"I wish I could tell you that your youth pastor just prayed fervently all the time; slowed down, sought God with my mouth closed and ears open. Fact is ...I just have to do it on purpose, like everything else. There's always some "busy-ness" in the day, and I'm tired of "meaning to" ...and never getting around to. I see soooo much indifference toward Christ' church, even among believers. Not a judgment, just a fact. I've been there. I was thinking of my own attitude when I "cry out" to God. Sometimes I feel like just because I "cry out" that God is obligated to open the heavens and POOF!!! ...make all things clear to me. Foolishness. That's thinking in "my" time-frame. I want to learn, and want others to learn with me, to indeed cry out ...but then to get the "I" out of the way ....and trust God, patiently, and faithfully. Today, I read Job 35:9-13, which says...
9 "People cry out when they are oppressed. They groan beneath the power of the mighty. 10 Yet they don't ask, 'Where is God my Creator, the one who gives songs in the night? 11 Where is the one who makes us smarter than the animals and wiser than the birds of the sky?' 12 And when they cry out, God does not answer because of their pride. 13 But it is wrong to say God doesn't listen, to say the Almighty isn't concerned.
I have much that I need to pray for in life! Plenty of concerns for myself, for others, longing for direction from the Lord, etc. The Scripture, above, reminds me of how faithless and thoughtless, and thank-less we can be. So ...let's crI-OUT! Then, let's get "I" out of the way and leave the results in God's hands. Let's lift petitions to God and then let's practice waiting patiently for Him to respond. Let's practice waiting faithfully as we trust Him to respond to our fervent prayers to "Him" to show us directions to move in our personal lives, our church lives, and in our every way lives.
Love you all,
Bro. Steve"
