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How is Your Garden of Prayer?

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Pulling Weeds in the Garden of Prayer

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

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2) The Weed of Selfishness – 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!

It’s the Etcetera’s that Worry me!

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I can do all things through [Christ who strengthens me. Philippians 4:13 NKJV

Forty some years ago my wife and I went to see Yul Brynner, in the Broadway play, The King and I” My favorite line came when the king would dictate a long list of rules for how people in his court must behave around him, and then end with a thundering “Etcetera! Etcetera! Etcetera!” I used to chuckle at that word, “etcetera!” Now, more than forty years later, I have found that it is those etcetera’s of life, that give me the greatest trouble. For me the verse, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son…” is the best part of the Bible and if there were no other words in scripture, I could lay my head on the pillow every night in peace. But when Paul writes to me from a Roman prison, saying, “I can do all things…” I tremble to think of what those “all things” – the “etcetera’s” of his life might have been. What about, when his healing didn’t come, the abuse he suffered continued, and his hopes of release seemed dim? But then I back up to the end of verse eleven, where Paul shares with us what his personal journey had been like. “I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content:” How good it is that even this great Apostle had to learn. He also had to attend the school of etcetera’s. He had been blessed and he had been beaten. He had been spoken to by angels and shipwrecked in a storm. He had held crowds of people spellbound with his teaching and he had been driven from the pulpit by mockers. And through it all, Paul had learned: “To be content in every situation.” It no longer mattered to him if someone else got to preach, received a larger offering, or lived in comfort. What mattered to Paul was that Jesus Christ had proved Himself to be faithful through everything. So, this morning, when unwelcome circumstances are beating loudly at our door, we can be at peace, if we have committed ourselves to the Christ who was crucified, buried, and who rose on the third day. Because, no matter what we face, Jesus has promised us that there is no etcetera in all of the universe that can take us out of His hand!

Arrival in Heaven

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Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.                   1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 ESV

Rejoicing, praying, and giving thanks put the circumstances of our lives, both good and bad into God’s hands and help us see them through His eyes. Last night our beloved daughter-in-law Melinda slipped from this world into the presence of Jesus. And while we are overwhelmed with grief and shock, these words are promises to which we cling. Melinda has finished her race. Her battle with cancer is finished. And while that pernicious disease claimed her physical life, it could not touch her soul. That remained fully and exclusively in the hands of Jesus with whom she now lives. Nancy and I didn’t know how to process the news that came in three words. “She is gone.” Yet as sadness rolls over my heart I sense the message echo back from Heaven, ” She has arrived!”