They also serve (part 6)

Above all, my prayers are that those who are my enemies and are knocking at my door can see the power of God and have a change of heart. (Ps 83:1-18). This is whether they are my brethren in the church, or whether they have never set foot inside a church. I pray that God demonstrate his power, and that He hears my cries of pain and anguish and when I render praises unto Him, so that those who are walking in darkness can see the light, can realize who He is, and what a great and wonderful God He is, and how powerful His hands are. (Ps 86:1-17) There are times when I have gone several rounds with God about being silent and letting me suffer. And I weep, and I cry out, but He is still there because in the stillness of a starlit night, I hear His whispers of His eternal and everlasting love. I have to reach the point that I am that still, I have to throw off the fact that I may have had a fight with my next door neighbor, or that there are disagreeable things going on at home, or that my coworkers want me to do something that may compromise my values. I have to above all cast off the influences where these came from and continuous beg God to hear my sufferings at the hands of strangers that knock on my door. I have to remind Him about what goes on (Ps 94:1-23), about how strangers hate me and want me dead. I have to remind Him that I am alone and without shelter from any harm. And yet He hears me. He must hear me because time after time He seems to save me over and over and over from the strangers. It seems this demonstrates His glory. That He save me from their entrapment, much as Daniel’s three friends in the fire were unafraid even though they knew God might leave them to burn. Unafraid was Daniel in the lion’s den, because of God’s goodness and power. And so unafraid must I be when confronted with an opportunity to compromise my values, or an opportunity for a sympathetic ear to turn in to an affair, or whatever my true enemy has in store for me.

 

Thay also serve (part 5)

But I must always remember that this must come from my heart. I can pray as Jesus did in Gethsemane (Luke 22:44) or Paul in 2 Cor 12:8 praying for the thorn to be removed from his side. Or I can pray the LORD affect someone so strongly as to cause that person to change (Isaiah 62:7; Jonah 1:4; Daniel 9:3). I can actually show my frustration and disappointment with humanity, as in Isaiah 64:12, “Wilt thou refrain thyself for these things, O Lord? Wilt thou hold thy peace and affect us ever sure?” or Habbkuk 1:2, “O, Lord, how long shall I cry, and thou shall not hear! Even cry out unto thee of violence and thou wilt not see!” I can even cry out when I don’t really know what or who it is I need to pray for. (Rom 8:26). And above all, as John Milton says in Paradise Lost, “They also serve who stand and wait” (?) I must be patient, because He is patient, and His time is not mine. I must pray fervently and with longsuffering and pray God puts us where we would be the most good. Stand and wait, particularly difficult for me who is from the fast food, fast thinking McDonald’s age of Information. I, who from the “Let’s have it now” generation is too busy to stop to find a home for a stray cat and so takes him to the pound to hope for the best and expect the worst. I have tried many times not to think of the rush I am to get here or get there and fail miserably each time. I want the patience and passion of the blind man that asked Jesus for mercy (Matt 20:30, 31) or even the centurion when seeking Jesus’ help for his daughter. (Matt 8:5) And I want the conviction of Moses to pray for his people in Exodus 32 and 33 and Joshua in Joshua 7:8,9. I must have pass for my people, passion enough to know this is an aching need in my soul, not just a desire. I must have the passion not to whine but to press God into remembering His promise, “Therefore, now, LORD, God of Israel, keep with thy servant David, my father that thou promised him, saying, ‘Thou shalt not fail thee a min in my sight to sit on the throne of Israel; so that thy children take heed to their ways, that they while before me as thou hast walked before me.’ And let these words wherewith I have made supplication before the LORD our God day and night, that He maintain the cause of His people, Israel, at all times as the matter requires. That all the people of the earth may know that he LORD is God and there is none else. (1Kings 8:22ff).

They also serve....

