Pray

P 2226 Jesus helps me to keep going.

/ DVH

When I sit and read about the Lord, and think about what He did while He was on this earth, and how HE struggled with facing His own death – it helps me to keep going every day. First of all, let’s look at the fact that the Lord needed to pray 3 times in the garden of Gethsemane. He needed to pray what He was facing through, and He waited on God for the spiritual strength to carry it all out. Jesus prayed until He knew the job was already done – spiritually speaking. His total surrender, in those awful moments, gave Him the power to endure what came next. He died to Himself in that garden and it was a terrible battle. 

This scene shows me that it is OK to struggle with spiritual stuff – it doesn’t mean I’ve missed His will, or I am going the wrong way. When things are hard to do – we need to press into Him. Jesus spoke a great deal about His death in the days before the crucifixion, so He already knew this time was coming. Yet He still prayed for that destiny to be taken away! He struggled with God’s Will. Praise the Lord, because Jesus is my visible illustration of God’s Will in action! It’s OK to struggle – remember to surrender and then go into trust. Push on past your fears etc.

Let’s look at this in Matthew 26: 38-46 …“Then He (Jesus) said to them, (His disciples) “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with Me.” Going a little farther, He fell with His face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from Me. Yet not as I will, but as You will.” Then He returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Couldn’t you men keep watch with Me for one hour?” he asked Peter. “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

“He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may Your will be done.” When He came back, He again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. So He left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing. Then He returned to the disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour has come, and the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners…”

Jesus allowed Himself to feel the total appalling impact of what was coming toward Him. He didn’t hide from it, or  have a stiff-upper-lip mentality, nor did He deny the reality of what He was facing. It’s OK to hurt, it is OK to be disappointed or even grieve about whatever has happened to us. But, at the same time, we need to remember that we have HOPE – His Name is Jesus … He is our anchor. If someone you love is suffering then pray that God will give them real HOPE in the face of adversity.

Jesus was very hurt with His disciples, for not praying with Him. I think He was also disappointed for their sake. Getting in touch with God in a crisis is the only way to get through whatever is coming next. The biggest test those men had ever faced was hurtling toward them… and they were vastly under-prepared for it. He was still caring for them on the brink of His own pain, suffering and death.

Lastly, the Lord Jesus helps us to have courage because He did everything He did for all of us. Our failures, fears, sicknesses, disappointments, sins, those things were all dealt with as He struggled with the concept of being a substitute for us. He was about to be separated from God’s bright Presence and He did that deliberately for our sake. He became our separation so we don’t ever have to be, or go anywhere without God’s Presence again! 

In times of despair difficulty and trial – I think of the Lord Jesus saying, with such incredible faith: “… Your will be done.” That was a faith statement. Christ had never physically suffered to the point of His own death and He had to rely upon the Holy Spirit to bring Him out of that grave. Jesus knows how hard it is to have faith in times of crisis. His vulnerability at that time helps me keep going when stuff happens in my life.  Praise Him. 👋🏻

P 2215 Time to remember we are all human, and shouldn’t pretend otherwise.

/ DVH

I had a very difficult day yesterday. My blog site went down, because there was a problem at the server’s end, and it took most of the day for it to be restored. Computers! They are great … until they aren’t!  I, of course, lived up to everything I say here – and … promptly panicked, and got ratty at the server. 😢 I’d like to say I have an excuse because I was not notified about the extensive IT work on the site… but I’m not real sure about that one – I think it was more a case of looking at who I really am, under pressure! 

Today has been a day filled with identifying and making all kinds of adjustments, and not all of them were happy ones. It isn’t a lot of fun peering into your mirror/bible and finding you aren’t the very nice person you hoped you were. Sometimes I think I should wear an under construction sign on my forehead. Sigh. I was extremely anxious, and then alternatively, ticked off at the IT guys. There was not a lot of praising God going on at my end, and I wasted most of my day fussing about it. When it got to nearly 4pm and the site still wouldn’t load, I gave up all hope of ever being able to post my blog that day. Of course, that was the exact time when everything began to work again, so I could finally post it! My sincere apologies for any inconvenience.

Don’t you hate it when you find out who you really are, when you are under pressure? It’s like one of those pop quizzes they used to give you at school – and there you are with egg on your face, and nothing you can do about it either! You know you are winding yourself up, but you just can’t seem to stop. It’s much easier to make good decisions when everything is going well!  But the real test is when things aren’t going well at all. The young customer service person helping me was very helpful to me, and far nicer than I deserved – I wasn’t rude, but I wasn’t happy either!

