The God who hears prayer

Today I came across a name for God that I think is now one of my favorites. David is writing this psalm of praise to the Lord for all that He does - specifically for His power in salvation and His great and generous provision for us in nature - and he calls Him "You who hear prayer." (Ps. 65:2). Isn't that such an awesome name for God, because it is such a wonderful truth about who He is and how much He cares for us His children?

Think about it - the God of the whole universe - who "established the mountains by His strength", who can "still the noise of the seas", who will "crown the year with [His] goodness" so that the hills themselves rejoice in Him - that God hears our prayers. It's true that is doesn't always feel that way. Sometimes it seems like the door to God's throne room is closed and barred, and our prayers falter and fail even as they leave our lips. But regardless of those feelings, the truth is that God is the God who hears our prayers.

If we have this certainty that He hears our prayers (confirmed by Ephesians 3:12 and Hebrews 4:16), and if we believe He is this all-powerful good and gracious God, then the next logical question is why do we pray so infrequently? Why are we not constantly falling before Him in adoration, taking our supplications to Him in boldness and confidence, seeking His mercy in every aspect of our lives? Why are we still trying to make it through life in our own strength? Maybe the root problem is that we don't believe God as much as we would like to think. If we immerse ourselves in His Word, begin to truly believe in our hearts what we read there, and in every moment of our day place ourselves in trust and reliance on God's grace, prayer will come naturally as a result of our faith, and our lives (and the lives of those around us) will be deeply and richly blessed and transformed by the intimacy of our relationship with the Lord. Can you imagine what would happen if we did this as a church? Can you see how the world might be changed?

Bonhoeffer on life and identity in Christ

I have no thoughts of my own right now, but here is a thought that I need to remember more often as I go through life:

"... the Christian is the man who no longer seeks his salvation, his deliverance, his justification in himself, but in Jesus Christ alone. He knows that God's Word in Jesus Christ pronounces him guilty, even when he does not feel his guilt, and God's Word in Jesus Christ pronounces him not guilty and righteous, even when he does not feel that he is righteous at all. The Christian no longer lives of himself, by his own claims and his own justification, but by God's claim and God's justification. He lives wholly by God's Word pronounced upon him, whether that Word declares him guilty or innocent." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

Trust and thyroid hormones

Almost three years ago my thyroid started to peter out. For months I was always exhausted and continually running a low-grade fever, prone to catch every small cold floating around, and losing weight (I think I lost 15 pounds in all, in less than 6 months) because I was too tired to eat. It took a while to figure out what was wrong with me, since fever is not a common symptom of a thyroid problem but was the main reason why my mom was able to convince me to go to the doctor at all, but eventually all was made clear and for over two years now I've had to take a little purple pill every morning to keep my body functioning well with the proper amount of thyroid hormone. It's a bit of a hassle, and I periodically have to go back to the doctor to have blood drawn so they can evaluate the hormone levels and give me a prescription to last until the next appointment. So... at my last appointment in February, they told me they were going to switch me from 6 months between visits to a year between visits, because I'm pretty stable, but unfortunately, as I discovered a few weeks ago, I don't have enough refills prescribed to get me through to February. Actually, not counting the random sample packs I've collected over the years, which are running low anyways, I have until Friday. This is very stressful for me! I tried calling the office last Monday, when I realized the problem, but they never called me back, and today I left my phone at home so I suppose I'll have to call again tomorrow instead of today. I am a worrier at the best of times, and it is so easy for me to imagine all kinds of worst-case scenarios, where they can't get me in for weeks and I'm left without any medicine and start crashing again, ending up barely able to make it through work and class, completely worn out by the time I get home each day (thus having no energy for making dinner, or cleaning the house, or spending time with Paul). But I'm thinking that maybe God let me and the doctors fall into this oversight for a reason. Maybe He wants me to learn to trust Him more, you know? If I am trusting only myself, and relying only on my own strength, I have every reason to worry right now because it doesn't look like things will work out in the right timing. But if I am trusting God and relying on His strength, knowing that He has everything in His hands, then I can have faith that things will work out in exactly the timing that He desires, according to His good purpose, and I don't need to worry. It's hard for me not to worry, but I do believe that I have a sovereign, loving, faithful Lord who cares even about these little details of my life! So I can trust Him even when I can't see how everything will turn out :)

