By My Utmost For His Highest by Oswald Chambers’
Come to Me . . . —Matthew 11:28
God intends for us to live a well-rounded life in Christ Jesus, but there are times when that life is attacked from the outside. Then we tend to fall back into self-examination, a habit that we thought was gone. Self-awareness is the first thing that will upset the completeness of our life in God, and self-awareness continually produces a sense of struggling and turmoil in our lives. Self-awareness is not sin, and it can be produced by nervous emotions or by suddenly being dropped into a totally new set of circumstances. Yet it is never God’s will that we should be anything less than absolutely complete in Him. Anything that disturbs our rest in Him must be rectified at once, and it is not rectified by being ignored but only by coming to Jesus Christ. If we will come to Him, asking Him to produce Christ-awareness in us, He will always do it, until we fully learn to abide in Him.
Never allow anything that divides or destroys the oneness of your life with Christ to remain in your life without facing it. Beware of allowing the influence of your friends or your circumstances to divide your life. This only serves to sap your strength and slow your spiritual growth. Beware of anything that can split your oneness with Him, causing you to see yourself as separate from Him. Nothing is as important as staying right spiritually. And the only solution is a very simple one— “Come to Me . . . .” The intellectual, moral, and spiritual depth of our reality as a person is tested and measured by these words. Yet in every detail of our lives where we are found not to be real, we would rather dispute the findings than come to Jesus.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Have You Ever Been Speechless with Sorrow?
By My Utmost For His Highest by Oswald Chambers’
When he heard this, he became very sorrowful, for he was very rich —Luke 18:23
The rich young ruler went away from Jesus speechless with sorrow, having nothing to say in response to Jesus’ words. He had no doubt about what Jesus had said or what it meant, and it produced in him a sorrow with no words with which to respond. Have you ever been there? Has God’s Word ever come to you, pointing out an area of your life, requiring you to yield it to Him? Maybe He has pointed out certain personal qualities, desires, and interests, or possibly relationships of your heart and mind. If so, then you have often been speechless with sorrow. The Lord will not go after you, and He will not plead with you. But every time He meets you at the place where He has pointed, He will simply repeat His words, saying, “If you really mean what you say, these are the conditions.”
“Sell all that you have . . .” ( Luke 18:22 ). In other words, rid yourself before God of everything that might be considered a possession until you are a mere conscious human being standing before Him, and then give God that. That is where the battle is truly fought— in the realm of your will before God. Are you more devoted to your idea of what Jesus wants than to Jesus Himself? If so, you are likely to hear one of His harsh and unyielding statements that will produce sorrow in you. What Jesus says is difficult— it is only easy when it is heard by those who have His nature in them. Beware of allowing anything to soften the hard words of Jesus Christ.
I can be so rich in my own poverty, or in the awareness of the fact that I am nobody, that I will never be a disciple of Jesus. Or I can be so rich in the awareness that I am somebody that I will never be a disciple. Am I willing to be destitute and poor even in my sense of awareness of my destitution and poverty? If not, that is why I become discouraged. Discouragement is disillusioned self-love, and self-love may be love for my devotion to Jesus— not love for Jesus Himself.
When he heard this, he became very sorrowful, for he was very rich —Luke 18:23
The rich young ruler went away from Jesus speechless with sorrow, having nothing to say in response to Jesus’ words. He had no doubt about what Jesus had said or what it meant, and it produced in him a sorrow with no words with which to respond. Have you ever been there? Has God’s Word ever come to you, pointing out an area of your life, requiring you to yield it to Him? Maybe He has pointed out certain personal qualities, desires, and interests, or possibly relationships of your heart and mind. If so, then you have often been speechless with sorrow. The Lord will not go after you, and He will not plead with you. But every time He meets you at the place where He has pointed, He will simply repeat His words, saying, “If you really mean what you say, these are the conditions.”
“Sell all that you have . . .” ( Luke 18:22 ). In other words, rid yourself before God of everything that might be considered a possession until you are a mere conscious human being standing before Him, and then give God that. That is where the battle is truly fought— in the realm of your will before God. Are you more devoted to your idea of what Jesus wants than to Jesus Himself? If so, you are likely to hear one of His harsh and unyielding statements that will produce sorrow in you. What Jesus says is difficult— it is only easy when it is heard by those who have His nature in them. Beware of allowing anything to soften the hard words of Jesus Christ.
I can be so rich in my own poverty, or in the awareness of the fact that I am nobody, that I will never be a disciple of Jesus. Or I can be so rich in the awareness that I am somebody that I will never be a disciple. Am I willing to be destitute and poor even in my sense of awareness of my destitution and poverty? If not, that is why I become discouraged. Discouragement is disillusioned self-love, and self-love may be love for my devotion to Jesus— not love for Jesus Himself.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Are You Discouraged or Devoted?
By My Utmost For His Highest by Oswald Chambers’
. . . Jesus . . . said to him, ’You still lack one thing. Sell all that you have . . . and come, follow Me.’ But when he heard this, he became very sorrowful, for he was very rich —Luke 18:22-23
Have you ever heard the Master say something very difficult to you? If you haven’t, I question whether you have ever heard Him say anything at all. Jesus says a tremendous amount to us that we listen to, but do not actually hear. And once we do hear Him, His words are harsh and unyielding.
Jesus did not show the least concern that this rich young ruler should do what He told him, nor did Jesus make any attempt to keep this man with Him. He simply said to him, “Sell all that you have . . . and come, follow Me.” Our Lord never pleaded with him; He never tried to lure him— He simply spoke the strictest words that human ears have ever heard, and then left him alone.
Have I ever heard Jesus say something difficult and unyielding to me? Has He said something personally to me to which I have deliberately listened— not something I can explain for the sake of others, but something I have heard Him say directly to me? This man understood what Jesus said. He heard it clearly, realizing the full impact of its meaning, and it broke his heart. He did not go away as a defiant person, but as one who was sorrowful and discouraged. He had come to Jesus on fire with zeal and determination, but the words of Jesus simply froze him. Instead of producing enthusiastic devotion to Jesus, they produced heartbreaking discouragement. And Jesus did not go after him, but let him go. Our Lord knows perfectly well that once His word is truly heard, it will bear fruit sooner or later. What is so terrible is that some of us prevent His words from bearing fruit in our present life. I wonder what we will say when we finally make up our minds to be devoted to Him on that particular point? One thing is certain— He will never throw our past failures back in our faces.
. . . Jesus . . . said to him, ’You still lack one thing. Sell all that you have . . . and come, follow Me.’ But when he heard this, he became very sorrowful, for he was very rich —Luke 18:22-23
Have you ever heard the Master say something very difficult to you? If you haven’t, I question whether you have ever heard Him say anything at all. Jesus says a tremendous amount to us that we listen to, but do not actually hear. And once we do hear Him, His words are harsh and unyielding.
Jesus did not show the least concern that this rich young ruler should do what He told him, nor did Jesus make any attempt to keep this man with Him. He simply said to him, “Sell all that you have . . . and come, follow Me.” Our Lord never pleaded with him; He never tried to lure him— He simply spoke the strictest words that human ears have ever heard, and then left him alone.
Have I ever heard Jesus say something difficult and unyielding to me? Has He said something personally to me to which I have deliberately listened— not something I can explain for the sake of others, but something I have heard Him say directly to me? This man understood what Jesus said. He heard it clearly, realizing the full impact of its meaning, and it broke his heart. He did not go away as a defiant person, but as one who was sorrowful and discouraged. He had come to Jesus on fire with zeal and determination, but the words of Jesus simply froze him. Instead of producing enthusiastic devotion to Jesus, they produced heartbreaking discouragement. And Jesus did not go after him, but let him go. Our Lord knows perfectly well that once His word is truly heard, it will bear fruit sooner or later. What is so terrible is that some of us prevent His words from bearing fruit in our present life. I wonder what we will say when we finally make up our minds to be devoted to Him on that particular point? One thing is certain— He will never throw our past failures back in our faces.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Provision: Be Careful What You Ask For - Part 3/5
Written By Sheila Schuller Coleman
Today, I'm continuing with number three in a series of five messages on "Spiritual Sustainability: Living the Lord's Prayer." As I've mentioned before, about two years ago I started praying the Lord's Prayer as a template every single day. Soon I noticed that, not only was I praying the Lord's Prayer every day, I was living it. Those principles that Jesus gave us in the Lord's Prayer are principles that can sustain us and help us through the toughest times. You can have spiritual sustainability that will carry you through any storm, any challenge, any trial. And the principles are found in the Lord's Prayer.
It begins with praise. We begin our prayers, we begin our days, and we continue all day long praying, praising God with a God-can-do-anything attitude. Think of it. How will that change your life if all day long you're reminded that God can do anything, no matter what you face? That's why Jesus taught us to begin our prayers and to begin our days with "Our Father Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name." He is an awesome Father, a wonderful Father, a loving Father, an all-powerful Father.
