October 1, 2021
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A visit to a Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream Shop - that's one of life's simple pleasures. We used to have one near our house, and the kids always enjoyed going there as a treat. And we'd look at all those unusual flavors and then we'd have to make that stressful choice: which one shall I get? Well, several years ago I was in a city to speak, and the committee member who picked me up stopped by his store with me on the way back from the airport - his Baskin-Robbins store. It was closed, so he took me in, pointed to all the cases of ice cream with all those great flavors and said those mind-blowing words, "Take whatever you want!" Oh boy! Not just a single little scoop of one little flavor; it's all available to you, boy! Go for it!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Store Is Yours!"
It's pretty exciting when the person who owns it all throws open his store to you. That's exactly what God has in mind for us when we pray to Him. The One who owns it all opens up His resources and says, "They're yours for what you're facing right now." But so often we either neglect to go to the owner, or we go in asking for a single dip, and He wants to give us so much more.
God throws open the door in our word for today from the Word of God in Jeremiah 33:2-3. "This is what the Lord says, He who made the earth, the Lord who formed it and established it - the Lord is His name." OK, there's no doubt about it, the One who was about to make this promise is the one who owns it all, made it all, controls it all. And He says to you and me, "Call to Me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things which you do not know."
So, when you're saying, "I don't know." God is saying, "Then, pray big." Your mission impossible, your staggering need, your emotional weakness, your physical weakness - those are the canvasses on which "He who made the earth" paints some of His most magnificent works. That's why Paul got to the place where he said he would "delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties." Why? He said, "For when I am weak, then I am strong." In other words, when you're the most desperate, when you're the most powerless, clueless, God shows up with His amazing powerful interventions.
When we forget the size of God we're praying to, we under-pray, and then we under-live. Right now there are some God-sized things you need to be trusting Him for; things so big only God can do them. You're in what I call the "God Alone Zone" - God alone can do this one! Prayer is God's access code to the unlimited resources of heaven - all the grace you need for what's going on, all the comfort you need, all the physical and emotional strength, and all the wisdom to know how to figure it out. So pray like it! Let prayer, not planning or politicking or scheming, let prayer be your primary method of getting things done!
At a conference I was at, the praise band led us in a chorus that repeated these words, "Touching heaven, changing earth, touching heaven, changing earth." God has thrown open His storehouse to His children. He's unlocked His infinite resources and He's promised that our prayer of faith would unleash those resources and aim them at the need we have, the situation we face, or the person we love. When you're praying, don't ever forget you really are touching heaven and changing earth.