Book 3 of Musings Answering Our Own Prayers

It has been said we should put legs on our prayers.

This means we should pray and then go forth to do what we can to answer our prayers. Putting legs on a prayer is something like putting shoes on an eagle. Only God can show us when to wait and when to go forth.

I guess waiting for God to do what we want done is one of the more difficult aspects of the Christians discipleship, particularly if it appears we could work out a plan to accomplish our goals.

Of course, we have to be practical. When a task is set before us and we are able to perform it, we probably should do so. However, even then it is best to bring it before the Lord before we set out to do it. The longer I live the more I become aware it is best to take nothing for granted. Every word we speak, every step we take, should be held before the Lord for His approval and guidance.

I think one important lesson a pastor learns, when there is a problem in the church, is to go to the Lord to find out if this is something the pastor should act on, or if it is too sensitive and must be left to the Lord to solve.

This probably is true for all of us, whether or not we are a pastor.

There is one thing the Lord said about Himself that I think is very important. Jesus said He could do nothing of Himself, only what He saw the Father do. Jesus emphasized the fact that what He said and did originated with the Father and not with Himself.

Is this true of you and me? Can we say that the things we do, the life we are living, is not coming from us but from Christ?

I believe this is our goal. It is not accomplished overnight. To get to the place where it is Christ who is living and not we ourselves requires a lot of Christian experience.

When we start off in the Lord, many of us, we are filled with burning desires of all sorts. These desires may be in the area of relationships, or personal advancement, or the perfecting of a skill, or education, or any number of other ambitions. Was that true of you?

As you might imagine, all of these war against our desire to just abide in Christ and let Him live His Life in us.

So we go through life, banging our head against the wall we might say, sometimes falling into deception, trying to learn when we are to step out and make things happen and when we are to commit our ways to the Lord.

The Bible tells us that deferred hope makes the heart sick, but when the desire comes it is a tree of life. The Bible also states that in God's Presence is fullness of joy, and at His right hand there are pleasures for eternity.

I believe this. I believe God is bringing us to joy.

Satan will always try to get us to take a shortcut to what we want. That's what sin is-a shortcut to our desires. The issue is one of waiting on the Lord, isn't it?

The Lord Jesus told us to lay up our treasures in Heaven because they are safer there than in a bank on earth. Do you know this is difficult to do?

All of us want love, joy, and peace. If we are ill or handicapped we desire to be strong and healthy. If we are impoverished we want to have enough wealth that we don't have to be worrying all the time about our needs being met.

We may want to be famous, or to have a winning personality, or to be expert in some kind or art or science. We have all kinds of desires.

The Lord Jesus told us to seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all we need will be added to us.

Since all this is true, we see that the Christian life is one of patience! patience! patience!

We have a choice in life, don't we. We can pray and then set out to get what we want. Or we can pray and then watch the Lord carefully to see what we should do. Our life either is one of ceaseless striving or else it is one of seeking the will of Christ.

I think God created the physical world so He could determine who would deny himself in order to find God, and who would charge ahead and force his way and his will.

Why is it important for God to know this? Because when we pass into the real world, of which the present world is but the briefest of shadows, God wants to know in advance what to expect of us.

If we are one who loves God to the point of denying himself and waiting for God, then that person can be assigned to a position of responsibility and of nearness to God in the next life.

But if the individual is grasping, selfish, willing to hurt others in order to get what he wants, then God knows better than to have that person close to himself or to give him or her a position of responsibility in the Kingdom.

But won't the grasping person become loving and unselfish once he dies and goes into the next world? I don't think so. The Bible doesn't say he or she will. Logic doesn't indicate he will. Satan and his angels did not remain righteous because they were near God in the spirit world.

So the purpose of the present world is to find out what kind of a person we are, and to help us change for the better if we are willing.

The Kingdom of God is associated with patience. The saints of old endured with patience their problems and temptations. So must we permit patience to work its perfect work in us.

It is not easy to go through years of patiently waiting for the Lord, faithfully performing the tasks set before us, but there is no other kind of Christian life.

Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands.

Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD. (Psalms 27:14)