And, as such, He is a Father who knows best. We can trust Him with everything. We can trust Him with our very lives. Therefore, we can submit to Him. We can tell Him, "Lord, You have Your way with me. 'Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done,' in my life, 'on earth as it is in heaven.' You do what You want to do. I trust You because I've just praised You. I've just remembered what an amazing, awesome God You are."
Okay, now that we have submitted, now that we've praised Him, now that we've given Him permission to use our lives, now we can ask something of Him. He says, "Petition Me. I will give you provision. 'Give us this day our daily bread.' Ask. The Bible says, 'Ask.' Over and over again, ask Me," says Your heavenly Father.
I want to add to that this little caveat: But be careful what you ask for.
A husband and wife and were celebrating their 30th anniversary, so they decided to go out and have a wonderful, romantic dinner, just the two of them. So, they went to a lovely, quiet restaurant. They had just sat down and were opening their menus when all of a sudden there was a bright light, as dazzling as the one Paul encountered in Damascus. The voice of God came from the heavens, saying, "My son and My daughter, I am so pleased with you. You've been faithful to each other for 30 years. In fact, ask Me for anything. I'll give it to you as an anniversary gift tonight!"
The woman thought for a moment and said, "I would like to take my husband on a trip around the world." Poof! God gave her tickets to take her husband on a round-the-world trip.
It was the husband's turn and he said quickly, "I would like a wife 30 years younger." Poof! The husband turned into a 90-year-old man.
Be careful what you ask for. Be very careful.
Jesus said in the Lord's Prayer, His model prayer for us, "Give us this day our daily bread." It does not say, "Give us this day our daily candy." If you prayed, "Give us this day our daily candy," which many of you children (in the sanctuary) would love to do, would your parent - if they were a loving parent who cared about you - want you to ask them for candy every single day? No. God doesn't encourage us to say, "Give us this day our daily candy." He says, "Give us this day our daily bread."
I have four sons who have often asked me to make them sandwiches or snacks or meals. They still do, are you kidding? They come by all the time. They're grown men and they knock on the door, or they text me, and they ask, "What's for dinner?" And I give them food. I bake them pies. I make them cupcakes. I love to cook for them. If they ask me for a pie, if they ask me for a cake, if they ask me for bread, would I give them a stone? Heavens no. I love them.
God loves you even more. In the Bible, Jesus said, "…if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead?" (Matthew 7:9). Your heavenly Father loves you so much. He wants to give you something wonderful and awesome. When you ask Him, He's not going to give you a stone. It doesn't say, "Give us this day our daily candy." It doesn't say, "Give us this day our daily stone." So what should you ask for? "Give us this day our daily bread."
It's very interesting that Jesus would use that one word - bread. Bread has been around since prehistoric times. It is one of the oldest prepared foods known on the face of the earth. There are so many different names for it - pan, pita, ciabatta, focaccia, tortilla, and more. Whatever name you use for it, ask God for your daily pita. Ask God for your daily ciabatta. Ask God for your daily focaccia. He doesn't want you to ask for moldy bread. He doesn't want you to ask for stale bread. He doesn't want you to ask for day-old bread. He wants you to ask for fresh-from-the-oven artisan daily bread. Not day-old bread, but daily bread.
Your heavenly Father is the King of kings and so what does that make you? It makes you a prince. It makes you a princess. Do you know any prince or princess who eats moldy, stale, day-old bread? God wants you to have daily bread, fresh bread, fresh from the oven. The best bread money can buy. He says, "Ask Me boldly. Ask Me because I want to give the best to you, My children." Only God can provide bread.
It takes seeds, it takes water, it takes soil, it takes the sunshine just to grow the grain, and only God provides those things. Nobody else can provide that and I think that's why God said to pray for daily bread. It doesn't say, "Give us this day our daily candy." Don't pray, don't ask for that. Don't pray, "Give us this day our daily stone." Think beyond that. Think that you're worth the best! It says, "Give us this day our daily, beautiful, lovely, fresh bread," because your Father cares about you.
Bread is also money. It can also mean that. Bread is the staple of life. It's a provision of what we need to survive. And that's what Jesus meant. He didn't mean just the literal interpretation of bread; He meant whatever it is you need. "What do you need? I want to provide and I will provide. Ask Me and I will." Ask boldly, ask bravely, ask every day, ask Him.
However, it's not enough just to ask. After you've asked, you need to seek and knock. We need to do our part because it also doesn't say, "Give us this day our daily orange." Now, what do I mean by that? Well, you could sit underneath an orange tree and, if you sat there long enough, an orange might very well fall into your lap. Jesus said, "Give us this day our daily bread." Bread needs all these different ingredients in order to make it. You can't just go out, find a bread tree, and pick it as you could an orange. For bread, you have to go and get some salt, which God provides, and you can get some olive oil, which God makes. You can't make olive oil and you can't make salt. You can get some flour from the grain, which God provides, and you can get a little sugar - or if you like sweet bread, a lot of sugar - and you have to do your part. Metaphorically speaking, you have to make the bread. You have to build the fire. You have to do your part. You ask, but then you seek and you knock. Seek and knock. "Seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you" (Matthew 7:7b).
So, if you need financial aid, if you need provisions in order to live, if you need anything, ask God. Ask Him. Say, "Lord, where shall I look? On which door should I knock?" Then, when He gives you some kind of guidance, do it. Go looking for jobs online. Look in the job classifieds in the newspaper. Talk to people and ask them, "What's available? Who's hiring?" Then fill out those applications. Go out there. Do it. Do your part.
Ask, but also seek, knock, and then trust. As my dad says, "Trust for the crust." Once you've asked the Lord boldly, then Jesus says (in Matthew 6:25-27), "Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink… Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?" He will provide.
The Israelites were wandering around in the wilderness after they'd been delivered from Egypt. They'd been in slavery and, oh, how they hated that slavery. Who wouldn't? They were beaten, and then they were delivered. They made it safely across the Red Sea, but then there was nothing to eat in that wilderness - nothing at all to eat. In their hunger, many said to Moses, "I'd rather be back in Egypt being a slave. I'm starving, I'm hungry, this is terrible." So God saw His children needing food and what did He do? He gave them manna from heaven. They woke up in the morning and there was manna on the ground. We know it was like coriander seed. However, to eat it, they actually had to do some work. They couldn't just open their mouths and let the manna fall in. They actually had to gather it, make little patties out of it, and cook it over a fire.
God had warned them not to store the manna. "I'm not giving you yearly manna, I'm not giving you monthly manna, I'm not giving you weekly manna, I'm giving you daily manna, daily bread, every day. And don't store it." However, some of the Israelites thought, "I don't think I can trust God. He gave me manna today and I'm going to hoard it because tomorrow God might be sleeping. Tomorrow God might not be powerful enough. Tomorrow God might forget all about me. So I'm going to take that manna that He gave me today and I'm going to store up as much of it as I can."
God had told them not to do that. He wanted them to trust that He would do it every day. Do you know what happened to those people when they stored the manna? The next day it was full of maggots, spoiled. It only lasted for one day - that was it. So, they learned they could trust God. Did they ever wake up any day to no manna? Never. Not one single day.
Every day God provided daily bread for them and every day God will provide for you. Just because He's given you something today doesn't mean that He won't tomorrow, and He won't the next day, and He won't the day after that. God doesn't provide for you today and then forget about you. He doesn't provide for you tomorrow and then fall asleep. He doesn't provide for you the next day and then lose all His power. He provides for you today. He will provide for you tomorrow. He will provide for you every day of your life. He provides daily bread, daily provisions because He knows you need it. Your Father is the King of kings. Ask boldly. Ask bravely.
Be careful what you ask for. Ask for the best. Ask not for just any bread, not just daily bread, but daily bread of life. Jesus said, "I am the bread of life. He who come to Me," any of you, "if you come to Me, you'll never, ever, ever go hungry again." He was talking about how, spiritually, you will never, every, ever go hungry again. "I will fill you with My life. I am the bread of life; your spiritual sustenance, your spiritual sustainability."
So, I ask you today, what are you hungry for?
Are you hungry for food? Some people are. That's why we have our Monday Meals here each week to feed the hungry.
Are you hungry for finances? Do you need financial help? God cares about that. He does. It's okay to ask Him. He wants you to ask Him for help.
Are you hungry for companionship? Do you know what companionship means? The Latin "com" means "with," and "pan" means "bread." With bread. Breaking bread with people. That's companionship. Pray for your daily companionship.
Are you hungry to make a difference, to make your life count? Ask God for the daily bread of life, for Jesus, every single day, to fill your life to overflowing so that, not only can you be filled yourself, you will have enough to share with others around you who truly are hungry in many ways. They may be spiritually hungry, emotionally hungry, socially hungry, and even physically hungry. You can be filled to overflowing and make a difference.
