WHEN WE PRAY

TOO OFTEN WE AS CHRISTIANS HIDE BEHIND OUR PRAYER MANTEL.

We see a need and we say "i will pray for you" and we do pray. However, prayer was never intended to be our only Kingdom activity. As a matter of fact, Jesus calls us to personal discipleship. That can mean many things, like those personal disciplines of fellowshipping together, reading our bibles, and you know them as well as I do. But sooner or later we have to discern between fishing and merely cutting bait. There comes a time to go into the harvest field.

Consider this: When Jesus faced the crucial showdown of heaven and earth, he could no longer just pray. The story tells us he sweat great drops of blood, as it were. There came that time of surrender, when he spoke the words from the depth of his soul. He would no longer say, I will pray for you."

His act of surrender came in his words, "Not my will, but thine be done." That commitment beyond merely praying carried him to the cross, and the crossover where he experienced the resurrection.

When we become a praying people, we, pray for the will of the Heavenly Father. That transitions us beyond the verbalization of "prayers" and carries us into becoming part of the resurrection--new life via healing--new life via financial sponsorship--new life via personal involvement/assistance--new life via a hand-up.

I remember a day when I did not feel I had the money myself, but I felt so led that I launched a personal Facebook Fundraiser for a certain individual. It just seemed the right thing to do. I remember the shock I felt.  It just seemed the right thing to do. I remember the shock I felt when a reader responded by sending the amount I was attempting to raise. I am still experiencing the pleasure of knowing I became part of changing a person's life at a critical point--life or potential death. That led to further involvement on my part but it brought further stability to a person of another race, color, and culture, that has become literally LIFE TRANSFORMING. I am humbled, but it was the right thing to do, in spite of It lost the element of sacrifice and became a valued investment.

I tell this story not to exalt me, for I feel no exaltation. I do recognize a quiet sense of abiding trust, but it required that I launch out deeper than I am accustomed to wading. As evangelical Protestants we make much of walking by faith, as Luther discovered and described it. I am finding that the trust of faith involves trust my fear of scammers to the Holy Spirit--to the Lord's gifting and guiding my direction via the good sense and sound mind he gave me, and then using it and trusting him for the rest.

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I am a blessed man