"So you by the help of your God, return, hold fast to love and justice, and wait continually for your God....But I am the Lord your God from the land of Egypt; you know no God but me, and besides me there is no savior. It was I who knew you in the wilderness, in the land of drought; but when they had grazed, they became full, they were filled up, and their heart was lifted up; therefore they forgot me." Hosea 12:6; 13:4-6
Are we capable of realizing our need for God when things are good? We often hate the bad times, the times when we have a big fight with someone, the times we lose a job, the times we don't have enough money to pay the bills, the times of illness, the times of loss..the list goes on and on. We hate those times mainly. We ache inside and long to be rid of the constant strain in puts on us. We lose sleep, we cry, we are easily agitated and yet we find ourselves praying more. We do so, sadly, because God's our last resort, our only remaining line of defense (or at least we hope we're still defensible). We pray to the God of Heaven and hope that He hears (which He always does). We pray and hesitantly think something may happen, but who knows.
In my limited experience, prayer is meant to not only change situations but it's meant to change us. It's meant to search out all the grievous ways in us, all the yucky pride and contempt, and it's meant to transform us to more of the likeness of Christ. All too often, however, we only want out situation to change, not us. We fight against the very answer God is trying to give us when we pray. Look at the passage. There is no savior besides God in Jesus. None. We can't save ourselves, we can't erase bad things we've done, we can't take bad judgment calls back, but we can be completely forgiven in Christ. We can walk through our wilderness, our land of drought, our hard times, with God and allow Him to lead and guide us. Not to necessarily get us out of the wilderness but to be fed there, to survive there sometimes, even if for just a season, and learn that He truly is our Savior and Lord.
The sad thing about our great depravity is that we become full and we turn away from God. We want to be full, we pray to be full during the drought but when we reach it we go our separate way because now 'we've got it all on our own'. I'm learning that sometimes the drought, sometimes the hard situations are the best places to be in. Not because we want to bask in our mistakes, our short-comings, our ways that keep us from a perfect relationship with Christ, but because in our moments of weakness Christ can be presented strong. Christ can be in our lives what He came to be, our Savior.
Rejoice in your weakness, for in it is your key to life everlasting as a great sinner who has a great Lord.
In my limited experience, prayer is meant to not only change situations but it's meant to change us. It's meant to search out all the grievous ways in us, all the yucky pride and contempt, and it's meant to transform us to more of the likeness of Christ. All too often, however, we only want out situation to change, not us. We fight against the very answer God is trying to give us when we pray. Look at the passage. There is no savior besides God in Jesus. None. We can't save ourselves, we can't erase bad things we've done, we can't take bad judgment calls back, but we can be completely forgiven in Christ. We can walk through our wilderness, our land of drought, our hard times, with God and allow Him to lead and guide us. Not to necessarily get us out of the wilderness but to be fed there, to survive there sometimes, even if for just a season, and learn that He truly is our Savior and Lord.
The sad thing about our great depravity is that we become full and we turn away from God. We want to be full, we pray to be full during the drought but when we reach it we go our separate way because now 'we've got it all on our own'. I'm learning that sometimes the drought, sometimes the hard situations are the best places to be in. Not because we want to bask in our mistakes, our short-comings, our ways that keep us from a perfect relationship with Christ, but because in our moments of weakness Christ can be presented strong. Christ can be in our lives what He came to be, our Savior.
Rejoice in your weakness, for in it is your key to life everlasting as a great sinner who has a great Lord.
1 comment:
Jesus is Lord. Everything is for His glory.
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