I'd like you all, now, to stand. We're going to close in prayer. We're going to continue where we left off last week. So, everybody stand if you're physically able to do so. We're going to take a posture of praise. You're going to take your hands and reach them up to the heavens because it's a way of saying, "We love You, Lord. We praise You, God." Lift your faces up to the heavens and keep them up there. Keep looking up to Him. Repeat after me with Crystal Cathedral gusto: "Our Father who art in heaven (Our Father Who art in heaven)." Okay, let's do that again. That was without Crystal Cathedral gusto. Let's do it again with Crystal Cathedral gusto. "Our Father who art in heaven (Our Father Who art in heaven), hallowed be Thy name (hallowed be Thy name). You are a great Father (You are a great Father). You are a wonderful Father (You are a wonderful Father). You are King of kings (You are King of kings). That means I'm a prince or a princess (That means I'm a prince or a princess). You will provide generously (You will provide generously)."
All right, we've begun with the praise. Now, take your hands and put them this way, open them palms out because this is an open posture of submission to God, giving Him permission in our lives. We've praised Him, so we can submit to Him. Again, repeat after me: "Thy kingdom come (Thy kingdom come), thy will be done (thy will be done), on earth as it is in heaven (on earth as it is in heaven). You are a loving Father (You are a loving Father). My heavenly Father knows best (My heavenly Father knows best), so I can trust You completely (so I can trust You completely). I trust You with my life (I trust You with my life). Work in me to do (Work in me to do) Your will and Your purpose (Your will and Your purpose)."
Okay, now that we've praised Him and we've given Him permission, now we're ready to ask for provision. We have been careful about what we ask for because we've given Him praise and we've given Him permission. Now, when we ask, we know we are asking the way He wants us to. So put your hands together; we're going to ask God together. Repeat after me: "Give me today my daily bread (Give me today my daily bread). I ask You, Lord, (I ask You, Lord,) to show me what to ask for today (to show me what to ask for today). Give me my heart's desires or take them away (Give me my heart's desires or take them away). I ask You today and every day (I ask You today and every day) to provide everything I need (to provide everything I need). I ask You today and every day (I ask You today and every day) to increase my hunger for You (to increase my hunger for You), my desire to serve You (my desire to serve You), and to live for You (and to live for You). Amen (Amen)."
Read on Hour of Power site
Watch video on Hour of Power site
Today, I'm continuing with number three in a series of five messages on "Spiritual Sustainability: Living the Lord's Prayer." As I've mentioned before, about two years ago I started praying the Lord's Prayer as a template every single day. Soon I noticed that, not only was I praying the Lord's Prayer every day, I was living it. Those principles that Jesus gave us in the Lord's Prayer are principles that can sustain us and help us through the toughest times. You can have spiritual sustainability that will carry you through any storm, any challenge, any trial. And the principles are found in the Lord's Prayer.
It begins with praise. We begin our prayers, we begin our days, and we continue all day long praying, praising God with a God-can-do-anything attitude. Think of it. How will that change your life if all day long you're reminded that God can do anything, no matter what you face? That's why Jesus taught us to begin our prayers and to begin our days with "Our Father Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name." He is an awesome Father, a wonderful Father, a loving Father, an all-powerful Father.
And, as such, He is a Father who knows best. We can trust Him with everything. We can trust Him with our very lives. Therefore, we can submit to Him. We can tell Him, "Lord, You have Your way with me. 'Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done,' in my life, 'on earth as it is in heaven.' You do what You want to do. I trust You because I've just praised You. I've just remembered what an amazing, awesome God You are."
Okay, now that we have submitted, now that we've praised Him, now that we've given Him permission to use our lives, now we can ask something of Him. He says, "Petition Me. I will give you provision. 'Give us this day our daily bread.' Ask. The Bible says, 'Ask.' Over and over again, ask Me," says Your heavenly Father.
I want to add to that this little caveat: But be careful what you ask for.
A husband and wife and were celebrating their 30th anniversary, so they decided to go out and have a wonderful, romantic dinner, just the two of them. So, they went to a lovely, quiet restaurant. They had just sat down and were opening their menus when all of a sudden there was a bright light, as dazzling as the one Paul encountered in Damascus. The voice of God came from the heavens, saying, "My son and My daughter, I am so pleased with you. You've been faithful to each other for 30 years. In fact, ask Me for anything. I'll give it to you as an anniversary gift tonight!"
The woman thought for a moment and said, "I would like to take my husband on a trip around the world." Poof! God gave her tickets to take her husband on a round-the-world trip.
It was the husband's turn and he said quickly, "I would like a wife 30 years younger." Poof! The husband turned into a 90-year-old man.
Be careful what you ask for. Be very careful.
Jesus said in the Lord's Prayer, His model prayer for us, "Give us this day our daily bread." It does not say, "Give us this day our daily candy." If you prayed, "Give us this day our daily candy," which many of you children (in the sanctuary) would love to do, would your parent - if they were a loving parent who cared about you - want you to ask them for candy every single day? No. God doesn't encourage us to say, "Give us this day our daily candy." He says, "Give us this day our daily bread."
I have four sons who have often asked me to make them sandwiches or snacks or meals. They still do, are you kidding? They come by all the time. They're grown men and they knock on the door, or they text me, and they ask, "What's for dinner?" And I give them food. I bake them pies. I make them cupcakes. I love to cook for them. If they ask me for a pie, if they ask me for a cake, if they ask me for bread, would I give them a stone? Heavens no. I love them.
God loves you even more. In the Bible, Jesus said, "…if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead?" (Matthew 7:9). Your heavenly Father loves you so much. He wants to give you something wonderful and awesome. When you ask Him, He's not going to give you a stone. It doesn't say, "Give us this day our daily candy." It doesn't say, "Give us this day our daily stone." So what should you ask for? "Give us this day our daily bread."
It's very interesting that Jesus would use that one word - bread. Bread has been around since prehistoric times. It is one of the oldest prepared foods known on the face of the earth. There are so many different names for it - pan, pita, ciabatta, focaccia, tortilla, and more. Whatever name you use for it, ask God for your daily pita. Ask God for your daily ciabatta. Ask God for your daily focaccia. He doesn't want you to ask for moldy bread. He doesn't want you to ask for stale bread. He doesn't want you to ask for day-old bread. He wants you to ask for fresh-from-the-oven artisan daily bread. Not day-old bread, but daily bread.
Your heavenly Father is the King of kings and so what does that make you? It makes you a prince. It makes you a princess. Do you know any prince or princess who eats moldy, stale, day-old bread? God wants you to have daily bread, fresh bread, fresh from the oven. The best bread money can buy. He says, "Ask Me boldly. Ask Me because I want to give the best to you, My children." Only God can provide bread.
It takes seeds, it takes water, it takes soil, it takes the sunshine just to grow the grain, and only God provides those things. Nobody else can provide that and I think that's why God said to pray for daily bread. It doesn't say, "Give us this day our daily candy." Don't pray, don't ask for that. Don't pray, "Give us this day our daily stone." Think beyond that. Think that you're worth the best! It says, "Give us this day our daily, beautiful, lovely, fresh bread," because your Father cares about you.
Bread is also money. It can also mean that. Bread is the staple of life. It's a provision of what we need to survive. And that's what Jesus meant. He didn't mean just the literal interpretation of bread; He meant whatever it is you need. "What do you need? I want to provide and I will provide. Ask Me and I will." Ask boldly, ask bravely, ask every day, ask Him.
However, it's not enough just to ask. After you've asked, you need to seek and knock. We need to do our part because it also doesn't say, "Give us this day our daily orange." Now, what do I mean by that? Well, you could sit underneath an orange tree and, if you sat there long enough, an orange might very well fall into your lap. Jesus said, "Give us this day our daily bread." Bread needs all these different ingredients in order to make it. You can't just go out, find a bread tree, and pick it as you could an orange. For bread, you have to go and get some salt, which God provides, and you can get some olive oil, which God makes. You can't make olive oil and you can't make salt. You can get some flour from the grain, which God provides, and you can get a little sugar - or if you like sweet bread, a lot of sugar - and you have to do your part. Metaphorically speaking, you have to make the bread. You have to build the fire. You have to do your part. You ask, but then you seek and you knock. Seek and knock. "Seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you" (Matthew 7:7b).
So, if you need financial aid, if you need provisions in order to live, if you need anything, ask God. Ask Him. Say, "Lord, where shall I look? On which door should I knock?" Then, when He gives you some kind of guidance, do it. Go looking for jobs online. Look in the job classifieds in the newspaper. Talk to people and ask them, "What's available? Who's hiring?" Then fill out those applications. Go out there. Do it. Do your part.
Ask, but also seek, knock, and then trust. As my dad says, "Trust for the crust." Once you've asked the Lord boldly, then Jesus says (in Matthew 6:25-27), "Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink… Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?" He will provide.
The Israelites were wandering around in the wilderness after they'd been delivered from Egypt. They'd been in slavery and, oh, how they hated that slavery. Who wouldn't? They were beaten, and then they were delivered. They made it safely across the Red Sea, but then there was nothing to eat in that wilderness - nothing at all to eat. In their hunger, many said to Moses, "I'd rather be back in Egypt being a slave. I'm starving, I'm hungry, this is terrible." So God saw His children needing food and what did He do? He gave them manna from heaven. They woke up in the morning and there was manna on the ground. We know it was like coriander seed. However, to eat it, they actually had to do some work. They couldn't just open their mouths and let the manna fall in. They actually had to gather it, make little patties out of it, and cook it over a fire.
