Pray Until Peace Comes… Within

15 Sunday Jul 2012

Posted by eisakouo in Living In Uncertain Times

Tags

2 Chronicles 32:20-22, crisis, getting naked before God, guard, helping God, Isaiah, King Hezekiah, Martin Luther quote, motives, not my will but Your will be done, peace of god, petition, Philippians 4:6-7, prayer, praying wrong, Present, reveal, stand watch over, the answer is God, the answer to your prayer is not the solution, the peace of God, wrestling in prayer

Hezekiah did just about everything he could to prepare his nation for conflict both physically and spiritually. After this, he turned to his old friend and counselor, Isaiah. Together they committed themselves to God in prayer and God answered.

20 But King Hezekiah and Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amos, prayed about this and cried out to heaven. 21 And the Lord sent an angel who destroyed every mighty warrior, commander and officer in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he returned in shame to his own land. And when he had entered the temple of his god, some of his own children killed him there with the sword. 22 So the Lord saved Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib the king of Assyria and from the hand of all others, and guided them on every side. 2 Chronicles 32:20-22

I like reading and studying prayers of the Bible. In this case, we are not given the particulars… I wish we were. The King did what he could, then he trusted God to do what only God could do. When this happens, all you can do is wait for the peace of God to fill your heart. How we pray and what we can expect in a crisis is really important. The word reminds us:

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7

This is God’s promise to us. So if it is not happening, then we are praying wrong. “Present” in this verse means we are to reveal not simply our request, but what is driving our prayers. When we seek the Lord, we must pray honestly and openly. God already knows what is on our hearts, so therefore, we must reveal everything, even our motives. The saints of old called this “wrestling in prayer.” Wrestling should accompany our petitions, especially when there is uncertainty. This type of travail takes us beyond our simple requests to understanding the motives behind our petitions. We come to understand why we desire what we want from heaven. Sometimes I call this “getting naked” before the Lord.

In times of crisis I have found myself trusting in the answer, in the increased finances, in the mended relationship, in the opportunity, rather than trusting God, to whom I am praying. I know this sounds strange, but the answer to your prayer is not the solution. The answer is God.

I have had God tell me He will answer my request. I thought to myself, “well that was easy.” As I went on my way the Lord did answer my request. On some of these occasions, I thought the answer was going to kill me. I have had to learn the hard way if I would look to the Lord and only the Lord, I will find the peace I need in Him. The answer arrives in due season. My focus should remain on the Lord…not the “answers” to my prayers.

In addition, this passage tells us to allow the peace of God to “guard or stand watch/ watch over” our hearts and minds. I find myself wanting God to guard my request, not my heart. I want Him to make sure my request gets answered. I mistakenly believe I can take care of myself. We are anxiety ridden people because we have God standing over our request and not over our hearts.

I have had to wrestle with those requests until I arrived at the place where I said, “This is what I want, but not my will, but Your will be done.” All prayer must get into those places where we are trusting and believing God. Have you gotten to that point in your prayers? This means we trust God’s “peace process.” Prayer works the “meddling” out of you. Peace replaces our tendency to meddle and be a part of God’s solution.

So I must choose to pray, not until the answer comes, not until the circumstances change, not until things go my way. But I must pray until my faith is in God and not my request. I should pray until my trust changes. This is when real peace comes and guards my heart. If peace cannot be found, I usually discover I have “peace” issues. You will find that you are not okay because the world has changed, you are okay because you have changed. In these places our personal view of God becomes much bigger. Our peace comes not from the absence of problems, but the presence of God.

Do you remember that prayer issue you wrote down two blogs ago? Have you found God’s peace yet? We must learn to operate like King Hezekiah. You can only do what you can do and trust God to do what only He can do. Even if things do not turn out the way you want…you can still have peace… the Lord’s peace.

There is an old saying that goes… “If we keep doing the same old things, we will keep getting the same old results.” If you want to change the outcome, you have to change the income. This is what we put into the prayer process.

A man, after 25 years with one company, was still doing the same old job and drawing the same salary. Finally he went to his boss and told him he felt he had been neglected. “After all,” he said, “I’ve had a quarter of a century of experience.”
“My dear fellow,” sighed the boss, “you haven’t had a quarter of a century of experience; you’ve had one experience for a quarter of a century.”

Blessings,

Pastor

Surviving a Spiritual Heart-Attack

11 Wednesday Jul 2012

Posted by eisakouo in Living In Uncertain Times

≈ 2 Comments

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2 Chronicles 32:6-8, be strong and courageous, crisis, divide and conquer, Eleanor Roosevelt Quote, False Evidence Appearing Real, fear, forgotten or lost our words and truth, heart problems, King Hezekiah, open the gates, Sennachrib, spiritual attack, swine flu

I have been blogging about what Hezekiah did to prepare his nation for invasion. So far, I have dealt with the physical issues. More important than the physical issues are the spiritual concerns of life. Many have survived a physical attack only to discover subsequently, their spiritual life was in shambles. In wisdom, Hezekiah prepared the people’s hearts for the onslaught of Sennacherib’s verbal assaults about God, the King, and the nation. The King didn’t want his people having a spiritual heart attack in the middle of a crisis.

