“Because God knows everything, I will go to Him with all my questions and concerns.”–Bill Bright
Some of us are working hard at summer employment. I have lived in Athens for about two years now and I am still finding that more money goes out of my bank account than seems to come in! Summer is especially hard since I have to stretch those last few dollars until the next installment comes in August. I’m not sharing this for sympathy, but if you feel like sending me a check, don’t resist!
Life is filled with difficulty and confusion. It seems like we are always lost in the fog, never sure of which way to turn. Psalm 121 gives us comfort in these times. (If you have ever seen “The Sound of Music” , the opening verse will be familiar.) “He will not let your foot slip.”–the image here is of a high mountain pass.
My brother spent the first weeks of August last year high in the Andes of Peru. The people group he worked with live in small houses built into the cliffs. Just off the paths, walked daily by these people, are drops of several thousand feet! Clouds may sweep in and obstruct the view of the path ahead.
This is how I think our lives should be considered. We can only see where the next few steps will be. God (in the cloud) sees the whole path. He doesn’t tell us every detail of the journey, only what we need to know right now. This is why prayer is so important.
Rote, memorized, formulaic prayer won’t cut it here. Reciting a long list of prayer requests and dried-up, token promises to do better won’t show us the way to go. They interrupt God and keep him from telling us what to do. Remember prayer is supposed to be a two-way conversation!
Fervent, conversational, daily prayer is how we ask God the small questions, how we burden Him with our little problems, how we find out where our next step should be.
God wants to hear about every detail of our lives–He already knows it, but He wants us to share it with Him. He wants us to admit we can’t handle it and to ask him to do something about it!
This week, seek a life of supplication. Ask God to help you deal with people you really can’t stand, with bad situations that aren’t helping, with the quagmire of sin you are trapped in. Ask Him, then shut your mouth and let Him speak. You will be amazed by the changes you’ll see.
