knowledgeofgoodandevil

Last week I started to write my blog and I just couldn’t. I started and stopped several times before I gave up.

It’s winter in my life right now. It’s that cold, dry dark time. I pray everyday that the Lord would gird me up. I pray that I won’t lose faith. I ask the Lord to keep me out of the pit of despair and discouragement. I’ve run out of wine in my life.

I’m Job, sitting on an ash heap, scratching my sores, wondering where God went. My prayers often feel like the heavens are brass and they go nowhere. I know God is there. I know He’s heard my prayers. It’s the waiting that’s the hard part.

I have no power over the situation. There’s nothing I can do. The only thing I can do is pray. I remember Peter when he jumped out of the boat to walk on water. He was fine until he took his eyes off Jesus, then he began to sink. I find myself taking my eyes off the Lord and that’s when I sink.

I tell myself God’s promises and that’s what gets me through. I remind myself that God HAS heard my prayers. I remind myself that God DOES love me. The enemy would love nothing more than to neutralize me. He’s a roaring lion seeking whom he can devour. I give the enemy victory when I wallow in doubt and despair. I have to hang onto hope.

My prayers have gone into golden bowls. God’s heard every one of them. God loves me and He knows. That thought gives me hope. That’s what I need is hope.

This song keeps ringing in my head.

1 My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
but wholly lean on Jesus’ name.

Refrain:
On Christ, the solid rock, I stand;
all other ground is sinking sand,
all other ground is sinking sand.

2 When darkness veils his lovely face,
I rest on his unchanging grace;
in ev’ry high and stormy gale,
my anchor holds within the veil. [Refrain]

3 His oath, his covenant, his blood
support me in the whelming flood;
when all around my soul gives way,
he then is all my hope and stay. [Refrain]

4 When he shall come with trumpet sound,
O may I then in him be found,
dressed in his righteousness alone,
faultless to stand before the throne. [Refrain]

I hope this song encourages you, as its been encouraging me.

It has been awhile since I posted. I am in the midst of a trial right now. Often I find myself wondering where God went. My head tells me He is here. But my eyes say something different. I pray constantly, yet this trial won’t go away. If you think of me, you can pray for me.

My only hope, my only consolation is to remember scriptures. I remind myself of what God has said in His Word. I’m going to share them with you and maybe you can receive some comfort.

Matthew 17:20 “And He said to them, ‘Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there.’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.”

I don’t know if you have ever seen a mustard seed, but it’s really tiny. Think of a watermelon seed and cut it in half, then half again, then half again, and maybe half it two more times. It’s unbelievably small. This verse gives me much comfort because my faith waivers all the time.

James 5:16-18 “…The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months Then he prayed again, and the sky poured rain and the earth produced its fruit.”

I like that one a lot. God is basically saying that Elijah was no different than us and this is what he could do. Sometimes I think I need to be something special or different for God to hear my prayers. But God reminds us we don’t have to be.

Matthew 7:7-12 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find, knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will opened. Or what man is there among you who when his son asks for a loaf will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? If you then, being evil, know to to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him?”

I love how God points out the fact that we are evil and know how to give good gifts. Then He ups the ante and declares that He can give so much more. God never minces His words.

If you are in a place like I am, remind yourself of these words. God never lies and His word tells the truth. That’s what gives me comfort. My prayers do not go void. They don’t float out into the ether. God says He puts them in golden bowls. So I hang onto that fact as I go through this trial. I wait and pray and I know this too shall pass.

“Then He said to them, ‘Suppose one of you has a friend, and goes to him at midnight and says to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine has come to me from a journey, and I have nothing to set before him; and from inside he answers and says, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been shut and my children and I are in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.’ ‘I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will get up and give him as much as he needs.'” (Luke 11:5-8)

This is the story Jesus tells the disciples when they asked him how they should pray. To be persistent. The friend wouldn’t give him what he needed because his friend was asking. He only gave in because his friend wouldn’t stop asking. That’s how God tells us to pray. We need to NOT stop asking. Our persistence will get us what we need.

I watched a video the other day of a guy giving his testimony. He talked about being in the New Age Movement, making tons of money and leaving it to follow Jesus. This guy says prayer had a lot to do with his conversion. He said his mother prayed for him like a maniac.

This is why the Apostle Paul tell us to “pray without ceasing.” He’s telling us to do what Luke 11 tells us to do. Be persistent.

Prayer is that one activity that I sometimes think I need to be in a certain place or a certain mindset. I sometimes put it off, thinking that my surroundings are too loud. Or I can’t really put my thoughts into it because of what’s going on around me. But it’s probably in that instance that I really need to pray. God can hear me

Prayer brings us before the very throne of God. When a believer prays, they are going before the God of the universe and speaking to Him. And not only that, when we go before Him, the Holy Spirit speaks to our Father in words we can’t understand. We can’t mess it up at all. And when we pray, our prayers go into golden bowls.