Obviously I have asked the Lord to redeem the situation I found myself in, but the fact that the blog was about the fruit of the Spirit when my OWN fruit appears to have been attacked by nasty little fruit flies was not lost on me!  It became extremely clear to me that I should not have one face for the brethren, and another for the people I meet in the supermarket or – customer service! That’s called hypocrisy. Sadly I have observed it is much easier for me to get cranky at others than I would like. There is no excuse BTW – I’m just plain cranky.

Unfortunately at those times it is also so-oo-oo easy to see other people’s mistakes rather than identify my own! It is also pointless to pray about our faults and leave them to the Lord to fix – He won’t do it for us. We must confess our faults to one another … and then stay alert for opportunities to change our responses.

It took an obscure movie on Brit Box to alert me to the fact that the only interaction I will have with some people on this planet will be brief – so I’d better make it count for the Lord’s sake! I personally think it is quite sad when we wear one face in church and another in public. That irony is not lost on me. Living a dual life can actually lead to self-deception, plus excusing our own behaviour over and over again … and eventually … complete avoidance of the need for personal change. 

Confession seems to me to be the best way to neutralise this kind of situation. There is nothing like sunshine on mould to get rid of it. But first I took a good long look in the mirror. I listened to Sir David Suchet reading the Epistles of Paul. Listening to that convicted me. I learnt once again, that people can only give you opportunities to find out what is really inside. It ain’t their fault when it accidentally pops out! Reality rush! 😬Meanwhile it is far easier to sort yourself out, than it is try to change their responses. Now that’s a real lesson in frustration. 

Time to remember, yet again, what James said in Chapter 5 verse 16 “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.”  Feel free to pray for me dear reader! “Dear Lord may I never forget Your mirror is my friend.”  Amen.👋🏻

P 2203 It sometimes seems a bit weird…

/ DVH

I have never prayed for TV actors in tough fictional situations…because that’s like, weird. BUT! … I do have a fun anecdote. Years ago I had a friend who was really devoted to soap operas, and she assured me that she prayed for the actors that God would help them out of their scripted troubles. 😶 I have nothing further to say about that except it takes all kinds …! However, it brings me to my point, today. I want to talk about praying for strangers. Now that can definitely feel weird if you have never done it before. Hubby in particular, often prays for people in the supermarket, or in caravan parks or on the street.

So here we go – and these are not rules they are suggestions: first of all, I counteract those weird scary feelings by telling myself over and over – “I’m SO never seeing these people again in my lifetime!”  Yeah. It sounds nuts but it works for me. IF I were more spiritual, I’d probably take authority over the feelings of fear and inadequacy, instead of soothing myself with a stupid platitude. Anyhoo, I ain’t there yet – I’m still working on the fear I get when I am talking to strangers about intimate subjects like heaven and the Lord Jesus! 

Mo-ving on … when you pray for the people-who-don’t-know-Him-yet, always use the name of Jesus – not “the Lord,” or “God,” or even “Father God.” Jesus is the Name above every other name and no one else can be saved except through His Name. Next … pray simply. It is not necessary to include the 12 spiritual laws on how to get saved, or 79 scripture references, the person will grow a beard! Or – they will tune out, like you do, when the pastor preaches for too long.  

When we pray for the people-who-don’t-know-Him-yet, this is how I do it – first of all I make it as ordinary and quiet as possible, I don’t make it into a big deal, I don’t close my eyes, or kneel down – I pray very simply: “Dear Jesus, please help George with His problem (state the problem briefly) and make yourself real to him. Please bless George and His family. Amen. “

I do and say that however the Holy Spirit says to do it. The point is not the actual prayer. It’s not an incantation, you are talking to SomeOne the other person can’t see!  The prayer itself is secondary. The point is that you and I walk around in fellowship with the Holy Spirit. He loves to be with us, and He wants to touch that person in front of us. He’s the point. We are carriers of His Presence, the light of God. The light of Christ lives inside us. I can’t outshine a glow-worm by myself!

The problem with doing some of this stuff is that we have over-spiritualised it. When you do that you make praying for strangers hard. It needs to be natural, normal. Please, DON’T ask them to wiggle their ankle if they had a sore ankle and you prayed for their ankle – that’s about YOU making YOU feel better when there is a result. Suddenly you start thinking maybe I’m an evangelist after all!  Look you and I have always been witnesses, that’s everyone’s job description. You can sort that other stuff out with the Lord for yourself, but right now whatever is happening is not about YOU – it’s about the person in front of you, and HIM .. and that’s plenty to go on with.