God had warned them not to store the manna. "I'm not giving you yearly manna, I'm not giving you monthly manna, I'm not giving you weekly manna, I'm giving you daily manna, daily bread, every day. And don't store it." However, some of the Israelites thought, "I don't think I can trust God. He gave me manna today and I'm going to hoard it because tomorrow God might be sleeping. Tomorrow God might not be powerful enough. Tomorrow God might forget all about me. So I'm going to take that manna that He gave me today and I'm going to store up as much of it as I can."
God had told them not to do that. He wanted them to trust that He would do it every day. Do you know what happened to those people when they stored the manna? The next day it was full of maggots, spoiled. It only lasted for one day - that was it. So, they learned they could trust God. Did they ever wake up any day to no manna? Never. Not one single day.
Every day God provided daily bread for them and every day God will provide for you. Just because He's given you something today doesn't mean that He won't tomorrow, and He won't the next day, and He won't the day after that. God doesn't provide for you today and then forget about you. He doesn't provide for you tomorrow and then fall asleep. He doesn't provide for you the next day and then lose all His power. He provides for you today. He will provide for you tomorrow. He will provide for you every day of your life. He provides daily bread, daily provisions because He knows you need it. Your Father is the King of kings. Ask boldly. Ask bravely.
Be careful what you ask for. Ask for the best. Ask not for just any bread, not just daily bread, but daily bread of life. Jesus said, "I am the bread of life. He who come to Me," any of you, "if you come to Me, you'll never, ever, ever go hungry again." He was talking about how, spiritually, you will never, every, ever go hungry again. "I will fill you with My life. I am the bread of life; your spiritual sustenance, your spiritual sustainability."
So, I ask you today, what are you hungry for?
Are you hungry for food? Some people are. That's why we have our Monday Meals here each week to feed the hungry.
Are you hungry for finances? Do you need financial help? God cares about that. He does. It's okay to ask Him. He wants you to ask Him for help.
Are you hungry for companionship? Do you know what companionship means? The Latin "com" means "with," and "pan" means "bread." With bread. Breaking bread with people. That's companionship. Pray for your daily companionship.
Are you hungry to make a difference, to make your life count? Ask God for the daily bread of life, for Jesus, every single day, to fill your life to overflowing so that, not only can you be filled yourself, you will have enough to share with others around you who truly are hungry in many ways. They may be spiritually hungry, emotionally hungry, socially hungry, and even physically hungry. You can be filled to overflowing and make a difference.
I'd like you all, now, to stand. We're going to close in prayer. We're going to continue where we left off last week. So, everybody stand if you're physically able to do so. We're going to take a posture of praise. You're going to take your hands and reach them up to the heavens because it's a way of saying, "We love You, Lord. We praise You, God." Lift your faces up to the heavens and keep them up there. Keep looking up to Him. Repeat after me with Crystal Cathedral gusto: "Our Father who art in heaven (Our Father Who art in heaven)." Okay, let's do that again. That was without Crystal Cathedral gusto. Let's do it again with Crystal Cathedral gusto. "Our Father who art in heaven (Our Father Who art in heaven), hallowed be Thy name (hallowed be Thy name). You are a great Father (You are a great Father). You are a wonderful Father (You are a wonderful Father). You are King of kings (You are King of kings). That means I'm a prince or a princess (That means I'm a prince or a princess). You will provide generously (You will provide generously)."
All right, we've begun with the praise. Now, take your hands and put them this way, open them palms out because this is an open posture of submission to God, giving Him permission in our lives. We've praised Him, so we can submit to Him. Again, repeat after me: "Thy kingdom come (Thy kingdom come), thy will be done (thy will be done), on earth as it is in heaven (on earth as it is in heaven). You are a loving Father (You are a loving Father). My heavenly Father knows best (My heavenly Father knows best), so I can trust You completely (so I can trust You completely). I trust You with my life (I trust You with my life). Work in me to do (Work in me to do) Your will and Your purpose (Your will and Your purpose)."
Okay, now that we've praised Him and we've given Him permission, now we're ready to ask for provision. We have been careful about what we ask for because we've given Him praise and we've given Him permission. Now, when we ask, we know we are asking the way He wants us to. So put your hands together; we're going to ask God together. Repeat after me: "Give me today my daily bread (Give me today my daily bread). I ask You, Lord, (I ask You, Lord,) to show me what to ask for today (to show me what to ask for today). Give me my heart's desires or take them away (Give me my heart's desires or take them away). I ask You today and every day (I ask You today and every day) to provide everything I need (to provide everything I need). I ask You today and every day (I ask You today and every day) to increase my hunger for You (to increase my hunger for You), my desire to serve You (my desire to serve You), and to live for You (and to live for You). Amen (Amen)."
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Sunday, August 8, 2010
Permission - A Clashing of Wills - Part 2/5
Written By Sheila Schuller Coleman
Today, I am continuing my message series, "Spiritual Sustainability: Living the Lord's Prayer." Last week, we explored first phrase of the Lord's Prayer, which is, "Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name." That's "Praise." Praising God. Beginning your prayers and living your day by praying with God can do anything attitude. Focusing on whom it is we are praying to. And this whole idea of praise can transform your life.
The Lord's Prayer is the model prayer that Jesus taught us. Yet, we don't have to do it all the time - this is not something legalistic. But I have found that, when I start my day praying this way, it really, really has transformed my life.
So, I begin my day with praise, talking to my Heavenly Father, focusing on who that heavenly Father is. He is a Father who is all-knowing, all-loving, all-powerful. He can do anything. He is a Father who knows best. And so, now that we have praised God, we can give Him permission to do with our lives as He will. I'm not going to give permission to just anybody. But I will give permission, I will submit my life, a hundred percent of my life, to my heavenly Father and only my heavenly Father.
So you see what Jesus was trying to teach us - it was to begin with praise. "Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed be Your name." I thank You, God, for this. I praise You, God, for this. And that's how I begin my prayers and begin my day.
And then we continue, today, with the second part: "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." The kingdom of God, the kingdom that Jesus Christ came to establish, was a kingdom, a spiritual kingdom, a spiritual kingdom that is in heaven, and Jesus came to show us that that same kingdom could be yours and mine.
We can also live in the kingdom of heaven here on earth. When we say to Him, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven," it is possible to live a heavenly life on earth.
We all know when we go through life, and we go through our day, that it's not always heavenly. It's full of conflict. There are those negative emotions - the fears, jealousies, anger - and I would dare say that the majority of that conflict that we encounter is what I would call a clashing of wills. A clashing of wills. I'm going to demonstrate that concept because I believe that it'll help you remember. Make it a little sticky. So, this week when you're finding yourself irritable, negative, fearful, resentful, maybe you'll remember Sheila and her rope. And you'll say, "Oh! This is just a clashing of the wills."
So, I asked my husband for a rope. If I had brought it, it would have been a little string, but this big rope is what my husband got for me. These conflict-of-wills demonstrations aren't necessarily in order. It's just the way I'm presenting them - those between me and me, or between you and you. You don't think you have internal tug-of-wars? Oh, yes, we do.
CONFLICT OF WILLS #1 - ME AND ME...
This one is a common one for me. Here I am. I wake up in the morning. I'm going to go to the gym and work out, do the whole thing - cardio and the weight resistance. I'm so tired. I didn't sleep well. I think I'll just stay in bed. No, I'm going to go and work out because you know that this is good for you. Oh but I'm so tired. I'll go tomorrow. Anybody do anything similar to that kind of tug of war or is it just me?
Here's another one. Today I'm going to eat healthy. No junk, no sugar, no refined carbs. Just fresh fruit - berries, egg white omelets. And then I look at that delicious scone as I'm standing in line in Starbucks. It calls my name. Oh, I can smell the cinnamon wafting right over here. I can go on my diet tomorrow, can't I? Sheila, you made a vow this morning. But it tastes so good. It's just a hundred calories. Not its not, its two hundred calories. Oh my gosh! I'm doing this, right? Whew. Now, did I make much progress? Did you see me move anywhere? Accomplish anything great? No, I was stuck. Stuck. Got nowhere because of a clashing of wills with myself. And that's part of the problem with clashing of wills - we don't make progress and we're stuck.
Let me show you another one. Those were humorous but this next one is something that we all do all the time, too.
We want to do something great for God. But what if I fail, and people see me, and I'm nothing but a big fat failure? What about the people who won't be helped? Other people out there can do it better. God doesn't need me. The harvest is plentiful, the laborers are few. All those negative emotions can get in the way of us being and doing, making progress. We remain stuck through a clashing of wills first within ourselves - me and me or you and you.
CONFLICT OF WILLS #2 - ME AND YOU...