Wild blue yonder

Have you ever noticed how the sky becomes more blue after the clouds have passed and the rain has ended? The rain cleanses the air of all its dirt and dust and smoke, so that the rich blue can be seen in greater beauty and glory. There are times, in a long stretch of sunny weather, when the blue of the sky becomes less attractive to me as it fades, hiding behind the gray and white and brown layers of whatever happens to find its way into the air. But after a storm, it is always incredibly beautiful, stunning and brilliant in the purity and depth of color. I wonder if it is like that in our lives. We are innately beautiful and pure (since we have been reborn in Christ and have His life rather than our own old sin-bound life), but as we go through life in this world, still surrounded by sin and struggling with it even in our own selves, that beauty is easily hidden behind all the dirt and pollution we pick up. But when we hide ourselves in Christ, even as the sky hides itself behind the storm clouds, we are cleansed by Him of those tarnishes, renewed time and again so that our beauty may testify of His grace before all the world.

Choosing how to see

The same analytical eye and intelligent mind, that so quickly notice the hidden faults and negative attributes of a person or occurrence can, if so applied, be used to ascertain the hidden qualities and positive characteristics of that same person or occurrence, though they be ever so skillfully hidden. And is not that choice of use more fitting for a child of God? And is it not more uplifting and edifying to the body of Christ? I know I complain and criticize far more than I ought to - maybe I can learn to repurpose that energy and thought process for another, better end, and so perhaps in time become an encouragement and blessing to those around me.

Leaving the weekend behind

A brief update on my weekend: I tried to make granola bars for Paul, so he'd have a portable, filling, healthy snack; I failed rather miserably (although the granola that resulted isn't that bad, I guess). I intended to clean our apartment and straighten things up; I managed to vacuum the kitchen (which needed it most desperately) but that was about it. I wanted to make a patchwork valance for our kitchen window; I started, but probably won't finish until next weekend at the very earliest, so now I have all the random pieces of fabric sitting around making the place look even messier than it otherwise would (see previous point!) I planned to do my Bible study in preparation for our meeting Tuesday night, but forgot until 8:30 last night (and I didn't get very far because it's pretty intense). I hoped to make delicious meals for Paul to come home to after drill on Saturday and Sunday, but I really didn't do any cooking at all the whole weekend. I thought I had figured out how to run a Java applet for my homework assignment, but then found out that I got an awful grade because the grader couldn't get my applet to load. I desired to make our apartment a place of rest, peace, and beauty, but I felt so exhausted and discouraged that I wasn't even able to keep myself consistently happy and cheerful, and struggled to be loving and joyful. In addition, God convicted me about a few areas where I was putting Him into the limits of my understanding, and rejecting or ignoring things I didn't understand or didn't like, and while that is definitely a good thing in the long run, it isn't necessarily pleasant at the time, and it contributed to my feeling of discouragement even though I knew intellectually that God still loved me and wasn't angry with me (side thought - I am sometimes absolutely terrified that God is angry with me, so scared that I am afraid to even open up my Bible for fear of what I might read. I don't think this attitude really reflects the reality of who God is and what His relationship with me is now that I've been adopted into His family! But I still struggle with it.) Basically, in all the little and not-so-little tasks I set for myself, I fell short (in some cases, very far short) of the goal. Whether I was trying to cook or sew or pray or have a joyful heart, I just couldn't do it. So lucky me, I got to start the week feeling like a miserable, worthless failure. But as I was writing this post, not entirely intending to post it because it was devolving into a list of complaints, God reminded me of a very encouraging verse: "Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." - Philippians 3:13-14 The challenge in those verses is rather obvious. The encouragement, at least to this rather negatively-inclined individual, is not quite so obvious! But it is this: that we are not bound forever to the failures and sins and mistakes of our past - that we can forget them and move on from them, that we can be free from that over-hanging burden of guilt and fear of condemnation, because God has already forgiven them and wants us to keep moving forward. Even when it is a sin that we are leaving behind, rather than just a failure to meet a human expectation, once we have repented, we don't need to linger in the guilt and the shame any longer. We are free to move forward, to keep pressing toward God, to continue seeking His face and striving to trust and obey Him by grace through faith. That freedom, that lifting of the burden of the past, is one of the most encouraging things ever! So weekend, I am leaving you behind, and choosing today to reach forward and press toward my goal of knowing and following Jesus Christ.