ask

The Day After My Birthday

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“Through my whole life (young and old), I have never witnessed God forsaking those who do right, nor have I seen their children begging for crumbs” (Psalm 37:25, The Voice).

I’m 53 and I’m still learning that even when you don’t feel it, still you can choose to trust in God and His promises. You can claim God’s provision even when it seems slow in coming. You can thank God in advance for prayers He’s yet to answer.

The Bible says to keep asking, keep seeking, and keep knocking for as long as it takes. I said before that sometimes we don’t have because we don’t ask, and now I wonder if we don’t have simply because we asked a few times and gave up instead of keeping on keeping on asking. We should be like Jacob who wrestled with God and would not let go until He blessed him.

I think prayer is a taking hold of God in the secret place and not letting go. It’s claiming the promises, confessing sins of commission and omission, giving thanks, interceding for others, and waiting to hear what He would say to us.

Even when the heart is heavy with hope delayed, we can pray God’s future promises for us as if they’re already ours. We can show gratitude ahead of the gift. We can pray for those loved ones who are far from God believing that God can bring them home. We can lift up the hurting and dying in the name of the One who is able to bring life from the dead.

I’ve heard that we should never stop preaching the gospel to ourselves. I suppose that’s what this is. Me reminding myself of God’s goodness that remains when He is absent or silent.

“I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living” (Psalm 27:13, New Heart English Bible).

Just Ask

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“Don’t bargain with God. Be direct. Ask for what you need. This is not a cat-and-mouse, hide-and-seek game we’re in. If your little boy asks for a serving of fish, do you scare him with a live snake on his plate? If your little girl asks for an egg, do you trick her with a spider? As bad as you are, you wouldn’t think of such a thing—you’re at least decent to your own children. And don’t you think the Father who conceived you in love will give the Holy Spirit when you ask him?” (Luke 11:13 MSG).

I wonder how many times I’ve used prayer as a last resort.

How many times have I obsessively worried about something and tried to figure out ways of handling it myself and it never even dawned on me to pray about it?

You’d think for as long as I’ve been a believer that I’d be quicker to prayer than I am.

I’m guessing you feel the same way.

I think it points to a lack of faith. It says that I really don’t believe that God can handle my problem. Oh sure, He can deal with everyone else’s issues but for some reason in my own mind, my circumstances are different.

I look at it this way. If God can raise Jesus from the dead, He can handle pretty much anything I’m ever going to throw at Him. He’s not going to be shocked or surprised at the needs I lay before Him.

I keep up with Ann Voskamp, a fantastic writer who also happens to put some of the best posts out there on social media. She usually ends them with the hashtag #preachingthegospeltomyself. For those who are unskilled in reading hashtag-ese, that means “preaching the gospel to myself.”

A lot of what I write is me reminding myself of what I already know. Scratch that. Nearly all of what I write is me preaching to myself and stirring memories of times before when God was faithful.

All it takes is the tiniest yielding, the most hesitant agreements, and God can show up and do what He does best– amaze.