To illustrate this next conflict of wills, I need a volunteer. Anybody willing to be a volunteer and come on up and help me? Come on down and take a hold of this big fat rope? All right, thank you. The other clashing of wills is between me and thee, between me and other people in my life. So I'm just going to pretend that you're my employer, okay? And I'm going to go to her and I'm going to say, I want a raise! I want a raise. I can't make ends meet. Will you give me a raise? Why not? Because of the economy? Now, you're supposed to pull. Okay, you're pulling me, oh she's not going to give me my raise. But I can't afford to work for you anymore.
Okay, has anybody had any kind of tug of wars like this with their employer? Or maybe it's a family member, all right. Now I'm going to pretend you're one of my sons, all right? Okay, Nicholas, I need you to clean your room. Will you clean your room? Tomorrow? That's too late. You need to clean it today. I can't even get in there to vacuum. After you study?
Okay, any of you have any conflicts, tug of wars with your family members? How about with spouses? There are people that are in relationships today who are stuck because of a clashing of wills. And today, through the Lord's Prayer, you're going to learn how to get unstuck.
CONFLICT OF WILLS #3 - ME AND GOD...
The bottom line is we also have a tug of war going on with God. I've asked Jim Penner to come up and be God for me. Okay, I wake up this morning, and I have this wonderful dream. God, will you bless my dream? This is my will. Aren't You going to bless my dream? It's for You. I want to do this wonderful thing for You. Come on, come on, come on. Boy, He's not budging. Come on God, I've asked You for permission. I've asked You for permission. Come on. He's not going to move an inch. What am I doing wrong? Okay, just forget You then and I'm just going to do it my own way. And I'm just going to be...oh my goodness...I'm all tied up in knots now. That's not working either. My life is a mess. Come on God, come on. I've been praying to You, I've been asking for You and nothing, nothing. Wait a minute: Thy kingdom, Thy will be done. Oh Thy will, not my will. Is that right? Oh. So I jumped the gun instead of having it be my idea, I should have stopped and asked You what Your idea was? Oh. So instead of asking You for permission, I'm supposed to give You permission. Okay. But what if I give You permission, what if I say to You what do You want me to do? And, what if You tell me do something I don't want to do? Oh, that's right, I've already praised You, and I know You're a good Heavenly Father, and a Heavenly Father always knows what's best. Okay. I will say because I've praised You, and I know You love me, I will pray this prayer: Thy will be done. Thy will be done.
Thank you Jim, thank you.
Okay, all those clashes of wills within me and me, all those clashes of wills between me and thee, and all those clashes of wills between me and my heavenly Father. And if it starts with praising Him, knowing what a great God He is, how loving He is, I can trust Him with my life. So, after I've praised Him in the Lord's Prayer, "Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name." A wonderful, wonderful Lord. Hallowed be Your name. "Thy kingdom come, Thy will" not mine, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." So, do you want to continue to live your life stuck in a clash of wills? In a tug of war where you pull people away from you or you push people away from you? Or are you willing to say, "Not my will but Thine be done" and live it every single moment of the day? As you begin to pray the Lord's Prayer every day, suddenly you notice and you're out of sorts - I'm not happy, I'm irritable, I'm fearful, I'm afraid to step out because I've taken my eyes off the Lord and I've put them on me. I've taken my eyes off of what God can do - how I can give to the world instead of what I can get from the world - that is what Thy will be done means.
So, okay, once we've submitted and we've given God our life, and we say okay Lord, You can have Your way with me, how will we know? God will not be looking at you, giving you nods, and shaking His head. That doesn't happen, but you do have God's word. You do have Jesus Christ. And God does reveal His will to you through His word and through His Son, Jesus Christ.
When I was a little girl, my dad taught me this prayer: "God, what are You up to today? I want to be a part of it. Amen." Do you want to say that prayer with me? Ready? "Good morning God, what are You up today? I want to be a part of it." Do you see? That's a really good prayer because it's not like I said, "Good morning, God, here's what I'm up to today. I want You to be a part of it." That's backwards. It's what are YOU up to? And so, just that simple, just that little prayer, asking Him. Then He will begin to reveal His will for you.
In Philippians 2:13, it says, "It is God at work within you, giving you the will and the power to achieve His purposes." That's God's will for you, to achieve His purposes in your life, moment by moment, day by day.
After I had graduated from college, I was working here at the Crystal Cathedral Ministries. I was single and beginning to be afraid I might just never be married. I was beginning to wonder if God would ever have somebody for me. So, I began to pray because I wanted to know what God's will was for me. One day I was up in the mountains, I was sitting on a rock, and I opened up my Bible to Psalm 37. When reading verse 4, it just jumped right out at me, and it said, "Commit your way to the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." Whew. How many of you would like to have the desires of your heart granted? Well, you can. It's right there in the Bible. It's a promise. But there's a real strong caveat to it, which is "Commit your way to the Lord." When we've said "Thy will be done, I commit my life to You Lord, a hundred percent," then what happens is your desires become God's desires, meaning God's desires become your desires, they become one. I no longer have Sheila desires; I have God-desires in my heart. But that only comes because I've committed my way to Him.
So, do you think God is in the process of not granting His own desires? No. He wants to grant His desires, so my prayer at that point in my life was, "Okay, Lord, I commit my life to You. And if You want me to get married someday, so be it. Right now, I feel the desire to be married someday, to be a wife and a mother. But if that is not Your desire, I pray You'll take the desire from me so that in all circumstances of life I can be content." And that was my prayer.
It was several years later that I met Jim Coleman. He came to work here at our ministry. And he was a party boy. He was not considered a committed Christian. He had not committed his way to the Lord. In fact, when he first started working here, somebody called my dad and said, "Dr. Schuller, you know that man Jim Coleman that you just hired? I want you to know he's not a Christian."
My dad said, "Well, then, I can't think of a better place for a non-Christian than church, can you?" Go dad, whew!
So, Jim worked here and we worked together, side by side. We were just friends. Two years later, Jim gave his life to Jesus Christ, and he changed, and he grew before my eyes.
For four years, we'd been friends - two years with Jim as a non-Christian and two years with Jim as a Christian. And then one day he said something to me and I thought, wow, he's really become a man of God. Just then, I felt my heart go bump-bump, bump-bump. I thought uh oh, four years of working side by side and no bump-bump, bump-bumps. What kind of future is there in this? So, I prayed about it and I said, "Lord, if this is of You and only of You, then You will make this happen. And I won't have to do it. I won't have to be involved and do any kind of manipulations."
So Jim and I did start to date and then he began to think, "Should I propose to Sheila. Is Sheila the one? Is she supposed to be my wife?" And Jim did this, but he didn't tell me, and I'm so glad he didn't because I'm not so sure how I would have reacted. I'm glad I didn't know. But he wanted to know God's will, if I was the one for him. So he said, "Okay, Lord, if Sheila's the one, on Friday at noon, my friend Toby will come walking into my office." He didn't have an appointment with him or anything like that or any work that he was doing with Toby. But he had said, noon, Friday, Toby will come walking into my office.
How would you feel if that was your boyfriend? A little nervous?
Well, at noon on Friday, the handle of the door turned, the door opened, and Toby walked into Jim's office. Jim jumped out of his chair. He said, "Toby do you know what this means? Do you know what this means? I am eternally grateful for Toby!"
You know, I wouldn't have had my husband, my love, and I wouldn't have had my four wonderful sons, if it weren't for Toby, but God made His will known. He revealed His will.
When your will is God's will, or when God's will is your will, then all will be well. Let me say that one more time. When your will is God's will, or when God's will is your will, than all will be well.
So stand with me now. We're going to practice doing the Lord's Prayer. The first two steps of it, all right? I want you all to stand unless you're physically not able to. And now I want you to take your hands and put them up in the air. I always wonder why people are afraid to do this in church. I don't get it. I know we all wear deodorant. I just don't get it. Okay? So put your hands up in the air. This is a posture of praise. It doesn't have to be, but it is one. Lift your eyes up to the heavens and repeat after me with the same gusto that you did earlier:
Our Father who art in heaven (our Father who art in heaven) hallowed be Your name (hallowed be Your name). Thank You Lord for this beautiful day (thank You Lord for this beautiful day). Thank You Lord for loving me (Thank You Lord for loving me). Thank You Lord for being such a mighty, powerful God (Thank You Lord for being such a mighty, powerful God). Thank You Lord for being a part of my life (Thank You Lord for being a part of my life).
Okay, now take those hands; stay standing, that's praise. Okay? And we begin by praising God; we begin by focusing on Him. He's a God who can do anything. He is a God; He's a father who knows best. So we can trust Him. So take your hands now, because this is a posture of openness. It's not gripping onto our life, but its opening it up to the Lord in a posture of submission and repeat after me. Thy Kingdom come (Thy kingdom come) Thy will be done (Thy will be done) on earth as it is in heaven (on earth as it is in heaven). Continue to repeat after me. Lord, (Lord) I give permission to do Your will in my life (I give permission to do Your will in my life). I commit my life, my will to You (I commit my life, my will to You). As a result, I know (as a result, I know) that the desires in my heart (that the desires in my heart) are Your desires (are Your desires). I trust that You are working within me (I trust that You are working within me) to do Your will (to do Your will) and Your purpose (and Your purpose). Amen (amen).
