speedy justice

So I'm listening to this wonderful teaching by Dwayne Roberts about persistence in prayer and how it often seems that we pray with no results. That is where I've felt I've been lately--praying and praying with no perceptible change in my environment (although, admittedly, there have been changes in myself). It gets tiring and I often struggle with the question, "what's the use?"

One of the passages in the message is that of the unjust judge in Luke 18, and the promise the Lord gives to "avenge" his chosen ones speedily. I like the way the New Living Translation puts verse 7:

"...don't you think God will surely give justice to his chosen people who plead
with him day and night?"

What I fight the most in my times of prayer is the discouragement that comes from the lie of Satan that I'm not making any difference. Jesus promises us here that if we will press on and plead with Him day and night, through His mighty power and with signs and wonders He will justify our commitment to prayer and punish the enemy for the lies he whispers.

Press on, and God bless!

just a short thought on being grateful

Several of us at the church have been pushing for a greater awareness of what it means to be grateful lately. My brother has been especially pivotal in bringing this valuable lesson to the forefront, coupling it with the lessons on perspective that the Lord has been working in him for close to a year now.

I found a quote today, and the potential ramifications hit rather close to home. It simply states:

"No one is as capable of gratitude as one who has emerged from the kingdom of
night." ~Elie Wiesel

When we pray for patience, God allows us to go through trials through teach us to push through. When we ask for more faith, sometimes He hides His face so that we have to lock into the last thing He said and trust in the face of all odds.

In the quest for grattitude, the choice is simple. We can either choose to be grateful in all things....or we can ask to be more grateful without practicing it and go through trials that will teach us to be more grateful until we finally learn the lesson.

city of refuge

there's a beast in the streets. he rushes his prey. he devours all in his path. can you feel him? the edge of his hunger is the breath on your heels as you run, and run, and run. on and on you run, heart pounding, chest aching, one step following another with nothing more than the push of your will to keep going. sprinting to survive. praying for the earth to swallow the flood spewed from the monster pursuing you.

the people are fleeing for their lives, but the city of refuge lies in ruins. where are those who will build up the wall? who will stand in the gap? the cornerstone is in place, but the peters of the kingdom quibble among themselves, striving for position in the wall, refusing the cut of the mason's tool. each stone struggles and seeks to complete the spires on the wall. who will lay down their lives to be a foundation and allow the next generation to build upon ground they'll never have to break?

the city is in ruins. rough, unhewn rocks dot the surface of the hillside, and the monster is coming, and the people are fleeing. the city has already been besieged and surrendered. where will the people go when strength is gone, if the wall is not standing?

scattered stones on the hilltop. bones bleaching in the valley sun. hear the call of the Father. urgent. desperate. build the wall. build the wall. build the wall.

coincidences

Nine o’clock on Easter Sunday night saw me wandering down the aisles of WalMart. I had just driven the almost-two-hour drive from my parents’ house after a long afternoon with friends, and was mentally already ticking off the list of things to do before I could fall into bed. I stopped and began to peruse the different boxes of crackers available, and had just settled on which flavor of Triscuits I wanted when “he” came over to me.

“Hi,” he said.

I gave a polite half-smile and nodded.

“Do you need any help?”

“No thanks–I think I’m good.” Do I really look that confused? Well, there are a bunch of choices...

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I think I found what I want.” The tomato-basil looks potentially interesting.

“‘Cause I’d hate for you to need help standin’ here and lookin’ all . . .”

Ooooooh. The light dawned, and I smiled for real this time. I thanked him again for the “offer” and assured him I was just fine. He told me where he would be if I needed anything and turned to go. After a few steps, he turned back toward me, and that’s when he said it.

“Keep doing whatever you’re doing.”

Then he was gone, and I didn’t see him again for the rest of the night.

What he said has stayed with me, though. Keep doing what you’re doing. Perhaps not the way he meant it–but the message came through just the same. Just keep going. Don’t quit.

God sends us encouragement and answers to prayer in our everyday lives, but I think a lot of the time we don’t accept them because they don’t come to us with pomp, circumstance and flair that we expect from a “miracle.” In His love for us, God is constantly speaking, tugging at our attention and whispering “come away.” Too often we miss it because we’re looking for something else. Because angels don’t show up shining like neon lights and waving banners trumpeting “thus saith the Lord” in our faces. Because it comes to us through commiserating with a stranger about the price of gas while standing at the pump instead of in the middle of a church service.

I don’t know who came to speak to me on Sunday night, but I do believe God used him to get a message across, and it has served as fuel to press on after God and to continue to believe that He’s got something bigger going on than what my finite mind can see. I pray that God will shift us all to a mind set where we look at “coincidences” and see answers instead.

my companion, my heart

A few weeks ago, Pastor said something in his sermon that has really stayed with me. He was talking about the marriage of Jacob to both Leah and Rachel in the Old Testament, and how Jacob loved Rachel more, even after seven years of marriage to Leah, because Rachel was his heart. Pastor then admonished all singles in the church to make sure that their future spouse was their heart and not just their companion.

My heart went out to the poignancy of Leah's plight, bound for the rest of her life to a man who would always love her sister more, the apparent quintessential Proverbs 30:23 woman; and then I began to think about Leah herself. Unfortunately, instead of focusing on capturing her husband's heart, Leah turned her attention to the heated rivalry with her sister and fractured their relationship.

While we know that Rachel was Jacob's heart, we have to wonder if Jacob was really Leah's heart, or if she was more interested in social status and attention. While we cannot know Leah's motives and desires, we can learn from her marriage to Jacob. How often do we allow the same thing to happen in our relationship with God? We seek the benefits of companionship with Him, often without making Him our ultimate desire. Often, when we see our brothers or sisters walking in enraptured love of Him, we grow jealous of the anointing, attack their zeal and judge their motives rather than emulate their lifestyles.

At our House of Prayer meeting on Saturday, we discussed how part of the curse on woman in Genesis 3:16 was a raging thirst for love that no broken and imperfect man can fully satisfy. Leah's story is an example of how this quest can become twisted and is fruitless. I believe that the curse can be a mixed blessing. History shows us that God allows those He considers His friends to experience His emotions. Abraham better identified with God's sorrow at sacrificing His son when he laid Isaac on the altar. Hosea experienced God's pain at a constantly unfaithful people when he married a prostitute. David felt God's heartbreak at having evil repaid for good when he spared Saul's life, only to have Saul chase him in the desert again and again.

In women, God has planted an inherent ability to understand the unspeakable longing He has to be loved. He is the master pursuer, but He longs for a people who will pursue Him with equal passion and abandon. The paradox of mature, agape love is that it expands, and the more you love, the more you realize how much more there is to love. The Psalmist asked, "what is man that Your are mindful of him?" I would ask, "What am I, that Your heart's cry is to be my heart?"