 

The upshot of this is, I must go to Him. In pain, in joy, in tears, in laughter. It must be I. And I must realize that my greatest prayer is for someone one other than me. That I have presented myself before the Lord on behalf of someone else. And if I pray for someone as much as I pray and have prayed that God forgive and build upon my shortcomings then I am truly serving. If I can for once go to Him, shortcomings and all and confess who I am and ask His blessings for others, knowing that I am just a human that He has called His and that I know He wants me to talk to Him, then I can know and truly serve. If it comes from the depths of “I”. The pain, the hurt I feel for someone’s loss. The joy of knowing and feeling other’s successes. The smiles that come from the specialness of the day of knowing and being with someone whether or not there is a relationship there. It is a truly wonderful experience as a gift which God has given the “I” in me as well as others and the various “I”’s in them. If I use it properly, it is truly serving and truly worship of God, because while God is above everything, His hand is exemplified in everything. If I use this properly, I love with the love of the LORD. And I can sing His praises with my voice and belong to Him and go to Him on behalf of others.

Then I can truly serve.

They also serve who stand...(part 3)

What do I do when strangers knock or when I see their devotion is greater than mine? More importantly, Who am I serving? How am I serving the Who I am serving? Am I convincing myself that while I am serving this person or that person that my service is an example of God and so there are blinders to other true acts of service around me? Am I self-seeking, self-absorbed in my service, saying I would rather do this than that? That I would rather send money then actually go down to the soup kitchens, would rather bus people to church in my nice, sterile environment, rather than hold church in their own back yard in the poorer sections of town? Am I truly praying for ways and opportunities to actually serve? More importantly who am I praying for? Am I praying that my brethren seek ways to help those in need? Am I praying for my leaders and opportunities to serve them in their capacities as my leaders? Am I praying they are wise in their decisions and that they are keeping God at the forefront of every decision, whether secular or ecclesiastical? Am I being a servant and praying for God to keep humankind safe, even from itself? Do I have Moses’ heart? (Exodus 32:32) Am I that giving, that willing to sacrifice that God may forgive my people their sin? That is, do I take their sin on me? (Deu 9:25) What do I pray for? And is it wrong to go before God for a new washing machine or VCR or whatever appliance I may think is a necessity? What are my motives? Am I seeking to return to health or a return to wealth? And why? Am I like Hannah in 1 Sam 1:10,11, who prayed before God from the bottom of her heart and soul because she was so afflicted by other women’s taunts and jeers? Do I depend on Him that much, that I would dedicate my son, the one I have been waiting for all of my life to be born even though I am barren, do I have that much faith like Hannah? Am I like Ezra, who falls on my knees before God as part of a nation of sinners begging His forgiveness? (Ezra 9:5,6) Do I know the LORD will answer when I beg for mercy? (Ps 17:1,6; Ps 22:1, 2, 19; Ps 28:1,2; Ps 55:1,2,16,17)The answer in my heart must be yes emphatically, if I am to receive Him fully. I have many times in my heart of hearts cried for him to hear me, much like David. (Ps 35:22,23; Ps 57:2) and in my heart of hearts, even when my mind says “no” or “where is he?”, I know God is not too terribly far. (Ps 61:1,2) All I really have to do is humble myself in His sight, which of course is every moment of my life, as in James 4:10, and He will lift me up. And I can then sit in His lap, or take my place along side of Christ. But I have to be honest with Him. I cannot say that all is well in my heart, when there is a black spot of sin that may be residing there, whether or not it is known to me. I cannot be cheery with God, when there are things to tear me down and that do indeed eat at my soul. I cannot be honest with Him, when I am lying to myself. In the depths of my soul and heart, I must know there is pain and feel it, I need to see and feel and touch and hold the innerness that is really me, the clouds that overshadow that me must be dealt with, and I must admit the anguish and heartache that living every single day in a cruel and cold world brings. And I must be able to spew it out, that this is not what I wanted or expected, that what I wanted was that, and that I am not really excited about being this or that, but over there that would be an exciting thing to me, even though the rest of the world would not agree and might even say it could be misconstrued as sin. In the depths of my joy (Ps 25), when I am so grateful that the evil one has passed me like the angel of death passing over the houses of the Israelites, I must be grateful to Him, celebrating and feeling my heart leap from my chest as I dance to Him in front of the whole world. All to Him. I must be me and express the me that God constructed in this body, whether in pain, in joy, whatever. All to Him.