Prayer is the one of several things God gives us to survive this world. We’re going to have trials. We’re going to have pain. We’re going to need God so very often. So God gave us access to Him. We can cry out to him and He hears us. He hears ALL of our prayers. It’s such a simple thing to do yet it has such great power. So whatever you are going through. Whatever trial you’re in right now, go to God in prayer and keep asking. He tells us to keep asking. This is the only time we can rightfully nag.

I know nothing about technical things. I have a website, but I don’t know how to fix it. Recently, my website posted an error message on it. It said I needed to update something and if I didn’t update it soon, my website could crash or get hacked. Ack! What’s a girl to do?

I first followed the instruction video on how to fix the problem, praying the whole time that it would work. I did what they told me to do and lo and behold, it didn’t work. Now my website was a white screen with some bold wording in the top corner talking about an error. I was sunk. Now what was I supposed to do?

I quickly contacted my host and cried to them that I have now fouled up everything. The lady at the other end of the phone was so helpful. She calmly walked me through it all. Step by step, she showed me what I needed to do. And ta-da! My website was fixed!

In life, we face all kinds of roadblocks. We get “error” messages all the time. Things don’t work out. We need to fix things. Where do we go?

Psalms 121
I lift up my eyes to the hills.
    From where does my help come?
² My help comes from the Lord,
    who made heaven and earth.

³ He will not let your foot be moved;
    he who keeps you will not slumber.
⁴ Behold, he who keeps Israel
    will neither slumber nor sleep.

⁵ The Lord is your keeper;
    the Lord is your shade on your right hand.
⁶ The sun shall not strike you by day,
    nor the moon by night.

⁷ The Lord will keep you from all evil;
    he will keep your life.
⁸ The Lord will keep
    your going out and your coming in
    from this time forth and forevermore.

For the believer, we have our technical support in the Holy Spirit and the Bible. When we face a challenge, the Holy Spirit will often communicate with us. A voice in our heads will tell us “do that,” or “go that way.” The Holy Spirit is a gift to us. God Himself, living inside the believer. Sometimes I think believers take the Holy Spirit for granted.

The Bible is our guide too. It tells us how to think about the world. It tells us what pleases God and what displeases Him. It gives us encouragement and tells us how to live.

These are where our help comes from. I believe we’re definitely living in the last days. I believe we have a short time on this planet. We as believers need to hang on tight to our help: the Holy Spirit and the Bible. We can’t afford not to. Like I tell my family. There’s not much time left.

When I was a little kid, I spent my summers fishing. Both with a net and rod and reel fishing. The rod and reel fishing was the best. We had a huge lake near where I lived, where the salmon came to spawn and trout swam around in. For fun, our family would drive up to the lake and throw out our lines to catch fish. There was an old dock by the lake. We could stand on it and look down in the lake and actually see the trout swimming. They were so close, we took long sticks and tied the fishing line to it, then just drop the line down into the water. You could see the trout swimming around your hook. I loved fishing.

One time we were there and it began to rain. Everyone went back to the truck to sit and get out of the rain. I refused. I wanted to catch a fish. Rain wasn’t going to stop me. Neither were the mosquitos that buzzed around my head like a dark noisy cloud. I had to catch a fish. I was persistent. I wanted to catch a fish. I stood there alone, on the dock, waiting, waiting, waiting. Suddenly, something bit my line. My pole bent. Whatever it was, it was big. I carefully reeled in my line, not wanting to lose the fish. I got it. I pulled in a huge rainbow trout! Those were rare. And it was so big! My persistence paid off.

I’ve been thinking a lot of Luke 11:5-8

“Then He said to them, Suppose one of you has a friend, and goes to him at midnight and says to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of mind has come to me from a journey, and I have nothing to set before him; and from inside he answers and says, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been shut and my children and I are in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything. I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will get up and give him as much as he needs.”

I’m going through a few trials right now. God says we will. He has told us that our lives will be various trials. When I look at the problem I feel overwhelmed. I see no solution. I see no way to fix it on my own. What do I do?

I can do the only thing I can do. The only thing that will work is that I have to pray. That activity the Apostle Paul tells us to do without ceasing. So I begin. I pray. Silently, in my head, I cry out to God. No one can hear me but Him. I tell him my woes. I go to bed at night and pray over the problem. I roll over, while I’m sleeping, and pray a quick prayer. I pray while I’m driving. I pray in the bathroom. I pray persistently, because God told me to.

The problem isn’t solved yet. But God gives me a gift while I’m praying. He gives me peace, peace beyond all understanding. He sends me other gifts. I was praying for encouragement while looking through instagram. Right as I was praying a verse popped up in my feed. Psalms 147:5. I got a sense of well being. I’ve given the matter to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. I can’t see Him working, but I know He is. I’m standing on the dock, refusing to give up, waiting for that fish.

When the Apostle Paul tells us to pray without ceasing, that’s exactly what he wants us to do. And when you do, it will frame your way of thinking. You will feel peace. You will feel a sense of well being. God has heard your prayers and He will answer them. Be persistent.