Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving because…

“The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him.” 2 Chron. 16.9

God looks on the heart…

If our hearts belong to Him...

our “lives” may be ...lacking, limited, and so consciously earthbound.

We may be well aware of the hurt of our limitations.

    There may yet be a fog of confusion in so many things.

        Yet, beyond our mortal frame... there is a New and Living Way, which the One Who sees the heart spreads at our feet.

If our hearts are in His keeping He will carry our lives until we mount up with wings.

What is Prayer?

Speaking of God, Job says, ¨Whom I shall see for myself.¨
He knows that there awaits for him a personal unveiling, a personal revelation.

Through the passing years...

through the joy and pain...

through the striving and seeking...

things gradually start to come into focus.

One begins to catch a glimpse for oneself of the essential nature of things.

It is not an academic understanding of what things mean, but rather a finding an understanding that “works” for oneself, in one’s own life.

So, with prayer.

The matter is infinite, and a full understanding must await another world than this, but God gives us to see enough to find our way.

Prayer is the Cry of the Earth to the God of the Heavens.

That is all it takes...and it takes all of that!

Prayer is a bringing of all my being to God, with all the intensity which I possess.

It is a bringing of everything positive and everything negative.

Prayer is a bringing of all my faith and all my doubts.

It is a bringing of all my strength and all my weakness.

It is a bringing of all my light and all my darkness - all I can see and all I can’t see.

It is a bringing of all my joy and all my sorrow.

It is a bringing of all my health and all my pain.

It is a bringing of all that I am and of all that I am not.

Prayer is a looking to heaven, because earth does not have the answers.

It is all I am, meeting all that He is.

Facing our need, as Israel, we can sing and cry, “Spring up, Oh well” (Num. 21:17)... until the waters flow... until our life is flooded... until the earthly meets the heavenly.

The Difference

“What is the chaff to the wheat?” Jeremiah 23:28

We are again at a point in history where the chaff seems to have taken over the field.

The abundance of things in their outward appearance seems to have swallowed the true essence.

Wheat is unknown, or perhaps despised...too hard, too small, too unyielding.

When, in the church, callow young people with a certain capacity for music are given the task of leading people to the realms of the Spirit by means of musical extravaganza, is this not Chaff?

When pastors raise their voices to proclaim with the delirium of a dream, that God’s aim is to smother your life with wealth and unceasing happiness, is this not Chaff?

When the Spirit inspired message is replaced with a sterile interpretation of the scripture from men’s thoughts, is this not Chaff?

God says in Jeremiah (2:13) “They have forsaken Me the fountain of living waters.”  

What unutterable tragedy, to have left Life!

Would that our ears could hear God’s invitation, calling us to the fountain of living waters... that place where Life is given freely to all who come...where there springs up an endless renewal of Life eternal.

“Let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” Rev. 22.17