Prayer

The Lord is at Hand

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The Lord is at hand: Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:5b-7 ESV

If you are seeking God’s direction yet feeling as if you are at a dead end, you are in good company. It is totally normal to sometimes face difficulty, crisis, or discouragement. But at those moments, we need to recall that in the Gospels, Jesus specialized in showing up for his disciples exactly for times like those. Jesus often appeared unexpectedly, in the middle of storms, inside locked rooms and at gravesides. And when Jesus came, he always began with same message. “It is I. Don’t be afraid! In today’s passage Paul begins by reminding us that our reason for confidence and faith in our prayers begins with one fact. “The Lord is at hand.” No matter that 2,000 years have passed, that no one else is praying and in spite of our weaknesses and failures, Jesus is still so close, that we can reach out and touch Him. So, as you go about your journey this morning, don’t be anxious, instead, rest your faith on these three simple truths. The Lord is at hand, He is listening, and He has promised to answer. May God bless us as we rest secure in knowing that He is within our hand’s reach, He listens to our prayers, and He will calm every fear with this message. “Do not be afraid. I am standing near!”

Finding Grace

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Going to visit people living in memory-care can be strange, uncomfortable, and even difficult, but it is rarely boring. It seems that every day, someone has a problem. No two days, no two people and no two problems are the alike. Just when things seem to be going smoothly, new challenges unexpectedly appear: The memory care wing is on lockdown, a person we counted on to help with the service is out sick or a resident we have grown to love has passed away. How does God expect us to cope with all of this? I believe that the answer is: He doesn’t! Now, I have experienced a lot of problems over the years at nursing homes and in my personal life, but none of them can compare with the kinds of issues that the Apostle Paul experienced. Shipwreck, beatings, prison and death threats were regularly on his itinerary. As Paul faced all of these bravely, we find him singing in prison with Silas, returning to the town where he was stoned and left for dead and even writing a letter to encourage Timothy while he himself faced the death sentence. But of all these problems, the one Paul faced when he wrote a letter to the Corinthian church was different. This time Paul when pleaded with God to take a problem away from him, God spoke to him about grace:

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. ”Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 2 Corinthians 12:9 ESV

This time God didn’t send an earthquake to change Paul’s situation, give him some new strategy to escape, or promise that things would get better. Instead, God promised Paul what He promises you and me: “My grace is sufficient for you…” God won’t give us the ability to follow Him without grace. He has designed us, not with an inner ability to succeed at anything we hope to do, but with a weakness that will drive us to depend on Him. There in our desperate moment, God comes, restores our hope, and pours His strength into our weakness. So, pray, pray, pray. Pray for God’s grace and then buckle your seat belts. You just may be amazed at what God can do!

Jesus Loved Martha

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Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. John 11:5 ESV

When Lazarus fell ill, Martha sent a note to Jesus, letting Him know the situation and asking for Him to come. Martha had seen Jesus heal hundreds, if not thousands of people, so she felt sure that He would come to heal Lazarus as well. But Jesus didn’t do what Martha expected. Instead, He stayed right where He was, and while He waited, Lazarus died. In fact, Jesus was so slow, the Bible tells us, that Lazarus had already been dead for four days by the time He got there! When Martha heard that Jesus had come, she didn’t waste a minute. She slipped on her sandals and raced to the edge of the village to give Him a piece of her mind: “Martha said to Jesus, ‘Lord if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’” John 11:21 ESV

Though Martha didn’t mince words, Jesus still patiently listened and then offered an answer that was far beyond anything she was expecting, “Your brother will rise again.”  Her conversation, like some of the ones that I have had with Jesus, tell us that she was looking for real answers to practical problems: “My wife has cancer, my grandchildren are lost, I wish our children would visit.” It feels as if God only likes some prayers, but not others. Yet, the Bible tells us that God hears all our prayers. He is undeterred by time, space, or the seeming impossibility of the situations we are in. He comes, He listens and then He gives a surprising answer: “I am the Resurrection and the Life.” Jesus wasn’t offering a Hallmark ending in Heaven for Martha. No! Jesus was right at that moment, in the nitty-gritty of her circumstances, the answer she desperately needed. Then Martha’s sister Mary came on the scene. Mary’s prayers are not original. She came with the exact same words as her older sister, yet with a difference. Martha stood eye to eye with Jesus, Mary fell at His feet. Martha received an answer, though at the moment she probably didn’t realize it. But the answer Jesus gave to Mary went beyond words. When Mary tearfully fell at His feet, the Bible offers us its shortest verse, “Jesus wept.” In that moment, Jesus pulled back the curtain on the heart of God. This was the heart that grieved over man’s violence, and selfishness before sending the flood. This heart went in search of Adam and Eve while they were hiding behind fig leaves in the garden and He is searching for you and I today. “He is touched by the feelings of our infirmities.” He comes alongside, He weeps, and then He sends an answer far better than anything we could imagine. He is God with us, listening, He is God for us, correcting, He is God, the Good Shepherd going ahead of us and leading us all the way home!