October 20 - John 11:38-57, Luke 17:11-18:8

Good morning everyone,

Today we began, in our reading, with Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, moving on to the chief priests and the Pharisees calling a meeting of the Sanhedrin to decide what to do with Jesus. Deciding to put out an order for him to be arrested on sight. Little do they know they are fulfilling prophecy.

Meanwhile Jesus, on his way to Jerusalem, came upon ten men who had leprosy. They called out to Jesus in a loud voice to have pity in them. Jesus told them to show themselves to the priests and as they responded in faith they were healed. The thing is, only one of them, a Samaritan at that, came back to thank Jesus. You know, God does not demand that we thank Him, however, He is ever so pleased when we do, using our grateful attitude to teach us more about himself. Make sense?

I like the parable of the persistent widow as it serves to show us that we should continue to bring our requests to God. Some would argue, “You lack faith if you nag God, you should only ask once and leave it at that.”  To them I would say, that’s just not true. However, to persist in prayer and not give up does not mean endless repetition or painfully long prayer sessions but rather to continually present our prayers to God as we live for Him day by day. We are not to give up if there is, what we would consider, a delay in our prayer being answered because as I have mentioned before, in addition to saying “yes” God can and often will say “no” or maybe “let’s wait on that one.”

Without question, one of the hardest things for many Christians to do is to wait on the Lord and His timing to make certain things happen in their lives. We are so used to everything moving at microwave speed, that we have a very hard time in adjusting to the slower ways that God will work things out in our lives. Right?

Friends, where you can, where we all can, get into major trouble with the Lord in our own personal walk, is when we do not wait on Him. When we loose our patience with his slower time frame, take it back into our own hands to work the situation ourselves. Who has not done that? Sadly by doing that, by not learning how to adjust to His slower time frame and the slower way He likes to work things out in our life, we could easily miss out on special blessings He has in store for us along our path, our divine destinies that He has set up for each one of our lives. And really, it is crazy to think we can do anything better than God. That’s just nuts. He is perfect, His plan’s are spot on and we, though we will be the last to admit is, are bumbling fools by comparison who have a tendency to make a mess of even the simplest plan. 

So whatever your request, whatever the prayer for your life or someone else’s, don’t worry about it. Instead, as we’re told in Philippians, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God” and in Colossians, “Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.” Then sit back and let God do his thing. Amen?

Have a good day and to God be the glory.

God bless you all …..