Comfort

If there's one comfort in life, it's being able to pray.  Being able to give things over to a higher God who is more powerful and strong than I could ever be.  A God who actually knows what's going on, who cares, and who can do something about it.

The past couple of days, I've found myself doing a lot of praying.  Some prayers are for things that directly affect me, others are for things that have nothing to do with me but are on my mind nonetheless.

This Virginia shooting of two reporters...that was really sad.  Perhaps being in the media makes this story hit home even more, but I'm not so sure; I think we are all affected - and shocked - by this one.  The one peace I've found though, is to pray.  For the victims' families, their co-workers, viewers who saw what happened, and for the shooter's family.  It's comforting to know that God feels our pain with us, and that He can provide peace in such heartache...the kind of peace that doesn't make sense (look at the victims in the Charleston church shooting as an example).  I've been praying for some sense of peace through the pain.

The past couple of days, I've been praying for some people I know who are on vacation.  I'm not sure why I've been praying so much for them, but they've been on my mind.  And I believe that if someone is on your mind, perhaps there is a reason.  Maybe God is bringing them to mind so that you will pray for them.  So I've been praying for them, asking for an awesome vacation.

I've been praying a lot for my parents.  They are going through the terrible debate over whether to sell their home of 30+ years. They can't take care of it anymore and they can't afford it...and yet, there are too many memories to just up and leave.  There have been dozens of honest, difficult, heart-wrenching conversations over the past few months.  There have been lots of tears.  There has been lots of debate - and no decision.  So I pray.

Someone (Joyce Meyer I believe) once pointed out that too often, we treat prayer as a last resort.  When all else fails, pray.  It should be the other way around.  Step ONE - pray.  Step two - try everything else.  Pretty good priorities, I think.

More Faith Please

This past Sunday, I lost my cell phone.  The last place I remember having it was at the grocery store after church.  Since then, I looked EVERYWHERE for it.  I called it over and over, searched my house, my car, my office at LIFE, even went to the grocery store and all the neighbouring stores to ask if anyone had turned anything in.  Nothing.

I talked about this on the radio two days ago, and got lots of helpful calls and tips...but still, no phone.  Then a friend emailed me this:

Tim, I know someone who knows where your phone is......

God does!!!!!!....He will show you!

I saw the first line of that email and I was so elated!  Finally, someone who knows where my phone is!  Then I saw the second line...and I wasn't too happy.  In fact, I was irritated.  I thought, Urg, I know God knows where my phone is!  But a lot of times I pray and nothing happens, so is He really going to bring my phone around?  Besides, I've looked everywhere in my house, I can't hear it vibrating, and it's two days later and no one has turned  it in.  So let's face it.  It's lost.  And I was literally 100% sure nothing would happen.

A couple of hours later I was sitting in my office and I thought, "Okay, I really should pray.  My friend is actually right."  (I had been praying about it since Sunday, but not as intentionally as I decided to do it at that moment.)  So I prayed then, and when I got home from work, I talked to my wife and mentioned the email, and we prayed again, intentionally.

That evening, my wife walked past our couch and stepped on something that was under it...and lo and behold, the phone!!!  I could not believe it.  I couldn't believe that it was in my house.  I couldn't believe that we'd actually found it.  And I couldn't believe that God actually heard our prayer and brought it to us.  I felt so much joy...and a bit of shame for not trusting God to answer my prayer.

It served as a great reminder for me that yes, God is in control, and yes, He does care - even about the small things.  I actually have something else in my life that I'm a bit nervous about right now, so this phone incident has served as a reminder of God's presence, and because of that presence, I have a lot more peace.

I hope this helps you out if you're nervous about something.  Pray!  God does care!

Impulses

The past few days/weeks, I've been wondering about 'impulses'.  That feeling you get that you need to pray right now for a certain situation, or you should call someone that just came to mind, or you should stop in at this coffee shop, even though you weren't planning on it when you left your house.

How many of those impulses are from God?  How many of them do we actually follow and go for?  I've had it happen three times in the last two days, that I've gotten the 'impulse' to pray for someone.  And I've done it.  Actually, once I ignored it, but then someone else asked if we could pray and I knew right away that I should not have ignored my impulse.

I think we get them a lot more than we think we do.  For some reason though, we can sometimes tend to ignore those thoughts.  I have a huge tendency to say, "Oh, that's just me and my thoughts, not God".  What if I'm wrong?

1 Thessalonians 5:17 says "pray continually".  That means as you're looking around, you see things from God's perspective.  As I'm writing this and I look out the window in my office, I see three houses outside, and the thought comes to mind - "pray for the people in those houses".  Is that God?  I can't imagine that EVERY time it's an impulse from Him telling me to pray; personally, I don't think that's how it works.  But I do think that as we become more Christ-like, we get His mind, see things His way.  And I believe Jesus probably prayed for everything, all the time.  Even short, quick prayers - "God please help that person"; "God, let the people in the car in front of me come to know you"; "God, let something good happen to this cashier today, and let them know that it was because of you"...etc.

I wonder if that's how it's supposed to be.  I think so.  I try to do that.  And it's nice to know that God hears each of those prayers, even if I don't know what will come of them.