Keep Praying

 

One way to understand prayer is the man who loved hearing a symphony orchestra on the radio so much that he bought a violin to play along with it. His first attempts were dismal, yet he kept going. Eventually, his notes matched the music of the masters. In the same way, my prayers are off compared to the wonder of what God is doing, yet as I continue to pray, I find myself more in tune with what God shows me of His will and His activities.

Yet there remains this mystery of Him choosing some for faith and eternal life, but not everyone. If His choice was based on His knowledge that they would believe, or not chosen until they had faith, this would reverse what the Bible says that God elects people and people do not elect God. People are not chosen because they believe, but they believe because they are chosen. There is no way to lay His action of election on anything but the absolute sovereignty of God.

For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. (Romans 9:15–16)

The secrets of his counsels are too deep for my feeble mind. If I try to know the reason of why He picks some and not others, I fall into a bottomless pit. Yet at the same time, I cast myself down at His feet, with a full and willing submission to His sovereign choices. In other words, I not only listen to the music but desire that my prayers and thoughts are aligned with it. 

The NT tells me how to play my violin. I must listen and agree with what He is doing. He tells me to work at what I want (to be in harmony with Him) yet “it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:13) My understanding of the notes determine how my life sounds, but it is God who does the work — for His good pleasure!

Another way to understand His “music” is to understand it as His “covenant of grace” which is music of joyful and precious hope. Charnock says it refers to the free decision and oath of God to employ all His omnipotence, wisdom, and love to rescue His people from sin and misery. It is wholly initiated and carried through by God. It cannot fail. 

I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. (Jeremiah 32:40)

This is God's music and was sealed in His heart before I even existed:

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved — and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:4–10)
(He) saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began. (2 Timothy 1:9)

PRAY: Oh Lord, what a foundation for eternal security! You do it all and You never fail in Your purposes and will. I miss my notes and yet Your delightful music plays on without error or ceasing, carrying me with it to my promised destiny. I do not understand why me, but I do love  to listen to all the notes that You sound out and often allow me to hear and enjoy.

What do we really need?

In last night’s group Bible study, the prayer requests brought sadness to our hearts. One friend just recovered from a fall with many broken bones only to be told her cancer had returned — and that her husband has stage four cancer. Three families have lost a wife, mom, sister, or parent. Relatives are in hospital with serious ailments. New immigrants struggle to find jobs and are needy. One couple is facing several challenges in serving Christ. Three young people in our church struggle with autism.

I felt odd to be the only one in our group with no physical problems. Not only that, the speaker in a video we watched said, “God brings trials into our lives for a purpose and when that purpose is accomplished, He removes the trial.” Most of the praying involved requests to remove the trials.

One topic of discussion involved reasons why people do not want to hear the gospel. We agreed that the main human goal is to be comfortable, and yet was that not our focus in praying for those whose lives are filled with trials? I face some, yet God keeps blessing me with verses like this:

I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. (Jeremiah 32:40)

He has shown me that my trials are to teach me that He is God and I am not. If I cannot see what He is doing in the trial, He at least gives me a mysterious ability to accept it as His will and trust Him to use it for my good:

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. (Romans 8:28–29)

My friends around the table verbally agree, yet what they really want is the trial to  go away and for all those on our list of needy people to be happy and comfortable. For me, being happy and comfortable in the trials made me feel almost like survivor’s guilt. At the same time, I wanted everyone to deeply trust the Lord to the point that their trial was a source of peace rather than something to get rid of.

Many times Jesus did things for the troubled. He made water into wine when the wine ran out at a wedding. He raised to life the son of a grieving mother. He forgive the sin of an accused woman. He healed infirmities and gave sight to the blind… all this to show that He was doing the will of God. That is, God is not a meanie, yet for Him my holiness is more important than my comfort. He did make it a priority:

Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. (Matthew 6:31–33)

As His child, I’m to want what He wants. The Scriptures make it clear that being like Jesus is His goal for me and since I’m not like Jesus in so many ways, I’m to be willing to accept whatever He uses to accomplish that goal.

So why then did Jesus heal and help the needy like He did then, and yet now uses suffering for that purpose rather than remove it? Jesus did say that “the works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me that the Father has sent me.” (John 5:36) In that time, He healed to show He was sent by God. Now, He uses the trials to build faith and to give us opportunity to show others that He makes it possible for His followers to be transformed by hardship.

God designed salvation’s plan. He is the only one who can open eyes to see the mysteries of Christ in it, to help us realize that “we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear.” (Luke 1:74) and to also know that even thought His righteousness gives us a title to heaven; there must be a holiness to make us fit for heaven.

PRAY: Jesus, only You know why some suffer as they do, and what You want to accomplish in their lives. I don’t. I don’t always understand Your purposes for my own trials. This issue is not asking You to remove them, but to use them for Your purposes, and to totally trust You with the trials You bring into my life and the lives of others.