Prayer is hard work. Over the past few weeks, God has shown me more and more about how He wants me to pray for others who do not know Him. In these weeks, I’ve had more internal and external opposition to prayer than ever before.
Internally, I often feel like giving up. If it isn’t that, I am distracted by my to-do list or by the telephone or other things that seem like a good excuse for avoiding this spiritual discipline.
But it is more than a spiritual discipline. Last week I was thinking about God’s response to our prayers, not His answers but the way He feels when we pray. Two adult children of some friends hardly ever call them, their own parents! One of our own grown kids hasn’t called since Easter. We know what it feels like when our children don’t seem to have time to talk to us. We also know what it feels like when they do call. I can imagine the way God feels when I bow before Him and say, “Hey, it is me. . . .” He delights in hearing from His kids.
Just talking to God is glory enough, or it should be. Procrastination aside, once I start, prayer comes easily. There is much to discuss and so many needs that burden my heart. Unloading those is a relief, yet just thanking Him and praising Him for His goodness not only blesses God but me too.
Then there are the answers. Jesus said, “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Luke 11:9).
Yesterday God blessed me with a surprising answer. We have a grandson with attention deficient. He has trouble finding a job that will hold his interest and easily loses interest in even looking for one. He has been out of work for a few months. He not only needs a job, and a very patient and understanding boss, but he also needs some strong Christian influence in his life. I’ve been praying for him, almost daily, for weeks.
In the same town where he lives, we also have a nephew. He is in his early forties and a relatively new Christian, but with a great heart for the Lord. Unknown to me, he is also in a management position of a company there. Somehow (my source didn’t know how) these two connected. The nephew, who loves Jesus and is who patient and soft-spoken and fully aware of the ADD needs of our grandson, gave him a job!
Talking with the Lord is delightful, yet answered prayer is like a spur! I’ve been thanking Him ever since yesterday’s news. The verses I read this morning tell me to persist, don’t give up. Prayer is about spending time with Jesus, but it is also the resource He has given me. I can see change in the things that He wants changed as long as I ask, seek and knock. He promises to answer, to show me the way, to open the doors.
I can hardly wait to get off this computer and get at it.
08/30/07
A certain self-made man had an important business appointment, but he couldn’t find a parking place. After driving around the block several times, in desperation he cried out to God, “O God, find me a parking place.”
Just then, someone pulled out from a spot in front of him. The man said, “Never mind, God. I found one.”
I can be a bit dense too. Sometimes I pray for something and when the answer comes, I don’t even recognize it. It happens to many Christians. We joke about praying for patience, because the Bible says “tribulation produces patience” yet still pray the prayer. Then we wonder why we are suddenly overcome with difficulties. Most of us then start asking God to remove the problems without making the connection that these are His answers to the first prayer!
My reading today is in Genesis 24. Abraham wanted a wife for his son, Isaac, someone not of the Canaanites where he lived. He sent his servant to find one among his own people. The servant willingly went on this journey and as he came to the city of Nahor (Abraham’s brother), he said, “O LORD God of my master Abraham, please give me success this day, and show kindness to my master Abraham. Behold, here I stand by the well of water, and the daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water. Now let it be that the young woman to whom I say, ‘Please let down your pitcher that I may drink,’ and she says, ‘Drink, and I will also give your camels a drink’—let her be the one You have appointed you’re your servant Isaac. And by this I will know that You have shown kindness to my Master.”
This is a very specific prayer, something like asking for a parking place only requesting that it be in a certain location and without a parking meter! Nevertheless, God answered the servant’s prayer. The woman to whom he first spoke actually responded with the same words he said in his prayer. Not only that, she was from the family of Abraham, and willing to go back with him to become Isaac’s wife.
This servant, even though his prayer was to the “LORD God of my master” was not dense. He himself knew something about God so when the young woman (Rebekah) responded to his request for water, Genesis 24:26 says, “Then the man bowed down his head and worshiped the LORD.”
Sometimes I keep a prayer journal, partly to remember what I’ve prayed so I will recognize God’s answer, however from this story I know that recognizing the answer is only part of what my response ought to be. The other part is to humbly bow my head and worship the God who heard me pray.