In my country one of the things people always say after they greet you is “how are you?” I’ve learnt to make their answer my opening. Here’s how that works for me. They tell me after I’ve asked; ‘how are you today?’ … “my big toe hurts … or some such thing.” I figure the Holy Spirit is already working, because like … who tells a perfect stranger their toe is hurting? Then I say something like: “Oh, I am so sorry your big toe is throbbing. That must be awful because you have to stand behind that cash register for hours.” Then I let them talk about it – and at the same time I’m asking Him what He wants. Then I say: “I believe in prayer and healing. Would you like me to pray for your big toe, right now?” 

If they say no. Then I smile, take my change etc. and say have a nice day and leave. If they say yes, I pray quietly and simply. What am I doing? I’m allowing Jesus in me to reach into their lives. Most of the time after I have prayed, they say “thank you,” sometimes they tear up, but I still say “bye … have a nice day … etc. etc.” There are times that we have stood at the check out for a while talking to someone, because people become very open and vulnerable when the Holy Spirit touches their lives for the first time. However we are always aware of the queue behind us who are waiting to get their items checked out! They matter too.  

Meanwhile, hubby and I have looked up after praying to discover there was a different sort queue behind us – more people who wanted prayer! We are not the answer – He’s always the Answer! So we simply carry out His wishes. He does not push, so I do not push. I am seed sowing. I am taking seed from the harvest inside my life and sowing it into someone else’s life. BTW, it stops being weird when you do it often – however, it does kind of stay a bit scary. 👋🏻

P 2198 Let’s talk about what faith isn’t.

/ DVH

Faith is not just praying about something and leaving it with the Lord … and doing nothing about it yourself. Faith is an arrow that turns into an action. True faith is doing what Peter did, he had to swing his own legs over the edge of that boat. Then he had to get his balance, stand up, and start walking. Jesus didn’t come to the boat and take the man’s hand and lead him out onto the water! Peter had to make those moves for himself. Faith isn’t a theory, or an unproved thought – it has fruit – you can see it. “Faith is the substance …“

So don’t just think or pray about seeking forgiveness from that person you don’t like, or the one you keep hurting … go and do it. Keep on doing it until YOU change. We can ask the Holy Spirit for mercy and grace and ask Him to prepare our way – but then deliberately – on purpose – GO! After that, keep asking for grace to see and interact with that person differently – don’t just avoid them. And if you mess up again, then ask for forgiveness again. Forgiveness has nothing to do with shame, it is an acknowledgement of my own sin. It is a positive move, despite our feelings, because we are getting something we’ve lost back. Peace! Faith has feet it is not motivated by shame.

We make the biggest mistake ever if we think that when we pray about something, that is all we have to do. It is useless to pray that the old lady down the road can manage her money well so she can eat! Pray, then go and do whatever the Holy Spirit tells you to do, like take her a box of groceries, regularly. God’s ways are practical. But there is always a step of faith to be taken – it’s hard because it is not our nature – yet. Faith leans on His understanding (the stuff in the book). Faith won’t stop.. . until it sees a change in me. Faith is not self-deception, it doesn’t have to hide because it freely admits its own faults.

We probably won’t feel like we’re doing anything at first. We may even feel stupid. However, walking and stepping out of the boat requires our participation and the Lord does not do that for us. Our faith steps activate God’s kingdom, because His kingdom thrives in an atmosphere of faith. Remember, if we don’t ‘like’ someone it may take time for the Lord to open our eyes to see them the way He sees them. Faith is not afraid to get things wrong, it thrives on the Saviour’s loving acceptance. So it does not avoid people just because something is awkward.

When we are angry with someone, the Bible is clear. We go to them. And if they are angry with us, we go to them. Either way there is an action required to step into what God wants us to do. We will not see the kingdom of God in operation while we pass all the responsibility for our transformation, over to Him and do nothing. Faith never thinks the kingdom of God is someone else’s responsibility. If I can see it then it is my job.

Gideon had a set of difficult tasks to complete before he saw an incredible miracle. God coached this man’s faith. His story makes us aware that faith often requires us to do the very thing we would rather not do – like going into the enemy’s camp to win! Our pride and theories have to go down, and Christ’s servant humility has to come up. It takes a humble person to disregard what they think, in favour of doing what the Lord says. Faith will not hesitate to do the hard thing because it lives to see Jesus glorified.

