Category Archives: Praying in Joy

Help, Lord

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As far as I can see, there are two kinds of help. One is assistance. One is deliverance.

When you call out for help with a task that needs three hands, you already have two of the hands you need, so you’re asking for assistance.

But when you call out for help because you’re in a burning building and can’t get out, you’re crying for deliverance.

Hebrews 4:16 says that because of Jesus Christ we can come to the throne of grace with confidence so that we can receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

That “help” is the deliverance kind. It comes from two Greek words put together: cry and run.

I cry. He runs. Help. The cry-run. Deliverance.

There it is again, in Hebrews 13:6. “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?” He delivers me. I cry. He runs. When I truly remember that He is always faithful to run when I cry, I will not be afraid.

And so we listen and respond to the cries from Haiti, not only today, but throughout the coming days—cries for help, for deliverance. They cry. We run. But even more, God runs. God runs.

And so, because of Jesus, God listens and runs to my own cries to Him, not only today, but every day, even every moment. Am I simply asking for assistance, because I can almost do the job myself?

No, I’m asking for deliverance. Deliverance from sin. Deliverance to the power and glory of my Lord Jesus Christ, through whom I receive mercy and find grace.

I am desperately dependent on the one who will run when I cry.

Maturity: praying in faith or in fear?

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I was doing a Biblical word study, because I wanted to understand the concept of perfection, often translated “maturity.” After all, with two children young adults, it seemed about time.

Mature, perfect, complete, sanctified, holy, whole-hearted. The study got bigger and bigger, but I kept doggedly moving through it. Learning a lot. Being deepened and blessed. Convicted again and again.

Then I came to I Thessalonians 3:9-10. How can we properly give thanks to God for all the joy that you give us in Him? Night and day we keep praying earnestly for you, longing to see your face and complete that which is lacking in your faith.

Maybe at first glance it doesn’t look like anything outstanding. But in reading the earlier part of the chapter I saw that Paul had been experiencing some discouragement in his persecution, and he had wanted to hear how the Thessalonians were doing in hope of being encouraged. Timothy had brought back such an outstanding report of how these believers were growing in faith and love that Paul was filled with joy and hope.

So then, he said that this joy motivated him to pray for them even more.

Paul didn’t say, “What a relief that they’re doing well. I can forget about them for a while. I’ll focus my prayer attention on those people over there who aren’t doing well.” No, actually it was just the opposite. In fact, his continued prayer for them was a way of showing his thankfulness to God for what He had already done in their lives.

“Augh!” I thought. “I don’t pray like that!” When I hear that people are doing well spiritually, I tend to think, “Oh, wonderful. Thank you, Lord. Now I’ll pray for these other people who aren’t doing so well.”

And I realized that sometimes my prayers are motivated more by fear than by faith. I grew up hearing and giving prayer requests for people in trouble. Health trouble, financial trouble, spiritual trouble. I don’t mean to say that these requests are wrong. But I don’t remember hearing or saying, “Pray for so and so, because he’s really growing strong in the Lord.”

The mindset Paul shows here, and as well in Colossians 1:3-4 (“We give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you ever since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all the saints”), is one of the confidence of victory, rather than the fear of defeat. It’s centered around the assurance that God is doing a great work. “You have made great progress! Praise God! Now I am eagerly longing to personally see that you make even greater progress!”

One thing I have learned about maturity is that the maturity that can “complete” (perfect, bring to maturity) the faith of another is the same maturity that rejoices in, revels in, the beautiful growth that is already evident, the faith and love already blossoming. This kind of maturity will focus less on what I think God still needs to do and more on what God is already doing. In great joy I will be motivated by it to pray even more.

The Bible isn’t my daily manna

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I heard it many times growing up. “Your daily Bible reading is your daily manna. Yesterday’s reading won’t suffice for today. Read the Bible every day to receive fresh bread of life.” I never questioned it.

Until recent years. Several things brought me to the point of questioning this oft-repeated maxim.

For one thing, during some significant trials, the rich food that I gained from one day’s Bible reading sustained me for many days when I was unable to read the Bible.

For another thing, I began to see that in the “Steps to Knowing the Word of God”—that is, hear, read, study, memorize, meditate, and apply—some crucial concepts were missing. Drastic, gaping holes.

But most importantly, I read John 6. I really read John 6. And there, in a passage that I’d probably read hundreds of times, I finally realized that my daily manna is not the Bible.