God again astounds me. I wrote yesterday about feeling directionless, wondering where God wanted me to go. This has been bothering me on and off for a long time, but seemed to come to a head during the past couple days. Yesterday I asked for His help, and before noon, He cleared up my fog.
We had a visiting pastor (our senior pastor is away) who started his sermon talking about Global Positioning technology and how triangulation works to pinpoint locations. Then he offered three questions to help us understand where we are spiritually, using Hebrews 11:27 to frame them.
By the time he was finished, God clarified my deepest attachments, what I am willing to forsake, how I must handle the stress of life (even the stress of feeling directionless), and what I must focus on to keep me going. While every Christian will have struggles, God wants to keep us in the right position so we can live for Him and glorify Him. This sermon was incredibly affirming.
As I think about my perplexities and God’s simple answers, I’m reminded that the Christian life is a battle. The points of this sermon covered things I already knew, but for a few days prior, I felt as if they had been yanked from me. Who is doing that? Why do I have to fight for what I already know?
Ephesians 6 says our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against evil forces in the spiritual realm. Of course the commander-in-chief of these forces is the liar and destroyer, Satan. He wants my faith to falter and me to fail, so he has his cohorts feed me lies. I’m supposed to spot them and resist. Sounds easy, but not so. He is subtle and very good at undermining God’s people.
Not only that, spiritual battles require spiritual weapons. Ephesians 6 is quite clear that my weapons are from the Lord and I must “put on” the armor that He gives me, never thinking I can overcome this enemy with my own resources. I’m aware that I cannot do this alone, and my perplexity and God’s solution to it prove that this is true.
This is another principle of battle and is illustrated in a scene from 2 Chronicles 20. The current king of Judah, Jehoshaphat, is facing a great enemy army. He was afraid and “set himself to seek the Lord.” In fact, he and all of Judah gathered together before the Lord, even “their little ones, their wives, and their children.”
This is a picture for me. When I am struggling with something, perhaps an army of lies or a perplexing situation, I need to go to the Lord with all that I am, in full force. All of me must seek and want the answer. As Scripture says, we find God when we “seek Him with all our heart.”
When Jehoshaphat did this, one of the prophets gave him God’s answer, “Do not be afraid nor dismayed because of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours, but God’s. . . . You will not need to fight in the battle. Position yourselves, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, who is with you, O Judah and Jerusalem! Do not fear or be dismayed; tomorrow go out against them, for the Lord is with you.”
In my battle against uncertainty, God proved again that He is in the battle with me. While my task is to seek His face, wait on Him for the answers, ask for truth to help fight the enemies lies and partial lies, He also fights with me and for me.
This time, He sent a man from another church, with a message that I needed to hear, on the very day that I needed to hear it, and the enemy is defeated.
How amazing is that!
Yesterday, God released our granddaughter from emotional bondage. It was a very powerful experience. After church, Bob and I met with our youth pastor and a friend who wrote his thesis on the powers of evil. They prayed for us and for our family. Their prayers were powerful and on target. One of them suggested we say to our grandchild that she needs Jesus.
When our daughter brought her home (she stays with her mom most weekends), our daughter started the conversation but put all the onus on our her child; she had to pull up her socks, change her ways, fix her attitude, and so on. The more I listened, the more I realized that she is not able to do that, that she had lost all hope in everything, most of all in herself. I can’t recall every word, but I remember saying to her, “You need Jesus.”
She said, “I don’t believe that,” but it was more a statement than a rebellion.
We talked more. Finally I said what I’ve wanted to say for months. I wanted to tell her my take on what was happening to her. I told her she had experienced some bad things as a little child, was too young to deal with them then, and still not able when she grew up. The pain of all that was too much for her so she turned it off. She also refused to get angry, and because she could not reconcile the hurt, she became numb. She shut down all the negative emotions, but by doing that, she inadvertently shut down the positive ones too. She had lost all ability to be happy. At that point, she totally fell apart and clung to me, sobbing and sobbing and sobbing. Her chains fell off.
She is not there yet. She still needs to know Jesus, but the sense of evil oppression has gone. We explained to her that there is a spiritual enemy who wants to destroy her, and in her numbness, has filled her head with lies and thoughts of suicide. She cannot fight that alone. She needs truth and she needs light in her life. Again, she needs Jesus.
