Category: Prayer

God Loves and Sustains Us … In Surprising Ways

Even to your old age and gray hairs
    I am he, I am he who will sustain you.
I have made you and I will carry you;
    I will sustain you and I will rescue you. (Isaiah 47:4)

This verse is one of the most beautiful statements in the Bible about God’s care. It has extra meaning now that I have so much gray hair, but it applies to you too even if you don’t have a single gray hair yet.

But there is one danger in dwelling on a verse like this. We may drift into thinking that we’ll have no difficulties…. or at least that if there are any, they will be quickly resolved in the way that we want! We start to think we know exactly how God should act to fix it for us.

Not so fast! Compare our opinion of how we think God should serve us to what God says about his character.

I say, ‘My purpose will stand,
    and I will do all that I please.’ (Isaiah 46:10)

You mean God is not going to take care of my immediate needs?? You mean God might contradict what I know I need and want in my life.

Yes.

I like Tim Keller’s view that when we pray and don’t get the answer we want, God always answers our prayers in precisely the way we would want them to be answered if we knew everything he knew.

I do agree that God always gives us what we would ask for if we understood the whole story.

Personal example: I planned to excel in my age group as a runner as I grew older. I believed God would provide, and if anyone asked how come I was so fast for my age I would give credit to God.

But then, I got a heart rhythm issue a few years ago: persistent afib. My great senior running career plans ended. Now I can only jog, yet somehow it is part of God’s plan. I now tell people that being able to even jog at my age is truly a blessing!

Yes, God is definitely caring for me and sustaining me… just not in the exact ways I initially thought he would.

Not Worth Praying About ?

whirlpool

 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. (Philippians 4:6)

My prayer life was geared to saving up praying for the Big Stuff. Like, it would be silly to pray for a parking spot. But this past winter the Spirit started to prompt me to  pray for small things.

Let me give you two examples that kicked this off.

First was a computer fix, my wife’s laptop looked like it was dead in the water. Instead of taking it right to the repair shop, I felt led to pray for  an easy solution…so I Googled and found out  that sticking a paper clip into  a little hole on the back of her computer might work…then…answered small prayer… the computer came back to life !

Second was buying the right Christmas tree. I was pretty sure the little trees at our nearby Acme  would be all sold out, so I was already asking my wife  “Where will we look next?” But then came a leading to pray for a tree anyway…….and lo and behold there just happened to be one left….

Praying for the computer and the tree was fine but these little prayers pointed to something more important as they showed that I needed to pray about something else that I thought was little.  I am talking about a bad attitude.

My worst attitude is when my thoughts get filled with vague grumbling,  murmuring, or complaining. Before, I had not viewed that kind of low-key whining as even worth praying about, since at first glance it seems like no big deal. But God takes grumbling seriously, and complaining leads to falling into a vortex of negative thoughts— thoughts that revolve around me and what I deserve and how I should be treated….then I become like the little critter being sucked into the whirlpool in the picture.

But praying for the Lord to change my whining thoughts reverses the whirlpool…I head up and away from it being all about me and increasingly towards — loving God and people !

What do you think is not important enough to pray about ?

Not on My Own

Two are better than one,
   because they have a good return for their labor
If either of them falls down,
   one can help the other up.
But pity anyone who falls
   and has no one to help them up. (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10)

The Bible is chock full of God’s great promises. We can take them to heart and meditate on them and treasure them and grow in personal piety. But if we think that means the Christian life is only “Jesus and me” then we are in trouble. Because there’s so much in today’s world that gives knockdown punches !

When I fall down, I need the help of others to be able to get back up. One of the great things about Christian life  in community is how God gives us each other to give and receive encouragement.

Here’s a recent example : Awakening in the middle of the night, something from years ago  started to infect my mind. I was replaying a very futile time in my life when my career hopes were getting dismantled; I was stuck about what my next step should be; and I had no one I could confide in for help. I felt heart palpitations start as those old thoughts combined with an ongoing fight with the cable company over billing errors and an intractable conflict in our small group.

In the middle of the night I knew that what God says is true, and that there were Bible verses available for me, but at that time, being able to quote Bible verses was not helping. Bible truth seemed elusive, abstract, and far away.

God provided the antidote : In the morning I requested prayer in my Thursday men’s group. A good friend and brother in Christ prayed that my physical heartbeats would be calm while at the same time I’d have more of a loving heart for the Lord and for people.

Are you stumbling and discouraged ? Is a friend stumbling and discouraged ? God loves it when we help each other back up !

Does God Do Amazing Things Today?

 Joshua told the people, “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you.” (Joshua 3:5)

Joshua and the battle of Jericho is a famous Bible story, where finally Jericho’s “walls came tumblin’ down”. Today’s verse is just before that battle. It raises two questions: What does it mean to consecrate ourselves? And what amazing things should we expect from God today?

The word “consecrate” means to be set apart, dedicated to God. Joshua’s fighters were not to charge into battle spiritually unprepared. Before they entered battle, they were told to consecrate themselves to God as per their Law.

We are called to be consecrated too.  Since we do not live under the Old Testament regulations, we need to ask ourselves: What does consecration mean in the 21st century? Does it mean that we should totally separate ourselves from our society–perhaps by going to live in an underground Christian bunker in Montana or a Christian commune in the wilderness of Vermont?

No, consecration for us means something else.   It does mean to be set apart, but, surprisingly, the setting apart can somehow occur even living in the middle of our crazed 21st century culture. Somehow, we are living in this 21st century world but we’re not of it.

Once we determine to be set apart for God where we are living, just what are the amazing things God will do among us?  In the case of Joshua and Jericho, God acted in a spectacular and miraculous way — but let me suggest that amazing things happen when God works in us in an ordinary way. It’s everyday daily living — going to work, running errands, studying, playing — but filled with a special empowerment from our King Jesus to live for his purposes and to grow to be more like him.

Now, what happens when this kind of consecrated living starts to spread throughout the church? As we each grow in consecration— we become part of a wider move of God — which leads to revival. Here is J.I. Packer’s definition of revival:

“God’s quickening visitation of his people, touching their hearts and deepening his work of grace in their lives.”

And Matthew Henry tells us,
“When God intends great mercy for His people, the first thing He does is to set them a praying.”

As we hunger to see God’s grace expand and spread, let’s join in with Henry’s suggestion and pray “Lord have mercy, grant us revival.”