to talk Him into my idea! Crazy, huh?
Reading through John 17 I am struck by the love and compassion of Jesus. That is intercessory prayer! It is allowing God to give me His vision for that person. It is allowing God to change my heart for His heart and pray for the person in Jesus’ love. Bringing someone into God’s presence changes my attitude toward them. It will affect my relationship with them. I am changed into seeing that person as God sees them. I also learn how God sees me. I see the unique gifts and unique flaws that ultimately create the tapestry that is in God’s image.
There are principles of God that I know to be true as I pray. I know that God desires a living, growing, intimate relationship with each of His children. I know that He wants His children to be spiritually strong to resist temptation and not be lead into evil. God wants His children to reach out to others and serve them.
Praying for others also gives me a glimpse into how God must feel as He looks at us and wants so much ’good’ for us and yet does not impose His will into our lives. Our God who could, chooses instead to honor our freedom to choose. And as I pray I see changes that may need to happen. But as most parents realize their limitations in coercing a child into a path, so in prayer I learn to pray and let go, trusting the Holy Spirit to lead the person in God’s perfect path.
Every intercessory prayer begins with God who was there in the situation before I even knew there was a situation! Every intercessory prayer ends with God who never tires or grows weary (Isaiah 40:28-31) and will see the person and/or situation until the end. As my husband, Henry, says:
“God answers our prayers better than we pray them!”
God will answer in His time and in His perfect way. It is a joy to pray no matter what the circumstances when I pray in the assurance of God’s love and mercy.
“I am the first, and I am the last; and besides me there is no God. Who is like me? Who will call, and will declare it, and set it in order for me, since I established the ancient people? Let them declare the things that are coming, and that will happen.
Don’t fear, neither be afraid.
Haven’t I declared it to you long ago, and shown it? You are my witnesses. Is there a God besides me? Indeed, there is not. I don’t know any other Rock.”
Isaiah 44:6-8 (WEB)
As we come to the Lord in prayer, may we always have our feet on the Rock and cry out to our God, who is the First and the Last. Amen.
July 8
Waiting Eagerly and Patiently
But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it patiently.
Romans 8:25 (HN)
“Wait” is a four letter word. The way most of us think of it (and I’m included here) we could use it to cuss someone out. In modern American culture, we do not like to wait. Think about that as you read this devotional, which I’m going to present more or less as it happened to me.
One day Jody told me that she wouldn’t get a devotional done. For various reasons it had simply fallen off the priority list. I said I’d try to get one out.
In the morning I started to look at lectionary texts. Part of my personal devotionals is to take a daily look at current lectionary readings. I’ve been amazed at what God led me to. For unknown reasons (you may surmise what you wish) I started my reading with the verse that is coming up in two weeks, Romans 8:12-25. I normally start with the Old Testament reading, then read the Psalm, then the gospel, and finally the epistle. But I started with Paul this time.
I ended up focusing my thoughts on verse 25 which I have quoted above, using my own draft translation. There’s something I want to look into later in that verse, because the word used for “wait” there often includes the idea of waiting expectantly or eagerly. Paul adds the word “patiently.” At this point I was distracted from my reading and left the rest of my reading for later in the day. I had to drive Jody to work at 7 am, one of the reasons she was not writing the devotional.
I was combining meditation on the combination of “eagerness” and “patience” and at the same time wondering whether that aspect of the word should be translated in this verse (most English translations do not). So I was switching between thinking about the technical aspects of the passage and the spiritual idea of combining patience with eagerness.
I left Jody at work and went on toward a gas station. I had let the tank run very low, but thought I would reach the station comfortably. It was not to be. Probably a half mile from the nice discount station I intended to use, the car sputtered a few times and then stopped permanently. The positive side of this was that I was near a mall and that I was able to get into the parking lot and sort of sputter into a parking place. I also did not have a gas can, so I had to go in search of a gas station that might also supply a gas can.
Now if you want to test my patience in the most severe way, interfere with my morning. I get up early, usually between 5 and 6 am, and I find that I do my best work before lunch. Oh, I can work after lunch, but I don’t accomplish as much per hour.
Patience and eagerness combined. Picture me walking around, getting directions, finding a gas station, buying a gas can and a couple of gallons of gas, then starting to walk back. All of this was accomplished with what seems like remarkable speed looking back, but which I greeted with marked impatience at the time.
As I was walking back, I see some flowers in various beds in front of the mall. I think “Those are really pretty,” as I’m walking on by. Suddenly I knew I was supposed to stop and take a picture. Those who know me know that I’m not all that much for taking pictures unless there’s a specific purpose, and I’m not very good at it in any case. I could see no particular reason to take a picture of these flowers.
I took a couple more steps and the feeling grew stronger. I needed to stop a take a picture. So using the camera in my little Palm Centro that serves me as a substitute brain, I stopped and took a picture, not of just one flower bed, but four of them. The interesting thing was that as I looked at the flowers, decided how to do the picture, and so forth, I relaxed. I started to enjoy myself.
I was eager to get home and get to work, but patience came to me. I believe that patience was the presence of God in my eagerness. It’s not wrong for me to be eager to get to my work and writing, but at the same time, I have to be prepared to take time with God along the way.
We have so many of these combinations in our Christian lives. We are saved by God’s grace through no action or merit of our own, yet we are expected to act and live life according to God’s will. While we may strive to do God’s will, we do not claim to have attained that level of obedience. Jesus came as a human being into this world, according to orthodox theology, both 100% human and 100% divine. That doesn’t make a great deal of sense to us by human logic, but we believe it nonetheless. We are to wait for the second coming of Jesus, which is soon, but yet it seems like it will never come.
Often when we try to resolve these things through human logic we wind up heading right into classic heresies. Faith vs. works arguments have led more astray than is easy to count. Waiting for the second coming has tempted many people to provide a date for that event, even though Jesus said it wouldn’t work.
For me, this morning, patience and eagerness didn’t work together.
