{"id":8287,"date":"2018-09-21T21:08:18","date_gmt":"2018-09-22T01:08:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.inthineheart.com\/staging\/8143\/?p=8287"},"modified":"2018-09-21T21:08:18","modified_gmt":"2018-09-22T01:08:18","slug":"hurricane-florence-thoughts-dead-spots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.inthineheart.com\/staging\/8143\/2018\/09\/21\/hurricane-florence-thoughts-dead-spots\/","title":{"rendered":"Hurricane Florence Thoughts – Dead Spots"},"content":{"rendered":"

Compared to the hardships and great losses suffered by many others due to Hurricane Florence, we were very fortunate and we thank the Lord for sparing us! For the purpose of sharing another spiritual application to Florence’s impact on our area, I write the following…<\/em><\/p>\n

***********************<\/strong><\/p>\n

During last week’s storm, we lost power\u00a0two times. Both times this happened, the outage was reported followed by the wait for restoration. Even though the second outage\u00a0lasted only\u00a0about three hours, we were actually\u00a0disconnected from all communication\u00a0for part of\u00a0that time.\u00a0We had no internet, no cell\u00a0service and no landline phone service. We drove down our road and back up past our house while looking for a possible cause to the outage. When we got into our little town,\u00a0I\u00a0once again attempted to\u00a0get in touch with family and church family but service was hit & miss…missing more than hitting.\u00a0After several dropped calls and many unsent texts, I realized my efforts were futile. I guess you could say, concerning cell service, our area was one big dead spot and I was going to have to wait until it was repaired.\u00a0 Eventually, we were able to get through and power was restored once again as well.<\/p>\n

While\u00a0looking back on all the effort put into locating the cause\u00a0of the outage as well as attempting communication,\u00a0the Lord gave me this thought.<\/p>\n

When our communication with the Lord is hindered, how quick are we to try to locate the cause? Does it bother us that our prayers don’t seem to be getting through? I would say that most if not all of us have experienced cell service “dropping” while we continued to talk.\u00a0There we are\u00a0– talking away,\u00a0but the other person cannot hear us because one of us is in a dead spot. In relation to our prayer life, how often do we pray – assuming that God is listening – yet in reality, our prayers are not going past the ceiling. We’ve entered a spiritual dead spot and our “calls” aren’t getting through.<\/p>\n

What about our human relationships? When communication is next to nothing, does it bother us? How quick are we to try to locate the cause of\u00a0broken fellowship with a loved one or a friend? Or, are we content\u00a0to continue\u00a0living with little to no communication? Yes, we may continue talking to an individual but are they really hearing us?\u00a0Or, has an offense caused us to enter\u00a0a dead spot? Has the “call” dropped while we talk on?<\/p>\n

It took effort to have our power\u00a0and phone service restored last week. Likewise, it takes effort to have communication with the Lord and others restored as well.<\/p>\n

The first action that must take place is locating the cause. We read in Psalms:<\/p>\n

“Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” Psalm 139:23,24<\/em> <\/strong><\/p>\n

As we sincerely ask the Lord to show us if we are the cause for loss of communication, He will certainly be faithful to reveal to us any problems that have\u00a0resulted\u00a0in\u00a0broken fellowship.\u00a0 If God does indeed reveal a problem in our own lives, we would proceed to the next step of restoration.<\/p>\n

Once the cause is revealed, we must make the necessary repairs. Sadly, this is where many refuse to proceed in restoring communication. Why? One word would be sufficient to answer —> PRIDE. Humbly admitting any wrong-doing is so very contrary to our flesh. Yet, humility is what God requires for restored fellowship.<\/p>\n

“But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.” James 4:6<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Concerning our human relationships, humility goes a long way as well in restoring fellowship. It is not easy…not easy at all to humbly say, “I am sorry. I was wrong. Please forgive me.” Our flesh absolutely hates it. But, as we have that inner struggle between the flesh man and the spirit man, we must ask ourselves this question:<\/p>\n

How important, to me,\u00a0is restored communication in this relationship? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Our actions at that moment will dictate our answer. Will we begin searching for the cause? Will we begin making the necessary repairs toward restoration? Or, will we be satisfied to continue living in a perpetual dead spot?<\/p>\n

