The altar that I beilieve the Lord is calling me to focus on is a deeper life of prayer. I have been getting nudges from the Holy Spirit to spend more time with him and of course with that comes praying. I remember Pastor Layla saying the hidden altar in a place of determination and that in the secret place you learn to flow with the Holy Spirit and become one with him. I really do desire this to be so intune and on touch with the Holy Spirit that when he gives me a small nudge to go left I go left. This would be developed by developing a deeper life of prayer and reconignizing the fathers voice.

Throughout this week I implemented Silence and Solitude. I do pray and spend time with the Lord but I found myself just needing to sit with him and just recevied his love. As a person that loves routines and rhythms haha its hard to say what that routine would look like. Sometimes I talk to the Lord and I can't stop praising him and he speaks back to me. Othertimes I just need to receive him and his love and he will speak to me then. No talking, no plan just being with him. But, for the sake of the assignment haha I would say practicing after serving on Sunday and pouring into the children in the childrens ministry just driving home no music just slience. Just me and the Lord.

A observation that stood out to me the most was the fact that Jesus plainly says in verse 10 that to his disciples the secretas of the kingdom haven been given to them but that he talks in parables so that “seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not hear” then he continues to go on and explain the parable which explains what he just said in the verse before. I think that’s pretty cool because I remember us talking in class (or maybe it was the video haha) about how Jesus Christ claimed with words about being blind and not seeing and then in the next passage he heals a blind man. It all links together just like this passage does! I’m sure if I go back and read the passage before and after this it would add even more context to this passage!

Pastor Becky Johnson's video was such a blessing and opened my eyes to a few things. After watching this video I feel like the Lord was calling me to spend time with him in the morning and when he wakes me up in specific parts of the night when I was sleeping. There have been mutiple occasions where the Lord has woken me up out of my sleep at 3 AM in the morning to spend time with me or maybe it was something he wanted to tell or impart to me but I chose to go back to sleep again. It really did bring me to tears to know that my Lord and savior wanted to spend time with me but I chose comfort over him. I want and will be making it a habit/practice to seek him every morning to get to know more about him and also to understand what he wants me to do for that day if that makes sense. I do spend time with him at night but I want to make it a practice to seek him and his will for my life in the morning as well.

1. Rejoice is repeated 2 times throughout the passage. (Almost like a command) 2. The peace of God is mentioned twice in the passage but receiving God’s peace is contingent upon if you apply what is mentioned before those sections. 3. But is a conviction and acts as a solution to the part of the passage that says “Do not be anxious about anything.” 4. When the passage says “present your request to God” (present being the action verb) before that the passage tells us how to do this. 5. Will, it’s being used as a promise or guarantee if the passage before it is applied. Questions 1. In the second paragraph, how come whatever is repeated seven times with the actions rather than it just saying “whatever is true ,noble, right… etc. 2. What does transcend mean? 3. What is the context of where the Apostle Paul is writing this? 4. Why was gentleness used to describe what will be evident to all. 5. What does the passage mean when it says the Lord is near?