Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
Hebrews 4:16
I think the theme of my last few weeks has been prayer.
Let me rephrase.
The theme of the last few weeks has been, "Natalie, why has your prayer life seen so pathetic?"
As a squad, we've been reading books, both in the Bible and written since. Last month's was Let the Nations be Glad! by john Piper. A big point that he made was that WE ARE AT WAR. Prayer, then, is a means of communicating to headquarters from the front line. It is a dire and necessary thing, without which the entire operation will fail.
The trouble comes when we the soldiers forget our wartime status, and begin using prayer as a way to make our foxholes more comfortable. If instead of asking for more troops and ammunition, we're asking for soft blankets and chocolate, then we're going to grow fat and lazy while the enemy advances and eventually overtakes us.
Dramatic? Yes.
But true? More than anything.
In light of that, I spend all day every day communicating with HQ (God). I wake up early, talk all day, and stay up late– listening to His instructions, telling Him where I'm strugling, figuring out what needs to be done and how best to accomplish it. As the Creator of the Universe, He's the most powerful ally I have, and in this lifestyle of warfare, I'm not losing sight of the goal and I'd never dream of using my heavenly walkie talkie for selfish, immature things.
WRONG.
So utterly, embarrassingly wrong.
A hig part of my problem is, ironically, learning about God. This month I've probbaly read loads books on living in God's world, becoming the womand He created me to be, praying, being a missionary, focusing on Him instead of the ridiculous trivialities… So many, in fact, that I've hardly had the time or the energy to open up THE WORD OF GOD, and i've spent even less time actually talking to THE AUTHOR (and perfector of our faith).
In my pursuit to know all ABOUT God, I've started missing out on really knowing Him. It's funny, in a twisted way.
But I think that's a great tool of the enemy. Get the troops so focused on the PLAN that they forget to fight the BATTLE. get them to spend all thier time strategizing that they forget to implement their ideas. It's brilliant, really.
And it ends here.
Right now, I'm crying out to the community around me that I need prayer and encouragement. I need people to hold me accountable, to check in, to build up, to lovingly correct, and to enter into this journey with me. I can't do it alone, I recognize that. I need people praying FOR me and WITH me, people who aren't afraid or embarrassed to talk about spiritual things, even when it's uncomfortable.
I've already got the beginnings of an incredible support system. I'd love for you to be a part of it.
In David Platt's book, Radical, he says that our relationship with God isn't something we do out of grudging obedience, it's something we enter into with excited, reckless abandonment, because we realize that the GOD OF THE UNIVERSE stepped down from Heaven do die FOR US.
[Now] we'd better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we're in. Study how He did it. Because He never lost sight of where He was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—He could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now He's there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!
Hebrews 12:2-3 (The Message)
We don't follow Christ because we have to. We don't talk to God because He told us to. We passionately pursue the only One who could or would save us because the Holy Spirit has come to beckon us into the ultimate adventure with the Giver of Life.
If that's not an adrenaline rush, I don't know what is. 🙂
