4 posts tagged “prayer”

6:1 “Come on! Let’s return to the Lord!
He himself has torn us to pieces,
but he will heal us!
He has injured  us,
but he will bandage our wounds!
6:2 He will restore  us in a very short time;
he will heal us in a little while,
so that we may live in his presence.
6:3 So let us acknowledge him!
Let us seek  to acknowledge  the Lord!
He will come to our rescue as certainly as the appearance of the dawn,
as certainly as the winter rain comes,
as certainly as the spring rain that waters the land.”

I always have loved the oldie GC song "So Let Us Know", but so often I forget that it is based on this passage which is actually about Israel's false repentance. The prayer here is based on the fact that Israel is taking God's restoration for granted, that it is automatic, like rain in the springtime, which comes without me lifting a finger. Basically Israel is saying "Our relationship with God is like the seasons...don't worry, spring rains always come, and so will God." The prayer is completely devoid of any acknowledgment of sin.

Well here's God's response to Israel's unrepentant prayer:

What am I going to do with you, O Ephraim?

What am I going to do with you, O Judah?
For your faithfulness is as fleeting as the morning mist;
it disappears as quickly as dawn’s dew!
6:5 Therefore, I will certainly cut you into pieces at the hands of the prophets;
I will certainly kill you  in fulfillment of my oracles of judgment; 
for  my judgment  will come forth like the light of the dawn.

God here takes out some of his own Nature metaphors and uses them to describe Israel's unfaithfulness. I detect some definite sarcasm undertones here... :)

I wonder whether sometimes I don't have the same attitude of complacency toward my relationship with God as Israel did. This complacency would come because I have the same lack of fear and the same "take-it-for-granted" attitude toward God's forgiveness and grace.

I love the NET translation of the header in Psalm 38:

A psalm of David, written to get God’s attention.

- Psalm 38:0

Well I decided that instead of getting all down on myself for not having a habit of a planned prayer time every day, and instead of getting all overwhelmed by wanting to build that habit...

I'm just simply going to pray. :) For my wife and my son. For Dave. For Mike.

At the bare minimum, hopefully more than that. But every day, at the very least that's who I'll be praying for. If I don't, I will the day after.

I think in the Western civilization we've become so fixed on the Almighty Quiet Time that we've forgotten our lives really need to be about The Relationship. My relationship with my wife would be so dead and dry if all it consisted of was a planned out fifteen minute morning session every morning.

It kind of reminds me of my thoughts from a few weeks ago regarding how my relationship with God has changed.

We have a short term mission team visiting us this week. Yesterday on the way back from the airport, the pastor of the team asked me about a guy he had met when he had come on an earlier mission trip a couple of years ago. He asked whether this guy was still coming to some of our events, whether he was spiritually open, etc. I told him that yes, he was, in fact that he has been coming more and more often lately and seems more and more interested.

Then the pastor said, "That's awesome - you know, I've been praying for him every single day for the past year, actually, even a little longer than a year. In fact, my kids and I pray for him together every evening."

Think about that for a second. Every. Single. Day.

This was roughly 24 hours ago, but ever since then it's been rattling my mind. I feel so convicted and so ashamed, because I now know that a guy from a different church than mine with a very busy life and with so many problems of his own has put far more time and energy into praying for the church I go to in the past year than I have.

And to be honest, I don't know what else to write at this point. I know something has got to change, I already knew my prayer life was abysmal, but this experience was basically God looking me straight in the face, and suddenly holding up a mirror right in front of me without even saying "Brace yourself." - it completely caught me off guard, and I'm kind of still in the middle of feeling sick at my own mirror image.