Hope is what keeps us going, but sometimes it's hard to hope. I'm Ruth Gervat, and I invite you to join me on my hope-filled journey, because I believe the best lies ahead.
I tell my granddaughter brilliant profound things. She smiles, laughs, and walks away. Of course she does; she is 20 months old. She doesn’t understand what I am trying to say.
Do you believe God understands what you are trying to say?
The first important thing when we speak is to know who we’re talking to. When we pray your (your kingdom come; your will be done) what do we think this you is like?
Let’s stop now to consider who we believe God is. Get two pieces of paper and a pen. At the top of one sheet write “God” and at the top of the other sheet write “Jesus.” Begin with God and write a list of all the words you can think of that describe God. Take a couple minutes to do this. Then turn over that sheet, take your second sheet and write a list of words that describe Jesus.
STOP! DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER UNTIL YOU HAVE YOUR TWO LISTS.
Now take your two lists and put them side by side. How are the words you chose for God different than the ones you chose for Jesus? How are they the same? Whom are you more comfortable praying to? If your picture of God is very different from your picture of Jesus, why might that be?
In the Gospel of John you have read this:
In the beginning was the Word….and the Word was God.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
The Creator of the universe put on skin just like your skin and lived with folks just like us. He grew up in a town with neighbors who were nasty or nice. He had favorite foods and danced with friends to music they played. He had parents who loved him and younger brothers who thought he was crazy. He walked on rough roads that tired his feet. The bright sun made him squint and burned his cheeks. He grieved the deaths of his family and friends. He was disappointed when those he trusted let him down. He knows what it is like to be in skin like yours.
When you pray, God understands what you are trying to say.
I hope you will keep thinking about who God is. And I hope you will sign up to follow my blog, because I will be back next week ……..
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.
She was sick. Really sick. She had been bleeding for 12 years.
Luke, the physician who recorded her story, doesn’t tell us the source of her problem, but we can guess it was from “the way of women.” She had no modern way to deal with this, just rags. Rags she had to wash and boil and wash again.
And she was tired. Any unchecked loss of blood leads to anemia. Sick, anemic and tired.
And she was poor. She used to have money, but she had spent it all going from doctor to doctor looking for help. But no one helped her. Sometimes the treatments made her worse. Sick, tired, poor.
And she was lonely. In her day there were laws – good laws to help stop the spread of disease- about not touching certain things. These rules labeled her “unclean,” and anyone who touched her became unclean. No one wanted to touch her. She lived without hugs, kisses, hand-holding and arms around her shoulder, and, of course, no intimacy with a husband. Her inability to have children brought her shame. If she did stay with family they would be sure not to touch her or anything she touched. Alone, sick, tired, poor.
Without hope.
Without hope until one day someone came to her village with stories about a rabbi who was a healer. Stories were carried by mouth from village to village. Slowly they began to arrive in her village. There was a rabbi named Jesus who was teaching in a new way, and he was doing astonishing things. Stories about useless legs walking, blind eyes seeing, leprosy leaving. Stories that amazed and puzzled everyone. Stories that started to raise the dead hope in her heart.
“Maybe,” she thought, “Maybe Jesus will heal me. If he comes here I will go ask him. Surely if he can cure blindness and leprosy he can cure me.”
But how would she go? Everyone in the village knew she was unclean They would see her coming. They would back away. They would yell at her and tell her to go home.
“Go home,” they would say. “Jesus is a holy man. If you touch him you will make him unclean! Go away. He is not here for you.”
Not here for her? She sighed to think about what might happen is she tried to get close to Jesus. But in the courage born of desperation, she decided she would do it.
“The messenger whom you long for is certainly coming.” She had heard that prophesy many times. “For you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings.”
Healing! She longed for healing. She would go and touch the wings of his shawl and be healed. She knew it. She planned for it. And then the day came.
One afternoon she heard children shouting in the street, “Jesus is coming! Jesus is coming!” Her neighbors hurried out of their homes to see Jesus. But she couldn’t join them. No, she could not go with the crowd because they would tell her to go home.
Instead she grabbed her shawl, pulled it over her head, covering her face so no one would know her. Then, looking down, she walked quickly in the direction of the noisy crowd. No one noticed or stopped her; they were too busy trying to get a look at Jesus.
When she saw him coming she ducked her head and, trembling with excitement, pushed through the tightly packed crowd until she was almost near Jesus. Then bending down even more she watched his feet come closer and closer. Her heart raced.
“Now!” she thought and reached out her hand to touch the wing of his shawl. Immediately she felt something. She felt well! But as she turned to run home and share her good news, Jesus suddenly stopped and yelled, “Who touched me?”
Panic poured over her. She started to tremble and shake as she realized he knew what she had done. Was he mad at her? She had broken the law by touching Jesus. Now that Jesus knew, would he take her healing away? She froze and waited. Her eyes welling with tears.
“Oh, come on, Jesus,” his friends said, “Look at this crowd. Everyone is touching you. Why do you want to know who touched you?”
Everyone stopped as Jesus continued to look from face to face. “Someone touched me,” he said. “I know that power has gone out from me.” Finally his eyes met hers.
Now her trembling increased to the point she could barely walk, but somehow, as the crowd parted she made her way to him and fell to the ground.
“I had to touch you,” she told Jesus. “I’ve been so sick for so long. I just had to touch you. I knew if I touched you I would be healed, and I am healed!”
Not daring to look up she stared at the hem of his robe and waited.
