Diane,
or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,'
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,"Without prayer we cannot cooperate with God - in the fulfilment of his Covenant. We cannot know where and how he is moving.
Prayer is the process of growing up – abandoning our childish dependencies on man, leaving “home”, and cleaving to the Lord.
it happens faster than we can see with our natural eyes.
Sister, this is why I have moved from cynicism towards belief in revival. God is changing our hearts...even as we pray over these things. How is it that the words of a thousand sermons and books on prayer can bounce off our skulls :-o …but when God speaks just the word “prayer” into our hearts we faint to our faces in both shame and gratitude?
A litle story...a few years ago, I was alone one fall midnight, praying in deep despair on a beach in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. That week I was facing one of the most grievous trials I can ever remember, but that evening I was swept away in the goodness of God. The Lord walked with me along the surf, recalling many past times when He had been watching over me, and my heart was greatly warmed …even as storm clouds were forming overhead and a light rain began to fall. (I should have posted this bit in Christopher’s precious “eventide” thread…) For at least an hour I walked in the drizzle. There were no stars or moon and so I could see only a few yards off the beach.… but the roar of the unseen waters, and the sudsy faom washing my feet let me know I was standing on the edge of a vast ocean…
The night really seemed endless…yet in that blessed hour I could really sense that God was still more endless. Rather then feeling alone in the black windy air…I was embraced and strengthened, as if God had wrapped a blanket around me from the surrounding brume.
Well, after about an hour of blessed prayer, I had become satisfied that God had finished showing me what he wanted that night…my heart was filled with comfort over my own crisis and so I started thinking about walking back to the rental house. Having found peace, I was looking forward to putting on new clothes and going to sleep.
At that point I saw that the sky in the far distance over the ocean…perhaps miles away, began to flash. Suddenly for brief seconds it seemed the entire world was illuminated. I could see the cavernous ceiling of billowy clouds breathing over the waters, an endless and sleepless landscape of twisting striving ocean waves. There were no tall mountains or man-made structure to obstruct the view…so I just stood there shrinking more and more…overwhelmed by the expanding horizon that was beginning to flash everywhere as far as the eye could see. Long fingers of lightening touched down into the waters…there was no predictability to it except that it was persistent. Soon the roar of the waters became drowned out by the approaching thunder.
Now just a few moments earlier in the quiet darkness I was feeling wrapped in a blanket of God’s love…yet now, before this vista, I felt small and insignificant before the rolling thunder and seething waters. I wanted to confess my all my sin and weakness, seeing that judgement can overtake you at any moment! Being dwarfed by such power also brought a peace.…what peace there is when we repent from wanting to be the center of the universe!
Yes, only a few moments earlier I was receiving comfort for my own problems…but in that momment, God was letting me feel what's it like to want salvation for the world. The Spirit of God is moving upon the face of the waters. He will save many people who are now tumbling in their sin …and gather them in one place around His throne like an ocean pouring in from all the corners of the Earth…their collective praise will sound like the roaring waves throughout a great hall, rising to ceilings as boundless as clouds where the holiness of God will charge even the atmosphere!
Only when the rain became a solid downpour did I realize I was shivering from the cold. I left the beach as the storm became too strong…but I left overjoyed at the goodness of God.
Tonight I am back at that night….our conversations have taken me back to that beach...and I realize God was showing me the difference between my lesser purpose for prayer and His greater purpose for prayer.
When the lightening and thunder appeared, I became aware of so much more then myself…I was astonished at the terror and wonderfulness of God. I felt He was inviting little me to witness…and even participate in what He alone was going to do in the Earth. If this offends our sense of piety and causes us to hesitate…then we have come to the shoreline where man’s limited energy ends and God’s limitless power begins.
Indeed! Likewise in our lifetime, expecting a great event of God is not evidence of childish optimism, but childlike sorrow…it is repenting of our bankrupt enterprising, to have nothing but prayers of faith...which is everything. George MacDonald once said, if we rely on preaching we will see what preachers can do, and if we rely on prophecy we will see what prophets can do, but if we rely on prayer we will see what God can do.
I read this today from Andrew Murray…
Most Christians are content if they have some blessed experience of what prayer can do in bringing down blessing for their own needs or maybe for the needs of others. Yet how seldom it is realized that prayer covers the whole divine mystery of man being in partnership with the triune God in working out the counsel of His will and grace.
Well, I might be able to understand the concept in those sentences…but if I said I understood their reality…well, I don’t. I am like Ahaz, making God weary with pious confessions of humility and weakness. In truth I just wanted to go back to sleep.
Yet praise God from whom all blessings do indeed flow; Jesus is the master teacher of prayer… and indeed if the very teacher of prayer still intercedes in Heaven then surely we must too! Can you imagine if we continued to ecourage each other’s faith in Almighty God…if I repented to God over my own lack of believing prayer? Such praying Christians would be quickened by visions of what God will do here and among the nations!
We are standing on the shore of a vast ocean….
