answer – Hope Walking

Calling God

What do you call God?

What words did Jesus use to refer to God? Stop and think a minute. Can you recall? I word-searched through the Gospels and this is what I found: God, the Lord, the father, my father, your father.

When you need him, what do you call God?

My friend recently gave me a lovely prayer shawl, complete with blue stripes and tassels. When I tried it on I noticed the word Abba was woven into the cloth over and over. Abba is Hebrew for father.

In my neighborhood we have a family that moved here from Israel. One afternoon Annie, their little girl, climbed an exercise structure and made her way out onto a horizontal bar. She hung there but soon realized how high up she was.

Frightened she yelled“Abba! Abba! Abba!” I watched her father sprint across the playground and grab Annie.

“Abba, Abba,” I cry when I am afraid or stuck.

My little neighbor knew her father would come. How do we know our Father will come?

In my previous blog I introduced the Hebrew name for God, Yahweh. When Moses first met God he asked God what his name was, and God told Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you.”

Yahweh means the existent one. When you’re reading your English translation of the Old Testament and come to LORD, lord printed in all capital letters, you know the name Yahweh is there in Hebrew.

In ancient cultures a name told you something about that person. God’s Hebrew name tells us he is the one who existed before all other things.

But we need to know more, so Moses, later on, asked God to show him who he was so we could know him.

And this was God’s answer to Moses, and to us:

The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.”

Will God care when you are afraid and call him? Yes! He is merciful.

Will God take care of you, as Annie’s father did? Yes! He is gracious.

Will God be patient with you? Yes! He is slow to get angry.

Will God pay attention to you? Yes! His love for you is bigger than you imagine.

Will God be there when you need Him. Yes! He is always faithful.

Jesus taught his disciples to pray “our Father,” inviting us into relationship with God.

The invitation is clear. God says, “Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you.”

What are you waiting for?

Scripture references: Exodus 3:1, 34:6, Psalms 50:15

The God Who Answers

What is the name of the God you pray to? We know it’s important to identify who we’re talking to; that’s why we have caller ID. If I don’t know who it is, I don’t pick up. Would you like to know God “picks up” when you call?

A long time ago in Israel the people had a choice of which God to call on. They were in a desperate situation. No rain had fallen on the land in over 3 years. They were running out of food to eat, and they had to turn their farm animals loose because they couldn’t water them.

The prophet Elijah told the people Israel’s God, the Lord, Yahweh, was the true and living God and they needed to worship only him. But the people were not so sure. There were hundreds of prophets telling them to worship Baal. Baal was known as the god of storms, rain, lightening and thunder. The people were afraid that if they stopped praying to Baal it would never rain. They couldn’t make up their minds, so God told Elijah to help them.

Elijah set up a contest on top of a mountain and called all the people to come watch. The prophets of Baal came, all 450 of them. Elijah brought two bulls. He gave one to the Baal prophets to kill and burn as an offering to their god. BUT they could not light the fire; no matches or lighters. They had to call on Baal to come down and consume the bull. Elijah would call on Yahweh to light the fire under his bull. Whichever god sent fire would show he was the true god.

This should have been easy for Baal, because he was supposed to be the god of lighting. One bolt would do it. So Elijah sat down and watched them call on Baal to light their fire.

Elijah sat and watched all morning, and so did the huge crowd, but nothing happened. Around noon Elijah started to ask them where Baal was.

“You better yell louder,” Elijah said. “Maybe he’s asleep and you need to wake him up.”

The prophets yelled as loud as they could, dancing around the altar. But nothing. No one answered.

“Do you think he’s away? “ Elijah taunted. “Maybe he’s on vacation. Or maybe he had to go to the bathroom.”

Finally the prophets got knives and cut themselves until their faces, arms and legs were covered in blood. They thought that would bring Baal, who liked the smell of blood. But nothing happened.

When it was time for the traditional evening sacrifice to Yahweh, Elijah told everyone to come watch him.

Elijah had gallons and gallons of water poured all over his bull, sticks and stone altar until the water ran everywhere. There was no way anyone could light that fire. What was he thinking?

Then Elijah prayed, “O Yahweh, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your word. Answer me, O Yahweh, answer me, that this people may know that you, O Yahweh, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.”

When he finished praying fire from Yahweh fell. It burned up the bull. It burned all the sticks and the stones of the altar. It even licked up the water. Nothing remained, not one drop of water. The people fell down and worshiped Yahweh. And the bogus prophets ran away in fear. A few hours later it started to rain hard.

Once in a village just outside Jerusalem Jesus stood in a contest. The people could not decide who he was, even though he had told them. So he stood outside the tomb of his friend Lazarus who had been dead for four days. There was a large crowd, and when Jesus asked for the door to the tomb to be rolled away, everyone expected a horrible stench to come out.

But Jesus prayed, ““Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.”

Then Jesus yelled, “Lazarus, come out!”

The surprised crowd fell silent. But the silence was pierced by the joyful shrieks from Lazarus’ sisters as they ran to embrace him.

Some persons standing there believed in Jesus, that he was the Messiah, the Son of God. But the sad thing is, others didn’t. And some even plotted to kill Jesus, which they did.

We all have to choose to whom we pray. And it matters.

God says to us, “Call on me in a day of trouble; I will rescue you, and you will honor me.” (Psalms 50:15 ,CSB)

I hope you will read the details of these events. Click here for the story of Elijah (1 Kings 18) and here for the story of Jesus and Lazarus ( John 11.)

You may wonder if God is still doing amazing things today. I recommend these books: The Case for Miracles by Lee Strobel and Miracles by Eric Metaxas.

Pray Like This……Expecting

We spend our days expecting things to happen. Most of the time we are not particularly conscious of our expectations, until they don’t happen.

One summer afternoon I had my car all packed up to go on a road trip. I had gas, snacks, music and everything I needed for a five hour trip. I sat down in the driver’s seat, turned the key and………………….nothing.

Think of how many things you expected to happen today, and they did. Your alarm went off on time. Your microwave heated up your soup. Your mail came. Your shower was hot. Hundreds of expectations!

What do you expect when you pray?

If we are honest we might say, “nothing,” or “not much.”

I hope you have decided to stay with me as we investigate what Jesus taught about prayer. In my blog on October 3, I suggested you read through Matthew 6 a few times and note any words or phrases that occur more than twice. Did you notice the word reward is there 5 times?

“And your father who sees in secret will reward you.”

Last week we followed a desperately ill woman who secretly approached Jesus looking for a reward. She believed if she just touched his clothes she would be healed. She didn’t think the clothing had power, she knew Jesus did. And when she touched his shawl, Jesus’s power healed her.

Since you are reading this I know you plugged some device into an electrical socket and expected the reward of your battery being charged. If we have faith our power company will reward us, we can have faith that the powerful Creator of the universe will also reward us when we approach him. Jesus said he will.

When my car wouldn’t start I had faith in the AAA membership card in my wallet and I called the number on the card. I was soon rewarded with a running motor.

Call your Father in Heaven: he promises to respond.

If you don’t have a prayer journal, try starting one now. Keep a running list of your prayers. My list has been running for decades. Soon you will be able to look back and count your rewards.

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Whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

(Hebrews 11:6)