Power of a Praying Woman 10/17/06 9:02 AM Page 183
Lord, Set Me …
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joy of the Lord rise in us and chase away spirits of heaviness. “Depart from me, all you workers of iniquity; for the LORD has heard the voice of my weeping. The LORD has heard my supplication; the LORD will receive my prayer” (Psalm 6:89). God wants us to cry out to Him so He can lift us out of depression. 6. Refuse to be bitter. Bitterness burns away your body and soul the way acid eats skin. When a root of bitterness takes hold of your life, it consumes you and cuts off the blessings of God. “For I see that you are poisoned by bitterness and bound by iniquity” (Acts 8:23). When we constantly have thoughts such as, “How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? How long will my enemy be exalted over me?” (Psalm 13:2), then we have bitterness growing in us like a cancer. But we can identify those thoughts and refuse to give place to them. We can ask God to help us resist them. “Looking diligently lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become de?led” (Hebrews 12:15). Pray for God to set you free from any bitterness. Ask Him to give you a spirit of thankfulness, praise, and worship. Ask the Holy Spirit to crowd out anything in your heart that is not of Him. 7. Refuse to be hopeless. Hopelessness is a slow killer that will eventually affect the health of your body and soul. But when you deliberately choose to put your hope in the Lord, He will meet all your needs and take all hopelessness away. Just as we can choose what attitude we will have every day, we can choose to put our hope in God. We can guard our soul. “Thorns and snares are in the way of the perverse; He who guards his soul will be far from them” (Proverbs 22:5). Hopelessness is death to our souls. Refuse to live with it. No