I was really tired when I got up after the staff dinner. I had great fun working with my colleagues to come up with a mini musical comedy. I think I shocked a lot of my colleagues by what I did and I hope they really had a good laugh. So I was home, tired and groggy and really didn't get around to working on Precepts lesson.
I was also super late so whatever was discussed, I was not really following. I had only one intention and that is to listen to Dr Wayne Barber (link to his website with a good video on living grace). The message was so timely.
It is about prayers and how we should pray. The first point that Wayne did was to clarify about the desires of our heart. What we desire to do for God was already placed there in our hearts. I was so happy to hear that because after the skit, two of my colleagues asked me not to leave the school. At the dinner table, one teacher came out right to ask if I was quitting and I was not too pleased because at the table was a member of the board of trustees of the school. I affirmed his suspicion and explained why I wanted to quit. And that affirmation was good for me too.
If God has so placed the desires in our hearts so long ago, then how are we going to pray for the path to be made straight. If the desire to serve Him in China is already there because he placed it there so then God must surely see this to fruition. In a way I am thankful to God for that because it means He will take care of my life.
Prayer is like an incense to God. He loves to hear us pray because to Him, it is like a special incense that we put before the altar. The bible describes how the incense for the golden altar should be made in the Tabernacle of God. Some of the spices are to give the sweet fragrance and other spices are to preserve this sweet fragrance. Interestingly the scent is made from the gum of the trees of these spices. God is very specific about what portion and what proportions He wanted the priests to mix in order to achieve this sweet scent. Likewise with our lives, He is very precise in what He will do. SO I will trust Him.
The golden altar is just in front of the veil that will lead to the Ark of the covenant of God where only the great high priest can enter. Those who even went near it and are not the great high priest, will be struck dead. So God is that Holy and that precise and He means business when He says so. He wants the incense to burn at the golden altar all day and all night. Likewise our prayers are like incense and we have to pray all day and all night and without ceasing to our God.
What can we pray for without ceasing? Even small little stuff? We always say don't sweat the little stuff. But GOD want us to bring Him even our little stuff, no matter how insignificant! Thank you Lord.
Of course real prayers come from a life that is broken and purified before God. Will God hear sinners. Most certainly He will hear the repentant sinner and the sinner who cries to Him for help. A life that is broken is difficult to live without asking God to come in and help. To be purified is not to be pure. We cannot don't sin. He understands that. But to come to Him and ask Him to purify is to acknowledge we need His forgiveness and His strength. This is to God an incense.
Finally real prayers will be vindicated one day. While we pray for our worst enemies and in our prayer we tell God our stories of how we are deceived or even disadvantaged, God will vindicate us in His own time. He will put them all together...yes all the prayers of all of those of us who pray to be vindicated will all be collected and He will vindicate us. Again not in our time, but in His time. Remember He is precise. He means business.
I wish to say God is a God with a lot of love, no room for wrath and no room for judgment. But our God is all WISE. He will see through our deceit, our very being and He will judge.
The message brought by Wayne Barber set me thinking a lot and will do so for the months to come. I am encouraged that the desires He so put in my heart are from Him but I pray I will be able to follow His heart. I have some answers and I know that I have a great tendency towards seeking security. Logically I should go where the money is and where the greatest comfort is. But the heart is very reluctant to enslave itself to the things this world promises. There are things the world cannot give me and I tasted this again last night when I met up with some of my ex students. I find it rather disturbing but then, this is life!
The world continues to entice with power, lust, money and security. But God says to come to Him for rest. I want that REST. Do I want to effect that Prayer changes things or do I will do work like Things changes Prayer?
May you pray too as you labour each day. God's richest blessings on you throughout the week.
