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But we are citizens of heaven and are eagerly waiting for our Savior to come from there. Our Lord Jesus Christ has power over everything, and he will make these poor bodies of ours like his own glorious body. Philippians 3:20-21(CEV)
The last time I saw Gus (not his real name) he was 104 years old. An old Norwegian Presbyterian he grew up farming in the fertile fields of Northern Iowa. He’d done well for himself and his sons had built on his legacy with sound farming and reliance on their faith. Gus was as generous with the money the ‘Good Lord’ had given him as he was his big smile and firm handshake.
I visited Gus that last time since I was back in town for the funeral of a mutual friend. She’d spent her last years in a room just down the hall from Gus and his wife in the local rest home. Gus shared his room with his wife of 75 years who, due to Alzheimer’s disease, rarely acknowledged his existence.
I unknowingly arrived just in time for the afternoon hymn sing and sat in the back of the room to listen. Midway through the singing the leader turned to Gus and said “Gus, would you sing your favorite song for us?” He smiled and nodded. She began to play “He the Pearly Gates will Open.” 104 years hadn’t weakened the beautiful Norwegian brogue as he sang all four verses from memory and didn’t miss a word (I don’t think).
Afterwards, I went up to greet Gus. His smile told me he recognized me long before I got to his wheelchair. We sat together and shared a cup of strong coffee. We talked of old times. Gus always talked about old times, the time on the farm, the way life had changed. How some of his most lucrative deals had been done with nothing more than a handshake. That’s all that was needed in those days.
Then Gus began to weep as we talked of the passing of our friend. I asked if he was okay and after he gained his composure he said, “All my friends are gone. I just want to go home.” I knew right away that home wasn’t the few blocks to the comfortable bungalow he and his bride had retired to. Home was to see his Jesus. It was at that point that I realized that home is where your family is, home is where your loved ones are and you feel completely accepted. Home is where Jesus is.
Three years later I heard that the Pearly Gates had swung wide open for Gus. He was home at last. Each of us long to live to be old, but as we grow older our bodies fail, our mind doesn’t work the way we’d like, those we love go on before us. But on the other side, when we go through those gates to see Jesus we’ll be transformed, made new. The physical and emotional pain we are going through now is nothing compared to the glory we’ll share when we enter “The Pearly Gates.”
PRAYER: Lord Jesus. We continue to struggle with life on this side. Thank you for the hope we have of a better life after this. Empower me to live fully for you here in anxious anticipation for lies ahead. Amen.
The LORD has heard my plea; the LORD will answer my prayer. Psalm 6:9 (NLT)
A small boy sits by the curb looking down the street. A passerby asks if he needs help. The little boy looks up and states confidently, ‘No sir, I’m just waiting for my daddy. He said he’d be home at 5:00 and it’s almost that time. I don’t want to miss him.”
Intrigued by the little boy’s faith, the passerby asks, “How do you know he’ll come?” The child looked up with confidence and said, “Because sir, my daddy always tells me when he’ll be home and he’s never been wrong.”
A simple story. A simple faith. What was it that caused the little boy to wait with confidence? Faith in the consistency of his father. Consistency is defined by the character of an individual. In essence a consistent person is one that does what he says he’ll do. And, because he did it in the past, he can be counted on to do it in the future.
Why did the woman risk ridicule by reaching through the crown to touch Jesus? Why did Mary and Martha send a message to Jesus that Lazarus was sick? Why did four friends dig a hole in the roof to drop their paralytic friend down to Jesus? Consistency.
Jesus could be counted on to do what he says he’d do.
David writes in Psalm 6:9 “The Lord HAS heard my plea, the Lord WILL answer my prayer.”
Was David’s reliance on prayer an act of blind faith in a religious activity? Not on your life. David knew God. He’d seen God deliver him from lions and bears. He’d seen the giant fall before him. He’d felt his presence on cold, dark, lonely nights and in the midst of the storm. He knew God and God’s track record assured him that he’d be heard.
Often times, when our prayers aren’t answered we fall back on the idea that if God didn’t answer it’s because he didn’t want to because of his anger towards us, or his disdain for our past, or because he is powerless to do so.
He may not always answer in the time or manner we’d like, but history shows that we serve a God who is consistent. He does what he says he’ll do time after time. The original word picture David paints in his statement refers to mercy and grace. He knew his God was a God of mercy and grace and because of that, because of what he’d seen God do in the past, he knew he could count on him for the future.
