God is so gracious and kind and giving and understanding and the list could go on and on and on and on. He's been calling me to pray as of late. I'm telling u from the time I went to FFF two weeks ago (or three forgetting my weeks:)) up to this day He's been speaking to me about praying. Through sermons, His word, Devo's you name it He's been leading me to do so specifically encouraging me that He keeps His promises and that I am to pray and expect an answer.
And it's funny because my most repetitive prayer before this, has been increased faith in what I'm praying. Not so much that I'm going to get what I'm asking as I'm asking it for example I can pray until I'm blue in the face that the eagles win tomorrow but what is to say God will answer that with a yes compared to another believer rooting for the opposite team? So if I were to pray that way ( and I wouldn't just an example:)) I could only take a lost as Him saying no LOL or believe that I didn't pray according to His will.
So praying that I'd have faith in His doing His answering and not so much in the receiving. At some point in my faith I'd began to become filled with doubt and I think it may be linked to the fact that I was so full of faith concerning this area that I didn't mind telling everyone what the Lord did in my life, not everyone believes God to respond in the way that He does to our requests.
For example, Years ago I was maybe 5 years in the faith maybe less. And I was seeing what it truly meant to be a Christian yet I received it with gladness. Losing friends seeing the hearts of family members towards me all sorts of pain yet it only served as a visual of what was already penned in God's word so I remember just bouncing off of the walls. Didn't always feel good but seeing God's word living made me joyous. So one day I said to myself hmmm if I'm doing all of this giving up what am I getting out if it. Right after repented for thinking so selfishly. Well Daddy answered by directing me to Matthew 19:29 and when I thought that was just a coincidence Mark 10:29-30. And I don't recall how I connected that to my getting a house but I did. I took it as answered prayer to my wanting to move out of the house I grew up with. Well some years went by and I was still home. So I was sitting by my daughter's bed one morning after waking up just thinking to myself. And I said to myself well I guess I was just imagining that whole house thing and mistook the point of God showing me that specific scripture. Right after I had the thought, my daughter woke up out of her sleep and said to me Mom I had a dream that the Lord said He keeps His promises and you're going to have your own house.
My daughter was around 5 at the time and the only individual I may have mentioned this situation to was my mom, just to tell her how to stop telling me I was going to get the house when she was gone LOL. Long story short I did get my mother's house God kept His promise to me and it wasn't anything like I thought it would be. I have to pay for said house:) But it's nothing like what others are paying for. Would love to have my mom here a wee bit longer if it were between her and a house but grateful that in her passing He gave me my childhood home. And in showing me that, restored relationship with my mom that I would have ran from in seeking my own place. One of the last things my mom said to me is you are the only person that showed me what the bible is truly saying, myself and a friend of hers she later mentioned. That gets to stay with me the rest of this lifetime:)
And sharing that to say for one there is so much more meat to those scriptures not so much about the getting as it is about the gain in leaving the pleasures of this world and being His. You get family in the faith you get cribs to crash at LOL not necessarily a physical house to call your own, great gain. YET God used those two scriptures to show me He has me and is in control of all things. The wavering came in the fact that I hate the name it and claim it movement and this outcome was linked to that way of thinking so I'd began to question everything even though my response to the notion was well I'm living in the house, u trying to tell me that wasn't God's doing? And in that, stop praying for those sort of concerns believing them to be trivial or if I did pray, doing so with doubt attached.
But God said no pray and I will answer, If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! Matthew 7:11
I'm grateful for HIS word towards me at this period in my life and looking forward to those answers:):)
***Extended Edit***
This was the Daily Spurgeon for today, saw right after posting this:)
Praying on hallowed ground
Lot is called a righteous man; and he was vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked. He frowned at the men of Sodom, and expostulated with them, and wished that sinners would restrain their follies, and not go to quite such lengths in sin. That is the sort of man Lot was. Have I not many a Lot before me now? The father of the faithful went a great deal beyond this. He lived far away from the scenes of vice, and the haunts of impiety. I suppose he did not think it necessary to sleep a night in that cage of uncleanness, that he might familiarize himself with the profane customs of the people. But he stood on hallowed ground, and prayed with a tender heart. He interceded with God; he multiplied his intercessions. Every time he prayed, and with each fresh note of prayer, his spirit grew more ardent. Impressed with God’s severity, he takes courage from his goodness.
Here is a fitting example for us. It is an example which I know will not be lost on some of you. The courage that can rebuke man, must come from the strength that takes hold upon God. When your face shines like an angel with the radiance that the mercy-seat reflects upon it, then it shall come to pass that the scorner will not be able to resist the wisdom or the spirit by which you speak.
From a sermon entitled "The Smoke Of Their Torments ," delivered November 20, 1864. Image by Kyle Pearce under Creative Commons License.
No comments:
Post a Comment