Daily Archives: February 14, 2019

Markethive

Why Prayer Is So Important

Leave a comment

Five reasons why prayer is the answer when life turns upside down.

Written by Janet Perez Eckles on 18/04/2017

Series: Weekly Devotional

Tags: Prayer, Healing, Reassurance, Confidence, Anxiety

The Lord is there to rescue all who are discouraged and have given up hope.

Psalm 34:18

The doctor’s news crushed me. I squirmed on the examining chair.

“There is nothing that can be done for this retinal disease,” he said as he pulled back from examining my eyes. “No one knows how long you’ll have your sight. You need to prepare for the inevitable.”

He was right. Despite my frantic search for a cure, a few months later my vision closed in completely. Horrified, anxious and desperate, I trembled at the notion that without sight, I would not be able to care for my three small sons. I tossed awake at night questioning God.

Where was He? Why didn’t He hear my prayers as I begged for a miracle? Hope threatened to leave me.

But one day God showed up. That day a friend invited me to a Christian church, and everything changed. My eyesight wasn’t healed, but my heart was. I faced my need to know Christ. I realized the emptiness that ruled my life was because I had prayer all wrong. I had asked and asked some more. But prayer required something more, something that made our communication powerful. And that involved listening.

To my relief, after months of soaking my soul in His Word, I added listening to my prayer time. And through that prayer relationship with Him, He revealed these five promises to calm my soul:

1. He will transform.

God was about to transform me as I invited Christ to be my Lord of all. And through Him, God made me righteous. He saw my tears, knew my desperation, and heard my cries. “If you obey the Lord, he will watch over you and answer your prayers.” Psalm 34:15

2. He reassures.

When loneliness tried to come in, God reassured me I wasn’t alone. His army of angels would stand with me, by me, and around me. “If you honor the Lord, his angel will protect you.” Psalm 34:7

3. He strengthens.

Those days when I lacked the emotional strength to be a mom and wife, God’s promise to provide soothed me. “You rule with strength and power. You make people rich and powerful and famous.” 1 Chronicles 29:12

4. He guards.

When tempted to succumb to anxiety, worry or fear, God’s instructions were clear and beautifully reassuring. “Don’t worry about anything, but pray about everything. With thankful hearts offer up your prayers and requests to God. Then, because you belong to Christ Jesus, God will bless you with peace that no one can completely understand. And this peace will control the way you think and feel.” Philippians 4:6-7

5. He answers.

When I needed comfort to face a lifetime of blindness, or in small things like sorting my sons’ clothes or finding rides to doctors’ appointments, I trusted. I believed. And I was confident that God would help me because…“We are certain that God will hear our prayers when we ask for what pleases him. And if we know that God listens when we pray, we are sure that our prayers have already been answered.” 1 John 5:14-15

God’s healing came, not through my physical eyesight, but through the spiritual eyes of my heart. I saw how prayer is a sweetly personal conversation with Him. It’s the direct connection between me, a mere human with the divine Lord. And it’s the channel through which I receive all that’s good in order to bring peace to my nights and joy to my days.

Pray this week:

Father, I praise you because you heard my sobs at night. You saw my struggles as you’re aware of my inadequacies. And I praise you because our conversation-filled prayer gives me the confidence to believe that there is no battle I face that you won’t win for me. And there is no struggle I encounter that you won’t bring victory. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

Markethive

Crypto Analyst – Bitcoin Investors Are Underwater But BTC Bounces Back Quickly

Leave a comment

Crypto Analyst - Bitcoin Investors Are Underwater, But BTC Bounces Back Quickly

Bitcoin’s highly publicized meteoric rise to its all-time high of $20,000 in December 2017 was a classic bubble cycle at its peak. The media attention and hype from individuals talking about the crypto on social media and in social circles sparked FOMO (fear of missing out) in retail investors who eventually got burned when the price of BTC collapsed starting in January 2018.

Throughout the current bear market, due to early investors getting in long before Bitcoin went parabolic, collectively, investors were able to stay above water. But once support at $6K broke and capitulation set in, Bitcoin investors became deep underwater and are still drowning in losses since. However, according to data shared by a prominent crypto analyst, Bitcoin is “seldom underwater” and it could signal that investors could be seeing gains again in the future.

Bitcoin Investors Have Only Been Underwater for Under 2 Out of 10 Years

Bitcoin has been rightfully lauded for the asset’s ability to produce substantial gains not seen in traditional financial assets or investments. Even at current prices of roughly $3,600, from the first ever recorded BTC price of $0.003 represents a 120 million percent increase – gains that are typically unheard of in other markets.

Due to the first ever cryptocurrency’s rise from practically worthless, to nearly $20,000, there have been many opportunities for investors to become profitable in their journey alongside Bitcoin and rarely are investors underwater on their BTC holdings.

According to a price chart from CoinMetrics that approximates the price paid for all circulating coins – as was shared by prominent crypto analyst Willy Woo – Bitcoin investors are underwater for only the third time in the technological and financial breakthrough’s ten years in existence.

Only two times before the current dive have investors went underwater.

At the tail end of 2011, Bitcoin took a three-month dip into the water starting around September when price fell from nearly $8 in late August, all the way down to roughly $2 in November of the same year. It wasn’t until December when BTC made a recovery and came up for a breath of air.

During the dreaded 2014-2015 bear market following the Mt. Gox disaster, Bitcoin again fell deep underwater in January 2015 and stayed there until early November of the same year.

In total, Bitcoin has spent only around 18 months out of the ten years since the Genesis Block with investors of the asset underwater. Given Bitcoin’s resiliency and ability to bounce back, the market may be closer to establishing the ever elusive bottom.

Bye-Bye BTC Bear Market? Not So Fast

While the data does show that Bitcoin investors falling underwater could indicate a bottom is in or at least near, the same data could also be a sad signal for bulls.

Should Bitcoin’s price follow a similar path and trajectory as the 2014-2015 bear market, and it has done so eerily closely thus far, investors in the asset may be stuck spending another 7-9 months underwater before a bull trend resumes.

The previous time Bitcoin went underwater, it stayed there for 11 months before a relief rally occurred that wasn’t immediately batted down by overhead by bearish resistance. The current bear market only dove underwater following the break of critical support at $6,000 back in November of last year, which could suggest that the bear market has a lot longer to go before the end of crypto winter is here.

 

TONY SPILOTRO | FEBRUARY 14, 2019 | 1:00 AM

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member