December 19: What to Concentrate On

Today in My Utmost for His Highest: http://www.myutmost.org/12/1219.html

Dear Jesus, This is a bit of a hard prayer for me to pray, but I ask that the children of my heart will soon be pierced by Your Sword. Today's lesson brought back a flood of memeories of the times when I was in total despair, but the pain was as necessary as cancer surgery to bring me to a close relationship to You. To be totally honest, I guess I'm afraid that You might want to use me to be the one to "get them to realize what they lack, and then erect the standard of Jesus Christ for their lives." Please give me the courage when they say, "We can never be that!" to look them in the eye and say "Jesus Christ says you must!" Help me to remember how grateful I am to those people that You placed in my life who were candid enough to tell me what I needed to hear even though it was painful at the time. Help me to love them all enough to do what is best for them even if they get so angry that they never want to speak to me again. (But I do want to say that I'm much more comfortable as an encourager than as an admonisher!!!) May Your will be done!!!