July 8, 2010

• update/prayer requests – July 8, 2010

     
  Though I’d sensed a call to more concerted prayer over a year ago (please see part 2 of this post), over the past several weeks, the Lord has increasingly impressed on me the importance of prayer and tarrying in prayer, hence my most recent posts:

  • “ALL public work must be subservient to my prayer work.” (Evan Roberts)
  • the journey to Jericho (Joshua 4-6): the journey of dependence on the LORD

  Yesterday I ended up rereading some of the first portion of Exodus, including these verses:

  Exodus 2:11  One day, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. 12  He looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.

  I’m so like Moses. Impetuous. Wanting to take things into my own hands.

  (Granted, what Moses did wasn’t condemned . . .

  Acts 7:23  “When he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel. 24  And seeing one of them being wronged, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian. 25  He supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand…

  . . . yet God had a much more grand and glorious plan to rescue His people from Egypt.)

  I look on others’ burdens and I want to do something: to say something, to write something . . .

  I get impatient . . .

  I’m impetuous . . .

  I’ve gotten into trouble time and again for jumping ahead of God . . . (you think I would learn).

  On the other hand, I’ve been abundantly blessed by God whenever I’ve bent my knees and bowed my neck and waited on Him and in prayer . . . (you think I would learn).

  So often I want to do something, do anything . . . but pray.

  I’ve been itching to speak, to write . . . but God has continue to check me . . . and call me back to the closet, back to prayer.

  Thank God for His loving discipline.

  There are things on my heart I believe God has put there for me to speak and to write, yet He’s continued to check me. It’s not yet time to speak and to write those things.

  I admit I get frustrated with that at times. (Understatement.)

  Yesterday afternoon I printed out a post which I’d written up a while ago and had laid aside, a post I really want to finish. It’s about joy in our ministry. It’s so key. I see so many people plodding along, ministering without joy, and I know that God has so graciously blessed me in that (still learning) and I do want to pass along to others how He’s been helping me and what He’s been teaching me. So I really expected to do a little editing on that post.

  Couldn’t do it. The Lord checked me.

  I even opened up a new blog entry. I have ideas galore in my head. (Nothing new there.)

  Couldn’t do it. Couldn’t even write a word. The Lord checked me.

  I was distressed over this, but I knew without a doubt I would be in disobedience to the Lord if I did any writing at that point. Any.

  I’ve dedicated my blogging to Him. If I’m not writing according to His lead, what’s it worth? I can gain the whole world, but lose my soul . . . I don’t want to be a Tekoite noble.  

  Though I’d already spent some time earlier in the day with the Lord in prayer, I knew I had to go back into the closet again.

  So, after a bit of restlessness (and after the World Cup match was over ), I realized I had to get outside and get away from the laptop.

  I went out to one of my favorite places for walking and meeting with God.

  

  

  While I was walking, I had David Crowder playing on the iPod and “For the Glory of It All” came up:

  I found myself singing along:

  Oh the Glory of it all is:
  he came here
  For the rescue of us all
  that we may live
  for the glory of it all
  for the glory of it all

  And then I had to, had to, say something like this to the Lord:

  If it is to Your glory that I remain in prayer and not to write, as much as my flesh wants to do that (You know all things!), then by Your grace I will do so, I will remain in this closet, to Your glory. I will wait on You, I will tarry in prayer, until You release me to write, if You ever do so.

  if You ever do so. . . .

  Yes, I said something like that.

  It’s somewhat disconcerting to put yourself out there before God and say that.

  It’s somewhat disconcerting to put yourself out there before God and say, “Do with me what You will,” but if you are His, you know you can’t do anything less than that. That’s the Holy Spirit of Christ in us that is fighting against our flesh. The Spirit of Christ who sought always to be about His Father’s business. The Spirit of Christ which said, “Not My will, but Yours, be done” to His Father in the Garden of Gethsemane, with sweat as drops of blood. O, thanks be to God for His mighty Holy Spirit who works in us to will and to do of His good pleasure, who does in us what we are powerless to do on our own!

  Yet I know that whatever God is directing me to do is for my good. Whatever. All of it. No matter what my flesh might be telling me. God’s ways and God’s thoughts are higher than mine and His ways are always best. Always. And God’s plans for us are all about maximizing His glory. So, for me to balk at His call to prayer, would be to rob Him of His glory.

  The Lord won’t give His children peace or rest until we submit to Him. Wholly. I will also add here that there are times when our consciences can become seared and our hearts hardened to His voice. Let’s not even go there! May He grant us grace that our hearts would remain soft and warm toward Him and His will for us!

