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Excited to be a part of an annual women’s conference in Deville, LA in late October of this year!

 Also you can order a book now and I’ll mail it to you prior to arrival if you like. I will have signed copies there for purchase.

This is going to be an outstanding night!

Join us.

More info is on their Facebook page.

Pastor has been teaching on the book of Ruth during bible study on Wednesday nights. Last night he mentioned what the name of Moab meant. It meant washing basin. In Psalms chapter 60 God calls it a slave’s washbasin meaning this place was lower and worth less than what the slaves used to hold their dirty water….and this is the place Naomi and her family left Bethlehem-Judah for. They left a land of praise (even though it was in a dry spell) to go to a filthy land that did not belong to them.

Wow! What could have been if Naomi and her husband had not left? What if they stayed? Regardless, Ruth and Naomi come back to the land marred, scarred, broken and with nothing to show for the ten years spent in a land Naomi didn’t belong. She lost everything.

Sin will always take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay and cost you more than you want to pay.

What an incredible story of redemption though. Today during my studies online I came across a Leadership class I had to take titled: Becoming the Go-To person in Church taught by Bro. Luke Levine. The following are a few things he taught that I wanted to share. It is so good!

To tie all of this in with the story above about, Naomi…. IF you just endure through the lean times and the dry times in church the cycle will revolve and there will be a time of restoration. Become busy in the house of God. Find yourself a place and stick to it!

1. Live a spiritually disciplined life including a consistent prayer life and study life. A prayer life is foundational to everything we do. To be an effective laborer in the harvest field we must pray and study correctly. To be the Go to person in church we must be worshipping and be involved. It will be easier for God to equip a spiritual man than to make a spiritual man.
2. See and hear and respond to your Pastor’s vision. Anything more than one vision is di-vision. Find out what he is passionate about and where he needs help. Then get to work to support his vision. It is a 1000 times easier to criticize something than to create something. Be a problem solver. Be a solution creator. Get behind him and be useful.
3. Be observant. Take a close look around your church. There is a list of things to be done at church. Some things are obvious. Be a part of a solution. Show up early to church and help.
4. Have a get-it-done attitude. Fight every adversary that comes against the church. Find a way to get things done. Have a sense of mission and passion for the work of the church. There is nothing like working for the Kingdom of God. Make yourself useful in the local church. Be faithful in the few things….whatever it takes. If it needs to get done and nobody is doing it…do it. Read the story of Nehemiah…from Rubble to Rebuilding in 52 days. Those were go-to people that made that mission come to pass.
5. Be accessible. Be available. We make time for the things that are important to us. What are your priorities? Be willing to make time for something that may not be directly important to you. Be easy to talk to. Your leader is far too busy to search you out. Just be there. Just show up and help. What if God was only accessible to us as much as we were to the kingdom/church?
6. Follow through. Don’t just be a project starter. Follow through. Get it done well. Get it done on time. Make a task list. Write it down. Make a list of things you want to do. Start a project and finish it so you don’t frustrate leaders.
7. Be faithful. One of the primary difference between a faithful and wise servant and the evil servant is faithfulness. Be at church every time the doors are open. Be there. If there is outreach, work day, prayer meeting….Be there. Keep in mind, that for every time David killed a bear or a lion, there were hundreds of days of herding livestock.

Faithfulness always trumps Fireworks.

Be faithful. Be consistent.

God might lead you to a Goliath.

If you give a woman a bible…

She is going to ask for a bible study.

When you give her the bible study, she will probably ask for prayer for her friends and family.

When she’s finished, she may ask for an anointed napkin to bring them as well.

Then she will probably ask for the church van to start picking her family up for church.

When church begins, she will probably want to meet the pastor and all the saints.

She will start feeling the presence of the Lord and might even start weeping and repenting.

She might even get carried away and start speaking in tongues all over the church house.

She may even end up rolling in the floor praising the Lord.

When she is done, she will probably want to go tell all her friends about what has happened.

You will have to organize an outreach team to go and help explain to her community what your church is all about.

She will be right up in the middle of that outreach team testifying and telling her story of deliverance.

She will probably ask you to help her invite them all to watch her get baptized.

