Something to Think About

Tired of Praying?

Do you ever feel impatient with God? Does He seem late in answering your requests or meeting your needs Jesus spoke to the issue's of how to pray, how long to pray, and how long God might take to respond. One day His disciples asked Him to teach them to pray. He told a story about someone with a need who was very persistent in asking a neighbor for help. The story makes it clear that our ability to ask does not equal God's response or its timing. God is not a celestial bellhop waiting at our beck and call. Neither does He rely on us to define our needs, outline solutions, or say when or how He should act. No God does those for us--which is just as well since He is all-wise. God delights in His children developing the habit and freedom of asking Him for help. But He won't leave us trapped in our limited perception of the situation. Sooner or later He will answer our prayers, but in His own time. He asks us to trust Him to know what is needed and when. Our calling, then is to ask--even persistently--and to grow in the process. One of the surprising benefits of praying is how much we change. Sometimes, that in itself is the answer to our prayers.

COME TO ME FOR UNDERSTANDING,

Since I know you far better than you know yourself. I comprehend you in all your complexity; no detail of your life is hidden from Me. I view you through eyes of grace, so don't be afraid of My intimate awareness. Allow the Light of My healing Presence to shine into the deepest recesses of your being---cleansing, healing, refreshing, and renewing you. Trust Me enough to accept the full forgiveness that I offer you continually. This great gift, which cost Me My Life, is yours for all eternity. Forgiveness is at the very core of My abiding Presence. I will never leave you or forsake you.

  When no one else seems to understand you, simply draw closer to me. Rejoice in the One who understands you completely and loves you perfectly. As I fill you with My Love, you become a reservoir of love, overflowing into the lives of other people.

Taken from Jesus Calling

He took Peter, John, James and went up unto a mountain to pray. As he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white and glistering. . .they saw his glory ( Luke 9:28-29,32). If I have found grace in thy sight, show me now thy way ( Exod. 33:13)

Heaven is not far from those who tarry on the mount with their Lord. The Master had times and places for quiet converse with His disciples, once on the peak of Hermon, but oftener on the sacred slopes of Olivet. Every Christian should have his Olivet. Most of us, especially in the cities and towns, live at high pressure. From early morning until bedtime we are exposed to the whirl. Amid all this maelstrom how little chance for quiet thought, for God's Word, for prayer and heart fellowship!

Daniel needed to have an Olivet in his chamber amid Babylon's roar and idolatries. Peter found his on a housetop in Joppa; and Martin Luther found his in the " upper room" at Wittenberg, which is still held sacred.

Dr. Joseph Parker once said: "If we do not get back to visions, peeps into heaven, consciousness of the higher glory and the larger life, we shall lose our religion; our altar will become bare stone, unblessed by visitant from Heaven." Here is the world's need today----men who have seen their Lord.

Come close to Him ! He may take you today up into the mountaintop, for where He took Peter with his blundering, and James and John, those sons of thunder who again and again so utterly misunderstood their Master and His mission, there is no reason why He should not take you. So don't shut yourself out of it an say, " Ah, these wonderful visions and revelations of the Lord are for choice spirits!" They may be for you! John McNeill

( Taken from Streams in the Desert )

They looked. . . and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud ( Exod. 16:10)

Get into the habit of looking for the silver lining of the cloud, and when you have found it, continue to look at it rather than at the dark gray in the middle. Do not yield to discouragement no matter how sad or depressed you may be. A discouraged soul is helpless. He can neither resist the wiles of the enemy himself, while in this state, nor can he prevail in prayer for others.

Flee from every symptom of this deadly foe as you would flee from a viper. do not be slow on turning your back on it, unless you want to bite the dust in bitter defeat.

On a day in Autumn, I saw a prairie eagle mortally wounded by a rifle shot. His eyes still gleamed like a circle of light. Then he slowly turned his head, and gave one more searching and longing look at the sky. He had often swept those starry spaces with his wonderful wings. The beautiful sky was the home of his heart. It was the eagle's domain. A thousand times he had exploited there his splendid strength. In those faraway heights he played with the lightnings, and raced with the winds, and now, so far away from home, the eagle lay dying, done to the death, because for once he forgot and flew too low. The soul is that eagle. This is not its home. It must not lose the skyward look. We must keep faith, we must keep hope, we must keep courage, we must keep Christ. We would better creep away from the battlefield at once if we are not going to be brave. There is no time for the soul to stampede. Keep the skyward look, my soul; keep the skyward look!

We can never see the sun rise when looking into the West.

Keep looking up
The waves that roar around thy feet,
Jehovah will defeat
When looking up.

Keep looking up
Though darkness seems to wrap thy soul;
The Light of Light shall fill thy soul
When looking up.

Keep looking up
When worn, distracted with the fight;
Your Captain gives you conguering might
When you look up.

From Streams in the Desert

My Grace is sufficient for thee ( 2 Cor. 12:9)

The other evening I was riding home after a heavy day's work. I felt very wearied, and very depressed, when swiftly, and suddenly as a lightning flash, that text came to me, " My grace is sufficient for thee." I reached home and looked it up in the original, and at last it came to me in this way, " MY grace is sufficient for thee"; and I said, " I should think so Lord," and burst out laughing. I never fully understood what the holy laughter of Abraham was until then. It seemed to make unbelief so absurd.

It was as though some little fish, being thirsty, was troubled about drinking the river dry, and Father Thames said, " Drink away, little fish, my stream is sufficient for thee" Or, it seemed after the seven years of plenty, a mouse feared it might die of famine; and Joseph might say, " Cheer up, little mouse, my granaries are sufficient for thee" Again, I imagined a man away up yonder, in a lofty mountain, saying to himself, " I breathe so many cubic feet of air every year, I fear I shall exhaust the oxygen in the atmosphere," but the earth might say, " Breathe away, O man, and fill the lungs ever, my atmosphere is sufficient for thee."

Oh, brethren, be great believers! Little faith will bring your souls to heaven, but great faith will bring heaven to your souls.

C.H. Spurgeon

There may be many hard years of hard work...

... before the consummation, but the signs are to me encouraging that I would not be unbelieving if I saw the wing of the apocalyptic angel spread for its last triumphal flight in this day's sunset: or if tomorrow morning the ocean cables should thrill us with the news that Christ the Lord had alighted on Mount Olivet or Mount Calvary to proclaim universal dominion. O you dead churches, wake up! O Christ, descend! Scarred temple, take the crown! Bruised hand, take the sceptre! Wounded foot, step the throne! Thine is the kingdom .

It may be in the evening,
when the work of the day is done,
And you have time to sit in the twilight,
And watch the sinking sun,
While the long bright day dies slowly
Over the sea,
And the hours grow quiet and holy
With thoughts of Me;
While you hear the village children
Passing along the street-
Among those passing footsteps
May come the sound of My Feet.
Therefore I tell you, Watch!
By the Light of the evening star
When the room is growing dusky
As the clouds afar,
Let the door be on the latch
In your home,
For it may be through the gloaming
I will come.

From Streams in the Desert

Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown ( Rev.3:11)

" When it pleased God in July, 1829, to reveal to my heart the truth of the personal return of the Lord Jesus, and to show me that I had made a great mistake in looking for the conversion of the world, the effect that it produced upon me was this: From my inmost soul I was stirred up to feel compassion for perishing sinners, and for the slumbering world around me lying in the wicked one, and considered, " Ought I not to do what I can for the Lord Jesus while He tarries, and to rouse a slumbering church".

George Mueller