Help me out here.

This one's going to be short because it's late and I still have to write an essay due tomorrow.

A few posts back, I talked about the amazingness of prayer on the little things in our lives.

I kind of threw aside the idea of praying over big stuff because it's a bit cliché to me. I've grown up hearing story after story about how huge God is when you've got some major issues going on in your life. Even though I've seen God pull off these larger-than-life miracles time after time, I often find the smaller ones to be more meaningful.

Tonight however, I want to ask all the believing readers of this blog to do something I should have asked them to do a long time ago.

Pray.

My mom is stuck taking care of my Alzheimer's grandma. She's the only one who can and will do it, and there's not much my immediate family can do to help out, since we're always at work or school. We want to help, but when it comes down to it, the burden is on her. The whole burden.

Would you pray for my mom to find the strength to continue doing what she does, or for another solution to present itself concerning my grandmother's advanced condition?

James 5:15 says "The prayer offered up in faith will make the sick person well. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven."

Sickness can apply to anything, be it an actual disease or medical condition, or a state of not being well, or even an unhealthy lack of trust in God. Please, if there's anything I can pray about in your life, don't hesitate in sharing with me. I want to pray for you, and I know that God has a plan for us all.

Pillars of Fire

If you've heard of Moses, you might have heard how he lead the Israelites out of Egypt by following a pillar of fire by night or a pillar of smoke by day.

That's all fine and dandy for him, but why was Moses the only one to get the pillar-of-fire treatment? Wouldn't that make all the other Bible superstars jealous?

Wait, who said Moses had exclusive access to the glory of God as a column of fire from the earth to the heavens?

The topic came up in my Sunday School class the other day, and I realized the legendary pillar of fire actually is pretty common in the course of Bible history!

For a Jesus-freak, bible-reading sinner-saved-by-grace like me, it was an exciting revelation.

If the pillar of fire wasn't a one-time miracle, every time it is known to have appeared could represent a huge theological message that I've never actually looked at.

After thumbing through my Bible, doing a very quick scan for the concept of a column of intense, white fire (or smoke), or the glory of God in circumstances where the witness reacted as if to a column of light/fire, I had a page of notes written out!

Elijah made a big deal of showing a culture of idol worshipers just who God was. It's pretty epic to imagine God laying the smack-down like that.

Another prophet, that dude named Ezekiel, man he freaking saw this pillar of fire all over the place!

Did you know Daniel saw it too?

And my man Jesus, don't think he got left out of the action!

I'm sure the pillar of fire appears at other places in the Bible, but these are just the examples that stuck out with me. If you care to look, I'd examine any Bible story that involves a demonstration of the Spirit's power, a bolt of lightning, the glory of God, or a literal column of fire descending from the sky. Chances are you'll find lots of similarities throughout your resarch, and I pray you might be closer to God because of it.

I hope God blesses your future with a pillar of fire!