Day: August 27, 2019

“Call unto Me, and I will answer thee, and show you great and mighty things, which you know not”   Jeremiah 33:3

God encourages us to pray. Many say that prayer is a pious exercise which has no influence except upon the mind engaged in it. That it is an act of obedience that really has minimal worth.  That a sovereign God will not respond to puny requests by mere mortals.  That, as it says in Julius Caesar, “our fate lies in the stars,” and we are just puppets and God is the puppet master.  But we know better. The Word refutes this idea a hundred times over.   In the passage above, Jehovah, the living God, distinctly promises to answer the prayers of His servant. Why would we think otherwise?

In Philippians we are told, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:6-7)  How can we receive peace from prayer if it is without power? How can an act of futility give us peace in the midst of difficulty?
If prayer is of no consequence, then why pray?  Is it a mere command like we give our faithful pet Buddy?  We tell him to sit and he does, but he gets nothing out of it but the dog knowledge that he has obeyed us?  It would be the equivalent of us teaching him to bark for a treat, but he never gets a treat.  We just tell him, in our best dog language, that his reward is in obedience alone and we will just continue to have him bark and remain treatless. Of course, making any comparisons between God and us and a pooch is pretty futile, but the idea is similar.

Some people neglect prayer because they are not convinced of its authenticity.  Sadly it seems that prayer ebbs and flows in our life maybe more than any other Christian discipline.  The old saying, “Seven days without prayer makes one weak,” has more truth than not.  Early African converts to Christianity were earnest and regular in private devotions. Each one reportedly had a separate spot in the thicket where he would pour out his heart to God. Over time the paths to these places became well worn. As a result, if one of these believers began to neglect prayer, it was soon apparent to the others. They would kindly remind the negligent one, “Brother, the grass grows on your path.”  Unfortunately, few of us have a grass path or a good friend to remind us of our neglect.

God says He will answer prayer and I believe Him.  He says He is totally sovereign and I believe Him.  He says we have free will and I believe Him.  That I can’t rectify some of this in my limited mind is not a reflection on Him, but on the vast gap between God’s thinking and my own.  Buddy understands me more than I understand God and Buddy doesn’t understand me at all.  Even though Buddy doesn’t understand me, he believes me.  If I touch a leash, he goes crazy knowing we are going for a walk.  How sad it would be, if I would just touch the leash and then walk away over and over.  My broken promise of a walk would finally weigh on him and he would stop believing me. Would God promise in His word that prayer is meaningful and then just walk away over and over? That does not fit the character of God

Let’s call upon God and admit no doubt that he always hears our prayers and that they are meaningful to Him.  Would He that made the ear, not hear?  Would He that gave parents a love for their children, not listen to the cries of His own children, as well!God will answer us in our anguish. He has wonders in store for us. What we have never seen, heard of, or dreamed of, He will do for us.

He will invent new blessings if need be.  He will ransack sea and land to feed us: He will send out angels from heaven to save us if our distress requires it. He will astound us with His grace and make us feel that it was never before done in this fashion. All He asks of us is that we will call upon Him. He cannot ask less of us, but he does not ask more.  We can know that we can call on Him and He will hear our cries and do great and mighty things.

“Don’t say, “I will avenge this evil! ” Wait on the Lord, and He will rescue you.”  Proverbs 20:22

Yes, I will admit it.  John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson and all those manly actors I grew up with were popular with me for many reasons, but one of the main reasons was that they usually gave the bad guy what he deserved.  No evil man with an eye patch and bad teeth would terrorize the farm family as long as those guys were around.  Their revenge wasn’t immediate (usually about 2 1/2 hours for a movie and an hour for TV), but eventually the bad guys got their just rewards.  Occasionally, they even took ’em alive!

There is a side of me, probably of all us, that likes to sip on the tall drink of revenge once in awhile. But these movies are scripted and the good and bad guys are just following the lead of the pen that created them.  In real life revenge is not nearly so sweet.  That is why God warns against it in Proverbs and many other places in the Word.  There are several reason for that, but to name just a few: God knows exactly what is going on and will handle it correctly, we don’t know exactly what is going on and will usually handle it poorly, and “revenge” seldom gives us the satisfaction we expect it will.

Let’s take the first two together.  No matter how close we are to the situation (I am getting bullied in the school yard, ouch, memories) and I can’t stand it. I plot a nerdy revenge that humiliates the bully so much that he drops out of school and joins the job corps where he soon is kicked out for bullying.  Seems like a good plan carried out well.  But I cannot see inside of the bully; I cannot see the future for this bully; I cannot see the ramifications for my actions; I can’t see anything beyond my own desire to “get even.” All I know is that it feels good for awhile… for a while.  That brings us to the third point. Anything that is contrary to God’s Word will never work.  It just won’t.  Jesus said to love those who hate you (by the way, that is not the doormat argument that we should lie down and let others wipe their feet on us), and (to creatively combine two different verses) it will heap hot coals upon their heads.  What doesn’t seem to work is when we really heap hot coals upon their heads. Because we know The Lord we just can’t stay excited about seeing anyone charred and pathetic- it somehow loses it thrill very quickly.

God says He sees what is going on and will rescue us.  It may not seem like it and we are so prone to jump ahead of God and to deal with things like our western heroes did (a flurry of bullets and a half-sneering smile), and if we had script writers all might turn out well.  But we don’t.  Our story is life and we should put it in the hands of the author of life.  That temporary satisfaction we get by getting a few licks in on some deserving villain will subside quickly and surprisingly our good feelings will give way to other ones.  Revenge is a temporary fix because we are not quite the fixers God is.  So the next time we feel inclined to say, “Do you feel lucky, Punk.  Well, do ya?”  We might be better to say, “You got this one, God. Let me know how it goes. I’ll be in wardrobe changing my attitude.”

Have a super blessed Wednesday (already!)