Tag Archives: faith

Your Prayer Has Been Heard

Christian Life, , , ,

YOUR PRAYER HAS BEEN HEARD

“But the angel reassured him, ‘Don’t fear, Zachariah. Your prayer had been heard. Elizabeth, your wife, will bear a son by you. You are to name him John. You’re going to leap like a gazelle for joy, and not only you — many will delight in his birth. He’ll achieve great stature with God.'” Luke 1:13-15 (The Message).

“Your prayer has been heard.” That must have been a shock for Zachariah. What prayer? He and Elizabeth had prayed many prayers in their long lives together. Which one was the angel referring to? Perhaps they were still awaiting answers to some of their prayers and some had long been shelved – especially their prayer for a child. You don’t keep praying for something that is long past its “sell-by-date”.

Perhaps it just wasn’t God’s will or perhaps He had forgotten that childbearing ceases after a certain time, or perhaps, God forbid, He had just not heard them. Isn’t that the way we think when God is silent on the things that we are screaming about?

Zachariah had some important lessons to learn about God that day.

Firstly, Zachariah had to learn that God’s time table and his didn’t necessarily have to coincide. God was putting their details into a much bigger picture. If that entailed a long wait for them, it was part of their discipline in God’s kingdom. God’s silence does not mean He has not heard. It means He is working on a bigger plan and we need the patience to wait until His bigger plan is revealed.

Secondly, he had to learn that chronological age is no deterrent to God. The fact that they were old was irrelevant; in fact is suited God’s plan because no one could doubt that it was God at work.

Thirdly, God only works in supernatural ways when there is no possibility of working through the natural. The angel made it clear to him that Elizabeth would have a child by him. This was not going to be a virgin birth like the birth of Jesus. John the Baptist was as human as anyone else. He had an important role to play in preparing the way for the Messiah, but it would be through the anointing of the Holy Spirit, not through any supernatural birth or abilities given to him by God.

We often have the false idea that God overrides the natural and arbitrarily does miracles in answer to our prayers. This is not to deny the miraculous but to put it in perspective. For instance, Jesus refused to turn stones into bread at Satan’s instigation, not only because “Daddy hadn’t told Him to”, but also because that would not have been a miracle; it would have been magic because stones have no “bread’ properties.

Yet Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes, using ordinary food in an extraordinary way to meet needs because there was no other way. How often do we ask God to step in and do things for which He has made us responsible? We ask Him to make us more patient in the hopes that He will suddenly fill us with patience, or some other virtue, supernaturally. Instead, He orchestrates circumstances that demand that we exercise patience, and patience grows!

The lessons Zachariah had to learn are for us too. God is writing His big story, and giving us the privilege of being a part of it if we put ourselves at His disposal. He wants us to move away from demanding His attention to willingly fitting into the bigger picture for His glory.

Whose Perspective Counts?

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WHOSE PERSPECTIVE COUNTS?

“Just then He looked up and saw the rich people dropping offerings in the collection plate. Then He saw a poor widow put in two pennies. He said, ‘The plain truth is that this widow has given by far the largest offering today. All these others made offerings that they’ll never miss; she gave extravagantly what she couldn’t afford — she gave her all.'” Luke 21:1-4 (The Message).

He noticed! Isn’t that just like God?

I don’t think Jesus was sitting near the temple treasury specifically watching and judging people as they dropped in their offerings. He just happened to notice an obviously poor woman, mingling with the rich people, giving her gift as they put their offerings in the collection box.

Why did she stand out among the crowd? Did her threadbare clothing give her away? Was she wearing widow’s garb? The wealthy people would have dressed accordingly, and she would not have blended in with them. Perhaps she attracted Jesus’ attention because His heart was always for the underdog.

In the Sermon on the Mount, He has spoken out against the practice of the ‘hypocrites’ who gave their money in such a way that they wanted to attract attention to their ‘generosity’. The collection boxes were trumpet-shaped containers which prevented would-be thieves from helping themselves because the base was too narrow to get their hands in. If a person wanted to be noticed, he would toss his coins into the funnel so that it would make a ringing sound, hence the saying, ‘Don’t blow your own trumpet.’

Amid the ostentation of the rich, this poor widow slipped in and unobtrusively dropped in her two small coins, the smallest denomination in their currency. And Jesus noticed! Once again His comment puts our ‘generosity’ into God’s perspective which differs so much from our own. He noticed, not how much she gave, but how much she had left.