“Daughter,” he said to her in the kindest voice she had ever heard.
“Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.”
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In Matthew 6 Jesus tells us to pray “in secret.” Of necessity the woman in our story had to approach Jesus secretly. In the commotion of a moving crowd she made a hidden place. Many persons in that crowd touched Jesus, but his power only went out to her.
You may have read books and articles on how to have a great Quiet Time with God. Their advice can be very helpful. But let’s not focus on how-tos and miss our goal: meeting in secret with God. The most important thing is wanting to be alone with God and making our way through whatever obstacles we have to be with him.
Remember Jesus said, “Your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”
I hope you will read this woman’s story as Luke wrote it in chapter 8 of his Gospel, starting at verse 43.
“But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.”
A man and a woman are falling in love. Where do they want to go?
Dinner at a loud mall food court? Hanging-out at an interstate truck stop? Of course not. They head for a long walk on a deserted beach, or to the most remote table they can find in a quiet restaurant.
Passionate love seeks seclusion. Do you know that is how God asks to meet with you?
If you read through Matthew 6 a few times you will notice Jesus telling us to go to God “in secret.”
When you do your giving, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your gift may be in secret. And your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you.
Whenever you pray, go into your inner room, close the door and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you.
Four times we read, “in secret.” The original Greek word is kryptos which means hidden. God wants to meet with you privately.
Imagine this: God, the creator of the whole universe shows up at your house and asks if he can speak with you alone. You take him into a back room, and after you both sit down he looks at you intently and says, “Tell me how you are doing. What is on your mind and heart? What’s bothering you. I have so much love for you, and I want to know.”
You may be thinking, “That’ll never happen. Why would the person running the whole universe want to talk to me?”
But, in truth, he does! Jesus said it. “Go into your inner room, close the door and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you.” When you pray in secret he is right there with you listening . Let that sink in!
I hope you read my first post on prayer. I suggested you read Matthew 6 a few times and look for repeating words. How many did you find? Please leave your finds in “comments.”
Here are some repeats I found: Father, reward, pray, forgive, worry, truth/truly, and life.
I will be back next week to talk about how we can, in a noisy world, pray in secret.
Can you remember the first time you talked to God? Stop now and try to recall how old you were and what you said. (Pause to remember.)
Maybe you were very young and a family member helped you fold you hands and thank God for your food. Maybe you were a bit older and memorized the “Our Father” in Sunday School or for your First Communion. Maybe you were older still and faced a scary situation that made you ask God for help.
In your memory of talking to God, try to remember what you thought about God as you prayed. Little kids can have some very strange ideas about who God is and what he looks like. Grown-ups can have some very strange ideas, too.
I think one of the reasons we don’t pray more is we have concocted ideas about God that are not very accurate. In the coming weeks I invite you to investigate with me what Jesus said about talking to God. I am convinced Jesus was sent by God and is God. Believing that, I absolutely want to know what he said about prayer.
We’ll start with a well known and oft-quoted passage from the writings of Matthew, one of Jesus’ disciples, The Gospel of Matthew, chapter 6. Pause now to find this in your Bible or print it from Bible Gateway
Read through the passage once, and then reread a few times circling all the words or phrases that are repeated at least 3 times. Make a list of what you find.
I will meet you back here next week and we can compare what we find. I hope to hear from you very soon.
Recently, as hurricane Dorian traveled up the east coast, seeking refuge was very much in the news and on our minds. We all want to get out of harm’s way when threatening storms approach.But sometimes we can’t.
My grandmother left me a little cottage on a birch-lined road that leads to a sparkling lake in the Adirondack Mountains. It is so peaceful there.But not always…..
One July dawn we awoke to howling winds and havoc.
I was there with my 87 year old dad and two young sons.The day before had been still and hot with an eerie, yellow evening sky.At early dawn heavy rain pelted the windows and woke us.I hurried out on the porch to close windows as the rain came in sideways, driven by60+ mph winds. Our flag was ripped from its holder and flew down the street. We heard branches in the surrounding woods snapping and falling, along with trees hitting the ground.
My dad, a WWII Navy veteran, got up and remarked,“This is like the typhoon I was in on the Pacific.”
We were in the path of a derecho, a fast-moving, massive wind storm.At any moment a large pine could crash through our metal roof.My sons looked to me for protection, but I was totally helpless.
Helpless on my own, but we were not on my own.
We had oftenread in God’s word:
The Lord has said, “I will never leave you and I will never abandon you.” So we can say with confidence, “ The Lord is my helper, and I will not be afraid.” (Hebrews 13:5-6)
So we prayed, “God, this is your wind and these are your trees, and we ask You to keep us safe.”
We took refuge in the hand of our Helper and watched the storm pass through.As the wind died down we went back to sleep.
Later the sound of my neighbor’s chainsaw woke us to a clear, bright day.Downed trees blocked the road and leaned on houses, but nothing had landed on our roof.
I often remember the peace that covered me after I prayed in that storm.Storms of life come unexpectedly, but the hand of the Lord my Helper is always with me, and He is my refuge.
Would you like safe refuge from the storm you are in right now?It doesn’t matter if the storm is a hurricane wind at your door or a churning sea of grief and fear in your heart.God is there with you.He knows why the wind is blowing; He made the wind.He knows why your heart is breaking; He made your heart and He loves you.
The prophet Isaiah tells it like this: You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock. (Isaiah 26:3,4)
Hope Walking 