Wednesday, March 9, 2011

On Prayer and Focused Living

Over the past several months, in times of quiet, I have had an increased burden to focus on prayer; both time in prayer and meditation on the idea of prayer and what it could/should look like. Most of these meditations have come directly from the circumstances God has allowed in my life and the desires He has placed on my heart. The past eight months have been some of the most trying and the most fruitful of all my years.  Throughout this time, the Lord has tethered me to my home and, at times, my bed.  My interactions with others have been limited at best, not by choice, but by circumstance and, I believe, by God's design.  He has used this time of seclusion to heighten my awareness of Him and His workings all around me while growing my desire for Him substantially.  He has caused me to have an insatiable hunger for His Word and for time with Him, whether it be time spent in quiet stillness where His presence envelopes the room and I sense Him there with me breathing life into my brokenness, time spent in worship and adoration, or the sweet times in which I pour out my heart at the foot of His throne.  

The more time I spend with Him the more I am changed.  I have found this to be especially true in my prayer life.  My prayer life has always been a gift that I cherish, and yet I have come to the point in my life where it is more a necessity to my existence than the oxygen that fills my lungs. In the not so distant past, my prayers would often be filled with appeals for an unending list of things on behalf of those I love and for my own life.  Things like renewed health, safety amidst a chaotic and sinful world, grace and strength to recognize and follow God's will,  and among many other things the grace to recognize God's sovereignty in all the events around us.  I believe these are good, healthy prayers, after all Scripture tells us to "ask and it will be given to you" (Matthew 7:7) but I've found the more time I have spent in God's presence the more my prayers have changed.  I find myself more accepting of situations I would have previously deemed horrendous and I find I am asking not so much for a reprieve from all that living in a sinful world brings, but more for the grace and strength to walk through it with my eyes firmly fixed upon the cross.  

God has given me a priceless gift, one that I am treasuring more with each day, the gift of contentment and peace.  It may seem strange that I have come to this place considering the circumstances that I've been allowed to witness and the ones I have been blessed to walk through; but I know now more than I ever have that God showers His children with the richest of blessings amidst the ugliest of circumstances.  How else can  we be prepared to receive the abundance He wishes to give?  If we are so wrapped up in the details of our daily lives - the running of errands, the sink of dishes waiting to be cleaned, the floor that really should have been mopped yesterday,  the laundry, our children, our husbands, our home, our friends...if we are intently focused and wrapped up in these things how can we ever know the joy that comes from truly resting in His presence?  It is hard, I think more so for those of us living in America; because there is such a thin-line between being of the world and just living in it until we are called home.  

I don't presume to say that God is calling us to let our homes lie in filth or to forsake the needs of those we are in relationship with in order to live a cloistered life, but I believe there is much to be said of the objects of our focus.  Is your main priority meeting the needs you see around you and keeping everything together and tidy?  Being a type-A woman I'm right there with my list in hand for the day each box itching to be checked off before I will allow my body and my soul the rest it needs.  And in many cases, for me, this has undeniably been sin.  I can get so focused on completing my own list of tasks (incidentally, prayer used to be on this list of tasks for the day) that I miss many opportunities God is giving me to behold His glory.  It really is all about one's focus.  If my focus is on God my day isn't dictated by lists but by God's leading; my eyes aren't focused on the dirty dishes, but on my Heavenly Father.  If you haven't come to the point where you have experienced life in this way, I can tell you it is but a small taste of eternity and it has made me increasingly yearn for Christ's return. Slowly and not without pain, God has stripped me of things, even good ones, that have distracted me, my health being one of them, and He is continuing to do so.  By His grace, He has allowed me to recognize, in part, what He is doing and it has helped lessen the sting of loss and helped me to stay focused on what He is giving me instead of what I am losing.  I have often been reminded of the verses of "The Sinner's Cure" (see below).

The daily gifts He continues to bestow on me and, more importantly, the ultimate gift of salvation have more than healed the wounds of the brokenness He has orchestrated in my life.  In the past, I have had but an academic view of what it meant to not live of the world; but I am now gaining an experiential knowledge of the unquantifiable joy that comes from truly walking with God and I am recognizing the fruit of this in my prayer life.  Prayer is no longer a box I look forward to checking off my to-do list for the day, it is the door that once I step through puts me at the feet of the One I love most, and there, I stand in awe of who He is and all He has done and is continuing to do.  It is when I am here, at His feet, with no distractions that I am capable, by His grace, to receive all He has for me and it is in this time that my prayers and petitions are purest, coming from a sincere desire to glorify Him, no matter the cost. When I read Isaiah 61:3, "...to grant to those who mourn in Zion-to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified," it makes more sense to me now than it ever has, because I am living it!  How blessed I am to walk, daily, through the trading of ashes for beauty, mourning for gladness, and a faint spirit for a garment of praise!!

As I write this, I can't help but excitedly await what is to come, whatever it may be, because I know He will be walking alongside me guiding and teaching me.  And in the times when I fearfully cling to mourning the loss of my own hopes and dreams, I know He will be there prying loose my white knuckles with the oil of gladness, ready to fulfill His own perfect will in my life.          


"The Sinner's Cure"
Washington Glass, 1854

How lost was my condition,
Till Jesus made me whole;
There is but one Physician 
Can cure a sin-sick soul

CHORUS: There is a balm in Gilead,
To make the wounded whole;
There's power enough in Heaven,
To cure a sin-sick soul.

Next door to death He found me,
And snatched me from the grave,
To tell to all around me,
His wondrous power to save

CHORUS

The worst of all diseases
Is light compared with sin;
On every part it seizes,
But rages most within.

CHORUS

Tis palsy, plague and fever,
And madness, all combined;
And none but a believer
The least relief can find.

CHORUS

From men great skill professing,
I thought a cure to gain;
But this proved more distressing,
And added to my pain.

CHORUS

Some said nothing ailed me,
Some gave me up for lost;
Thus every refuge failed me,
And my hopes were crossed.

CHORUS

At length this Great Physician
How matchless is His grace;
Accepted my petition, 
And undertook my case.

CHORUS

First gave me sight to view Him,
For sin my eyes had sealed;
Then bid me look unto Him --
I looked and I was healed.

CHORUS

A dying, risen Jesus,
Seen by the eye of faith,
At once from anguish frees us,
And saves the soul from death.

CHORUS

Come, then, to this Physician,
His help He'll freely give;
He makes no hard condition,
Tis only look and live.

CHORUS