Wow! what a week it has been. Steph's surgery went very well. She has been recovering very well and all signs so far point to the pain being G-O-N-E gone. She has even tried running and dancing, a couple activities that she did either not at all or very gingerly over the past couple of years. We are very excited at the thought of having this ankle pain be in the past. Thank you for praying about this.
And how fitting that Sunday was the start of our unit on prayer. We will dig into what the Bible says about prayer over the next few weeks. We started out last Sunday talking about "What takes God so long?" We have all had things that we pray about over and over, only to not get the answer we want, or when we want it. So if God is powerful and able to do anything, why does he take so long to give us our answer.
We started off by reading Psalm 69.1-13
David is desperate in this passage. He was dealing with hard things in his life, and yet, he was willing to wait on God for an answer. This is the promise God makes for us, too. He will never leave us. We will never go through our hard times alone. We can cry out in desperation to Him and know that He will answer, in His own way and time.
Next, we read Daniel 10.10-13 & Proverbs 1.28-31
In proverbs, we read about how God sometimes lets us suffer the consequences of not following Him wholeheartedly. We "eat the bitter fruit of living our own way" How true is that. Sometimes we get an answer about what we should do, but we think it will be hard, or uncomfortable and are unwilling to pay the cost of going 100% for God and following his own way.
There is also the element of spiritual warfare. We read this in the passage from Daniel. The angel comes to Daniel and tells him that his prayer was heard in heaven but the answer was delayed by an enemy along the way. There is a war going on in the spiritual realm. God has already claimed victory, but Satan is not willing to concede quietly. He is always looking to disrupt things, to create doubt in our minds - that God doesn't hear us or doesn't care. Daniel, like David in the earlier passage, were persistent in prayer, they didn't allow time or lack of results keep them from praying throughout their ordeals. We can be challenged to do the same.
We also took some time to talk about things we are praying for. We asked 3 questions:
1- What is something hard that you or someone you know is dealing with
2- What are you most happy about right now?
3- Are you or someone you know dealing with any sickness or injury?
It is as simple as that. Any answers that you have to any of these questions are things you can pray for, and things that you can ask others to pray about with you. Steph and I would love to know what you are praying about these days and to join you in praying about these things. If you have anything you want to share, please feel free to email us or leave a comment on the prayer tab of the blog.
Also, the challenge for the week is to commit to praying persistently about the things that are going on in your life.
Prayer is an important part of our Christian walk. Don't be intimidated by it. God wants to hear from you and is ready to listen and will be faithful to answer (albeit in his own way and time)
God bless you this week! See you Sunday!
CP
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