  After that, I began to think through the Scripture once again to instances God called His people to a time of waiting and/or waiting prayer (I’d already done this earlier in the day, hence I say once again). Jericho (see my post here). Nehemiah. Moses. Abram and Sarai. Esther. The early Church. And so on. It seems you can find examples on just about every page of Scripture.

  Yet don’t we want to do any and all things but wait on the Lord and tarry in prayer?

  While I sat there in the park in prayer with the Lord, not specifically asking for anything but trying to rest in Him, reflecting on His sovereign love, power and grace, He sweetly and suddenly showed me something that was missing from another post I’ve been wanting to write, something I didn’t even know was missing – and something I wasn’t even asking for then – since He’d given me the grace to put aside any thoughts about my writing at that point.

  All I can say is that it was one of those Job 42 moments.

  1  Then Job answered the LORD and said:
  
  2  “I know that you can do all things,
  and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
  3  ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’
  Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,
  things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
  4  ‘Hear, and I will speak;
  I will question you, and you make it known to me.’
  5  I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,
  but now my eye sees you;
  6  therefore I despise myself,
  and repent in dust and ashes.”

  Certainly my loving Father knew what I needed before I asked Him. If I hadn’t taken that time alone with Him in prayer, would I have received that gift from Him? I don’t think so.

  It was also a confirmation that there is a time to write, and when it’s time, He will clearly let me know that . . .

  In regard to prayer requests, first I would ask you to pray that I would be disciplined in prayer: to willingly submit myself to remaining in the closet for as long as God would have me there. With that come my thoughts, “Oh, that means I can’t write so much.” I confess I like to write. I love to write. Yes, I do find writing challenging, and it’s not been without difficulty and I have to continue to ask God to purify my motives for writing, yet I find writing an act of worship because I truly grow in grace and knowledge of Him as I write and I also enjoy the Lord more and more as I write more and more of Him.

  I know I need not ever fear what God is calling me to do, for He loves me and He does all things well. He has plans that are much more wonderful for me than I could imagine.

  Yet, if God is calling me to that private work of prayer, then I must stay there as long as He deems, and put aside public ministry. My life is not my own. My ministry is now my own. If I’m not praying when my Lord asks, what kind of servant am I? What kind of minister can I really be if I’m not doing that one thing that is necessary, taking time to sit at His feet like Mary?

  A second prayer request is that I might have God’s wisdom as I need to speak to someone about a sensitive situation. I don’t like confronting people, but it’s clear God has been directing me to speak to this person as their spiritual welfare is at stake, so it doesn’t really matter what I like. And just to make it clear to me, God had me hear a sermon Sunday morning on Galatians 6.

  1  Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. 2  Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. 3  For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. 4  But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. 5  For each will have to bear his own load.

  Loving our neighbor and bearing one another’s burdens does involve speaking the truth in love. But it also involves time in the closet in preparation. I confess that in this case I’m at a loss at this point as to how to proceed, so I am in desperate need of wisdom. So, in contrast to the impetuousness I described above, I’ve been driven to pray more than I might otherwise. I am trusting the only-wise God to supply abundant wisdom for me from His riches in glory and direct me to speak in His way and in His time.

  I so appreciate your fellowship and prayers.

  If there are any ways I can be praying for you, please feel free to leave a comment below and/or message me. As I said when I set up this blog, I would like this to be a place where we can encourage one another as we work together to build the wall, as we walk with and serve the Lord.

  Yours in Christ for the glory of God,
  Karen

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  Related posts

  on prayer:

  • Naphtali News: the Ministry of the Word & Prayer
  • Things To Look for in a Church, 8: A Praying People
  • Reflections on Atlanta: The Body of Christ, part 6: Pentecostal Prayer and Christian Unity
  • Things to look for in a Church, what we find in Solomon’s Temple, 6: Prayer
  • Ash Wednesday 2008: A Prayer for a “Holy Visitation”
  • may we learn to value the blood-bought privilege of prayer
  • Lord, teach us to pray once again: the burden of Nehemiah (Nehemiah 1:1-4)
  • Lord, teach us to pray once again: the confession of Nehemiah (Neh. 1:4-11)

  on my calling/blogging:

  • thoughts on necessity (Richard Baxter, myself)
  • Neck check (Bible reading: Nehemiah 3)
  • Why I blog and the only kind of recommendation I should seek
  • Postcards from God in England: the frisking at Heathrow

  Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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