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Today, I am continuing my message series, "Spiritual Sustainability: Living the Lord's Prayer." Last week, we explored first phrase of the Lord's Prayer, which is, "Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name." That's "Praise." Praising God. Beginning your prayers and living your day by praying with God can do anything attitude. Focusing on whom it is we are praying to. And this whole idea of praise can transform your life.
The Lord's Prayer is the model prayer that Jesus taught us. Yet, we don't have to do it all the time - this is not something legalistic. But I have found that, when I start my day praying this way, it really, really has transformed my life.
So, I begin my day with praise, talking to my Heavenly Father, focusing on who that heavenly Father is. He is a Father who is all-knowing, all-loving, all-powerful. He can do anything. He is a Father who knows best. And so, now that we have praised God, we can give Him permission to do with our lives as He will. I'm not going to give permission to just anybody. But I will give permission, I will submit my life, a hundred percent of my life, to my heavenly Father and only my heavenly Father.
So you see what Jesus was trying to teach us - it was to begin with praise. "Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed be Your name." I thank You, God, for this. I praise You, God, for this. And that's how I begin my prayers and begin my day.
And then we continue, today, with the second part: "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." The kingdom of God, the kingdom that Jesus Christ came to establish, was a kingdom, a spiritual kingdom, a spiritual kingdom that is in heaven, and Jesus came to show us that that same kingdom could be yours and mine.
We can also live in the kingdom of heaven here on earth. When we say to Him, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven," it is possible to live a heavenly life on earth.
We all know when we go through life, and we go through our day, that it's not always heavenly. It's full of conflict. There are those negative emotions - the fears, jealousies, anger - and I would dare say that the majority of that conflict that we encounter is what I would call a clashing of wills. A clashing of wills. I'm going to demonstrate that concept because I believe that it'll help you remember. Make it a little sticky. So, this week when you're finding yourself irritable, negative, fearful, resentful, maybe you'll remember Sheila and her rope. And you'll say, "Oh! This is just a clashing of the wills."
So, I asked my husband for a rope. If I had brought it, it would have been a little string, but this big rope is what my husband got for me. These conflict-of-wills demonstrations aren't necessarily in order. It's just the way I'm presenting them - those between me and me, or between you and you. You don't think you have internal tug-of-wars? Oh, yes, we do.
CONFLICT OF WILLS #1 - ME AND ME...
This one is a common one for me. Here I am. I wake up in the morning. I'm going to go to the gym and work out, do the whole thing - cardio and the weight resistance. I'm so tired. I didn't sleep well. I think I'll just stay in bed. No, I'm going to go and work out because you know that this is good for you. Oh but I'm so tired. I'll go tomorrow. Anybody do anything similar to that kind of tug of war or is it just me?
Here's another one. Today I'm going to eat healthy. No junk, no sugar, no refined carbs. Just fresh fruit - berries, egg white omelets. And then I look at that delicious scone as I'm standing in line in Starbucks. It calls my name. Oh, I can smell the cinnamon wafting right over here. I can go on my diet tomorrow, can't I? Sheila, you made a vow this morning. But it tastes so good. It's just a hundred calories. Not its not, its two hundred calories. Oh my gosh! I'm doing this, right? Whew. Now, did I make much progress? Did you see me move anywhere? Accomplish anything great? No, I was stuck. Stuck. Got nowhere because of a clashing of wills with myself. And that's part of the problem with clashing of wills - we don't make progress and we're stuck.
Let me show you another one. Those were humorous but this next one is something that we all do all the time, too.
We want to do something great for God. But what if I fail, and people see me, and I'm nothing but a big fat failure? What about the people who won't be helped? Other people out there can do it better. God doesn't need me. The harvest is plentiful, the laborers are few. All those negative emotions can get in the way of us being and doing, making progress. We remain stuck through a clashing of wills first within ourselves - me and me or you and you.
CONFLICT OF WILLS #2 - ME AND YOU...
To illustrate this next conflict of wills, I need a volunteer. Anybody willing to be a volunteer and come on up and help me? Come on down and take a hold of this big fat rope? All right, thank you. The other clashing of wills is between me and thee, between me and other people in my life. So I'm just going to pretend that you're my employer, okay? And I'm going to go to her and I'm going to say, I want a raise! I want a raise. I can't make ends meet. Will you give me a raise? Why not? Because of the economy? Now, you're supposed to pull. Okay, you're pulling me, oh she's not going to give me my raise. But I can't afford to work for you anymore.
Okay, has anybody had any kind of tug of wars like this with their employer? Or maybe it's a family member, all right. Now I'm going to pretend you're one of my sons, all right? Okay, Nicholas, I need you to clean your room. Will you clean your room? Tomorrow? That's too late. You need to clean it today. I can't even get in there to vacuum. After you study?
Okay, any of you have any conflicts, tug of wars with your family members? How about with spouses? There are people that are in relationships today who are stuck because of a clashing of wills. And today, through the Lord's Prayer, you're going to learn how to get unstuck.
CONFLICT OF WILLS #3 - ME AND GOD...
The bottom line is we also have a tug of war going on with God. I've asked Jim Penner to come up and be God for me. Okay, I wake up this morning, and I have this wonderful dream. God, will you bless my dream? This is my will. Aren't You going to bless my dream? It's for You. I want to do this wonderful thing for You. Come on, come on, come on. Boy, He's not budging. Come on God, I've asked You for permission. I've asked You for permission. Come on. He's not going to move an inch. What am I doing wrong? Okay, just forget You then and I'm just going to do it my own way. And I'm just going to be...oh my goodness...I'm all tied up in knots now. That's not working either. My life is a mess. Come on God, come on. I've been praying to You, I've been asking for You and nothing, nothing. Wait a minute: Thy kingdom, Thy will be done. Oh Thy will, not my will. Is that right? Oh. So I jumped the gun instead of having it be my idea, I should have stopped and asked You what Your idea was? Oh. So instead of asking You for permission, I'm supposed to give You permission. Okay. But what if I give You permission, what if I say to You what do You want me to do? And, what if You tell me do something I don't want to do? Oh, that's right, I've already praised You, and I know You're a good Heavenly Father, and a Heavenly Father always knows what's best. Okay. I will say because I've praised You, and I know You love me, I will pray this prayer: Thy will be done. Thy will be done.
Thank you Jim, thank you.
Okay, all those clashes of wills within me and me, all those clashes of wills between me and thee, and all those clashes of wills between me and my heavenly Father. And if it starts with praising Him, knowing what a great God He is, how loving He is, I can trust Him with my life. So, after I've praised Him in the Lord's Prayer, "Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name." A wonderful, wonderful Lord. Hallowed be Your name. "Thy kingdom come, Thy will" not mine, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." So, do you want to continue to live your life stuck in a clash of wills? In a tug of war where you pull people away from you or you push people away from you? Or are you willing to say, "Not my will but Thine be done" and live it every single moment of the day? As you begin to pray the Lord's Prayer every day, suddenly you notice and you're out of sorts - I'm not happy, I'm irritable, I'm fearful, I'm afraid to step out because I've taken my eyes off the Lord and I've put them on me. I've taken my eyes off of what God can do - how I can give to the world instead of what I can get from the world - that is what Thy will be done means.
So, okay, once we've submitted and we've given God our life, and we say okay Lord, You can have Your way with me, how will we know? God will not be looking at you, giving you nods, and shaking His head. That doesn't happen, but you do have God's word. You do have Jesus Christ. And God does reveal His will to you through His word and through His Son, Jesus Christ.
When I was a little girl, my dad taught me this prayer: "God, what are You up to today? I want to be a part of it. Amen." Do you want to say that prayer with me? Ready? "Good morning God, what are You up today? I want to be a part of it." Do you see? That's a really good prayer because it's not like I said, "Good morning, God, here's what I'm up to today. I want You to be a part of it." That's backwards. It's what are YOU up to? And so, just that simple, just that little prayer, asking Him. Then He will begin to reveal His will for you.
In Philippians 2:13, it says, "It is God at work within you, giving you the will and the power to achieve His purposes." That's God's will for you, to achieve His purposes in your life, moment by moment, day by day.
After I had graduated from college, I was working here at the Crystal Cathedral Ministries. I was single and beginning to be afraid I might just never be married. I was beginning to wonder if God would ever have somebody for me. So, I began to pray because I wanted to know what God's will was for me. One day I was up in the mountains, I was sitting on a rock, and I opened up my Bible to Psalm 37. When reading verse 4, it just jumped right out at me, and it said, "Commit your way to the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." Whew. How many of you would like to have the desires of your heart granted? Well, you can. It's right there in the Bible. It's a promise. But there's a real strong caveat to it, which is "Commit your way to the Lord." When we've said "Thy will be done, I commit my life to You Lord, a hundred percent," then what happens is your desires become God's desires, meaning God's desires become your desires, they become one. I no longer have Sheila desires; I have God-desires in my heart. But that only comes because I've committed my way to Him.
