Everyday should be a reality check on the goodness of God. But the reality of it is, it’s not. From the beginning of many of my days I’ll start in a “woe is me” mode and finish in a little higher or lower position depending upon how the day progressed. I’m ungrateful at best and often times downright disrespectful to the Lord for all His goodness. But there’s something about getting into the posture of prayer, and by posture I mean the physical stance one assumes when praying, that makes a difference. God honors humility.
The past couple of days I’ve gotten serious with my prayer time with the Lord. I’m guilty of taking prayer in a “to go bag” because it’s easier to pray on the run or just say a quick prayer and then run. At an altar I’ll concern myself with how I look, or how long I take and then halfheartedly pray for fear of going past verse number two and overcooking someone’s roast beef. And thus… the condition of my heart.
I don’t know that God is so much concerned about the position for which I pray, as much as He is concerned about the heart in which I pray. But the position of the physical body aids in getting the heart into a spiritual position to receive the Word of God. So the past few days I’ve laid prostrate on the floor on a prayer blanket, and what began as an awkward stance, ended in a tear soaked blanket of confession, adoration and supplication and an amazing presence of God.
That statement isn’t inserted into this blog to show how very “spiritual” I am, but rather it’s there to share with you how God honors the humble in heart, and the lowliest of sinners like me. When I got up… ever so slowly… awkwardly… and somewhat painfully… some things had not changed. But what did change was the inward feeling of self-worth. I knew I was a King’s kid. I knew I had purpose.
When Moses penned Psalms 90:17 following their deliverance out of Egypt, he was still working the plan. They for certain hadn’t made it to the Promised Land. There were still some ugly times ahead. But through it all Moses prayed this:
And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.
What my time in prayer accomplished was allowing the ick of the world to be washed away. And allowed the beauty of God to be on me; to realize that God’s still working the plan… an oh so pretty plan through my hands.
Are you having a less than lovely day? Talk to Jesus about it. He loves you and desires your company.
Last night I sang at a sparsely attended revival at Eagle Ranch, on the West Fork of Calhoun County. Don’t be too sad about the attendance level, because God set it up that way. I believe that with all my heart. As Preacher Sebby Volpe said, God may have even kept some away. I believe that too. So you may ask, “Why would God keep people away from a revival?” Perhaps they couldn’t handle the truth Sebby delivered, or they may not have been ready, or just maybe, like in the days of Gideon, God just needed a few. I don’t know, or need to know His reasoning. I only know that I was supposed to be there, and not because I was ask to sing.
Not knowing the exact date of my salvation, I, for the longest time, claimed Independence Day as my Salvation date. Perhaps that sounds strange to you that I didn’t know the exact date that I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior; but for that insight you’d have to understand a little of my background with religion. To sum it up, I knew church (religion) I didn’t know Jesus. So when I started the journey to the realization that I needed saved I had to get past the fact that I was indeed lost. Religion teaches salvation is what I do, not what I couldn’t do. So I was, therefore, bound to the lie that I had to do something. And even when I realized that I needed saved and made that confession of faith in my heart, I didn’t tell the world for the longest time because they assumed I had been saved. And so I lived defeated again for some time by not proclaiming that salvation experience aloud. But I did loose myself from that lie eventually that Satan kept whispering in my ear… “you’re not saved.”
For most of my days I’ve heard the saying “blind faith,” and truthfully didn’t give it much thought, accepting the colloquialism of the day as an accurate description of faith in an undeniable yet invisible God. Until a statement from a Vacation Bible School adult class instructor who said, “The Bible never called for blind devotion.” It was one of the hmmmm….. moments. Why then, do they call it blind faith? Which triggered the concept, faith isn’t blind. And why hadn’t I “seen” it before.