Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Stop Praying, Jesus is the Answer


road on hill sunlight


There I was, Sunday, floored by a message I'd heard for the second time that day. It was only on the repeat I received it:

  1. Jesus is enough
  2. Jesus is more than enough
  3. Rest

In the darkness of the sanctuary I poured out my prayers. My knees smacked the thin ribbed carpet. I gave my concern to the only Father that cared, as I'd yelled at the earthly version last night for his callousness. I looked like a complete fool.

All my unmet wants and desires, boiled up inside of me, spilling out as breathy steam into the air.

I kept on at it, praying for God to relieve me of the weight and pain of my circumstances...until I realized Jesus was the answer to my prayers.

I already had the answer to everything I wanted.

What are you praying for? What eats at your soul? I will bet its something that threatens your sense of self and security, but if we find ourselves in things, they become idols. We serve them so they might benefit us.

I've been told and I believe that so often we pray for God to protect our idols, just so we can run on back to them. We imitate the Old Testament people of Israel: running to Yahweh in emergencies (“speak into this situation Lord” Have your way Lord”) but essentially tell Him to shut up for the rest of our lives. He's our in-case-of-emergency kit.

If I was God, I could surely argue for never letting things get better for folks, if they were just going to worship the blessing over me. But thank God I'm not. Thank He loves us all more than we can imagine.

Thank God He loves us enough to not give us everything WE want.

May HIS will be done in our lives.

“We put no stumbling block in anyone’s path, so that our ministry will not be discredited. Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.”
-2 Corinthians 6:3-10

In Him,

Jean-Marc

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