“I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me…” ( John 10:4).
Have you ever had a challenging matter and needed someone to share with! Of course for any thing personal you would only feel comfortable to share with one you have a personal relationship. The reason might range from confidentiality, empathy and time. You don’t just pull out a stranger to bear out your heartaches seeking for a solution.
And this is where our God comes in!
When Moses was faced with a situation where God was about to obliterate the people he was leading for their rebellion, he pleaded with him as with an intimate friend. “I have seen these people,” the Lord said to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked people. Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation” ( Exodus 32:9-10). To this Moses fell on his face and cried, “Lord,” he said, “why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand?” ( vv 11). “Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever” (vv 13). And, because of these pleas, “Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened” ( vv 14).
All this is because Moses had a personal relationship with God! Jesus too had a personal relationship with his Father. This is why he took time in prayer talking to God through the night of Gethsemane.
Like Moses, and Christ, ours should be a personal relationship with our creator, the loving God. It means it is him we should run to when weighed down with whatever challenge, pleading for his ear, and direct intervention in what might seem a lost cause!
Prayer today: Lord Father God of Abraham, maker of heaven and earth, to you I come as a Father to a loving child, and bear out all my heart to you, because you listen and care for me, and I wait upon you, all this I pray in Jesus’s name!
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17/05/2024 - 18/05/2024 All day“And I in righteousness I shall see your face; when I awake, I shall be satisfied with seeing your likeness” (Psalm 17:15)
One of the defining aspects we see in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ is that He began the day with prayer. “Very early in the morning while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed” (Mark 1:35). As he was always surrounded by crowds and after such a busy day before of preaching and engaging the Pharisees in debates this must have been a therapeutic moment for Christ when he would have some good time to himself.
But there was also more. For Jesus being away in a secluded place would also mean a chance to pour out His heart to God, meditate in quietness, plan for the day ahead and listen to the Father. Jesus must have looked up to this moment every day knowing its benefits. Conversations with His Father must have been real and intimate, bringing a certain soothing and uplifting of His spirit. You do not wake up and stick to something on a daily basis that is a drag – this must have been his best time of the day!
Martin Luther the leader of the protestant reformation is reputed to once have said, “I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.” Here is the point. In the olden days before the arrival of locomotive transport those who were setting out for a long journey on foot had to start early with the first cock crow before the punishing sun came out. One of the things they had to start with also was a good meal, which was fuel needed to give them energy through the long walk to their destiny.
There are no rules about waking up to pray as first thing- or even saying prayer at a defined hour of the day. God is everywhere and ever with us. He is accessible at any time of the day. But there is something special about prioritizing our lives that the first thing we do is to talk to God. Just like the early traveller we need fuel, for the long day ahead!
Prayer for today: Lord Father God of Abraham, maker of heaven and earth, what a joy and privilege to make time at the start of any day, talk and hear from you, for the power I need through the day, this I pray in Jesus’ name!
