Tag Archives: god’s will

Fill my cup, Lord

Posted on April 24, 2012 by Andrea Graham| Comments Off

By Adam Graham

“And herein is that saying true, `One soweth and another reapeth.’ I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labor; other men labored, and ye have entered into their labors.” John 6:37-38

The context of the scripture is that the disciples were baptizing even more than John. The disciple’s success was the result of the ministry of faithful people who we don’t know. Probably these people didn’t even know they were sowing, maybe they even felt like they weren’t accomplishing anything or were failures. I really relate to them.

However, they ultimately prepared things for the Lord and his apostles. This gives me the feeling that we may be sowing and earlier Jesus promises:

“And he that reapeth receiveth wages and gathereth fruit unto life eternal, that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together.-John 4:36.”

Lord, we thank you for your word. Lord, we are weary today and have been so restless. We feel more like those who sows, perhaps without realizing it, and someone else reaps. Strengthen us and encourage our hearts today. We thank you for your peace. We thank you for being with us. Please give us direction and purpose today. Show us your vision. Prepare us to receive from you whatever we need to fulfill your plan for our lives. Protect us from the enemy’s interference today. Empower us to resist the devil and overcome his wiles. Please bring forth a good harvest of bountiful spiritual fruits in our lives today. In Jesus’ name we pray, Lord, amen.

Posted in Bible and Theology, Gospel, Prayer and Devotions

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Help is on the Way

Posted on April 5, 2012 by Andrea Graham| Comments Off

Let this be recorded for a generation to come, so that a people yet to be created may praise the LORD: that he looked down from his holy height;
from heaven the LORD looked at the earth, to hear the groans of the prisoners,
to set free those who were doomed to die, that they may declare in Zion the name of the LORD, and in Jerusalem his praise, (Psalm 102:18-21 ESV)

Before you were ever born, before Christ died and the Church was created and became the people of the Kingdom of Heaven, the words of scripture were recorded with you on the heart and mind of our God. From the beginning of time, he knew the horrors awaiting us and willed to save us from the grave. Before we groaned and cried out, he had already heard our cries as we were in the bondage of sin and determined to come and set us free.

So let’s not fear, brothers and sisters, as we groan and hurt and struggle. Let’s not quaver in doubt of whether our Father God cares and wants to hear about our troubles. He knew from the beginning and assured us with words recorded millennia ago that there is one who cares in Heaven and he has willed to bring us through this and deliver us home to His heavenly city and turn our groaning into praise and rejoicing in His name, too.

Thank you, Father, for knowing us from the beginning and willing to save us and bring us safely through this earthly turmoil. I pray we would trust in you and turn our eyes to the heights our help will come from. Grant us boldness to approach your throne and present our hearts to you as they truly are, to allow you to do the redemptive work in us that you have already purposed to do. In Jesus’ name we pray, Lord, amen.

Posted in Bible and Theology, Faith, Fear and Anxiety, Gospel, Grace, Prayer and Devotions, Suffering

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Make this Our Only Boast: What God Has Won

Posted on October 4, 2011 by Andrea Graham| Comments Off

“Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring.” (Proverbs 27:1)

We take so much for granted in life. We make our plans and we carry them out. We schedule things in advance, expecting tomorrow to be available. To a certain extent, modern life requires this, but the day will come we are reminded that we don’t know everything. We can’t account for everything. So we shouldn’t be smug, resting on the laurels we expect to receive tomorrow like we’ve already won today. Bragging about our plans for the future, taking pride in our goals and ambitions, is setting ourselves up for failure. No matter how realistic we are in dreaming big, eventualities may rise that waylay us. We could get excited and run ahead of God and find, when we get to tomorrow, he had other plans.

God knows his plans for tomorrow, but we do not. Only God knows what the broken fallen world will throw at us and how he plans to navigate us around it and bring us peace and strengthened character, and him glory, and the kingdom advanced–if we trust him. This is why James instructed us to say, “If the Lord wills, I will do this and that.”

Dream big, but don’t count on anything but this: what God has specifically promised us, that he will do. However, we may not know how he will do it, and we rarely know when. We still can’t boast in tomorrow. We can only know that one day we will win a crown in Heaven. We will be a saint dwelling in a glorified body like our risen Lord’s, set free from the troubles and brokenness of this life.

If you’re Abraham or Sarah, and God’s promised you a child even though you’re old, you will have that baby. If you’re a slave in Egypt or Babylon, He will free you and deliver you to the land he has promised, even if he has to part oceans or soften the hearts of unbelieving kings. If you’re Elijah, Elisha, Ezekiel, or Jeremiah, and, God has given you a message to deliver to his people, keep on working toward that goal, knowing he will work through you to bring it to those he wants to hear it.

Lord, grant us the humility and wisdom not to boast of the prizes we plan to win for the chickens that haven’t hatched yet, but please also give us the courage and faith to trust that what you have promised us and secured for us in the future, we will receive when you will it. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.

Posted in Bible and Theology, Faith, God's promises, Prayer and Devotions

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A Prayer for When You’re Under a Cloud of Darkness

Posted on September 8, 2011 by Andrea Graham| Comments Off

“Teach me to do your will, for you are my God! Let your good Spirit lead me on level ground!” (Psalm 143:10)

David prays for instruction from God on how to do God’s will, and presumably what God’s will is to start with, at a time when he is being pursed by the enemy, who sounds more like depression than a human enemy in this psalm: his soul is crushed, he sits in darkness, his spirit faints, his heart fails–or he is overcome with dismay.

