Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
-Philippians 4:6-7
Beth Moore uses this passage and paraphrases it from a negative standpoint to show the impact of when we DON'T do everything in prayer. She writes, " 'Do not be calm about anything, but in everything, by dwelling on it constantly and feeling picked on by God, with thoughts like 'and this is the thanks I get,' present your aggravations to everyone you know but Him. And the acid in your stomach, which transcends all milk products, will cause you an ulcer, and the doctor bills will cause you a heart attack and you will lose your mind.' " Now, this sounds absolutely ridiculous, right? However, there is so much truth in the fact our physical, emotional, and mental health are so closely tied with our spiritual health. God created us to not experience true peace, or any fruit of the Spirit, unless we are grounded in Him alone. Philippians tells us straight up that the peace of God will come WHEN we pray about everything and present our hearts to Him alone. It is SO easy to do everything BUT pray in certain situations. We have grown up in a society that causes us to be independent and we are constantly pushed to be strong individuals who can take the cares of our world by ourselves...otherwise, we are not strong in the world's eyes. The enemy experiences so much victory from our lack of prayer. We can go to church, have spiritual conversations, and even study God's Word for hours. But, those are meaningless without prayer. We cannot understand what is being taught to us by a pastor and we cannot understand what we are reading ourselves without the Holy Spirit. We cannot receive and be filled with the Spirit without prayer. Prayer is essential for understanding HOW to walk with our Savior and Creator. Satan knows this even better than we do. He wants us to do anything but pray. He would even rather have us read God's Word than be in prayer. Even our enemy knows the power of prayer....maybe even better than we do most of the time.
It seems like the world tries to water down pain in devastating situations. Anyone can say, 'this doesn't matter in the end so it's just small stuff we have to go through.' Not everything is small. I have gone on three missions trips the past three summers and I have the sweetest lady on my support team. I actually did not know her when I first sent her family a support letter for my first trip, I just knew her daughter very little. She has been my biggest supporter the past three years and it has been amazing to see how the Lord has bonded us in friendship. Just a couple months ago, her husband lost his job. She stayed at home with the kids and he provided for the household. This was devastating for them. As the family members went in for last minute doctor check-ups before insurance was lost, she found out she had to go through chemo. When she shared this with me, I cried for her. I cannot imagine dealing with these devastating circumstances that came about so abruptly. This is not "small stuff" to just sweat off. I am so encouraged by my friend as I hear about how she clings to the Lord in these hard times. I fully believe that it is only through prayer that she has been able to experience God's peace in the amount that she has. We are constantly in a war zone trying to dodge heartache and pain that comes from hard circumstances. The ONLY way we receive the continual, powerful strength we need is by staying close to our Comforting Redeemer through constant communication. Prayer matters.
This past year, I had an amazing opportunity that I reflect on often. The Lord blessed me with being able to co-lead a prayer movement within our ministry on campus. Our vision was to give students opportunity to grow in having prayerful hearts and experience the power of prayer in huge ways. We started out with just having weekly prayer walk on Wednesday nights. The Lord used a couple of these nights to talk to students on campus and ask them how we could pray for them as we spent the hour praying for the campus as a whole. People were surprised but grateful that people wanted to take the time to pray for them. Our weekly prayer walk interest grew and the Lord completely privileged us with being able to start a 24 hour prayer movement. We committed to the Lord that our ministry would pray for 24 hours every Monday in different shifts. We desired an actual place that students could come to and call upon the name of the Lord to come and overwhelm the place with His present. We prayed as a team and God did not let us down. Within 2 1/2 DAYS the Lord gave us a room, furniture, and an anonymous donor who gave us almost $200 for other supplies for "The Prayer Room." We were blown away. We started our first 24 hour prayer Monday shortly after, not knowing what to expect. Again, God blew us away by his promises. 60-70 students were in and out of that room during those 24 hours, and almost 20 students were crammed in this room for the last couple hours. This was an amazing opportunity and experience. Mondays continued to have every slot filled up with people wanting to pray. Big things happened in people's lives and students were truly able to experience power of prayer like most had not before! The Lord brought myself to my knees so many times in our prayer room. I fully believe that we will be set free from the pain, heartache, regret, anxiety, worry, and struggles of this world if we pray. When we constantly communicate with our Abba Father, we get to know God better. When we get to know God better, we are overwhelmed by His love and promises and we are truly able to experience how much better His peace is compared to our desires. Just look at how Jesus handled the most challenging time of his time spent on earth:
Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will."
-Matthew 26:39
No comments:
Post a Comment