Of course, that should not put us on a guilt trip. God is realistic. He does not expect us to give our entire livelihood away. What would be the point of that? But He does hold us accountable as stewards of what He has entrusted to us. The difference between the attitude of God’s people and the people who refuse to acknowledge Him should be, but is not always, that we are guided by God’s requirements and not by greed. He gives generously so that we will share our resources with others.

The first thought that comes to me is that this widow’s generosity was prompted by her identity with poor people. As a widow, if she had no family to support her, she was dependent on the generosity of others. She knew what it felt like to depend on others for her livelihood. She also knew what it was like to have nothing. Her two little coins were not much, but it was all she had to share with others.

Secondly, to give all she had meant that she had faith in God to supply her need, risking, everything on the faithfulness of God. That introduces another dimension to our responsibility to obey God — faith, which is spelt r-i-s-k. It is not difficult to take faith-risks in other areas of our lives but in the money category…that’s different!

This little woman caught Jesus’ attention because her action lined right up with God’s perspective. He did not see her as a poor nobody because of her appearance or her station in life. He saw her as great in God’s kingdom because she understood, believed and put into practice God’s will, and God always responds to obedience.

God works, not by giving to us according to our need but by meeting our need when we take care of the needs of others. When we give, we create a current that brings God’s supply to us through the generosity of the others. That’s God’s wisdom!!

Persistent Faith

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PERSISTENT FAITH

“Jesus told them a story showing that it was necessary for them to pray constantly and never quit. He said, “There was once a judge in some city who never gave God a thought and cared nothing for people. A widow in that city kept after him. ‘My rights are being violated. Protect me.’ ….After this went on and on he said to himself,…’Because the widow won’t quit badgering me, I’d better do something and see that she gets justice — otherwise I am going to end up beaten black and blue by her pounding.’

“Then the Master said, ‘Do you hear what that judge, corrupt as he is, is saying? So what makes you think that God won’t step in and work justice for His chosen people, who continue to cry out for help? Won’t He stick up for them? I assure you, He will. He will not drag His feet. But how much of that kind of persistent faith will the Son of Man find on the earth when He comes?'” Luke 18:1-8 (The Message).

Another story that reveals the character of God by contrast! A godless judge is moved to action by a shamelessly persistent ‘nobody’ widow to get her off his back. It was not her need or his compassion that drove him to action but her nagging that got him going.

We must not think for a moment that God is like that. He is, first and foremost, a Father. Does a father hold out against his child until the child’s persistent nagging gets him down? Not if he is a loving and caring father but, however loving and caring an earthly father he may be, he can never match the love of God for His children.

So why does God sometimes seem deaf or unmoved by the cries of His children? If I had the answer, I would be the first person in Christendom to solve this mystery! I can only make a few suggestions from the evidence of Scripture as to why God’s answers don’t come when we expect them.

God is painting His picture on a very big canvas. We often tend to think that we are the only people in the universe. When our need arises, God must step in and do something when we call. But He is working out His purposes, not only in our lives but also across communities, nations and the world.

He heard the cries of His slave people in Egypt but He had to prepare a Moses and a national and international situation that would be the right time to deliver His people from slavery and take them into the Promised Land. With a new dynasty in Egypt, He changed their status from pampered and protected people to slaves so that they would groan under their oppression and long for freedom. Then God was ready to take them out.

God gave sons to aged and childless couples like Abraham and Sarah, Manoah and his wife and Zachariah and Elizabeth to fulfil His greater purposes for His nation and for the eventual coming of His Messiah. God weaves the answers to our prayers into a much bigger picture in some mysterious way that is beyond our comprehension.

Jesus spoke of ‘persistent faith’. These two words are almost interchangeable. Real faith is confidence in God that does not give up, even when things seem really bad. Once again, Abraham is a good example. What father would deliberately take his own son, that one who was born to him in his old age, and raise a knife to kill him on a sacrificial altar? Only a man, whose confidence in God was unshakeable, would do that because his faith was tried and tested.

A statement I heard in a teaching long ago has helped me to understand why God’s delays seem like unanswered prayer: “God will not answer your prayers until He has put all the structures in place to maintain that answer,”

Now that makes a whole lot of sense. If He were to jump to attention every time we call, He would leave a string of disasters behind because every answer to prayer needs a supporting structure so that God’s work in our lives is not wasted.

Imagine if God had given Abraham his son when he first began to pray, or if God had delivered Israel when they first began to cry out. Abraham would not have grown a faith so strong that he trusted God for his son’s life. There would not have been a Moses, raised in the palace and honed in the desert to lead His people out of slavery.

So what’s the point? God is saying, “Will you trust me, even though nothing seems to be happening? Although you can’t see it yet, I am working and, if you believe, you will see your place in my great big picture.”