Thursday, July 10, 2008
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OK, so I fought it for a while and I lived in denial for a while. At least I have faced reality now; I have bitten the bullet. I finally broke down and got glasses - mostly for reading. I had been the 20/20 kid my whole life. I just couldn't face the fact that the world was getting blurrier and blurrier. I just thought my arms were getting shorter. But finally I couldn't hold my reading material far enough from my eyes to make things stop blurring. So, hello, glasses! And what a difference! All those little words that were fuzzing out on me suddenly look big and clear! Including what I'm looking at right now! It's amazing how clear things start to look when you're seeing them through corrective glasses!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Putting On Your Glasses, Getting On Your Knees."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Nehemiah 1. Actually, I thought this said Jeremiah before I put my glasses on. There's a great prayer here that God was so impressed with that He put it in the Bible. And it's a real-life model of what the ultimate purpose of prayer is. Obviously, our purpose is to get whatever we're praying about, but God's purpose is to give us His glasses.
Nehemiah has a heavy burden on his heart. It's the news that God's people and God's city are a mess. And it drives him to his knees for weeks of praying about it. I don't know what's weighing heavy on your heart right now, but I hope it's driven you to your knees. Maybe like Nehemiah, you feel powerless to solve this one. Then you'll be interested in how he ends up praying after initially focusing on the situation. Praying about the situation changes how he looks at almost everything. After heavy duty praying, he's seeing things much more clearly - through God's glasses. And that's what the ultimate purpose of praying is, not getting an answer, but getting God's perspective - which often leads to the answer.
First, he's realized again who God is. "O Lord, God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant of love." Notice, he's not talking about the great and awesome problem, but the great and awesome God. He's spent enough time with God on this that his vision has cleared. He's not overwhelmed by the situation anymore. He's overwhelmed by God - a God who is totally in charge - a God who always keeps His promises.
Then, he sees clearly who he is. Three times in this prayer he refers to himself as "Your servant." Now Nehemiah works for the most powerful man in the world - the king of Persia. But as he spends time in prayer, he remembers that he reports to the King of the universe. As you pray, you should see yourself more clearly - not as the victim or the problem-solver in the situation. You are just God's servant, playing whatever position He asks you to in this situation - living like a servant, with no agenda but your Master's agenda for each new day.
Faithful praying over a situation will also give you a clear vision of who those folks around you are. "They are Your servants and Your people whom You redeemed" Nehemiah said. The believers around you are not your competitors or your problems - they are God's people, purchased with the blood of God's Son. You'll treat them differently if you get God's glasses and remember who they are. That happens while you pray.
Prayer glasses will also show you what the real issue is. In the situation that burdened Nehemiah, he reached this conclusion, "I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself, have committed against You." As he prayed, God gave him the insight to see beyond the initial situation he was praying about to the sin that was causing the situation.
Finally, Nehemiah prays that God will "give Your servant success today by granting him favor in the presence of this man." This man was the king he worked for! But praying showed Nehemiah what his next step needed to be.
It's that burden on your heart that gets you to praying. But if you will persist before God, you will notice your vision starting to clear up. The Divine Ophthalmologist will be giving you glasses to see Him, and yourself, and the people around you, and the real issues, and your next step as you've never seen them before. When you go to your knees, you get God's glasses. And suddenly, things look so much clearer!