So, do you think God is in the process of not granting His own desires? No. He wants to grant His desires, so my prayer at that point in my life was, "Okay, Lord, I commit my life to You. And if You want me to get married someday, so be it. Right now, I feel the desire to be married someday, to be a wife and a mother. But if that is not Your desire, I pray You'll take the desire from me so that in all circumstances of life I can be content." And that was my prayer.
It was several years later that I met Jim Coleman. He came to work here at our ministry. And he was a party boy. He was not considered a committed Christian. He had not committed his way to the Lord. In fact, when he first started working here, somebody called my dad and said, "Dr. Schuller, you know that man Jim Coleman that you just hired? I want you to know he's not a Christian."
My dad said, "Well, then, I can't think of a better place for a non-Christian than church, can you?" Go dad, whew!
So, Jim worked here and we worked together, side by side. We were just friends. Two years later, Jim gave his life to Jesus Christ, and he changed, and he grew before my eyes.
For four years, we'd been friends - two years with Jim as a non-Christian and two years with Jim as a Christian. And then one day he said something to me and I thought, wow, he's really become a man of God. Just then, I felt my heart go bump-bump, bump-bump. I thought uh oh, four years of working side by side and no bump-bump, bump-bumps. What kind of future is there in this? So, I prayed about it and I said, "Lord, if this is of You and only of You, then You will make this happen. And I won't have to do it. I won't have to be involved and do any kind of manipulations."
So Jim and I did start to date and then he began to think, "Should I propose to Sheila. Is Sheila the one? Is she supposed to be my wife?" And Jim did this, but he didn't tell me, and I'm so glad he didn't because I'm not so sure how I would have reacted. I'm glad I didn't know. But he wanted to know God's will, if I was the one for him. So he said, "Okay, Lord, if Sheila's the one, on Friday at noon, my friend Toby will come walking into my office." He didn't have an appointment with him or anything like that or any work that he was doing with Toby. But he had said, noon, Friday, Toby will come walking into my office.
How would you feel if that was your boyfriend? A little nervous?
Well, at noon on Friday, the handle of the door turned, the door opened, and Toby walked into Jim's office. Jim jumped out of his chair. He said, "Toby do you know what this means? Do you know what this means? I am eternally grateful for Toby!"
You know, I wouldn't have had my husband, my love, and I wouldn't have had my four wonderful sons, if it weren't for Toby, but God made His will known. He revealed His will.
When your will is God's will, or when God's will is your will, then all will be well. Let me say that one more time. When your will is God's will, or when God's will is your will, than all will be well.
So stand with me now. We're going to practice doing the Lord's Prayer. The first two steps of it, all right? I want you all to stand unless you're physically not able to. And now I want you to take your hands and put them up in the air. I always wonder why people are afraid to do this in church. I don't get it. I know we all wear deodorant. I just don't get it. Okay? So put your hands up in the air. This is a posture of praise. It doesn't have to be, but it is one. Lift your eyes up to the heavens and repeat after me with the same gusto that you did earlier:
Our Father who art in heaven (our Father who art in heaven) hallowed be Your name (hallowed be Your name). Thank You Lord for this beautiful day (thank You Lord for this beautiful day). Thank You Lord for loving me (Thank You Lord for loving me). Thank You Lord for being such a mighty, powerful God (Thank You Lord for being such a mighty, powerful God). Thank You Lord for being a part of my life (Thank You Lord for being a part of my life).
Okay, now take those hands; stay standing, that's praise. Okay? And we begin by praising God; we begin by focusing on Him. He's a God who can do anything. He is a God; He's a father who knows best. So we can trust Him. So take your hands now, because this is a posture of openness. It's not gripping onto our life, but its opening it up to the Lord in a posture of submission and repeat after me. Thy Kingdom come (Thy kingdom come) Thy will be done (Thy will be done) on earth as it is in heaven (on earth as it is in heaven). Continue to repeat after me. Lord, (Lord) I give permission to do Your will in my life (I give permission to do Your will in my life). I commit my life, my will to You (I commit my life, my will to You). As a result, I know (as a result, I know) that the desires in my heart (that the desires in my heart) are Your desires (are Your desires). I trust that You are working within me (I trust that You are working within me) to do Your will (to do Your will) and Your purpose (and Your purpose). Amen (amen).
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Sunday, August 1, 2010
Living the Lord's Prayer - Praise! - Part 1/5
Written By Sheila Schuller Coleman
This last year, as I've been filling the role as the senior pastor of Crystal Cathedral Ministries, it has been a year of tremendous surprises. It's been much, much harder than I ever could have dreamed it would be. But of all the surprises that I encountered, the biggest surprise - and it was a surprise - was the depth of the love that God has placed in my heart for you - for you, the people. You, the people at home who watch on Hour of Power. Even though I don't know you, even though we may never meet, I have this tremendous, tremendous love for all of you.
We all know Art Linkletter. We miss him already. On his TV show, "Kids Say the Darndest Things," there was one little boy - a darling, sweet little boy named Kyle. Art said to him, "So, Kyle, what do you want to be when you grow up?"
Kyle said without hesitation, "I want to be a bus driver or a pilot."
Art said to him, "Well what are you going to say if you're a pilot and you're flying and all four engines suddenly go out?"
Kyle said, "Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name."
Today we're talking about the Lord's Prayer. I pray the Lord's Prayer every day because Jesus said this is how to pray. There are principles in praying the Lord's Prayer every day. And I pray it not word-for-word as it's written in Matthew, but I use it as a template.
In the beginning, it says, "Our Father Who art in heaven, hallowed be Your name." We begin our prayers with PRAISE. We begin our prayers with a He-can-do-it attitude. When we begin our prayers with praise, we suddenly are praying positively. Our prayers become more positive.
You know it's tempting to grumble a lot in our praying. I know I was that way until I started praying this way a couple years ago. Many times, I'd whine, "Oh God, why do I have to do this? I whined and cried and said, "Help me!" However, I've learned that if we can discipline ourselves to begin with praising God, it changes the way we pray and it changes the way we live.
During our recent message series, "HA! Hallelujah Anyway!" some of you wrote to me and said, "Sheila I love that 'HA! Hallelujah Always!' Though it was actually "Hallelujah Anyway!" I think "Hallelujah Always!' works just as well. So, that's what praise is - praising God.
But I know that there are some of you who have a hard time praising God. Even the topic makes you feel uncomfortable because you have a hard time with it. Either it sounds boring, or it's just something difficult for you to do. I understand that. Let's look at how the Lord's Prayer starts out: "Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name."
When my children were small, I remember picking one of my sons, Chris, up from Sunday school one day. I said, "Chris what did you learn in Sunday school today?"
He said, "Mom, I learned that God's name is Harold."
I said, "Chris, it doesn't say that anywhere in the Bible."
He says, "Oh, yes it does. It says 'Our Father who art in heaven, Harold be Thy name.'"
There are many names for God in the Bible, but Harold is not one of them. Nevertheless, "Father" and "hallowed" are. Jesus used those words in His prayer when He taught us to pray: "Our Father...hallowed be Thy name."
I recently wrote a devotional for "Positive Minute." If you don't already receive these daily e-mails, you can subscribe online and you will get a positive devotional in your e-mail inbox every single day. Thousands of people subscribe. I wrote one for Father's Day, and it was entitled "Heavenly Father's Day." In it, I talked about my dad, and what a great dad he was. In response, I received an e-mail back from somebody who said, "Sheila, you talk about your father and what a great father he is. But my father was a monster. My father abused me. My father abandoned me."
I hear these stories. So many of you had challenges with your earthly fathers. You did not have a godly, earthly father. So when you come to something like praising, when you come to something like "Our Father who art in heaven," that's hard for you because it brings back memories, it brings back images that get in the way, and it's hard. How can you praise? How can you praise God, the Heavenly Father, when you had such a horrible earthly father?
What would be my response to this woman? I had to chew on that one. What could I say - that I had been blessed with an amazing godly, earthly father, and she had not? After praying, I said, "You're right, but you know what? It's my responsibility, then, to share my godly, earthly father with all of you who were not as blessed. To share him with you, to help use him, paint a portrait of what an earthly father is supposed to be. And, in so doing, maybe your image of God, your Heavenly Father, can be changed. Maybe that paradigm can be switched."
So today, I just want to share with you a little bit about what it was like to have this amazing godly, earthly father and what he taught me about my Heavenly Father.
When I was a little girl, every Sunday I loved to go and stand with Dad as he shook hands with everybody at the end of the service. He wore a robe like he does now. And, as a little girl, I thought I was being very clever. I would slip underneath his robe. All you could see were my little shoes and my little bobby socks. When people came to shake hands with Dad, I would stick my hand out right about where dad's tummy was, and they would giggle and they'd shake my hand and then they'd shake Dad's hand. We would do that all morning long, shake hands.