We didn’t push. We know that Jesus has to make the first move. We told her she cannot believe on her own, that it is a gift from God. All she can do is cooperate when she senses He is calling her to Himself.
For most of that time, our daughter was pushing self-effort. At one point I wanted to silence her, but just kept praying. When our grandchild’s tears started to flow, our daughter was quiet. After things settled a bit, she asked for a minute alone with her child. We don’t know what was said, but we could hear them crying and laughing together. We hoped it was good, had a twinge of fear that they were laughing at us (yikes), and felt like we’d been hit by a train, but the train was smiling.
After our daughter left, our granddaughter talked to us, watched TV with us, and was obviously changed from that person who had been silent, sullen, and mean-spirited. We know this is only the beginning, but it is a beginning. God hears and answers prayer.
My reading today is from Ephesians 1, “And He (God) put all things under His (Jesus) feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.”
Jesus is the boss. All thing includes “all principality (rule, authority) and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named . . .” Our granddaughter and her mother don’t need pills, psychobabble, therapy, self-effort, or a hard kick in the pants; they need Jesus. They need to submit to Him as their head, because only Jesus, as the head of all things, can give both of them victory over all things. Jesus is the fullness of God, the One who can fill in all those places in our lives that are dark, blank, without meaning and without hope.
We keep praying. She can now cry and laugh, but she still needs Jesus.
A few days ago I was thinking about how odd God’s faith is, and how we believe totally that He can do what we ask, yet the answer seems so impossible that part of me (no doubt my old sin nature) simply says, “Nonsense.”
That happened when Peter was put in prison. The story is in Acts 12. The church was in constant, earnest prayer and knew God could rescue him. He did. An angel opened the dungeon door, Peter’s chains fell off, and he walked out of the prison gate “that opened to them of its own accord.”
Peter then went to the house where the church was gathered in prayer for him and knocked at the door. A girl named Rhoda came to answer. Then, “when she recognized Peter’s voice, because of her gladness she did not open the gate, but ran in and announced that Peter stood before the gate.”
At that, those inside said she had to be “beside herself” or that this must be “his angel” (a Jewish superstition that each person has a guardian angel that can appear like the person). They were praying, no doubt believing in the power of God, but when the answer actually happened, Peter had to keep knocking before someone finally opened the door. When they saw him, “they were astonished.”
Most of us chuckle at this story, but it holds a valuable truth that should not be taken lightly. When I pray, God does answer, but I often do not recognize the answer, and sometimes I don’t even remember my prayer request.
In the back of my mind I’m thinking a few months ago I asked the Lord to help me be more humbly dependent upon Him. This is a dangerous prayer, and I knew that at the time, but when the events of our lives started their drastic turn, I didn’t connect the dots.
My husband was diagnosed with CLL, a chronic form of blood cancer. Our granddaughter came to live with us and after six months of ‘she has this’ or ‘she has that’ the bottom line is that she is demonically oppressed, filled with hatred for those who love her the most, and doing things that cannot be explained by any other reasons.
The leukemia makes us realize that we can only live ‘one day at a time.’ The oppression verifies that apart from Christ, we are absolutely helpless. He can deliver us from all of this, but then there is my prayer request.
God wants me to at least be more like Rhoda and less like the folks inside the house. I must recognize the answer to my prayers, and be overcome with joy, even if I’m not too quick to open the door and welcome this answer into my life.
God’s response to my request isn’t what I expected (I’m not sure what I expected), but it is as real an answer as Peter standing at the door. To bring me to a greater spiritual maturity, God sent me two whopping trials, and He expects me to respond with the same joy as Rhoda.
He says so in James 1: “Count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.”
My answer came knocking, then pushed the door down and walked into my life. I’ve felt invaded, not joyful, but realize that this is His answer nonetheless, and while I cannot be gleeful over the difficulties this is causing others in my life, God says it is possible to be glad that He is doing exactly what I asked.
Everyone who has children knows what it is like to take them somewhere and hear them repeat, “Are we there yet?” We think they are impatient, but mostly they just lack any sense of distance, time passing, and something to do while they wait.
Sometimes I’m a bit like that with God. I pray for understanding or direction, and He is silent. I want Him to talk to me, to give me words to say, or help with a decision, or give insight into how to handle a problem, but He is quiet.
