Prayer dear brother. Prayer is not just bowing down closing your eyes folding your hands and talking. Prayer is a state of mind, a humbling of heart. It is in prayer that we enter in the presence of God, whether to give Him our burdens, to ask Him for guidence, or to praise Him for being who He is. It is coming before the Great I AM, not for what He can do for You, or what He can give You, but because You Love Him, and because in His Presence, things that are going wrong, situations that have arised, opinions, ect, just aren't as important anymore. In His Glorious Presence You actually see a glimps of the person that You truely are, the person that He made You to be. It is seeking, and being found. It is knowing that when the enemy is attacking, that You can run to your StrongTower, and know that no one, nothing can scale the Walls. It is my personal desire, and God's desire for all His children, to be forever in His presence.
Sometimes, people think that if they can't prayer, then they can't speak to God, but what is prayer but words? Does God need to hear them? No, it is for mans benifit, that words are spoke, not Gods. For God searches the heart, He knows the mind, He has sent us His Spirit to be our helper, because we don't know what we need. And God, who knows the Spirit, knows the moanings of the Spirit, that we ourselves could never speak. So it isn't the words that speak to God, it is the heart, it is the soul, it is the spirit.
God has given every single man, a measure of faith. Take that drop of faith and let Him expand upon it, because He is more than willing to take what is ounce today and make it a gallon tomarrow.
How do you hear from him? Here's a good example, a little story...
Once there was a man who Dared God to speak.
Burn the bush like you did for Moses, God.
And I will follow.
Collapse the walls like you did for Joshua, God.
And I will fight.
Still the waves like you did in Galilee, God.
And I will listen.
And so the man sat by a bush, near a wall, close to the sea
and waited for God to speak.
And God heard the man, so God answered.
He sent fire, not for a bush, but for a church.
He brought down a wall, not of brick, but of sin.
He stilled the storm, not of the sea, but of a soul.
And God waited for the man to respond.
And He waited...
And waited....
And waited....
But because the man was looking at bushes, not hearts;
bricks and not lives; seas and not souls,
he decided that God had done nothing.
Finally he looked to God and asked,
Have You lost your power?
And God looked at him and said,
Have you lost your hearing?
That a great example of how we as human expect God to act. We expect Him to answer our questions with fire, with an angel coming down, thunder, or earthquake. Though God sometimes does use these means, He also just speaks... sometimes quietly, because He wants us to not only have faith in what we can see, but also in what we cannot see.
Alright, if I may, if you've read this far, ( I know, I'm being lengthy and just keep going...
) I'd really like to read you something to keep in mind, it is one of the best written things I have ever read and I'd love to share it with you.
Seated at the great desk, the Author opens the large book. It has no words. It has no words because no words exist. Now words exist because no words are needed. There are no ears to hear them, no eyes to read them. The Author is alone.
And so he takes the great pen and begins to write. Like an artist gathers his colors and a woodcarver his tools, the Author assembles his words.
There are three. Three single words. Out of these three will pour a million thoughts. But on these three words, th story will suspend.
He takes his quill and spells the first. T-i-m-e.
Time did not exist until he wrote it. He, himself, is timeless, but his story would be encased in time. The story would have a first rising of the sun, a first shifting of the sand. A beginning... and an end. A final chapter. He knows it before he writes it.
Time. A footspan on eternity's trail.
Slowly, tenderly, the Author writes the second word, A name.
A-d-a-m.
As he writes, he sees him, the first Adam. Then he sees all the others. In a thousand eras in a thousand lands, the Author sees them. Each Adam. Each child. Instantly loved. Permanenly loved. To each he asigns a time. To each he appoints a place. No accidents. No coincidences. Just design.
The Author makes a promise to thse unborn: In my image, I will make you. You will be like me. You will laugh. You will create. You will never die. And you will write.
They must. For each life is a book, not to be read, but rather a story to be written. The Author starts each life story, but each life will write his or her own ending.
What a dangerous liberty. How much safer it would have been to finsh the story for each Adam. To script every option. It would have been simpler. It would have been safer. But it would not have been love. Love is only love if it is chosen.
So the Author decides to give each child a pen. " Write carefully," He whispers.
Lovingly, deliberately, he writes a third word, already feeling the pain. E-m-m-a-n-u-e-l.
The greatest mind in the universe imagined time. The truest judge granted Adam a choice. But it was love that gave Emmanuel, God With Us.
The Author would enter his own story.
The Word would become flesh. He, too, would be born. He, too, would be human. He, too, would have feet and hands. He, too, would have tears and trials.
And most importantly, he, too, would have a choice. Emmanuel would stand at the crossroads of life and death with a choice to make.
The Author knows well the weight of that decision. He pauses as he writes the page of his own pain. He could stop. Even the Author has a choice. But how can a Creator not create? How can a Writer not write? And how can Love not love? So he chooses life, though it means death, with hope that his children will do the same.
And so the Author of Life completes the story. He drives the spike in the flesh and rolls the stone over the grave. Knowing the choice he will make, knowing the choice all Adams will make, he pens, " The End," then closes the book and proclaims the beginning.
" Let there be light!"
That my dear brother is how much God loves You. And because He loves you, He has given you a choice. Now it's up to you to chose life or death.
God Bless!!!
's
Jennifer
