Happy Saturday

Hearing His Voice
By: Jack McCall

Habakkuk 2: 1 & 2

I will look to see what he will say to me. Then the LORD replied, "Write down the revelation."
I love the fact that God talks to us and does it in such ways that we know it's actually he who is speaking. He has been speaking to me for a lifetime and yet I only began hearing his voice about 20 years ago. Everyone asks if God's voice is actually audible to me. I say, "Only when he uses someone else's human voice!" Could I hear God in an audible voice? Sure! All things are possible with God and only made impossible by my disbelief or lack of faith. All I need to know that God is speaking to me through thoughts, visions, impressions, etc. is to ask him to confirm what I've heard. I think that's why journaling has become so important to me; it's written down.
I was once on a weekend trip with a wonderful man who had lost his eyesight. I asked God if there was something I was being called to do to make our weekend retreat more appealing for those with disabilities. I didn't hear God say anything back to me that day. However, at a Conference that year, I suggested that our ministry make some CD's or tapes to assist the blind men and women wanting to attend the weekend retreats. A man approached me and said he was connected to the Brail Institute and could help. The following week I attended a continuing education class with a man who is with the San Mateo County Council of the Blind and he said he could help. God had answered my question!

TAKE THE CHALLENGE: Are the things we are doing for God coming from his voice or someone else's voice? Do we wait for affirmation of what we hear him saying or move forward on our own without his okay?


Into My Heart

Into my heart, into my heart,
Come into my heart, Lord Jesus;
Come in today, come in to stay;
Come into my heart, Lord Jesus.

Out of my heart, out of my heart,
Shine out of my heart, Lord Jesus;
Shine out today, shine out alway;
Shine out of my heart, Lord Jesus.

Daily Smile:
“How are you getting on with your exams?”

“Not bad. The questions are easy enough – it’s the answers I have trouble with!”

In The News:

Pope Benedict to Resign at the End of February, Vatican Says
Pope Benedict will resign on February 28 "because of advanced age," his spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said today, CNN reports. It's the first time a pope has resigned in nearly 600 years. Benedict, 85, was elected pope in 2005 after the death of Pope John Paul II, the third-longest-serving leader of the Catholic Church. Benedict, the 265th pope and the sixth German to serve as pope, has led the Catholic Church during a time in which the church is declining in his native Europe but expanding in Africa and Latin America. His papacy has also been marked with a series of scandals and controversies, including hundreds of new allegations of sexual abuse by priests. After Benedict's resignation becomes effective on February 28, cardinals will meet to choose a new leader for the church.

Botched Late-Term Abortion Leaves Mother Dead
Operation Rescue reports a 29-year-old woman died Feb. 7 after Maryland abortionist LeRoy Carhart botched her third-trimester abortion, according to WORLD News Service. Citing an anonymous source, the group says the woman, who was 33 weeks pregnant, arrived from out of state and was seen entering Carhart's facility, the Germantown Reproductive Health Center in Germantown, Md., every day between Sunday and Wednesday. The morning of Feb. 7, the woman began having chest pains and was unable to reach Carhart for help. Her family took her to a local hospital around 5 a.m. and she died about 9:30 a.m., having suffered massive internal hemorrhaging. The Maryland medical examiner is currently reviewing the case. Carhart is also associated with the 2005 death of Christin Gilbert, a 19-year-old girl with Down syndrome who died after undergoing a third-trimester abortion performed by Carhart at a facility in Wichita, Kan., where he worked at the time. Pro-life advocates plan to hold a prayer vigil near Carhart's Maryland facility on Monday.

Gay Conversion Panel a First at United Nations
Religious leaders and mental health and human rights advocates have convened a panel at the United Nations to discuss the efficacy of gay conversion therapy, Baptist Press reports. Panel co-organizer Bruce Knotts, director of the Unitarian Universalist United Nations Office, expressed hope it would be the first of many official discussions on the controversial treatment. Reports indicated most speakers at the event were against the therapy, but a letter was read from an ex-gay man who wrote that the therapy saved his life. "Let's make sexual orientation change efforts better and more responsible, but please don't eliminate it," he wrote. The treatment to help patients abandon the homosexual lifestyle has supporters and opponents in the United States, where California enacted legislation in 2012 outlawing the therapy among minors there -- the first state to do so. However, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has placed the California law on hold until the court can hear full arguments on the issue. Christian supporters of the practice cite a biblically-based belief that homosexual behavior can be overcome, and some research does support the belief. At the U.N. panel, Jack Drescher, a psychoanalyst and member of the American Psychiatric Association, said any real debate about the treatment was cultural, not clinical.