April 14, 2010
Send and Receive
Sometimes after sending an email I hover around the computer waiting for a response. It seems like if the message goes out quickly then, the response should come back just as quickly. When I’m really impatient for an answer, I’ve been known to pick-up the phone and call the recipient to tell them I sent them an email. I do something similar to the Lord. Because I know He’s always at the other end of a prayer, He could if He were so inclined, answer my prayer even before I hit send.
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----”...your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.” (Mat 6:8) “For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the Lord, and He watches all his paths.” (Prov 5:21) “For the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before Him no creature is hidden, but all are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with Whom we have to do.” (Heb 4:12) So why pray? He’s got your email before you write it. Yet, “You do not have because you do not ask.” (James 4:2b) “Ask, and it will be given you; seek and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.” (Mat 7:7-8) Even though God knows your life and needs to the finest detail, you must still ask. So prayer is not about God learning your needs and desires, it is about you asking.
-----Then what is there about asking that is so important? “But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways, will receive anything from the Lord.” Could it be that our faith in Him is engaged by our asking and trained by His rewarding? If so, then what about those prayers which seem to have been rejected. In 1974, when the State Patrol asked me to get my Dad in touch with them because my brother had been in an auto accident, I prayed and prayed that he would be ok. But he died. I have a friend who prayed and prayed for his ailing Grandmother, who died anyway. He now claims to be an atheist. But I hold tightly to my faith in God. In fact, it was my understanding that increased the more.
-----Jesus taught us to pray, “...Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done.” I think these are the most important elements of our prayer. This entire struggle of mankind’s existence is about His kingdom coming, and therefore His will being done. My struggles are a part of that struggle, so they must be addressed and understood in the scope of His coming kingdom and progressing will. The thinking and pondering done to discern and sift my will until it becomes congruent with His bids me to know myself, His kingdom, and His will better. That beckons me to call out for wisdom and understanding which causes me to receive His words and treasure up His commandments.
-----At one time I thought God needed our prayers as an invitation to get involved in our affairs. But that may be true only in a sense, for He makes it to rain and shine on the good and the evil both. I am becoming more convinced that prayer is as much a necessary participation with the Lord as gathering together is a necessary participation with others. It shapes and grows us as well as it moves Him.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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