Saturday, October 20, 2012

Meet Nancy Cobb & Sleep-Emailing Last Night Gives Spiritual Lesson!!


I am about to pop to tell you how wonderful it was last Thursday night when I went to hear author and Bible study teacher Nancy Cobb speak. She's author of The Politically Incorrect Wife and other marriage books.


She was so transparent with all of us!!! I must give you the takeaways that I came away with. She entitled her talk. "Jump Start Your Marriage in Three Days." (subtitled by the grace of God and your obedience)

She first told us that regarding being a godly wife and parent, she had done it all wrong for about 20 years. Then in 1981, she attending a Bible study that was led by Anne Graham Lotz, daughter of Billy Graham. About 5 weeks into the study, she received Christ as her savior. She kept thinking every time she went to Bible study, "Ray needs to hear this. Ray would really be better off if he could hear this..." she wrongly thought that surely she didn't didn't need this message, her husband did.

Then she kept hearing that Jesus wanted not only to save her, but to be the Lord of her life.

In charge? Are you kidding me, she thought?

She decided she would give this Lordship a try. She would give it a try for 3 days.

It worked so well, it lasted 30 years. 

She was able to lead her husband Ray to the Lord when he was dying of cancer. He died a few years ago.

So, I want to share with you what it is she did differently as a wife when she allowed Christ to be Lord of her life.

I will continue this in the next blog! It will post here on Monday! In it, I'll will give you exactly what Nancy told us, along with her stories that stand out in my mind that I want to copy (I've been applying it but I'm not doing so hot—I'm hopeful however that by God's grace it will be better day by day!!!) 

Her key verse was the same one I gave out last week when I spoke to the women on seeing God in everything. I'll give it to you again in the next blog. God really wants me to live out this message; He had me hear the exact scripture again in the same week! It is not easy. It's impossible. But with God's grace with Christ in us, we can be the wives God calls us to be. I want to support you in this—and vice versa—iron sharpens iron, amen?

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Changing the subjectyesterday felt like every moment was taken, and I fell into bed late last night. I sleepily opened my laptop knowing I was moments away from dreamland. I wanted to finally reply to a friend who had invited us to a fundraiser banquet next week. 

I vaguely remember putting her email address in the "to" section and I must have totally fallen asleep the moment I finished putting in her email. 

My sent messages tell me that I must have awakened at 12:15 A.M...  

This next part is fuzzy, but it appears I was sleep-emailing! It's similar to sleep-walking! 

I evidently began typing gibberish to her! Of course, I didn't know what I was saying. I discovered all this this morning. I had a vague memory of writing my friendor did I? So I took a look at my sent emails. I'm making an executive decision to show what I wrote to you—I just hope you come back after this! I'm cutting & pasting them for you—so here they are exactly as they appeared:

The title line for email #1 read, "YL Banquet, " which was the only thing in the entire 2 emails that was accurate! (Young Life is a fabulous ministry whose purpose is to share the Gospel with youth)

Hi beth, I nearly forgot to tell you that we are coming on OCt 18. We will be s getting up teh bathrrom. Let me know if it is closed   to my piede"-@Juana Mikels or www. juana mikels

 coouple deserves  the Crade scool, Invistion to do so, and can  a-i
we can talk aobut it morning, in the morning!

Get this, the title for email #2 (I guess in my sleep, I didn't think I had emailed her, so I evidently wrote her another email 4 minutes later).

 I titled email # 2: "Invitatin for Bible study." (Complete with the period in the title. Go figure! Beth is already in our Bible study!) That important, informational message said:

"Please w  the below  and the target! we are going with the Pitts"

Hold on, there's more. Next week I'm walking with a friend when we can work out the date. I evidently thought I was replying to her message called, "Walk," saying:

when is your Christmas celebration. I don't want to mess up this year, if it isriahig.... U wkk giet si9m :sute thinng. This is WONDERUL make~!

Thankfully—when I wrote her at 12:21 A.M.I must have made a double mistake, and I emailed it to....myself. I am not making this stuff up. At least you are finding out a little more about me. I'm finding out new things too for I didn't know I had this non-ability! Boy, do I make a lot of mistakes! It might somehow encourage you to know that I am totally hopeless but for the grace of God to even get out the blog 5 to 6 days per week!

Aren't you glad God doesn't speak to us in code?

He gave us His word so we could get to know Him, hear His very words, and show us how to live! They are gibberish until we come to Christ, and it is through receiving Christ that we are born again, and we receive the Holy Spirit to understand God's Holy Bible!!

Look what the Bible says about those who have not received Christ into their lives: "The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned." (1 Cor 2:14)  

This morning I was praying for an extended family member who is going through a very difficult time. I didn't know exactly how to pray. All of a sudden, scriptures came to my mind that reminded me how to pray. God can use even gibberish to accomplish his will! If I had not of written that gibberish last night, I don't think I would have thought about any sounds that don't make sense being used for God. Stay with me. Listen to this.

I remembered that scripture tell us, "In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express." (Romans 8:26)

Isn't that fantastic? Last night when I was typing all that gibberish, it didn't communicate a single message to anyone. It was just words on a screen. But when we are weak, and don't know how to pray for someone, we can ask the Spirit Himself to pray as our inter-mediator to God. He will pray was is the very best for that person. 

The Holy Spiritthe third person in the Godheadwill pray on our behalf when we do not know what to pray without even using words!!! How cool is that? Maybe you can stop right now and ask the person of the Holy Spirit to intercede the very prayer that needs to be lifted up for you or someone you know. What a Godhead we serve!

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Walk by Faith,

2 comments:

  1. Thankyou for sharing your sleep emails they made me chuckle a bit. I love your transparent writing!

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  2. After I wrote this Amanda, I thought to myself... I didn't really just share that, did I? I thought about deleting this entire post but when I think of the analogy of contrasting the nonsensical emails with the wise Holy Spirit who always know exactly what to pray and speaks in just groans to stand for the real heart of the prayer on our behalf, I decided to keep it up for contrast's sake:-) I know one thing: I will not try to email in bed in pjs anymore when I am THAT sleepy!!

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