“This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.\u00a0If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our<\/i> sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. ” I John 1:5-9<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Compared to the hardships and great losses suffered by many others due to Hurricane Florence, we were very fortunate and we thank the Lord for sparing us! For the purpose of sharing another spiritual application to Florence’s impact on our area, I write the following… *********************** During last week’s storm, we lost power\u00a0two times. Both times this happened, the outage was reported followed by the wait for restoration. Even though the second outage\u00a0lasted only\u00a0about three hours, we were actually\u00a0disconnected from all communication\u00a0for part of\u00a0that time.\u00a0We had no internet, no cell\u00a0service and no landline phone service. We drove down our road and back up past our house while looking for a possible cause to the outage. When we got into our little town,\u00a0I\u00a0once again attempted to\u00a0get in touch with family and church family but service was hit & miss…missing more than hitting.\u00a0After several dropped calls and many unsent texts, I realized my efforts were futile. I guess you could say, concerning cell service, our area was one big dead spot and I was going to have to wait until it was repaired.\u00a0 Eventually, we were able to get through and power was restored once again as well. While\u00a0looking back on all the effort put into locating the cause\u00a0of the outage as well as attempting communication,\u00a0the Lord gave me this thought. When our communication with the Lord is hindered, how quick are we to try to locate the cause? Does it bother us that our prayers don’t seem to be getting through? I would say that most if not all of us have experienced cell service “dropping” while we continued to talk.\u00a0There we are\u00a0– talking away,\u00a0but the other person cannot hear us because one of us is in a dead spot. In relation to our prayer life, how often do we pray – assuming that God is listening – yet in reality, our prayers are not going past the ceiling. We’ve entered a spiritual dead spot and our “calls” aren’t getting through. What about our human relationships? When communication is next to nothing, does it bother us? How quick are we to try to locate the cause of\u00a0broken fellowship with a loved one or a friend? Or, are we content\u00a0to continue\u00a0living with little to no communication? Yes, we may continue talking to an individual but are they really hearing us?\u00a0Or, has an offense caused us to enter\u00a0a dead spot? Has the “call” dropped while we talk on? It took effort to have our power\u00a0and phone service restored last week. Likewise, it takes effort to have communication with the Lord and others restored as well. The first action that must take place is locating the cause. We read in Psalms: “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” Psalm 139:23,24 As we sincerely ask the Lord to show us if we are the cause for loss of communication, He will certainly be faithful to reveal to us any problems that have\u00a0resulted\u00a0in\u00a0broken fellowship.\u00a0 If God does indeed reveal a problem in our own lives, we would proceed to the next step of restoration. Once the cause is revealed, we must make the necessary repairs. Sadly, this is where many refuse to proceed in restoring communication. Why? One word would be sufficient to answer —> PRIDE. Humbly admitting any wrong-doing is so very contrary to our flesh. Yet, humility is what God requires for restored fellowship. “But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.” James 4:6 Concerning our human relationships, humility goes a long way as well in restoring fellowship. It is not easy…not easy at all to humbly say, “I am sorry. I was wrong. Please forgive me.” Our flesh absolutely hates it. But, as we have that inner struggle between the flesh man and the spirit man, we must ask ourselves this question: How important, to me,\u00a0is restored communication in this relationship? Our actions at that moment will dictate our answer. Will we begin searching for the cause? Will we begin making the necessary repairs toward restoration? Or, will we be satisfied to continue living in a perpetual dead spot? “This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.\u00a0If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. ” I John 1:5-9<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[51,20,27,65,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forgiveness","category-humility","category-pride","category-relationships","category-restoration"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4o6C2-29F","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthineheart.com\/staging\/8143\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthineheart.com\/staging\/8143\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthineheart.com\/staging\/8143\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthineheart.com\/staging\/8143\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthineheart.com\/staging\/8143\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8287"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthineheart.com\/staging\/8143\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8288,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthineheart.com\/staging\/8143\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8287\/revisions\/8288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthineheart.com\/staging\/8143\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthineheart.com\/staging\/8143\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthineheart.com\/staging\/8143\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}