Day 25 Prayer

Day 25         Prayer

 

I have been struggling of late…every word he has given me so far has helped me grow…but that confusion…of what to do next….to rest in him and wait…it keeps raising its ugly head and weakening my ability to trust in what he has done for me so far. I think my struggles could be the direct result of a weak prayer life.  I have added two routines since Mitchell’s death.  One of those is bible reading…each night…I sit in my bed and I search the word for at least an hour…it should be longer.  And then I pray…but they are weak attempts at communication…so holy is our God…all I can seem to do is babble out my needs…cry a few more tears of pain and loneliness….lift up a few friends and family in their needs…and drift off to sleep.  Oh how he must be disappointed in my inability to put real fervor in my talks with him…so routine and empty they must seem to him.

Okay…so what do I do to fix it?  I am far from being a bible scholar, but a simple search of   www.bible.com  (King James Version) brought up one hundred twenty-eight references with the word prayer in them….and I did just admit that I need to read my bible more…so today…pen in hand to take notes...I began to read them all…with the good intentions of searching for an answer to my question…but I stopped as I read this passage from Psalms 80…

¹⁷Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand, upon the son of man whom thou madest strong for thyself.

¹⁸So will not we go back from thee: quicken us, and we will call upon thy name.

¹⁹Turn us again, O LORD God of hosts, cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved.

Sweet David…so much like me…hurt…lonely…searching for peace…as he waits in a cave…or maybe it was one of the nights he was watching sheep…or it may have been the night after he lost his son…as he prayed to the father…his prayer asked for God to help him stop depending on man…but to help him call on God’s strength and power to help him.  He wanted to see God’s glory…to see his face shine…to be saved just because God’s radiance could take over when our humanness reaches its limits.

I am thinking as I sit here…trying to figure out how to ‘fix’ my problem that I am making it too hard.  I just need to follow the example of David, Hezekiah, Peter, John and the many other models contained in our bible.  Hezekiah saw a need for prayer. He did not know how to pray either…even recognized that he was not following the rules set down by God through the words given to Moses…but he lifted up his simple prayer of pardon and it was heard…and answered.

¹⁸For a multitude of the people, even many of Ephraim, and Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun, had not cleansed themselves, yet did they eat the passover otherwise than it was written. But Hezekiah prayed for them, saying, The good LORD pardon every one

¹⁹That prepareth his heart to seek God, the LORD God of his fathers, though he be not cleansed according to the purification of the sanctuary.

²⁰And the LORD hearkened to Hezekiah, and healed the people.

 

So he just prays…with his whole nation…and lifts up a simple request that would give a covering of pardon from the Lord…that God look at their heart…not the timing of their gift. And God hears his prayer…and healed the people! Just like Moses….intervening for a people who had turned away from the ways of God…Hezekiah sends up a mighty call to God to forgive his people… and our loving God…who wants us to love him more that anything…gives these unpurified people another chance.

Maybe my own prayers are not so weak…even in there simple routine form…they are prayers…prayers that are honest…prayers that are from my heart.  Instead of bashing myself for my weaknesses…I will ask that God stand in the gap for me…and say a few prayers on my behalf.  I will thank him…and rest in his perfectness.  Like David, I will ask to see his glory, to have the radiance of his face shine the light for my feet to make their next steps…and rest in the timing of the Lord.