It’s Jesus.

He says it clearly, plainly, over and over. “I am the Bread of Life. I am the Bread from Heaven. I am the Living Bread. I am the True Bread.”

I cried out to God, “Lord, what in the world does this mean? How am I supposed to receive the manna of Jesus? How can I eat His flesh and drink His blood?” For days I read and prayed and read and prayed, crying out to God.

I knew my Bible reading had something to do with it. It had to. After all, I can’t even know who the Living Word is outside of the vision of Him I see through His written Word.

As I read and prayed, I remembered the indictment in Hebrews 4 against the Israelites in the wilderness: “the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.” I knew that the word “mixed” there was the same word used for the process of digestion that breaks down food so that it can be sent as nourishment to all parts of the body.

And then I saw. As the written Word is ingested, the Living Word can be digested. But only with the digestive juices of faith. I must read with a heart actively believing, seizing on truth. This is what transforms the written Word in my head to the Living Word pulsating in my very life.

The Bible reading that sustained me for days afterwards? Through Colossians I had received a clearer vision of Jesus, and in the darkness and difficulty of the following days I was able to close my eyes and focus my heart once again on Him.

The drastic gaping holes? Crying out to God for understanding, rather than simply relying on my own intellect and assuming God would help me. Believing what I read, with passion rather than passivity. Do you say these go without saying? I think not. How can absolute imperatives go without saying?

For years I followed the hear-read-study-memorize-meditate rule without crying out for understanding, for a gripping of my heart. For the most part I believed, and God did certainly work in my heart through His written Word, but the faith was more passive than active. When I began to approach the Word with an active, desperate faith, I began to see Him work in my life in new ways.

And now, when I come to the Word of God, instead of my old intellectual “This-is-God’s-message-to-me-and-by-jiminy-I’m-gonna-learn-it” approach, I come to it with longing to see the beauty of Jesus Christ, to be filled with the love and power and joy of Jesus Christ, to experience a life of bringing glory to God through Jesus Christ.

He is our True, Living Bread from Heaven.

There’s no power in prayer

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I just googled “power in prayer” and got about forty thousand responses. I’m guessing I might be in the minority here.

But I think if you consider it, you’ll agree that there’s no more power in prayer than there is in a cry for help. Let’s say you’re drowning in the middle of the ocean. You can cry out for rescue at the top of your lungs. But neither your crying nor your flailing will accomplish anything. All the actual power comes from the one who swoops down to save you.

Let’s say you’re making a request before the King of the Universe. You enter His throne room with the utmost respect (without fear, though, because you’re a member of his family). You make your request, perhaps with tears. But the tears notwithstanding, how much power is there in those words to accomplish the thing you’re asking for? Basically none. All the power lies in the hands of the One who can do or deny what you ask.

Let’s say you’re engaged in major warfare. You feel that you’re being overwhelmed by enemy forces. You cry out for reinforcements, or maybe to be airlifted out of the area. How much power is there in that cry for deliverance, that searching of the skies? None. All the power, all the power lies with the Rescuer, the Deliverer, the Accomplisher.

If there is no power in prayer, why do people want to think that there is? Every Christian I’ve met, without exception, will acknowledge that prayer is important. In spite of this, though, many Christians don’t take prayer as seriously as they might, perhaps seeing God as more their teammate than their Only Hope.

The concept of “power in prayer” seems to be meant to be an impetus. After all, if you’re going to move the Hand that moves the world, that’s pretty powerful stuff. So let’s get praying. And then when God does something, we can say to each other, “I felt your prayers.” Pat your back. Praise you.

But the fact is that outside the power of Jesus Christ, I’m really utterly helpless. My arms are far too weak even to budge the Hand that moves the world.

So does this inability deter me from prayer? Far from it! It actually has become perhaps my greatest motivation for prayer. Since understanding the truth of my desperate dependence, I run to my Savior far more often, with far greater fervency, even asking far bigger things than before. Because all the power is in Him—none in me or in anything I do, even praying.

This is a great comfort, a great joy. Because the Rescuer, the Accomplisher, the Deliverer—the One I call out to many times a day—is unutterably Good, delighting to do mighty works for His glory. Our constant dependence on Him, in the power of His Holy Spirit, to deliver us moment by moment, and to accomplish great things—even through us!—serves as our constant reminder that to Him be all the glory and praise both now and forever. Amen.