Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Making a Mess of Prayer

Wednesday, September 27, 2017
“And say to the people, ‘Purify yourselves, for tomorrow you will have meat to eat.  You were whining, and the Lordheard you when you cried, “Oh, for some meat!  We were better off in Egypt!”  Now the Lord will give you meat, and you will have to eat it.  And it won’t be for just a day or two, or for five or ten or even twenty.  You will eat it for a whole month until you gag and are sick of it.  For you have rejected the Lord, who is here among you, and you have whined to him, saying, “Why did we ever leave Egypt?”’”  But Moses responded to the Lord, “There are 600,000 foot soldiers here with me, and yet you say, ‘I will give them meat for a whole month!’  Even if we butchered all our flocks and herds, would that satisfy them?  Even if we caught all the fish in the sea, would that be enough?”  Then the Lord said to Moses, “Has my arm lost its power?  Now you will see whether or not my word comes true!”  Numbers 11:18-23(NLT)
Now the Lord sent a wind that brought quail from the sea and let them fall all around the camp.  For miles in every direction there were quail flying about three feet above the ground.  So the people went out and caught quail all that day and throughout the night and all the next day, too.  No one gathered less than fifty bushels!  They spread the quail all around the camp to dry.  
Numbers 11:31-32(NLT)
In a conversation with our friend and fellow church member, Julie, we both agreed that nobody…absolutely nobody prays for patience!  That is, you don’t pray for patience if you’re in your right mind, because when you lift that prayer heavenward, the next sound you hear (after God’s muffled laughter) is the sound of tribulation and trouble knocking at your front door!  We both laughed at that…nervously, only half-joking!
But the truth is, I have repented of that thought.  I absolutely NEED patience!  Why would I not pray for patience to not go insane over the dumb things I see us do in our culture today?  Indeed, why wouldn’t I ask for patience to see and think clearly considering the dumb things I do? 
We can make a mess of life with our selfish choices, particularly in bringing that warped perspective to the prayer closet…we ask for things, material “blessings” which turn out to be weights around our necks.  We ask for relief from the very circumstances God may have engineered, because we wouldn’t listen any other way.  We try to push God into our corner (when He’s already there), and wind up pushing Him away with our unbelief.  In short, we pat ourselves on the back for being so spiritual as to spend that three minutes and 16 seconds in prayer daily, checking-in to make sure God hasn’t forgotten something we had on the list…and then we quickly sign-off and move out because we’ve got so much really important other stuff to do this day!
God’s children hadn’t matured very far as disciples in the wilderness.  They were getting tired of manna and wanted meat!  Then God told Moses to tell the people to buckle their seat belts – they were in for a lesson in table manners.  I believe I can hear God’s voice in that exchange when I remember what my Dad said to me a time or two when I got the whine-ies:  You crying?  I’ll GIVE you something to cry about! 
Wise parents know that sometimes the only approach you can take with greedy kids who want something so badly they just don’t want to see any other possibility, is to give them that for which they whine.  And so God not only granted them meat…he gave them enough to get sick of it.  That has been the case with many people in history…rising to the top of the heap of humanity (Napoleon, Caesar, Howard Hughes, Elvis, Solomon, and so many more…), they find they’re sick of the life of which they dreamed, and want nothing more than a little peace in their soul.

For You Today

Every experience in prayer that has ever turned out in a positive growth in my relationship with God follows an unshakeable pattern – it is time spent unhurriedly courting the surrender of my will to His.  I start with adoration for the God who is my Creator…move to confession of my sins…press on to thanksgiving for what He has, and will do, in, through, for, and with me…and if there is still something pressing on my heart, I then ask in supplication for His will to be overwhelmingly accomplished!
You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!
 

[1] Title Image: Courtesy:  Pixabay.com (modified)

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