Your choice – To be close or distant?
By Cindy Tan, Malaysia
Show me your ways, O LORD, teach me your paths;
guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior,
and my hope is in you all day long (Ps 25:4-5).
The Psalms have a way of capturing the reality of our human experience. Often, we could find in this collection a prayer or praise that echoes our inmost being. In Psalm 25:4-5, David asked for instruction and guidance. He was talking to his God. That is what we call prayer. Alexander Whyte once said, “Prayer is a rising up and a drawing near to God in mind and in heart and in spirit.”
In this fast-paced world, it is very tempting to hurry through our prayers. We pray as quickly as we gobble up our breakfast or pop in our vitamins. However, we simply cannot do that in prayer, or we will miss out on what God is trying to say to us. Can you imagine rushing through conversations with your spouse, your children or friends, day after day? Such conversations will not establish close bonds; the relationship will remain distant.
However, when we learn to savor our communion with God, we can actually talk to Him about everything and anything, such as crying on His shoulder about the things that break our hearts, or even laughing with Him as we relate funny events to Him. In such an atmosphere, we express our love for Him and receive His love in return. There is relief and peace knowing that He has searched our hearts and shown us the way.
In prayer, it is important that we always pause and listen…and listen again because effective and fruitful prayer with God is two-way. By having this two-way conversation, we get to know the heart of God and gain the privilege of knowing His concerns. God can reveal things or His plans to us in bits and pieces or as a whole. Either way, we must be willing to obey His instructions. As we obey, He is able to use us as His voice, His hands and His feet to bless others with the gift of salvation or restoration.
May I encourage you to intentionally block out time to enjoy your conversation with God as David did. You too, can ask God to show you His ways, and to teach and guide you in His truth daily.
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Loading ...ODJ: watching your wait
The Lord is my light and my salvation—so why should I be afraid? The Lord is my fortress, protecting me from danger, so why should I tremble? (v.1).
READ: Psalm 27
A Fitness magazine poll of 1,000 women found that women are willing to take drastic steps to reach their ideal weight: Twenty-three percent said they would spend a week in jail. Twenty-three percent would shave their head. Twenty-two percent would wear a bikini on TV. Twenty-one percent would trade 10 years of their life to lose some pounds.
It’s apparent that some people are obsessed with their weight. And just as these women are concerned about watching their weight, there’s a different “wait” that God calls His children to keep their eyes on.
In Psalm 27, David watched his “wait” by taking a power step of renewal (v.14). He renewed his confidence in God’s attributes. In the first verse, he declared that God was his light. David shed pounds of fear and doubt when he recognized the brilliant, divine light of God’s character. The light of God’s holy nature gave David strength to wait with unswerving faith.
David also affirmed that God was his salvation (v.1). This means that, even though God did not deliver him from every distress, David believed that God could provide physical and spiritual deliverance from present and future dangers (vv.2-3).
Finally, David declared that God was his fortress (v.1). He waited on God for deliverance, for God alone could keep him safe in dangerous situations. David watched his wait through unswerving confidence in God Himself (v.5).
We can experience this confidence! Let’s watch our wait today by taking time to exercise new truths we’ve learned about God and tone up what we already know about Him as found in God’s Word (v.11). When these truths become part of our everyday exercise routine, God will give us the power to work through our circumstances with confidence in Him. —Marvin Williams
What causes you to run ahead of God? While you wait on God, which of His attributes do you need to reaffirm today?
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Submitted by Pamela Bong, 15, Malaysia
Photograph & Text by Pamela Bong
(1 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5) Loading ...ODB: warning lights
December 14, 2009
READ: Joel 2:12-17
“Now, therefore,” says the Lord, “Turn to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.” —Joel 2:12
I didn’t think that the hesitation in my car engine and that little yellow “check engine” light on my dashboard really needed my immediate attention. I sang it away, saying that I would get to it tomorrow. However, the next morning when I turned the key to start my car, it wouldn’t start. My first reaction was frustration, knowing that this would mean money, time, and inconvenience. My second thought was more of a resolution: I need to pay attention to warning lights that are trying to get my attention—they can mean something is wrong.
In Joel 2:12-17, we read that God used the prophet Joel to encourage His people to pay attention to the warning light on their spiritual dashboard. Prosperity had caused them to become complacent and negligent in their commitment to the Lord. Their faith had degenerated into empty formalism and their lives into moral bankruptcy. So God sent a locust plague to ruin crops in order to get His people’s attention, causing them to change their behavior and turn to Him with their whole heart.
What warning lights are flashing in your life? What needs to be tuned up or repaired through confession and repentance? — Marvin Williams
Conviction is God’s warning light.
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