David remembers first what God has done in the past and cries out to God to speak comfort to him and deliver him, determining to trust God.

Before David asks God to instruct David in obedience to God’s will, he does ask God out right to give him knowledge of the way he should go–what path he should take, the choices he should make–because he’s lifting up his battered soul to God for healing, and knows through experience that depression compromises our ability to make sound judgments. In his weakness, he’s relying all the more upon God’s leading. David determines not to listen to depression’s lies that he is alone and abandoned. He puts his trust in God to be right beside him even though he can’t see God there and lead him through the darkness. He prays that God would direct him over a clear path without any obstacles or uneven places for him to trip over, and deliver him out of the grasp of the enemy of our souls.

Lord, we say amen to David’s prayer. Show us the way we should go. Lead us over level ground, that we might not stumble into sin. Lead us into your light. Strengthen our hearts within us. Open our ears to hear your word and the voice of your spirit. Enable us to recognize your voice and discern between your voice and the voices of fear and depression and the flesh. We have decided to trust you. Enable us to trust you in deed. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.

Posted in Bible and Theology, Fear and Anxiety, Lament, Prayer and Devotions, Suffering

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And the Sheep of his hand–heed his voice!

Posted on August 31, 2011 by Andrea Graham| Comments Off

“Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker! For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. Today, if you hear his voice,” (Psalm 95:6-7)

To ears familiar with a certain chorus, the psalm’s transition here is as jarring as the stopping point is awkward and incomplete. We go from an upbeat worship tune playing in our heads to a solemn, perhaps even tuneless, warning not to harden our hearts against the voice of God.

So what is the connection? We are the sheep of his pasture, kept in the hand of the shepherd. God’s sheep, Jesus declared famously in the gospels, know their shepherd’s voice and heed it. So it is a quite logical next step to urge, if the shepherd speaks, be a good sheep and listen and follow him rather than going astray after our own way.

Lord, we thank you for choosing us and making us the sheep of your pasture. We thank you for keeping us safe in your hands. Open our ears, Lord, to both hear, know, and recognize your voice. Grant us discernment to know what thoughts of the heart are from you, what is from the enemy, and what is of our own flesh. Give us an earnest desire to seek after what your voice says and follow your lead. Soften our hearts towards you today. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.

Posted in Bible and Theology, Prayer and Devotions

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Want to Grow Spiritually? Slow Down!

Posted on August 2, 2011 by Andrea Graham| Comments Off

“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” (James 1:22)

According to James, we are deceiving ourselves about what we believe in our hearts when we read the bible, known intellectually what it says, and go out and ignore it in practice. So how do we not turn away from this uncomfortable mirror and promptly forget what we looked like and keep on as we are?

In our instant culture and world, we often react by habit and by impulse. If our habits are godly, that is great. If our habits are indistinguishable from our impulses, that’s not so great. Contrary to what we often like to think, we are most likely to react from the fallen sinful flesh when we’re go-go-going rather than being led by the spirit as we hope to be, or at least like to think we are.

Unfortunately for our time, the spirit walk still requires stopping to plug into God and sync our hearts to him. We have to stop and think rather than letting our hearts take the lead. As our “why the heck did I do/say that?” regrets after the fact testify, our hearts aren’t always on the same page as our minds are with what our hearts believe and what our heads believe. So we have to stop and think it through and deliberately act according to what we know to be true. Such discipline, along with prayer and the work of the spirit, is the path to godly habits and hearts that aren’t holding dirty secrets from us anymore.

If only it didn’t take so much time, huh? What is most important to us, keeping up with the rest of our crazy world, or spiritual growth?

Lord, ouch. Strengthen me in discipline. You know I am weak of mind here and prone to be driven by impulse. Check me in my spirit, remind me to stop and pray about it, to mentally search your scriptures for what your way is. Open my spiritual ears to hear you, give me a heart that seeks you. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Posted in Bible and Theology, Prayer and Devotions, Sin and Holiness

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Mystery of Life, Mystery of Faith

Posted on May 15, 2011 by Andrea Graham| Comments Off

“As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything.” (Ecclesiastes 11:5)

This verse reminds us of the mystery–we don’t know how the spirit joins to the body, as we are knit together in the womb or otherwise, and we can’t always see God at work. We often don’t know what he is doing in our lives or others’ lives. But we can trust he does have a plan for us. The question is, are we submitted vessels? Are we driving and going our own way, or are we listening to the Spirit and following in Christ’s footsteps?  Are we letting God work in our lives today?

Sometimes, we want to know everything, understand everything. Sometimes we want God to explain himself to us what his plan is so we understand it and so it makes sense to us before we will follow it. Ecclesiastes reminds us it doesn’t work like that. We walk by faith, not by sight. We follow because we know our shepherd’s voice and trust him, not because we necessarily understand his leading and can see why it is rational to do this now. Regarding the Lord, of course. Who but God is worthy of such blind allegiance?

Lord, forgive our stubborn obstinateness. Give us tender hearts attuned to yours, strengthen us to hear your voice, increase our discipline to seek your will, increase our courage to crucify the flesh and follow your leading and guidance even when we don’t understand. More importantly, grant us discernment to know the difference between your spirit and your voice and deceptions of our own heart and the evil one. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.

Posted in Faith, Prayer and Devotions

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