Tag Archive | prayer

Joyful, Patient, Faithful

Jun5

A little word study for today:

“Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer” (Romans 12:12).

Hope: The feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best.

Joyful: full of  joy, as a person or one’s heart; glad; delighted.

“But may the righteous be glad and rejoice before God; may they be happy and joyful. Sing to God, sing praise to His name, extol Him who rides on the clouds–His name is the Lord–and rejoice before Him (Psalm 68:3,4).

Patient: bearing provocation, annoyance, misfortune, delay, hardship, pain, etc., with fortitude and calm and without complaint, anger, or the like.

Affliction: a state of pain, distress, or grief; misery

“I wait patiently for the Lord; He turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord” (Psalm 40: 1-3).

Faithful: steady in allegiance or affection; loyal; constant

Prayer: a spiritual communion with God . . . as in supplication, thanksgiving, adoration, or confession.

“To the faithful You show Yourself faithful, to the blameless You show Yourself blameless, to the pure You show Yourself pure” (Psalm 18: 25, 26).

Thanks to God’s Word through the New International Version (1984) and Dictionary.com.

Thankful today for:

348. the sound of the wind chimes

349. quiet

350. dictionaries

No Begging

Apr9

There’s a difference between begging and persistent prayer. James 4:2 says we do not have because we do not ask God, but it goes on to say when we do ask, we ask with wrong motives.

When my kids come to me and ask nicely for something that is good (like a play date or extra broccoli), I’m much more likely to grant their desire than if they hound me with “please, please, please, please, please!” That’s annoying to me.

Prayer is a mystery that I don’t fully comprehend, but we’re directed to do it, and I’m pretty sure it’s more for our sake than God’s. I pray for other people, for health, for my children to follow hard after Him, for the salvation of friends and family; all of these are good things for which to pray. That red convertible Mustang? Not so much.

Want an example of a prayer to which God pays attention? See Matthew 6:9-13.

“This, then, is how you should pray:

‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.'”

Amen

Thankful today for:

172. still low humidity

173. trip preparations

174. chiropractors

175. leftovers

176. good books

177. nice pens

178. a wonderful Easter celebration

179. the chance to work with my husband for a week

180. the mountains

181. air travel

If God is For Us

Mar9

If God is for us, who can be against us? And conversely, if God is against us, who can be for us?

When a problem comes up, do you pick up the phone first and call the experts, or do you pray?

When you’re making a decision, do you list the pros and cons first, or do you pray?

When you’re having a meeting, do you just have it, or do you pray first and throughout that meeting?

Let me tell you a story of a time when we dramatically saw God work after we prayed.

Our school, Trace Academy, rents space from my church. At the beginning of this school year, our facility underwent a fire inspection. This is a regular occurrence. When I was the one in charge of the facility, I had the same inspector every year and we never had any problems. This year, a different inspector came. And apparently, this inspector thought very highly of her authority. She gave the usual laundry list of things to move, fix or improve for fire safety, but then she fixated on the fact that we had four or five preschoolers being cared for in the nursery while their moms were working on campus.

What she determined could have shut us down.

So after panicking for a few moments, we were called to pray. I specifically prayed that God would either change this woman’s heart, or that He would remove her from her position.

Long story short, several weeks later–we had a 30-day deadline–the person now responsible for the facility for our school tried to call this inspector. Time after time she was unable to get in touch with her. Finally, someone else in the fire inspector’s office told us that she was no longer with the department. (!)

Is that a God story or what? They sent a new inspector who gave us a clean bill of health, and we were able to Imagecontinue business as usual, only with a more clear sense that God is on our side, and that we are doing what He wants us to do. I believe as a direct result of prayer, that fire that could have devastated us was extinguished.

Honestly, no authority on earth could have shut us down if God wanted us to keep going. We believe what we’re doing is from Him, and a power-hungry bureaucrat is not going to be able to shut that down.

David and Goliath

Paul and the Roman guards

Jesus and the grave

What God wants to accomplish and whomever He wants to use can never be defeated.

Thankful today for:

93. glasses

94. the sound of someone else doing the vacuuming

95. date night with my younger boy

If You Can

Feb5

Jesus said, “‘Everything is possible for him who believes.’ Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, ‘I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!'” (Mark 9:23, 24 NIV84).

I’ve heard it said that having faith is like sitting in a chair: you believe it can hold you, but you can’t really know until you give it a try. After that first time of trying and seeing, the sitting becomes a lot easier.

We read in the Bible time after time after time about God doing amazing and miraculous things, but we still don’t completely trust Him with everything today. We get stumped by the verse that says if we pray in God’s will. What, we wonder, is His will? How do I know if He wants to heal that person, or for me to have that job, or that car, or that child? All things are possible, but not all things are profitable.

It’s one of those mysteries. So still we trust and we ask. God will do the best thing.

Today is Superbowl Sunday. I’ll be praying, like thousands of others, that God would deliver those who are caught up in the horrible atrocity of sex trafficking. Both the victims and the victimizers. God can do it.

The Mystery that is Prayer

Feb2

I don’t fully understand how prayer works. We’ve been praying fervently for the daughter of a friend for more than a month now. She suffered severe consequences after the birth of her 7th child and was near death. Now, 34 days later, she is home and recovering.

But 9 years ago, we prayed fervently for the young teenaged son of another friend who had suffered a severe brain injury after being closed up in a sofa bed while playing around with his sister, and he didn’t make it.

Both had large groups of people praying fervently. What was the difference? Did God love one family more than another? Not at all! Was He on vacation 9 years ago? Ridiculous! But I asked some serious “why” questions after Mark died.

We are commanded to pray, and James says that the “fervent prayer of the righteous availeth much” (James 5:16). Just throwing out the fact that God is sovereign doesn’t bring much comfort to that family that lost a child.

When I miscarried our first child after years of trying to get pregnant, I questioned God. But I never doubted His love. I just didn’t understand His plan.

Job said, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:20).

Meshach, Shadrach and Abednego acknowledged that their God was able to save them from the fiery furnace, but even if He didn’t, they would still not worship the idol that Nebuchadnezzar had set up.

When Jesus said some things that were hard for some to hear, they turned away and stopped following Jesus, When that happened, He said to His disciples, “you don’t want to go away, too, do you?” Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God” (Matt. 6:66-69).

He is the Holy One of God. He loves us more than we can ever imagine. The Bible promises us that He works for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28).

We don’t doubt this, but, as C.S. Lewis wrote, sometimes we just wonder how painful that “good” is going to be. But through the hard times, painful though they be, we don’t leave, because He does, indeed, have words of eternal life. And He weeps along with us.