Remember Your Roots 1-6-06

Good morning, Lord Jesus. You are the Vine and I am one of Your branches. Let the Life in You flow through me as I abide in You and You abide in me. ... It's good to remember your roots and the dirt where you were planted. The dirt out here is mostly red sand in the cotton fields and cattle ranches of west Texas, where I've come home for a few days to see my family and work on a book. I supposed remembering where we're from helps us to understand a little better where we are and where we're going. It has a way of humbling our pride and adjusting our perspective, maybe even reminding us of what's important and the ones who inspired us to begin the journey in the first place. "Remember the long way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, in order to humble you, testing you to know what is in your heart, whether or not you would keep His commandments. He humbled you by letting you hunger, then feeding you with manna, with which you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord" (Deuteronomy 8:2-3). I've been on the journey through the wilderness of this world for forty-four years now. In my lawyer days many years ago, I remember one of my adversaries reminding me of my roots from the other side of his fancy conference room table in his downtown Houston office, "You're a long way from Lamesa, boy." He was right. Along the way, I've spent time in the slums of sin where I should have never been; and by Your grace, I've spent time in the heights of the heavens where even angels fear to tread. But through the times when I was bound-up back in Egypt and the times when I crossed over into Jordan, You were with me, sustaining me and leading me -- whether I knew it or not -- by Your Word and Your Spirit. I had the gift of a family, as broken as we were, who loved me and disciplined me, trying to ground me in Your Word and Your ways out here in this country where everything that's not rooted and grounded gets blown away in the sandstorms that will strip the paint right off your pickup. As they say, hard country makes for hearty people. As I look back and remember, I thank You for the struggles that made me more strong, for the brokenness that made me more humble, and for the discipline that made me Your son. Keep leading me through this wilderness and give me grace to keep following. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen. Be encouraged this day! In the Love of Jesus, Tommy Hays Friends, come see our new website: http://www.messiah-ministries.org Please pray for my laptop -- it kept shutting down on me this morning -- so surprise since I am writing a book on healing and deliverance ministry. Greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world by the power of the Blood of the Lamb! Thank you for covering my back in prayer! To subscribe/unsubscribe, or to order my teaching dvd's on healing and wholeness, please send a note to me at Messiah Ministries MessiahMin@aol.com -- "Preparing the Way of the Lord." Our address is 2800 Tates Creek Rd.; Lexington, Kentucky 40502. Daily archives: www.morningbymorning.injesus.com