Regardless of what you are going through today, the Lord God, knows your heart and your need. He’s been meeting needs for 1,000’s of years. He’s not about to change that now. You can trust that he’ll do what he says he’ll do.
PRAYER: Father, it’s hard to comprehend what it means to be consistent in faith since there are so few things that are consistent today. Marriages fail, friends leave us, religion seems empty. Help me to rely on your consistency in my faith walk. Amen.
“If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.” Matthew 21:22
There are certain things in the Christian’s life that I have to admit I struggle with. Perhaps the biggest one is prayer. Don’t get me wrong. I believe in the power of prayer. I’ve seen miracles that can only be explained by the working of God’s hand. I’ve seen lives changed. I’ve seen demons flee. I’ve seen people get up and walk when medical science told us they’d never walk again. Prayer works. Jesus’ words are not void.
On the other hand, I’ve seen parents weep over the casket of a child because their prayers ‘weren’t answered’. I’ve seen the innocent accused wrongly because a judge decided to use his own ‘wisdom’ rather than look at the evidence ‘objectively’. I’ve watched spouses walk away from families while the church prayed things would be different. Prayers offered up to heaven seem to fall harmlessly to the ground leaving lives and bodies strewn in their path. Does that mean I don’t believe in prayer? NO. As I stated earlier, prayer works. I’ve seen far too many personal examples of God’s working to believe otherwise. I believe the Bible to be God’s Holy Word, without error unashamedly. I believe in and take advantage of the promise we have in Hebrews and elsewhere that we can come with confidence before the throne of God to receive mercy and grace in our time of need. I believe our God is sovereign, all-powerful, loving and merciful. I believe my faith is a package deal. You can’t pick and choose which parts of ‘God’ you will believe and which you will not. It’s all or nothing. He believes in you when you fail, all he asks is that you believe in him when he disappoints.
So here are my thoughts on the hard aspects of prayer thus far in the journey. It’s not an inclusive list, I didn’t find them on some tablets buried in the ground. They came from my heart.
When you struggle to believe in prayer, remember that prayer you can believe in means:
- Your Heavenly Father won’t give you something that’s harmful to you. All of us are like 2 year-old children. We want the things we see in life with little regard for the consequences they bring to us. We see for today, not tomorrow. Why else does lust, addiction and spending beyond our means hold such an allure. Jesus promises us that if we pray for bread, God won’t give us a rock. The opposite is also true. If we pray for a rock to eat, God won’t give it to us. He loves us too much to give us something that will hurt us. Having said that, remember he also will never force you to take the best choice. He loves you too much for that too.
- Your Heavenly Father wont keep you from going through something that you need to go through in order grow stronger. None of us like pain. Sometimes we’ll choose painful things because we think that pain will be less than the pain before us, but we never choose pain as the best route. However, strength never comes without adversity. Walking never comes without falling; good health never comes from willing it to as we over-eat and under-exercise; learning faith never comes without an element of doubt leading to trust. A loving Father knows what it’s going to take to make you strong and he won’t give up on you until he has you strong enough to face what lay ahead.
- Your Heavenly Father won’t thwart his eternal purpose by keeping you from going through something you need to go through in order to help others on their journey. Your Father’s ultimate desire is to bring all of his children into relationship with him. The only way that will happen is through Jesus Christ. When Jesus left planet earth he left behind a charge to each of us, a challenge to go, to disciple, to reach out to those caught in the web of sin and despair. The most effective ambassadors are those who’ve struggled themselves. Because of his great love for you and others; because of his eternal goal of passionately desiring to spend eternity with your neighbors, he may allow you to go through things so you can more show more passion and more understanding to those who need Jesus.
- Your Heavenly Father won’t answer a prayer that is contrary to his holiness. This may be the hardest of all for us to endure and understand. He is a holy God. He is a perfect God. Sin can not stand in his presence. Because of this, when sin in in our lives he needs to cleanse us. Not for his sake but for ours. Unconfessed sin keeps us from the passionate relationship he so earnestly desires. We may endure the consequences of our actions, not because he hates us, but because he wants to cleanse us.
That’s the short list. There are no easy answers. There are times we’ll never understand his actions. There are times we won’t even know how to pray. Circumstances may change our view of God, but they will never change God’s love for us.
PRAYER: Father I confess to you that I don’t understand your actions in my life. I thank you and praise you that in spite of my limited view and my weakness you still love me. I worship you for the fact that I can approach your throne even when I question your actions. Thank you for the grace to go on. Amen.