Silence from children can be a relief, but the silence of God is usually perplexing and often distressing. When other people won’t talk to me or answer my questions, I think they are angry with me or being rude. I know that is not true of God, but what is He doing? Why is He so quiet?
My reading today gives me one reason. In John 16, Jesus says to His disciples, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.”
In these words, Jesus told them several things. One is that the Holy Spirit would tell them what they needed to know. Secondly, they could recognize Him because His words would be from the Father, and they would glorify the Son. In other words, the Spirit will not draw attention to Himself. Third, they didn’t know all the truth yet (no one does), but He would guide them into all truth.
Obviously He did all those things, and as the Holy Spirit revealed truth to them, they wrote it down and it is in our hands as Holy Scripture. But what strikes me is that, at that point in their spiritual journey, they could not bear the many things He wanted to tell them. They were not ready for it.
When my children were pre-school age, I never would have sat them down and given them a lesson in general accounting, or ancient history, or trigonometry. They simply would not understand what I said and the entire effort would be a waste of time. Not only that, I could create a stumbling block to their interest in learning, maybe even in their trust of me to help them with more relevant issues in life. Lessons must suit the students.
It’s a humbling thought to realize that Jesus knows me, and my needs and abilities better than I know myself. He also knows what I need to know for today and for the future. When I come with questions, like a good teacher, He will answer them when I need the answer. He loves me too much to dump trig on me when all I need is two plus two.
Becoming a Christian takes only a moment; living the Christian life is a long-term challenge. While Jesus gives us His power to overcome sin, we are actively involved in the struggle. We also engage in spiritual warfare as we battle the forces of evil in prayer for ourselves, others, and the world around us. Our lives are never predictable, yet sometimes we look for a formula, a rule that will be a sure-fire solution to each day’s issues and perplexities.
In a discussion about rejoicing, one person offered, “I discovered years ago that joy depends on serving Jesus first, Others second, Yourself last.” While this is true, this acrostic quickly becomes a platitude to anyone who does not seek God’s renewing power on a continual basis. I’ve never been able to meet daily challenges with platitudes.
My verse today again reminds me how true that is. 1 Chronicles 4:10 says, “And Jabez called on the God of Israel saying, ‘Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain!’ So God granted him what he requested.”
This verse is the foundation for the best-selling book, The Prayer of Jabez. It became a formula for thousands of people who looked for just one basic rule for life that would insure victory over sin and and bring them continual blessing. Does it work?
Watchman Nee, who wrote my devotional book, says that it is God’s intention to continually bless His people. If that blessing is absent, there is a reason. Instead of asking God to bless us, we need to find out what we have done to stop its flow into our lives.
Someone once illustrated this using a cup. He said if our lives are right with God, we are like a cup standing upright and He is pouring blessing into it. However, if we sin, the cup tips over and all is spilled out. The only way to be restored to our upright position is to “confess our sin and He is faithful and just to forgive our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).
Then this man repeatedly tipped and righted the cup and said, “Just realize that you will go through your Christian life tipping over and getting up. The best you can hope for is that the length of time becomes longer between tip-overs.”
This is the closest pat answer or formulas that I know of for a successful walk with God. While the prayer of Jabez is a good attitude to have, yet the prayer Jesus taught His disciples (commonly called the Lord’s Prayer), is just as good, and so also are the prayers of Paul. More important is praying according to the will of God in regard to the need of the moment and the desires of my heart, and even more important than that is keeping short accounts with Him so He can bless me.
Walking with Jesus is hard work, a daily, even a moment-by-moment act of paying attention to Him. Hanging a verse on the wall, memorizing and repeating verses, learning acrostics and catchy sayings do help me remember what I am learning, but no one thing covers all.
Only the person and work Jesus Christ covers it all. His blood covers my sin and my need to be clean, and when I turn to Him for answers, His direction conforms to His Word, not just one verse, but all of it. Not only that, instead of giving me pat answers, His daily bread always has an element of “being new every morning” and a delightful surprise to my heart.
Prayer is hard work. Over the past few weeks, God has shown me more and more about how He wants me to pray for others who do not know Him. In these weeks, I’ve had more internal and external opposition to prayer than ever before.
