We are thankful for having made it through Hurricane Helene unscathed, but friends, just a couple of miles away have lost everything due to storm surge. I can’t take time right now to go into detail but please keep people on the Gulf Coast in your prayers. Those who experienced that tidal flooding are told that there may not be power restored for a couple of days. I hope that will be sooner as all the food will spoil, if it hasn’t already. Also, living without AC, at the end of September in this part of Florida means dealing with 91-degree temps with rain again in the forecast tomorrow and Sunday. Please keep all of us, but especially the exhausted first-responders in your thoughts and prayers. If your church is doing a collection or you can donate blood, anything you can do will be a blessing. I have to go to check on some folks, but will update tomorrow, maybe with a few photos.
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. Romans 8:26 ESV
In my time as a landscaper, I think I learned more spiritual lessons on my knees in the garden, than on my knees in church. Maybe the most important was that weeds grow far better than flowers, both in a perennial bed as well as in our prayer life. This came to me after spending two days weeding and edging the flower beds at a weekend place in the country of one of my customers. Then on Saturday they ca3lled and asked me to stop by. That morning as we walked around surveying the vast flower beds, Mary Ann turned to me and said, “I can’t believe it Peter. You’ve done such a marvelous job. Those flowers are growing so strong that they are choking out the weeds!”
For a moment I was struck speechless but deciding that explaining the details of the 16 hours of work it took to make it that way, I simply smiled and nodded. Our prayer life in many ways is not unlike those gardens. When everything is in order and we are seeking God, amazingly things will blossom around us, as God goes to work in every corner of His garden. But when we neglect our time in the prayer closet, it won’t take long for weeds to grow, and those flowers (answers to prayer) will not choke out the weeds. We need to get back down on our knees, and with God’s strength and direction, begin to pull them out one by one. The kinds of weeds that grow are almost endless, but here are three of the most common –
The Weed of Prayerlessness – Moreover as for me, God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you: but I will teach you the good and the right way. 1 Samuel 12:23 KJV
2) The Weed ofSelfishness – You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. James 4:3 ESV
3) The Weed of Sleepiness – And when he rose from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping for sorrow, and he said to them, “Why are you sleeping? Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation.” Luke 22:45-46 ESV
We need the Holy Spirit to motivate us – to direct our hearts, wake us up so that the light of Christ can shine in our hearts again!
I thank my God in all my remembrance of you,always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. Philippians 1:3-5 ESV
When I think of people who have helped to shape history of the Christian church, the Apostle Paul comes right to the top of my list. But in first century Macedonia, no one had ever heard of Paul or for that matter of Christianity. On his first visit there, Paul went in response to a dream the Holy Spirit sent him while he and Silas were in Asia Minor. Though Paul did not question the dream’s origin, he had a difficult time letting go of the successful ministry they were having there in the region which now is modern day Turkey. Yet, in obedience to God’s call, Paul and Silas boarded a ship to make the crossing and once ashore headed directly for Phillipi. Maybe at first, Paul wondered why God had called him there. They found just a tiny group meeting for prayer at the riverbank in place of the meeting places overflowing with crowds that they had seen in Ephesus. Yet, from those humble beginnings, Paul discovered something new: that was partnership. He found in these humble friends, people who did not just come to see miracles, or to gain some spiritual gift. Instead, this small group was moved by Paul’s Gospel message and stayed to become his lifelong friends. Later as Paul went on his missionary journeys and later to prison in Rome, they sent people to help him and out of their meager resources sent offerings to him from that day until the end of his life.
Like those friends of Paul, you and I might not be gifted speakers or influential leaders in our church, but we can partner with others in the work which God has called them to do. We can pray for the situations they are facing, go out to serve side by side, or give financially. Though what we can do or how much we can give may not be a lot, what we can do matters to Jesus. Remember that five loaves of bread in His hands can supply more in the work of the gospel than a year’s wages in the hands of the world!
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