I have chosen the way of faithfulness; I have set my heart on your laws. Psalm 119:30
Remember the story of the Little Red Hen? She scurries around the farmyard trying to get the ingredients for making some her great homemade bread. She asks for help from all the farm animals and none of them are willing to help so she does it all herself. When the aroma of the bread wafts through the farmyard all the animals gather together for a taste only to find that she wasn’t willing to share since they weren’t willing to help.
One moral of that story might be that you have the choice to do whatever you want, but you may not like the consequences of your choices. Little Red Hen never appears to be angry with those who refused to help. She didn’t chastise them in the least. The request was made, the refusal received, and life went on.
Perhaps one of the most precious gifts God has given us, next to salvation itself, is the freedom to choose. He didn’t create robots, he created humans. He didn’t put within us a computer chip programmed to respond correctly in every situation. He gave us a mind that, like his could reason, explore and think. He gave us emotion so we could enjoy the sunsets, smell the fresh spring rain and look in awe at the mountains majesty.
But choice has a downside. Choosing to follow the path of faithfulness isn’t the easy button in life. In fact, choosing the path of faithfulness often leads us along a trail that is most difficult. Choosing to follow God is easy when things are going well, but true character, true faith, is shown when things don’t go the way we want them too.
It’s easy to believe in a God of love and grace and mercy and all things comfortable. It’s hard to believe in a God that allows us to suffer the consequences of our own poor choices. It’s easy to choose a God who rescues us from adversity. It’s hard to believe in a God that allows us to go through the frustration of being falsely accused; of being attacked for openly sharing our faith; chided for following a list of rules that seems antiquated and irrelevant in comparison of with the way the world is going.
The apostle Paul writes, “Don’t grow weary in doing good.” He knew what he was talking about. His life in Christ was full of pain, adversity, being falsely accused and physically attacked. Yet he finished the course, he fought the good fight.
God doesn’t always ask the big things of us. Sometimes he asks for a series of little steps, little choices. The decisions we make along the way will be hard but the reward is worth it. True faith says we will follow more closely to him when human wisdom screams at us to go the other way.
PRAYER: Father God, it’s easy to follow you on the good days when I’m not tempted, not mistreated, not feeling under attack. But I haven’t seen very many of those days. Empower me to see you on the hard days; those days when nothing seems to go right. On those days help me to choose you regardless of the cost. Amen.
Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. Ephesians 1:4 (NLT)
“We won’t really know until we open him up and have a look inside.”
Imagine the feeling of a parent or spouse as they hear those words. Perhaps you don’t have to imagine. You may have been the one in the waiting room praying, worrying, hoping. Trusting God helps, but it doesn’t take away the knot in the stomach.
Even though the tests medical science has come up with are amazing, there is still an element of ‘surprise’ once the surgery begins and the surgeons look inside. Often they don’t really know how to ‘heal’ the situation until they are in the process of the surgery.
Many times we assume that our Heavenly Father is like the surgeon. He sees us and the problems we have. He sees the wound of our souls and has a rough idea of what he will do to make us ‘whole and usable’ for his purpose. He begins the surgery of our heart, but doesn’t really know what will happen until he gets inside of us. His actions are determined by what he discovers inside. Our healing is dependent on discovery.
Viewing God as some great surgeon with scalpel in hand is contrary to the picture that the Bible paints. Even the best of surgeons are dependent on what they see in the present and what they’ve seen in the past. The Father sees your future. The Father sees you in your entirety. He sees your physical limitations, your emotional make-up and your spiritual struggle, and after all that, he chose you!
He isn’t surprised by your addiction. He isn’t surprised by your anger. He isn’t surprised by your struggle with pornography or worry or financial demise. He saw your divorce coming before the earth cooled. He knew all about you and still he chose you.
Not only did he see your present before you saw your past, he sees your future as well. A surgeon looks at your physical condition and determines your prognosis. With the Father your prognosis is dependent on Jesus Christ and what he did for you on the cross. The empty tomb of Christ is a symbol of what the Father thinks of you. Resurrected. Perfect. Eternally blessed. Ready for heaven. Established as his dearly loved children.
PRAYER: Father God, I never tire of the reminder that you loved me enough to choose me even though you knew my weakness. Thank you that your love is based on the person of Jesus Christ and not the mortal soul I am. I’m eternally grateful for the truth that I’m chosen by you. Amen.
Mike Fisk & Built with Grace 