God is moving in CR

By Sarah Bryant, Fellowship Bible Chuch, Rogers, Celebrate Recovery Devotional Team co-leader, 7/29/20 A few days ago I bought a new hummingbird feeder and decided to hang it on a hook suction-cupped to my window. I hung it right next to where I have my temporary, work-from-home desk set up. It didn’t take too long before several humming birds regularly started showing up. My only problem was the screen in the window was blocking me from getting a clear view of them. So I just popped the screen out of the window and…BAM…problem solved! Now I could see them so much more clearly, but guess what, this meant that they could see me more clearly too. I sat there really still at first, waiting to see what they would do. The first one flew up and was a little more hesitant at first but quickly realized there was no danger and began to feed again. Now I get to sit and enjoy their company without having my joy diminished by having to look through the screen.     This got me thinking about one

By Kareena Holloway, Fellowship Bible Church Rogers Celebrate Recovery Ministry TEAM Encourager Coach, Devotional Team writer, 7/22/20 Do cloudy, dismal skies get you feeling kind of cloudy and dismal yourself?  I can relate!  I do a lot of encouraging others to look beyond the clouds and to remember that the most beautiful blue skies are right on the other side.  Sometimes, though, I catch myself forgetting that very fact.  I focus on what's right in front of me, or what the sky looks like, and I forget.  If I let it go too long, I start wanting to isolate, and I feel down.  How about those real-life storms? There are bound to come those days when I can't seem to lift my face because there is so much going on in my life or the life of a loved one. In these times I need to reach out for prayer and be reminded of God's truths. This is why God's Word is so vital to my health.  His truths and promises keep me on track, inspire me to reach out to like-minded people fo

By Brookelynn Harper, Fellowship Bible Church, Rogers, Celebrate Recovery Landing Resident and Devotional Team writer “I am sitting propped up on the door-jam of my closet. I have clothes strewn to my right, a pile of unwanted shoes to my left, books scattered across the floor behind me, laundry on the bed, dishes lined up on the counter to be washed, trash leaning against the wall to be taken out, a shower to be scrubbed, empty boxes that need to be stored away. I have a laundry list of things that I need to get done tomorrow, and I’m only halfway through what I needed to do today.” This is an excerpt of what I wrote in my prayer journal yesterday, as I was sorting through what was bothering me that day. After I had written it all out, I felt exhausted just from writing it. I blankly stared at what I had written for a good ten minutes. I wanted to laugh. My chores had truly spiraled out of control, and I didn’t know when I was going to be able to get them done. Now this may be a s

By Eric Hutchinson, Fellowship Bible Church, Rogers, Celebrate Recovery TEAM Training Coach, Devotional Team writer, 7/8/20 This past week I read about the Fortress of Masada. An ancient stone fortress located in Israel just West of the Dead Sea. It was built by King Herod of Judea during his reign somewhere around 35 B.C. Herod created this fortress to be a safe haven against enemies. The fortress had palaces, large storerooms, water cisterns, and a foreboding wall to withstand even the greatest attacks. 1,300 feet above the Dead Sea on a rocky mesa (see picture included), it sits on 840 acres and is now an Israeli national park. In 66 A.D. the Jews revolted against the Roman Empire and started, what is known today as, the Jewish War. In 70 A.D. the Romans destroyed and conquered Jerusalem, and a small rebel force, around 1,000 men, women, and children, fled from Jerusalem to the Fortress of Masada. With Jerusalem destroyed, the Romans turned their attention to the fortress and sent

By Carl Kimbro, Fellowship Bible Church, Rogers, Celebrate Recovery Devotional Team writer, 7/1/2020 When I was 10, I moved to a new town about 4 hours away. With that came a new school. It was a private school, and other than me, all the other students had been there since first grade. I was an outsider and I felt that needed to prove myself. Proving myself was not easy. I was average at everything, especially sports. At first, I was the last one chosen because I was new. Eventually it was because I was, as I said, “average.”   Eventually, I retreated to this fantasy world where I gave myself nick names like “Baseball’s Pro Carl”, or “Carl the Great.” When I became the class clown, the other students thought I was funny.   I got a lot of attention alright, but it was from the teacher and my parents for bad behavior. In my mind though, I had finally proven my “worth” to my classmates in the “mis-behavior entertainment field.”