Stop Praying and Start Praising
I, like Mark, find myself in prayer patterns asking for the same thing over and over again, trying to take the nagging widow route to God’s ear. But he reminds us in this post that sometimes we just need to be confident that He’s going to provide what we ask for. Enjoy!
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Stop Praying and Start Praising
This one is tough to explain, but as I was praying on the rooftop of Ebenezers about some miracles I’m believing God for I heard that still small voice of the Spirit: stop praying for it and start praising Me for it.I think there are moments when you’ve got to stop asking for something and start celebrating what you believe God is going to do as if it has just happened. This isn’t some Jedi mind trick. It’s faith. Faith is able to praise God BEFORE the miracle happens. Why? Because it believes it will happen as much as if it has already happened.
Maybe you need to stop praying and start praising?
To be a rung
Watched the movie The Express over the weekend. I highly recommend it. It’s about the 1959 Syracuse University College Football National Champions and more specifically the first ever African American winner of the Heisman Trophy, Ernie Davis aka The Express.
Mr. Davis, following in the footsteps of maybe the best running back to ever play football, Jim Brown, at Syracuse and was also drafted by the Cleveland Browns to share the backfield with Jim Brown yet he was never to play a single down for this NFL franchise. Ernie Davis was diagnosed with Leukemia and died at the age of 23.
Many would look at Mr. Davis’ life only to be saddened by the unrealized potential, and the seemingly unfairness of contracting a deadly disease at such a young age. Yet, what I was struck by as I watched the extras was that this kid left a tremendous impact on the lives left in his wake. Even Jim Brown, known for his cockiness, held a reverence for the friendship he had with this young man. Floyd Little, appearing with other Hall of Fame nominees (watch the video at the end of the link as Mr. Little is introduced – a tremendous man) at the Super Bowl coin toss, still becomes emotional when he recounts the words that he exchanged with Ernie when Ernie recruited him as his replacement at Syracuse.
Last week I posted a post by Mark Batterson asking if this could be the day that Jesus returns. Today I’m asking what if it is the last day you are around? Who is left in your wake? Who is testifying in ten years about your goodness? Who becomes a Hall of Famer by standing on your back?
Here’s the question for me, “Am I willing to be a rung in the ladder to let others climb higher?” I think Ernie’s greatest testimony is that he was, and because of that I think he was great.
You are who, and I’m going to do what?
The Bible is great! I mean you read and there is always something new! For the first time I am appreciating that during the Intertestamental Period, which is basically the time between the last prophetic book and the time of Jesus and this time period was centuries long, there had not been a revelation or a pouring out of God’s Spirit. So, for centuries God’s Spirit is absent or hidden and only at the time of Messiah would the Spirit of God be made known to Israel and the world once again. See Joel 2:28.
Now get this Jacob, Mary, Elizabeth, Zechariah, and Joseph are the first people to encounter the Spirit of God for centuries. A whole nation awaits for the Messiah to come. A whole nation awaits the Spirit of God to be poured out. And a honkin’ teenager named Mary is whom God chooses to pour onto, and into, His Spirit. She had to be completely overwhelmed by the magnitude of it all. If she thought about it for any length of time the weight of a whole nation’s expectations were on her shoulders and by the way she’s pregnant out of wedlock.
WOW!
That is absolutely crazy! I mean if you were her how might you feel?