Prayerfully Surrounded

I sat here this morning praying to God about what He wanted me to write about today. I read His word and sought His wisdom but nothing was stirring inside of me till I received a text from a dear friend and she requested prayer for her niece who was in surgery and fighting for her life. I immediately sent out a text on my text ministry asking everyone who read it to pray for her and within seconds I began getting texts back saying things like, "I'm on my knees praying, I will pray, I will pray all day..." I am blown away at the compassions and commitments that are still coming in!

We are not alone as children of God. We are surrounded by faithful and loving brother's and sister's that will stop what they are doing to go boldly before God's throne and offer up their prayers of deliverance and comfort for their Christian siblings! How beautiful is this...that as children of The Almighty Loving King we stand in the shoes of our suffering comrades, feel their pain and puzzlement of life's drama and adopt it as our own as we fall on our knees to pray for our afflicted family members! I am so proud right now of being a part of this eternal family that stands arm to arm in the gap when a weary fellow soldier is down.

I can't help but to meditate on the prayers that are rising like incense up to the heavenly ears of our Creator and Lover of our Souls. I see them touch His heart as He then turns them into spiritual rain that falls back down onto the hurting lives of the one's prayed for. I can see the angels rushing to all involved with spiritual blessings of comfort, insight and hope that will remain with them as helpers and care-givers until their hearts, minds and souls are at rest and all is well again.

Everything spoken in God's word about prayer requires three things, first we must be right with God, confessing our sins before Him so we can approach His throne with no hindrances. Second, we must pray in accordance with His will, and third, we are required to come boldly before him "believing in faith". One of the first questions that we ask is, How do we know the will of God? How do we know if we should pray for life if it's God's will for someone to die? And, How can we pray believing if we don't know what God's plan is? The answer is...we don't need to know God's plan to pray boldly. Just as Christ prayed in the garden of Gethsemane for His Father to remove the cup of sacrifice of having to die on the cross, He ended His prayer with, "Yet, your will Father, not mine." We have to be ready to accept God's will but at the same time know that the prayer from the heart of someone right with God has much power (James 5:16). We can confidently go to God in prayer and lay our desires out before Him claiming them in faith but at the same time acknowledge God's sovereignty. He has an ultimate plan and we must mature to a point where we trust Him with any outcome because His love knows the entire story and it always ends with working out for our good. How can a soul's story not be accepted when we know it is written on eternal parchment in the blood of our Savior!

I know it sounds contradictory that we could pray with full assurance and faith, believing in our request, but God can choose to work it out another way but it isn't.  Even our Father in Heaven knows loss and grieving because He had to sacrifice His only son at the alter so that our sins could be washed away by His spilt blood. Spending some time in prayer and meditation...sitting at the foot of the cross will always put our doubts at rest. I have to sit there often because I miss my mom so much but I have had to come to see God's sovereign hand in her death and trust Him that it was no mistake, no punishment or random accident. It says in the book of Job that, The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away...blessed be the name of the Lord. When we can be so sure of His great love for us that we can say that with full confidence, it's then that we have received the greatest blessing, the blessing of peace. I spent many years blaming God for taking my mom, thinking He was mean and heartless but I don't feel that way anymore. I know that He is in control and that He knows what's best. Many of the things that I take for granted are actually acts of mercy and grace that God bestows upon me moment by moment. If we focus only on our loss we will never see what we gain! We must come to see Him, not only in the areas where we get our way but in our times of surrendering to His will also.

Our prayers are never ignored by God. I have seen the blind see, doors that were shut pushed wide open, the impossible become possible and provisions where there were none....God has given to me and taken from me...but blessed be His name. I never want to go back to that immaturity of blaming Him for losses, but I desire to continue down the path of trusting Him wherever He takes me. I can't answer all the questions about how God works but I can promise that if you stick with Him, He will bring you to His eternal throne one day and show you why everything happened the way it did. And, at that moment YOU WILL SEE that it was ALL for your best and that He never left your side for even a moment through it all. There are scriptures upon scriptures where He promises to give us what we ask for (see below) but none of us are promised lives without loss and suffering. How it is all balanced in the heavenly realms, I don't know, but I do know that I've come to trust fully the man of sorrows (Jesus) and if He can sacrifice His life for me then I can come to find peace in the sacrifices He asks of me.

Matthew 7:7-8, Matthew 21:22, 1 John 5:14-15, Jeremiah 29:12, Isaiah 65:24, Job 22:27, John 15:7, John 14:13, Matthew 6:6, Psalm 50:15, Proverbs 15:29, Psalm 91:15, Psalm 65:2, Matthew 7:11, Psalm 34:17, Psalm 145:18-19, Matthew 6:8, 1 John 3:22, Jeremiah 33:3, Mark 11:24.

Isaiah 58:9  Then you will call, and the Lord will answer. You will cry and He will say, "Here I am."