When the Lord comes back for us, He will be looking for faith – that means faith is something that can be seen. It is not airy-fairy – it has concrete actions. Prayer is just the beginning of activating our faith. It is a conversation with the Holy Spirit about the thing we probably don’t want to do! We simply ask for help to do things His way. Like Gideon we would rather round up thousands of troops – but God spent that time eliminating the human answer. Faith doesn’t hesitate to step up into the fight because it knows our side already won.

This is real life, bad things happen. Faith needs to be constantly stretched, otherwise it may not be big enough when we really need it. We need our faith working right now, today. Faith is about being obedient when we just plain don’t want to, and doing it simply because He said so. Faith is not telling the Lord what He should do for us, it is asking Him what He wants US to do for Him! 👋🏻

P 2180 Time for some reality.

/ DVH

Good morning. It is 4.00am at my house and the one great thing about this time, is that it is incredibly quiet. Unfortunately I am awake at this hour because of my concern for my family. Worry and despair jumped all over me at 3.00am and I’ve spent the last hour working on practicing what I preach!  Plus I also prayed for you guys. I don’t know your name and you don’t know mine, but I know that things in your part of the world aren’t always great. Some of you are facing incredibly hard times and my prayer for you today is that ‘the Lord would be with you in trouble … because you know His Name.’ Psalm 91:14-15

One of the things I am still learning about the Lord is that He is much too kind to leave us in the kind of misery that can grab us by the throat and cause us untold pain. However, at this dumb hour, I can also tell you that it gets much harder to roll your cares off onto Him! 🙄 I had to insist, then insist some more! So I climbed out of bed, trying not to disturb my lovely hubby – who has just had nasty surgery on his hand, and he needs his sleep – and I came upstairs to talk to you about the things in our lives that don’t seem to prayerfully resolve themselves easily. And some of those things include other people’s choices.

There are countless books that tell us how to pray, where to pray, how to cope, or how to overcome, but the truth is – when you look at everything carefully – WE will have to use our own faith. No-one else can roll my cares off my heart except ME. And I will probably have to kill off my flesh, yet again, to do it. This means that some days I can try to sit in the dirt and pout, and complain, and hope that Almighty God will be impressed by my sadness enough to change my circumstances!

And praise Him and His generosity, He does – many times. But the Lord doesn’t always help me by instantly changing things – most of the time He helps me by changing my attitude! 😶 Which means that somewhere in my thinking I will have to stop feeling entitled to a better, happier life and thank Him for the life I already have! However, I always need to start with the fact that He died for me, otherwise I can get stuck in the whole entitlement thing.

Years ago, my generation was taught that the answers to prayer relied upon US. If we had enough faith, and a right attitude, bingo bongo all would be well. But prayer is by nature, the acknowledgement that I cannot fix something. Instead I am reaching out to SomeOne bigger, wiser and more loving than I am. Which means I will have to take a risk – and a step of faith … and trust that this incredible Person hopefully wants the same answer I do! I’ve been a Christian for a long time. So I have learnt that Jesus doesn’t always want the same answer we do – HE WANTS MORE than I ever hoped or dreamed and that can take a whole lifetime and more to fulfil. But sometimes those answers won’t look like the answer to my passionate emotion- filled prayers. I will need His eyes to understand what He is doing. Read the book.

In many of our churches we have tried so hard to present a positive image. We want to look happy, fulfilled and successful in our marriages, fellowships, friendships, homes, work places, and schools. We want to show the world that Jesus is the Answer to everything. So much so, we have forgotten that we are are fallible human beings who can still make mistakes. Awful ones. I’ve made my share – and some!  Many of us have worn plastic fake smiles for so long we are almost fully automated. That fake is killing us. Christianity is not a fairy tale, and following Jesus does not always mean we will have a happy ending in this life. Just look at the apostles and what happened to them. 

So today I am writing this to say to you that if your prayer life, or bible study, or Christian faith is NOT ALL THAT – be of good cheer. Our God is bigger than our failures. Jesus is the One Who is real, and sadly you and I are sometimes very poor reflections of His reality. But thank God, He does not rely upon our efforts. Our God did all the work for us – He knows we are not capable of fixing ourselves. We will always need a Saviour, and a Redeemer in this life. And if Jesus is not Who He says He is, then we are all sunk, and we should be pitied. 

Paul said something like that once in I Corinthians 15:19 & 20a.  “If our hope in Christ is good for this life only and no more, then we deserve more pity than anyone else in all the world. But the truth is that Christ has been raised from death,…”  Bye. 👋🏻