He appointed military officers over the people and assembled them before him in the square at the city gate and encouraged them with these words: “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or discouraged because of the king of Assyria and the vast army with him, for there is a greater power with us than with him. With him is only the arm of flesh, but with us is the LORD our God to help us and to fight our battles.” And the people gained confidence from what Hezekiah the king of Judah said. 2 Chron. 32:6-8

The number one crippling emotion in crisis is fear. Fear rules the day. Fear is not reality. It is our emotional response to what we think we know… real or imagined. Fear is an acrostic for False Evidence Appearing Real. There are 365 “fear not’s” in the Bible. There is one for each day of the week. Why? Fear is an enormous problem for God’s people. I am sure you have heard all this.

It is interesting. If I hear the Lord tell me, “I love you,” it is a sure guarantee I am going to be attacked in the near future….. to the point I question myself, “Does God really love me?” If I hear the Lord say something like, “Get ready!” rest assured, I am about to navigate some troubling waters, which will make me feel exhausted and not quite up to the challenges. If I hear the Lord reassure me about life, my family, or ministry, it is a sure bet I am going to be assaulted in these same areas. If you pay close attention to the Lord’s words to you, it will tip-you-off to the enemy’s attacks against you. In ignorance, I used to tell the Lord, “Lord, no need in telling me these types of encouraging words… I am good in those areas.” (Don’t tell anyone, but I’ve had a few pride issues.) Now I receive and believe these words from the Lord wholeheartedly. If He is encouraging me in whatever area, I need it or I am going to need it! The order and condition of our hearts is always of importance, but during a crisis, it is of extreme importance. A crisis is a bad time to begin having heart problems.

Hezekiah encourages his people with “be strong and courageous…” The enemy will soon be at the gate with an all-out, frontal assault on their belief system. As a whole, they will stand together or separately be torn apart. The invading army didn’t want to endure a long siege. They wanted this battle to be relatively quick. The easiest way for Sennacherib to conquer God’s people was for them to simply open the gates themselves and let give up without a fuss. Fear causes people to submit to the enemy. Hezekiah’s words bolstered the people’s resolve, quelled their fears, and helped them to stay the course.

A few years ago America almost shut down in places because of the Swine Flu. There wasn’t an epidemic. No, it shut down in certain places because of the perception the flu was going to bad. This message kept going out in the media. Do you remember this? For instance, in some areas like Texas, they cancelled athletics for the remainder of the year. Other schools closed for over a week because they feared their students might contract the disease. The Swine Flu was contagious, but the story was even more contagious.

One pastor told the story of having to go to the emergency room for a real emergency only to find the emergency room filled with over 200 people, all concerned they had contracted the Swine Flu. You might guess how many actually had the flu. Absolutely Nobody. Fear keeps people captive….whether real or imagined. The problem for him was that fear was occupying all the medical resources.

The media played a big part in all this. They are in business to inform the public. They also have another mission…to sell. In order to sell, they must keep their audience interested and ratings up. Fear sells. This is why news organizations thrive in bad circumstances like a flu outbreak or serial killer on the loose.

Sennacherib attempted to do the same thing in Hezekiah’s day. He sent a letter to the people inside the walls of Jerusalem communicating how feeble and weak Judah was compared to his vast army. He reminded them that all the other nations, along with their gods, were unable to stand against him. Sennacherib even had his soldiers yell over the wall in Hebrew to scare the people. His plan, divide and conquer. He used psychological warfare! Fear sells. He did what EVIL did in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. They chopped off the heads of warriors and catapulted them over the wall to create fear.

What wise people do in times of uncertainty is limit the voices of influence. They decide who they will and will not listen to before a crisis. Wise people stick to what they do know, not speculate about what they don’t know.

I am amazed at what people STOP doing in times of difficulty or trials.

Many stop reading God’s word. They stop ingesting the very words of God that brought them to the present. Why? If you needed God’s word last year, then you need it this year. If you needed God’s word last month, you need it this month. Many start listening to foreign voices…even bad voices during difficult circumstances. If a voice was bad for you 3 years ago, then it is bad for you now. In addition, others stop praying and seeking God’s face when problems arise. No encouragement there! If you needed prayer 10 years ago, then you need it all the more now.

Fear can only reach us when we have forgotten or lost our truths and words from the Lord. There will always be Sennacheribs who yell and scream the polar opposite of God’s word. If you don’t know your sources and voices, you will be prompted to follow the wrong influences. If your heart is not in order, then you will probably be one of those people who actually vote to open the gates, let the enemy into your kingdom, and hope against hope he will treat you fairly. When the Northern Kingdom was taken away into bondage, the Persians put grappling hooks in some of them and carried them away into exile. The threat was real….but so were the Words from the Lord. We all have a choice today. We can order our hearts and listen to the Lord or we can continue to allow the disinformation to create dysfunction in our hearts and guarantee a spiritual heart attack.

Blessings,

Pastor