I remember the sweet smelling aroma just outside my bedroom window as I was growing up. I knew it as the night-blooming jasmine, although it was officially known as Cestrum nocturnum, a species of Cestrum in the plant family Solanaceae, native to the West Indies. All I knew was that a powerful, sweet perfume was released at night. I would later learn of the night-blooming cereus, the common name referring to a large number of flowering Cereus cacti that bloom at night in the desert. \u201cThe night seasons\u201d is a phrase used by the Psalmist (Ps. 22:2) and the 19th century hymn writer, George Young (\u201cGod Leads us Along\u201d) referring to times of difficulty. I have often taught the greatest witness borne by the believer is in times of difficulty. The truth is that the non-believing world knows that we believers do well in the good times, the bright sunshine times. What they are waiting to see is how our faith holds up in the bad times, \u201cthe night seasons.\u201d The popular saying says, \u201cBloom where you are planted.\u201d Rather, let the sweet aroma of our blooming be not just in the daytime, but also in \u201cthe night seasons.\u201d The Apostle Paul said it this way, \u201cNow thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place\u201d (2 Corinthians 2:14).<\/p>\n
Join me this week in praying for the following global concerns:
\n\u2022 Pray for Patricia as she proof-reads the Gospel of John in the Yambetta and Nugunu languages.
\n\u2022 Pray for Martha and the students from Germany on their Vision Tour of California campuses.
\n\u2022 Pray for Caleb and Michael, who will work with Joe in Donetsk, Ukraine for 2 1\/2 months.
\n\u2022 Pray for the EMIGRATE CONFERENCE for new personnel, March 11-16.
\n\u2022 Pray for Steve and April as they transfer from Prague to Naples, Italy this month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I remember the sweet smelling aroma just outside my bedroom window as I was growing up. I knew it as the night-blooming jasmine, although it was officially known as Cestrum nocturnum, a species of Cestrum in the plant family Solanaceae, native to the West Indies. All I knew was that a powerful, sweet perfume was…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monday-morning-manna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}