Patient Prayer

Wednesday, October 11, 2023

The Lord is my light and my salvation—so why should I be afraid?  The Lord is my fortress, protecting me from danger, so why should I tremble?

 …Teach me how to live, O Lord.  Lead me along the right path, for my enemies are waiting for me.  Do not let me fall into their hands.  For they accuse me of things I’ve never done; with every breath they threaten me with violence.  Yet I am confident I will see the Lord’s goodness while I am here in the land of the living.  Wait patiently for the Lord.  Be brave and courageous.  Yes, wait patiently for the Lord.  Psalm 27:1, 11-14

Did you ever do that thing as a kid (or – gulp – as an adult)?  The pastor preached on being patient in prayer, waiting on God’s answer…and your prayer was more like, God, show me a sign and I’ll believe…I mean, right NOW, God!

The author of this Psalm was undoubtedly King David.  It is a prayer laid at God’s feet to do-with as God will.  He asked for God to teach him how to live in the crisis of a lifetime.  He was completely innocent in his thoughts and actions for which powerful people had targeted him.  He tried to live a clean, useful, and Godly life, but he’d been unjustly accused.  In this pickle David lifted his life towards the God who had always rescued and blessed him, and said:  Lord, I need an answer, and I’ll wait…no matter how long it takes.  This is patient prayer!

There are those times when we shoot a prayer heavenward in a crisis.  Before the days of cell phones I was on a dark road one night, and the muffler fell off my old car.  It was still attached, but dragging, and I couldn’t untangle it from the mess of bolts and hangers.  It would have been dawn before I could walk to the house.  Driving the car meant sparks flying from the muffler dragging against the road.  Visions of explosions danced in my brain.  My arms ached from trying to either rig the muffler back in place, or yank it off the car.  Nothing I did worked! My only hope was one of those “arrow prayers” and God’s immediate answer.  I prayed, Lord, help me here, I’m out of options and strength.  I pushed once more, and was totally-shocked that the muffler went back in place – and stayed there! 

Once, on another dark road.  It was raining, the tire was flat, and I didn’t have a clue how to get the wheel off.  (The hubcaps on my new car had a key, secreted away so well by the manufacturer it required a search warrant to find).  I stood there in the rain, dead cell phone in hand, staring at my useless new car in the mud.  I was stuck…again!  (Thanks to a State Trooper who “just happened to be there” I made it home…again!)

It's so hard to wait, to be patient when it seems your world is crumbling.  Mufflers and flat tires are minor crises.  What about marriages that fall apart, or loved ones who are on death’s doorstep?  What about a catastrophe that is going to wipe-out your life savings and put you in bankruptcy, and add you to the homeless statistics?  How can you wait silently and patiently when those kinds of elephants walk in your room?  The key for those, and any other crisis, is patience.  And that does not mean just taking deep breaths, or reading another self-help book, or frantically-searching Google for a government program.  It’s much simpler, and more commonly ignored, but light-years better than that.  The answer is staying close enough to God to hear Him whisper:  Hey, bud…be brave and courageous; I’ve got this one too!

For You Today 

You were created with enough faith for whatever God knew you were going to face in this life.  Stay close to the Author and Source of that Faith, and you’ll learn to be patient until He brings that which you never imagined or asked-for to knock-down the wall, or open the door!  Wait patiently, quietly…for His whisper.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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There are about 2,600 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road library.

Title Image courtesy of Pixabay.com Images without citation are in public domain or cited via weblinks.  

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from NLT^©   

When Intelligence Turns Foolish

 

Tuesday of Holy Week, March 30, 2021

The message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction! But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God.  As the Scriptures say, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and discard the intelligence of the intelligent.”  So where does this leave the philosophers, the scholars, and the world’s brilliant debaters?  God has made the wisdom of this world look foolish.  Since God in his wisdom saw to it that the world would never know him through human wisdom, he has used our foolish preaching to save those who believe.  It is foolish to the Jews, who ask for signs from heaven.  And it is foolish to the Greeks, who seek human wisdom.  So when we preach that Christ was crucified, the Jews are offended and the Gentiles say it’s all nonsense.  But to those called by God to salvation, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.  This foolish plan of God is wiser than the wisest of human plans, and God’s weakness is stronger than the greatest of human strength.  1 Corinthians 1:18-25

There is a lot of intelligence in the world.  From Albert Einstein, to all the medical, political, and social scientists, added to space engineers, agricultural wizzards of GMO fame, and those who put astronauts in space (particularly those who bring them back safe to earth), the wisdom of humanity has a handle on a quantum truckload of intelligence.

But there is a limit!

The question, answered by Apostle Paul’s message to the Corinthian believers, is when does man’s intelligence turn foolish?  Paul’s answer is that humanity’s intelligence places itself in the trash can when it starts to battle against faith, and, in particular, faith regarding the cross, tomb, and resurrection.

In Paul’s Jewish frame of reference all humanity was categorized as either Jew or Gentile.  And both were guilty of the foolishness of denying the cross. 

To the Jews, who were looking for a Messiah to rule over earth, it was an offense to imagine he would be hung on a cross like a common criminal; it was a curse.  To the Gentiles, particularly the philosophers, thinkers, and debaters, the whole idea of power without human intelligence that can be proven and held in hand, was just pure nonsense.  In other words, faith, genuine faith that trusts God to handle our biggest problem is unnecessary; we can figure it out, thank you very much…no higher power needed.

For humans, endowed with sentient life – an awareness of both sensory and abstract dimensions of existance – dependence on some unseen “Creator” is a nonsequitur – there isn’t anything we can’t do for ourselves, so creating a creator is for the foolish and weak. 

However, for those who care to admit the truth, we don’t have nearly the intelligence with which we credit ourselves.  Chief among the evidence is the most basic question (and, arguably the most important question), that question of what happens when this life is over.  To deny the continuance of sentient existance solely on the basis of flesh decomposing, is to push an argument from silence.  No life seen is only proof that you cannot see with human eyes, or measure with human intelligence, what lies beyond the grave.  There are some things the 0’s and 1’s of aritificial intelligence cannot measure.

For that you need faith.

For You Today

We’re into the sacred season of faith known as Holy Week…the passion is unfolding, and the faithful are seeing the evidence of things not seen.[1] 

All true intelligence is born of, and lives-in faith in God, the author of faith[2].

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!  

[1] Title Image:  Courtesy of Pixabay.com    Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©

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[1] Hebrews 11:1

[2] Hebrews 12:2