Prayer - the first fruits of our day

There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven Ecclesiastes 3: 1

There can be a great temptation at busy times or on busy days to ditch the one thing that will help us to have a productive and fruitful day.  Prayer and spending time with God is essential every day and how much more on a busy day.

I think it was Martin Luther who said that if he had a busy day, he must spend more time not less in prayer. We deceive ourselves when we think that we can manage without any time with God. It is unlikely that we will catch up on prayer later or tomorrow – we need prayer and time spent with God for today and every day. There are some wonderful quotations by some of the great men and women of God on the matter of prayer.

"Don’t pray when you feel like it. Have an appointment with the Lord and keep it. A man is powerful on his knees." Corrie ten Boom

"The men who have done the most for God in this world have been early on their knees. He who fritters away the early morning, its opportunity and freshness, in other pursuits than seeking God will make poor headway seeking Him the rest of the day. If God is not first in our thoughts and efforts in the morning, He will be in the last place the remainder of the day." E.M. Bounds

"Satan does not care how many people read about prayer if only he can keep them from praying. Paul E. Billheimer

I can go on! Look up these and many other quotes on the internet – they are inspiring but they must not just stir our hearts but inspire us to pray. The devil wants to persuade us that our prayers are not making a difference, that we are wasting our time and we would be far better getting on with some work than waste time praying. Lies and more lies. We can accomplish so much more on our knees.

If you are feeling discouraged in the place of prayer or if you have a very busy time ahead of you – let me encourage you with a testimony. When I was still working God encouraged me to rise early to meet with him every day – it was hard because I was tired and stressed – yet these precious times were the lifeline that enabled me to accomplish all that needed doing in my busy schedule.  On another day when time was not an issue I had a wonderful time of prayer with God – it was extended and could have seriously cut into the rest of the day but the incredible thing was that this day was the most fruitful day of my life.  I accomplished so much I was amazed.

Time in prayer is never wasted but it can take an effort to get going.  Be encouraged today to place the first fruits of your day in God’s hands and trust him to fulfil his plans and purposes through your prayers. He will guide your days to be fruitful and a source of great blessing to many.

Psalm 13

How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me? Psalm 13: 1 - 2

It is one of the hard facts of the Christian faith that it is the difficult times that produce the greatest fruit in our lives, if we make the most of them. That of course is the dilemma because it is the hard times that are most difficult to make anything out of.  All of our good intentions fly out of the window and every truth that we believe about God and our lives as Christians is tested to the limit in our trials.

A year ago our youngest son, who had been living in America for a year, was getting ready to be married to a very nice American girl in USA and two weeks before the event everything went wrong.  Our daughter in law was having great difficulty getting a British visa and to add to the difficulty the dog chewed her passport making it unacceptable to be used at all. The delay caused by getting a new passport meant she would have no passport to go with on honeymoon. They had spent a lot of money on the honeymoon, applying for a visa and now she needed a new passport as well.

In addition to all this, Hurricane Irene blew up the north east coast on USA wrecking the park they were going to use for the picnic that they had planned for their reception. They had no visa, no passport and it looked like no reception venue and no honeymoon. Everything was awful – it was no one’s fault but why had God allowed it? They were two lovely Christian young people who had been faithful to God and now on the biggest day of their life so far everything had gone pear shaped. Why hadn’t God intervened?  It just wasn’t fair!

They were upset and all parents on both sides of the Atlantic were upset and personally I found it very hard talking to a devastated son who was thousands of miles away. I felt really down and moaned and moaned to God. My attitude was not good but at least I was talking to the only person who could actually do anything about the situation. Two days later I felt so low and quite ‘by chance’ I listened to a song called Psalm 13 by one of the Vineyard bands. The lyrics touched me deeply as they spoke right into the situation. I read the psalm and the last two verses were ‘But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing the Lord’s praise, for he has been good to me’ Psalm 13: 5 – 6. The light bulbs came on and with no evidence to support it I declared that I will trust in God’s unfailing love – why?  Because the Lord has been good to me.

I may have been squeezed till I almost screamed but I could never deny that God had been good to me so I could trust him despite all the evidence to the contrary. I knew all would be well. On the other side of the Atlantic my son’s future mother-in-law was urging them to trust God. Within a week all the situations had been turned around; the sun shone on the wedding day, another reception venue had been found for the picnic, our daughter in law got two passports – one for the honeymoon and one for the visa - and two days after the wedding her British visa was granted.

God is good and utterly reliable and trustworthy despite the circumstances and we will never discover this for ourselves till we have had this truth tested in the fires of adversity. I now KNOW I can rely on God because he has been good to me and even in the midst of difficulties God is still good to me and all his children.

Do not fear the fires of afflictions but ask God to help you walk through them with integrity and honesty, praising and worshipping our Creator who is good and wonderful no matter how hard the road we are walking on. You will bear increasing fruit as you trust him because you will know for yourself the truth of God’s goodness and faithfulness even in the midst of adversity. Cross references:

1. Psalm 13:1 : Ps 6:3
2. Psalm 13:1 : Ps 42:9; La 5:20
3. Psalm 13:1 : S Dt 31:17; S Ps 22:24; S Isa 8:17; S 54:9
4. Psalm 13:2 : Ps 42:4; 55:2; 139:23; Isa 33:18; Da 7:28
5. Psalm 13:2 : Ps 94:3
6. Psalm 13:3 : Ps 9:12; 25:18; 31:7; 35:23; 59:4; 80:14; 107:41; 119:50, 153
7. Psalm 13:3 : S Ps 4:1
8. Psalm 13:3 : S Ezr 9:8
9. Psalm 13:3 : Ps 76:5; 90:5; Jer 51:39
10. Psalm 13:4 : S 1Ki 19:2; Ps 25:2
11. Psalm 13:4 : Ps 38:16; 118:13
12. Psalm 13:5 : S Ps 6:4
13. Psalm 13:5 : S Job 33:26; Ps 9:14; Isa 25:9; 33:2
14. Psalm 13:6 : S Ex 15:1; Ps 7:17

 

The blessing of unity

The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you’ and the head cannot say to the feet, ‘I don’t need you. I Corinthians 12: 21

Some years ago a friend said to me, ‘You know, someone else does not have to fail in order for you to succeed.’  This was a bit of a revelation for me because unknowingly that was exactly what I thought and it was obvious enough for my friend to say so to me.

My wrong thinking that success for me was at the expense of someone else’s failure was a lie that needed exposing.  We are called to be a body working together not a set of spare parts competing for top spot.  Our greatest and most fruitful moments come when we work together. If I am a finger I do not compete against the thumb but work with it to achieve something neither of us could do separately.

There are two problems in most churches and certainly between churches and one is the confident people working independently and the other is those lacking in confidence feeling they have nothing to contribute. Both are wrong. The over confident need to start working better with others and the timid need to realise and start to operate in the gifting and function that God has placed in them.

The body needs all the parts operating well together to fulfil what God has called it to do.  This is true unity.  Others do not have to fail in order for us to succeed but if we are to succeed we need to work together in unity blessing what is going on and honouring one another. At the end of the day it is not about personal success or failure or even our church’s success or failure but all about God. Do we honour him with our words, our service and our attitudes? Do we bring him glory in what we do?

We are the body of Christ. Let each one of us play our part and bring glory to him in all we do.