Know Who You’re Talking To?

How frequently I forget The Jesus Option in my long-running woes and spur-of-the-moment desperations!

How easily I pray a bit and quit!

How often I petition God earnestly…while suspecting He doesn’t have in mind to satisfy my need!

Now, reading this a few minutes ago, I don’t know what to make of it:

If you and I knew who Jesus was—really, really knew—would we pray differently? […]

He commended people who gave Him no rest in these concerns.

Two blind men gave Him no rest. They cried out to Jesus, and not only did He ignore them, He walked into someone’s house. They had to barge in after Him before they got satisfaction Matthew 9:27-31.

The Syrophoenician woman gave Him no rest. She begged to the point of harassment, and Jesus gave her no encouragement. But she would not be put off until she got satisfaction Mark 7:24-30.

Maybe Jesus was waiting to see how badly they wanted what they wanted, and how strongly they believed He was both merciful and able.

What is it that you wished for today that you kept to yourself and didn’t even think to pray for because you didn’t believe God would be willing to grant it?

Once again, many thanks, Andreé Seu (‘If you knew’).

When Freedom Feels Like a Void

I read this article yesterday. It’s sad, really.

Years ago, I was a Sunday school teacher. Attended church every week. Read the King James Bible for fun. Believed as much as I could, as sincerely as I could.

Then I moved to Portland, an unchurched city in one of the nation’s least religious states, and joined the ranks of people who don’t regularly attend services and barely know where to start. I don’t miss it much…

Suddenly, the blessed freedom of living in an unchurched city feels more like a void.Read it all

Faith and the Naked Word of God

Faith has nothing to do with feelings or with impressions, with improbabilities or with outward experiences. If we desire to couple such things with faith, then we are no longer resting on the Word of God, because faith needs nothing of the kind. Faith rests on the naked Word of God. When we take Him at His Word, the heart is at peace.

— George Müller.

HT: Sorry. I forget where I read this almost a week ago. 🙁

Counting Trials as Joy

“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds . . .” (James 1:2).

Have you ever met a person who actually, literally did what this verse says? I have. Marilyn (not her real name) phoned and told me that her husband has been diagnosed with prostate cancer, her son is recovering from multiple stab wounds inflicted by a crazed stranger in Center City, and her daughter-in-law is so weakened by some bizarre condition that she is unable to hold her newborn. And she was radiating joy.

Marilyn figured that God must be really up to something! He must be really shaking things up for a good purpose for all this to be coming down at once. This, she reasoned, must be nothing other than the “testing of faith” of verse 3 that issues in a new level of “steadfastness,” whose “full effect” makes “perfect and complete” (verse 4). Marilyn wants that “perfect and complete” thing, for herself and for her family. She wants it more than she wants their or her health.

[…]

I know that Marilyn’s counting all of her inherently difficult circumstances as joy is accompanied by a fair amount of muscular thinking and believing. Her logic seems to be this: God is love; He sends trial to build faith; He will reward tenacious faith with something wonderful that no eye can see nor ear can hear nor the heart of man can conceive. Immediately, that understanding of Marilyn’s yields a quiet hope and a joy. It turns out that God really does keep at perfect peace the heart that is steadfast, because it trusts in Him (Isaiah 26:3). Who’d have thought it?

I accept that.

To such an extent that I want to live it.

But I haven’t enjoyed the pain in the process.

PS: Be sure to read the whole piece; I left out several paragraphs: Counting all difficulties as joy.

Abandoned?

I just read Always There over at Our Daily Bread:

I suspect that sometimes when we pray, we think something similar has happened to God—that for some reason He isn’t there. But the Bible offers us comfort with the assurance that God hasn’t “fallen from the sky.” He is always available to us. He hears and He cares.

In a time of desperation, David wrote, “Evening and morning and at noon I will pray, and cry aloud, and He shall hear my voice” (Ps. 55:17). No matter when we call on God, He hears the cries of His children. That should encourage our hearts. What was David’s response to having a God who hears prayer? “Cast your burden on the Lord, and He shall sustain you” (v.22). Although God may not answer as we would like or when we would like, we know that at “evening and morning and at noon” He is always there.

That’s good timing for me.

I believe what that says.

Because the Bible tells me so.

But I still find myself grasping for faith while kicking at the grasping claws of unbelief.

Do you understand what I mean?

Above all, love God!