaying a picture of Christ and His Bride, the Church.

Stained Glass & Marriage book

I’m so happy to announce that this new book is now in print–a physical copy available for sale for you. You can find it here, and please share with your family and friends: https://www.createspace.com/6099550

This book is also available as an eBook for your Kindle at Amazon here: http://hyperurl.co/j1un48

It’s also available as an eBook for your Nook at Barnes and Noble here: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/stained-glass-marriage-beth-jones/1123488507?ean=2940157802592

Just click below to see the new video trailer for this book! (It’s less than a minute long!)
https://youtu.be/7EEnWmf4GLU

Australia
Blog, Faith, prayer, Travel

The open road unknown

Australia

Australia

This morning I heard a new song on KLove and I loved it. I came home and watched the video which blessed me even more – the beautiful waterfall, the amazing ocean, different places in the world.

I felt this song was timely with our upcoming Africa trip.

The lyrics which stood out to me were:

Let’s go heading down the open road unknown
And we find what we’re made of through the open door
Is it fear you’re afraid of?
What are you waiting for?
Love alone is worth the fight.

The photography in this video is incredible. I wish I could learn to do videos like this.

What are you waiting for? Let’s head down the open road unknown. It will be a great adventure!

Click here to view the video, Love Alone Is Worth The Fight by Switchfoot.

Blog, Faith, prayer, Spiritual Gifts

God, make me Your conduit

Today I was really encouraged by a friend’s comment about me in a Facebook group and wanted to share my thoughts with you. In the forum, we post weekly or even daily prayer requests as needed, and I’d asked for prayer for God’s wisdom to lead and guide me for my “next step.”

One friend, Cindy Ortagus, said that she’d pray for God’s leading for that next step and that I’d continue to be used as His “conduit,” for Him to speak through me to the world around me.

Cindy had received that word conduit before when praying for me several months ago and had sent me a card in the mail about it. She said that word keeps coming to her as she prays for me.

Cindy's comment about me as a conduit

Cindy’s comment about me as a conduit

The word resonated with me, and today I looked up the definition of conduit on the online Free Dictionary:

1. A pipe or channel for carrying/conveying fluids, such as water.

2. A tube or duct for enclosing electric wires or cable.

3. A means by which something is transmitted: an arms dealer who served as a conduit for intelligence data.
4. Archaic A fountain.

[Middle English, from Old French, from Medieval Latin conductus, from Latin, past participle of condcere, to lead together; see conduce.]

Wow! There is so much there.

My desire is to be a carrier of God’s love – Christ’s LIVING WATERS.

Like a duct for enclosing electric wires, I want to be a duct for the Holy Spirit’s POWER.

I want to be a means for transmitting GOD’S WORD, His prophetic messenger of truth, love and forgiveness.

I want to lead together women of God.

I want to be a fountain of God’s anointing.

God, make me your conduit.

Remove anything obstructing the conduit, anything blocking or hindering Your love and power, so Your Spirit will flow freely into and through my life, heart, and spirit to others in the world.

The Great Conduit

The Great Conduit

Conduits’ origins

In the Middle Ages in London, the Great Conduit was built to ensure public access to safe, clean water. This was a complex system of pipes that brought water from a large fresh spring at Tyburn to a pumping house with cisterns at Cheapside. This fed local cisterns all over London.

“The head of the conduit was placed near a natural spring and the water from the spring was used to fill a nearby cistern or tank.  From the cistern, the water flowed through pipes for a distance of a mile or more.” The water was stored in a larger cistern equipped with taps for dispensing the water.

Interestingly, the conduit houses were not only used for storing and dispensing water, but also served a secondary function as billboards for moral instruction.(http://waterhistory.org/histories/london/)

Conduits were vital to give people clean, fresh, wholesome water to drink and to prevent diseases.

Jesus gives us His living waters to give us abundant life, to set us free from sin, and to heal us.

“But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.” ~ John 4:14, NLT

God, make me Your conduit.

The Bible has many stories of what God could do with men, women, and children who were yielded to His purposes. They became  unobstructed conduits of His Love and Power.

Abraham and Sarah couldn’t have any children, yet God chose them to be the father and the mother of the Jewish nation because of their great faith, with their descendants being a “great nation” – as many as the stars. When Abraham was 100 and Sarah beyond childbearing years, they had their son Isaac ~ through Abraham the Jews were born. (Scientists estimate there are between 100 billion and 1 trillion stars in an average galaxy, and about 100 billion to 1 trillion galaxies in the Universe.)

Moses told God that he stammered and couldn’t speak, but God reminded him that He’d made Moses’ mouth. Moses went on to became the deliverer of the Jewish people out of the slavery in Egypt. One of the most famous and miraculous of his feats was parting the Red Sea for the Jews to cross over when Pharoah and his army were pursuing them to bring them back to Egypt.

Samson, a Nazirite consecrated to God from birth, had supernatural physical strength from God to kill 1000 men with the jawbone of a donkey. (Judges 15:16)

Queen Esther, an ordinary Jewish girl, became the deliverer of the Jewish peoplewhen Mordecai wanted to have the nation wiped out.

David was a man after God’s own heart and a great warrior for Him, killing tens of thousands of the Israelites’ enemy, the Philistines.

Samuel was just a little child, yet he heard the voice of God in the temple and “none of his words fell to the ground,” becoming one of Israel’s most accurate prophets.

Jesus, the only Son of God, only did what God told him to do and say, doing many miracles. The New Testament records only 37 of these miracles, but the Apostle John said, “If everyone of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.” (John 21:25)

Mary Magdalene, “just a woman” in a society which viewed women more as property and objects, and who had seven demons cast out of her, became the first evangelist after seeing Jesus resurrected in the garden.

God, make me Your conduit.