So you will create invite cards to mail out to the whole block and she will ask to post before and after pictures of her life on the multimedia screens to show how far God has brought her.

When she looks at the pictures, she will get so excited she will start dancing and shouting all over again.

She will ask for some bible studies so she can go teach them on her own.

She will fill a pew or two with guests on the day of her baptism.

After she is baptized in Jesus name, she will want to see the baptism certificate and show it to all her loved ones she brought with her and maybe even hang it on her living room wall.

Everyone around her is curious about her change and wants to know more …which means she will need a lot of other good women around her guiding her and helping her teach those bible studies she is setting up.

Looking at the woman with her new bible will remind her loved ones that they are hungry and thirsty for something this world cannot provide.

So, they will ask for a bible study and chances are if they ask for a bible study they are going to want a bible to go with it.

This past week has been crazy wonderful and I really do not think I have fully grasped the impact (no pun intended) that NAYC and Impact Junkie has made on my future. What I do know is that I am eternally grateful for the gift they gave me of allowing me to speak to 35,000(plus?) people and bring an awareness to human trafficking in America. It will be among the best memories of my life…and if I could do it all over again I wouldn’t be as nervous…I would live in that moment and BE in the moment so much more than I was.

_____________

On a different note:

As I was studying tonight I wanted to know WHO Deborah was in the Old Testament.

Things I know:

1. She was a judge
2. She was one of the good guys
3. She was smart
4. She helped defeat the enemy with the help of another lady

Things I didn’t know:

1. Who was her husband? (Why did I think it was Barak?)
2. What did he do?
3. What do we know about him?

Forgive the bad handwriting but I am old school and I read from my bible not an app when I am studying and I also use an old Strong’s concordance from my JCM bible college days (I bought that over 15 years ago)

So what I learned first was that when she is introduced-there is an order to HOW she is introduced.

Judges 4:4

And Deborah

1. a prophetess
2. the wife of Lapidoth
3. she judged Israel at that time

Could that mean anything? Did God assign those introducing roles to her in that order for a reason? Bear with me, but I would like to believe that she belonged to GOD first and foremost then she was the wife of her husband and then she had a duty to do which was her occupation/job of judging Israel.

Who is Lapidoth? The Strong’s concordance says: Husband of Deborah.

My heart skipped a beat with disappointment at that definition because I wanted it to mean more. I wanted so much more for Lapidoth. I wanted it to say:

Mighty, valiant, warrior, prince of kingdoms and killer of giants, He-Man and Hulk all rolled into one…

Wait! Sorry!* Ahem- I got off track there for a second…. anyways!!!!!!

No. It said: Husband of Deborah(3941 see 3940) So I went up a definition to see what 3940 had to say about Lapidoth.

3940: From an unused root probably meaning: To shine, a flambeau, lamp, flame, firebrand, burning lamp, lightning, torch

Lapidoth, the husband of Deborah was a shining lamp. A firebrand. A torch.

What do you think of when you think of a torch? I think of a quiet stillness but a bright light. Nothing chaotic or crazy. Nothing wild and demonstrative. Just steady and good. Security and warmth.

There is a verse in the bible in Matthew 5:14. The Amplified Version simply says it this way:

You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.

Let Deborah go judge nations. Let her lead men into war and be a mighty prophetess anointed with divine wisdom and discernment. Let her sit under prominent trees and host excellent meetings. Let Deborah be publicly accessible for commerce and counsel. When she went home at night, she went home to a man, her torch, her lamp, her firebrand. Without that light in her life, could she have ever been what she was?

Who knows? I cannot answer that question but we can decide now that she was who she was because of God having his hands on her life and she being described as the wife of Lapidoth-a man defined as one who shined- a torch that lit Deborah’s steps all along the pathway of her life.

Thank you Lapidoth.  

We are wanting some feedback. We want to create a book box set with my book for clubs wanting to start when school begins. Nayc17 opened doors for me and I want to do the same for you.
It would contain
-5 books
-pens
-notepads
-student cards
-novelty item
-Discussion questions
*Maybe at one meeting I could come speak for you as well!!

Would any student body groups in high school or college be interested in that?
If so, let me know as soon as possible so I can get these prepared and a reasonable price established.

Reach out via Facebook or email lauraaranda@owlofhope.com