Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist
Morning Chapel Prayer Today
Pastor Heather…
Good morning, everybody. Welcome to morning prayer. My name is Heather Sibinski. I’m one of the pastors here at Living Word.
I’m calling you to be a sacrifice…
As I was driving here this morning, I caught myself trying to manufacture something for today. And I do believe in praying and planning and having something. I want to have some kind of nugget, some kind of place to go with Him. And it’s been a busy couple of weeks. We’re getting new flooring in our home, so it’s been exhausting, moving furniture, emptying closets, all that kind of stuff. So in the natural, I would say my tank was pretty low. But as I’m praying, I hear the Lord telling me, “I’m just calling you to be a sacrifice. I’m just calling you to lead.”
So I’m thinking, okay, what does a sacrifice do? It lays down on the altar. I’m like, “I can do that, Lord. I can lay on the altar. I can lay down my own concerns, my own thoughts of self-promotion, my own thoughts of people pleasing.”
And sometimes when you come into places, you want to bring a good word, you want to bring something that’s going to bless people. But there’s always this tension of, “I want to look good. I want to have a word that’s going to bless them. What are people going to think? I have to make sure that I have all the right words.”
I can do that, I can lay myself down on the altar…
And then there’s that place of just laying on the altar and trusting that when I open my mouth, He’s going to fill it. And so I surrendered and as I’m driving, praying, I said, “I can do that. I can lay on the altar and I can just allow you to have the reins.” Which I pray every time I lead prayer, like “Father, I just humble myself. I yield myself. This is your time. It’s not my time.”
But I think so much in life sometimes we just forget how much easier it is when we just lay down and be a sacrifice. When we just yield, He has so much that He wants to speak through us, do through us. And if we’ll just stop running ahead of Him and trying to figure it all out and have a plan, and have a word, and have a right thing, and have this in place and that in place, and really being a “Martha” and making ourselves really busy, making sure everything’s perfect. Whereas we just have to, like Barb was saying, be like Mary, make Him that one thing. The unforced rhythms of grace, right? That’s where that refreshing is when we just remind ourselves that we are a living sacrifice. And sacrifices aren’t running around and doing. They’re just laying on the altar and allowing Him to do whatever He needs to do through them.
That’s what being a living sacrifice is. And there’s a peace in that. There’s a rest in that. There’s a refreshing in that, that there’s not pressure on me to do it. The pressure’s on Him. And it’s not pressure to Him because He already has a plan.
Tubing down the river v. swimming against the river…
It’s pressure to me because I’m trying to figure out things I don’t know, but He already knows. So if I just rest in His leading, in His guiding, if I just let Him move through me, I’d see it like tubing down the river versus swimming against the river. Right? Tubing down the river is much easier. You just let Him take you where He needs to go. And some of us are swimming against the rapids. We’re fighting and we’re pushing and we’re trying to get whatever that thing is. We all have a motivation and aspiration, a place, a thing, things we’re believing for.
Get on the innertube and allow Him to take us in His flow…
But if we get on that inner tube and just allow Him to just take us in that flow where He wants to go, He’s going to give us everything that we’re fighting for anyways. And the things we don’t receive weren’t the things that we needed in our lives. Because He knows the desires of our hearts and He knows how to bring those things to pass. So resting in Him and allowing Him to take you to those places of His blessing, His refreshing, His presence and not seeking Him for His hand, what He’ll do, but seeking His heart. Because when we do that, when we seek Him first, all these things will be added onto us. So putting Him back in that rightful place.
So maybe some of us this week, we’re seeking peace, maybe we’re seeking wisdom, maybe we’re seeking strength, maybe we’re seeking healing, financial blessing… We have to seek Him first.
Hope deferred makes a heart sick…
There was a while when we were living with my in-laws. I’ve shared this before, because at the age of 40, everybody wants to live with their in-laws with their kids for a while. So we lived with my in-laws for about five years. We were waiting for a house in Florida to sell that we were paying a mortgage on. It took about two and a half, three years for that to sell. And then we had to save up for a home.
Anyways, I just remember feeling so tired and worn out during that season. And the Lord gave me the scripture, Proverbs 13:12, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick. But when the desire is fulfilled, it’s a tree of life.” And I remember reading that. I was like, yep, my heart’s sick. My hope is deferred. So now what do I do?
Where is your hope?
And I remember pressing into the Lord and really seeking Him and saying, “Help me understand. Because I feel like I’m in this place, but how do I get out of that place?” And I’ll never forget, He just asked me, “Well, where is your hope? Because if your hope is in a person, or a situation, or an outcome, your hope will continually be deferred and your heart will continually be sick. But if your hope is in Me, the Lord, it will never be deferred and your heart will not grow sick.”
And so sometimes if I feel I’m worn out or a little heartsick of believing or waiting for something to happen, something to change, some situation… I’m like, wait, okay, my hope is not in the Lord right now. My hope is in the outcome of that situation. So then I align my hopes back in Him.
Is your hope in the outcome of the situation?
And so I just want to encourage you today, if your heart is sick right now, you feel like your hope has been deferred in whatever situation of life, and we’re all in so many different situations at so many times… If your hope is feeling like it’s being deferred, it’s because your hope is in the outcome of that situation. You have to put your hope back in Him.
Jeremiah 17:7–8 in the Amplified says…
“Most blessed is the man and woman who trusts in and relies on the Lord and whose hope and confidence the Lord is. For he shall be like a tree planted by waters that spreads out its roots by the river and it shall not see and fear when heat comes, but its leaf shall be green. It shall not be anxious and full of care in the year of drought, nor shall it cease yielding fruit.”
Obviously, he’s not talking about a tree. I don’t know too many trees that are anxious. He’s talking about us. We spread out our roots. We are by the river, the presence of God. We shall not see fear when heat comes. What’s heat? Problems, troubles, situations. Our leaves shall remain green, meaning we’re going to be fruitful in those seasons. We shall not be anxious or full of care in the year of drought.
It’s been feeling a little like a drought lately, hasn’t it, on the earth? But we don’t have to be anxious or take a care because we’re not going to cease yielding fruit. And so we might look around in the world and we might see some barren trees around us, but if we are planted by the river, meaning if we are planted in His presence, if we are continually receiving and going into the presence of God, we’re going to keep bearing fruit. Those circumstances do not apply to us.
Do you get what I’m saying? There could be a drought, but these trees by the river, what’s happening? They’re still blooming. They still have fruit. That’s us.
