Tag: prayer

Christian

Unexpected Moments

Highlighting Hope

Life is full of unexpected moments. Being caught off guard and unprepared for the unexpected has a way of leaving us feeling quite shaken.

A couple of weeks ago, my husband went with a few of his buddies on a weekend fishing trip. I can almost imagine their 5 hour drive together- constant laughing with one another and some really good conversation! About 15 minutes from their destination, the mood in that truck instantly changed. The laughs and good conversation came to a screeching halt when a deer leaped from the woods and landed on the road just in time for it to collide with my husband’s truck. To use the word “shocked” would be an understatement.

Life’s unexpected moments seem to sometimes happen in a similar tempo. All is well. Life is good. Laughter abounds. There’s no strife in sight. Then, bam! Here comes that deer, that major interruption, that big problem, landing on your path, just in time for a major collision to occur, and suddenly, the mode of life changes. The laughter and happiness comes to a sudden stop and you are faced with damage you didn’t expect.

This is sometimes our life’s reality and it doesn’t look pretty, nor does it feel pretty. We are left with the damage and the undeniable need for repair!

The temptation to respond in these situations with bitterness and anger is real! If I am being transparent, I have struggled with this reaction in my own life over this past year. Being bombarded with unexpected hardships gets old and feeling the weariness of trials that seem to continuously find their way onto your path wears you down!

But looking at the trial, looking at the hardship, will no doubt produce bitterness, anger, frustration and exhaustion, and inevitably, it will produce a poison that will begin to kill the fruit of the Spirit that God longs to see abundantly produced in our lives. This is why, in ALL circumstances, we must keep our eyes fixed on our Lord, Jesus! The Psalmist asks in Psalm 121 “From where does my help come from? And then he answers, “My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”

In moments of difficulty and hardship, I’m learning to change my question from being “why is this happening?” to “Where does my help come from?” Asking the latter will always lead us to the only viable answer!

Our help friends, come from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth! God our Father will keep you! When you feel the ground beneath you give way, remember that God is your keeper and sustainer!

With God as our Heavenly Father, we can be assured that we always remain in His grasp, by His grace, and always for His glory!

Christian

Is it Time to Stop Praying?

Highlighting Hope

Is today the day that God may be saying to you that it’s time to stop praying?…. What a bogus question to ask, right? Or is it? Now, before you write me off for asking something so outlandish, please hear me out. I promise there is good reason for asking a question such as this.

I truly love praying! Cast ALL of my MANY cares upon the Lord??? Umm…. YES, PLEASE! Prayer is a privilege and it allows us to commune with God. He calls us to come to Him with all sorts of prayers and requests at all times of the day! Time and time again, I have gone back and read through my prayer journals and I have enjoyed reading past prayers and then recognize that God has answered so many of them in amazing ways. Even small little prayers that I had forgotten all about! Praying and watching God lovingly respond, is such a blessing and is a major faith builder for me.

But, is there a time when God calls us to stop praying about something? And surprisingly, I believe the answer is YES. If you are familiar at all with the book of Exodus then you already know that this book is all about God’s deliverance. I never get tired of going back and reading this book! How in the world can reading about God splitting the Red Sea so that He could lead His people out of a land of slavery get old? It’s such a faith builder and it helps me keep a true perspective of God as it beautifully puts His power on display.

But as I was reading this week, I stumbled across some verses that had never stood out to me before. Just as the Israelites were nearing the Red Sea, Pharaoh’s army continued moving closer to them. Fear quickly overtook the large crowd of escapees and Moses assures them that on this very day they would see the deliverance of the Lord.

But it’s the verse following this that really grabbed me.
Exodus 14:15 says, “Then the Lord said to Moses, “Why are you still crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on.”
Wow! “Why are you still crying out to me?” This is what the Lord asked Moses as they stood in front of a large body of water with a massive army getting closer to them by the minute. I believe I would have still been crying out to the Lord too!

But what God was saying to Moses here in the middle of an intense, scary, and chaotic moment, is that there is a time when we are to stop praying and to start walking in faith!

God had heard the cries of His people and their prayers were being answered with each passing step. They just had to trust the God who was delivering them and allow their faith to be greater than their fear.

So could it be that God is asking us the very same question, “Why are you still crying out to me?” Maybe you have continued to pray about something and as God is answering your prayer, He is calling you out into the unknown and to trust Him.

I think that it’s important to ask ourselves, and to recognize if today is the very day that God is saying it’s time to stop praying about it and it’s time to start walking!

Christian

Our Fulfillment Must Come From the Task-Giver, Not the Task!

Highlighting Hope

There is no doubt that God uses the pains and scars from the past for a greater good and purpose, and as well as a means to give us new sight. I have watched God’s light give beauty to my painful memories, but I have to tread very carefully to keep the painful memories of my past in full view of His light, because without His light, they just become painful memories.

God longs to use what was once difficult, or what may be currently difficult, as a powerful opportunity to give a testimony of His work in our lives; but in our opportunities to serve and make Him known, they are not to be used for the purpose of filling those voids and mending our wounds. The voids that need to be filled and the healing that needs to take place, must be done by the ‘Task Giver’ (God), not in the task itself.

In the process of giving my all to the tasks God has called me to, I have struggled with the tasks consuming me, and becoming my ‘all in all’ by seeking my fulfillment in these tasks instead of being filled by my ‘Task Giver –  God! When I seek to make God’s calling as the main source of my fulfillment, instead of God Himself, it taints the purity of the task at hand.

Our service to God also shifts when the task and its’ outcome becomes the priority instead of striving to know and honor God first, and allowing the outcomes from our labor to belong to Him! 

We love to see results, but in our service to Him, they do not always look the way we think they should, if we even see them at all! When the results we can see becomes the focus, the ministry God has called us to can quickly become a burden.

Bottom line, God longs for a true and sincere heart that is in service to Him!  He is looking at the motives within our hearts, He longs to be what  fill us up, He longs to be our all in all, and He longs for us to leave the outcomes to Him!

When our mission starts with God, we will find ourselves fueled and ready for the tasks He has laid before us,  with our voids already filled and the burden of results taken from our hands!

“But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” 1 Samuel 16:7