What I learned from that experience was that my father, my godly earthly father, who teaches me that my Heavenly Father is all-powerful, was a safe refuge to me. When I start to feel afraid, sometimes I imagine myself as a little girl covered in dad's robe, covered by my Heavenly Father. The Lord says, "I have you covered in My power. My dad my earthly father, is bigger than life. And our Heavenly Father is bigger than life. My dad would push doors open and all I had to do was walk behind him. He opened doors for me that it made it so much easier for me. All I had to do was walk behind him
This past year, I've heard God say to me so many times, "Sheila, I go ahead of you. Just walk behind Me; I'm pushing doors open for you. I'm pushing doors open for the Crystal Cathedral. All you have to do is hide behind Me, hide. I cover you because I am an all-powerful God. There is nothing too big, nothing too hard for Me to do."
One day, I'd had it. I was probably in 5th grade. I was fed up to here with my family, and so I packed my few belongings in a pillowcase, hid it under the bed, and I wrote a little note that said, "Dear Mom and Dad. I've had it; I'm running away from home. Don't take it personally. Love, Sheila." Then I hid it in one of the napkin rings. I thought that at dinner that night, when I was gone, they would find my runaway note in the napkin ring. We little kids, we think kind of weird sometimes.
I remember it was about three o'clock in the afternoon and I was contemplating where I was going to spend the night. I was thinking about the park. I had a little flashlight in this pillowcase of mine, along with a hairbrush, I think, and that was about it. I don't remember what I was going to eat or anything, but all of a sudden Dad came into my bedroom and he sat on the edge of my bed. "Sheila," he said, "where would a little girl go if she were to run away from home?"
"Oh...well," I said, "she'd probably run away to the park." I was so dismayed. He had obviously found my note before I'd had a chance to run away. Everything was spoiled. And here's my father with me, a prodigal daughter. I didn't even have a chance to run away from home.
God is all-perceptive. He knows everything. We think we can hide those little runaway notes in the middle of the napkin ring. We think we can hide things from Him, but it's good that He knows everything because He wants to step in between you and anything that will harm you. He will come in, then, and rescue you. And He's all-pardoning, like the prodigal father. He doesn't care; He just wants to welcome you home with arms that say, "I love you as you are, today."
When I was in junior high, we had to walk quite a distance from my junior high school to home. And back then there was no air conditioning and it was hot. I walked home with two girls who lived on our block; they were twins. There were two of them to one of me and, as we were walking home, we stopped in a little deli. One of the girls, as she was buying ice cream, said to me, "Sheila, don't you want to buy ice cream?"
I said, "Oh I can't. I don't have any money."
"You don't need money. You can slip that ice cream right there between your sweater and your notebook." I had never thought of that. I could? So I took the ice cream, I slid it right there between my sweater and my notebook, and I walked out of the store with it.
As we were walking home, that ice cream began to melt underneath the sweater. One twin said to me, "Sheila, aren't you going to eat your ice cream?"
I was feeling so guilty. I said, "No, doesn't sound good now."
"Oh, can I eat it?"
"Sure, you can have it."
I walked in the back door of our home and Mom happened to be facing that door. She said to me, "Sheila, what did you do that you should not have done?" I could never get away with anything, so that's part of the reason why I was kind of a good girl. So I spilled the beans immediately. Of course, the guilt had been building and building and I was eager to confess. I said, "Oh Mom, I stole an ice cream."
Later that afternoon I was in my bedroom, probably grounded, and the doorbell rang. I still remember looking peering around the corner of my bedroom doorway down the hallway to the front door, as dad went to the front door. At the door were the two girls, the twins. And they said, "Is Sheila here? Can we hang out with Sheila?"
Dad said, "No. And you can't hang out with Sheila anymore. You've not been a good influence on her." Do you know what I felt standing in that hallway hearing my dad say those words? Whew! What a huge relief! Those two girls - there were two of them to one of me - put peer pressure on me that was not good for me. My dad stood between me and something that would harm me. Our Father, your Heavenly Father, He's all-powerful. He's all-knowing. And He's all-protective. He's all-pardoning. That is who this God is that we pray to. That is who our Heavenly Father is.
When I was a freshman at college, I had a roommate who became depressed when a boy broke a date with her. It happened to be the middle of winter and my father happened to be at Hope College where I was attending. He was on the board of trustees at the time. And when I came back to my cottage, I was met by a resident adviser who said, "Sheila, I have terrible news. Sarah is in intensive care. She tried to take her own life. She tried to commit suicide. She's in a coma. We do not expect her to survive."
I remember those icy, slippery sidewalks, racing, running across the campus to where I knew my father was meeting. I knocked on the door and I said, "I need to see my dad. I need to see my dad." And out came my dad and we walked the snowy sidewalks together as we talked about what had happened to my roommate. He was there for me.
People, your Heavenly Father is all-pardoning. He loves you no matter what. He is always there for you. He is all-protective. He stands between you and anything that can harm you. So praise Him. Praise Him. Begin your prayers with a He-can-do-it attitude. Otherwise, we can pray "I can't do this." But, no, we can't but He can do it! He can do it. That's what we learn with the very beginning of the Lord's Prayer.
And I have learned to pray in all circumstances. Look at Paul, when he was thrown in prison and bound in chains. There they were at midnight, he and Silas - they were praising God and they were singing songs to Him when their chains broke free. It was the praising. Their chains broke, an earthquake rattled, and they were free, they were liberated. As a result, the jailer and his whole family came to know God and came to know Jesus. Praise, praise at all times. Praise in your prisons, praise even though you feel bound, praise even though you don't know how you're going to get through this. That's the time to praise. Praise heals; praise can break the chains. It's one thing to praise, but the more you pray it, soon you're living it, and you notice things.
This morning, I went out into our garden to get fresh basil for my omelet and I noticed a spider web. In the morning, the dew clung to it as the sunlight shined on it. I said, "Thank You, Lord. Look at this beautiful world that You have created!"
When I've walked across this campus during times when it's been especially hard, I've said, "Thank You, Lord, that there's not enough money because Your will will be done, because Your glory will be revealed!"
So, begin your day, begin your prayers, live your day praising God. Hallelujah always!
Lord, here we are, Your people, and we are here to praise You. Lord, You can do it. You will protect us. You will pardon us. You will always be there for us. And so, Lord, we Your children look to You, our beautiful, loving, powerful, Heavenly Father. And we say, Lord, thank You. We worship You. We bow down before You. We praise You. Amen.
Read on Hour of Power site
Watch Video on Hour of Power Site
This last year, as I've been filling the role as the senior pastor of Crystal Cathedral Ministries, it has been a year of tremendous surprises. It's been much, much harder than I ever could have dreamed it would be. But of all the surprises that I encountered, the biggest surprise - and it was a surprise - was the depth of the love that God has placed in my heart for you - for you, the people. You, the people at home who watch on Hour of Power. Even though I don't know you, even though we may never meet, I have this tremendous, tremendous love for all of you.
We all know Art Linkletter. We miss him already. On his TV show, "Kids Say the Darndest Things," there was one little boy - a darling, sweet little boy named Kyle. Art said to him, "So, Kyle, what do you want to be when you grow up?"
Kyle said without hesitation, "I want to be a bus driver or a pilot."
Art said to him, "Well what are you going to say if you're a pilot and you're flying and all four engines suddenly go out?"
Kyle said, "Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name."
Today we're talking about the Lord's Prayer. I pray the Lord's Prayer every day because Jesus said this is how to pray. There are principles in praying the Lord's Prayer every day. And I pray it not word-for-word as it's written in Matthew, but I use it as a template.
In the beginning, it says, "Our Father Who art in heaven, hallowed be Your name." We begin our prayers with PRAISE. We begin our prayers with a He-can-do-it attitude. When we begin our prayers with praise, we suddenly are praying positively. Our prayers become more positive.
You know it's tempting to grumble a lot in our praying. I know I was that way until I started praying this way a couple years ago. Many times, I'd whine, "Oh God, why do I have to do this? I whined and cried and said, "Help me!" However, I've learned that if we can discipline ourselves to begin with praising God, it changes the way we pray and it changes the way we live.
During our recent message series, "HA! Hallelujah Anyway!" some of you wrote to me and said, "Sheila I love that 'HA! Hallelujah Always!' Though it was actually "Hallelujah Anyway!" I think "Hallelujah Always!' works just as well. So, that's what praise is - praising God.
But I know that there are some of you who have a hard time praising God. Even the topic makes you feel uncomfortable because you have a hard time with it. Either it sounds boring, or it's just something difficult for you to do. I understand that. Let's look at how the Lord's Prayer starts out: "Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name."
When my children were small, I remember picking one of my sons, Chris, up from Sunday school one day. I said, "Chris what did you learn in Sunday school today?"
He said, "Mom, I learned that God's name is Harold."
I said, "Chris, it doesn't say that anywhere in the Bible."
He says, "Oh, yes it does. It says 'Our Father who art in heaven, Harold be Thy name.'"
There are many names for God in the Bible, but Harold is not one of them. Nevertheless, "Father" and "hallowed" are. Jesus used those words in His prayer when He taught us to pray: "Our Father...hallowed be Thy name."
I recently wrote a devotional for "Positive Minute." If you don't already receive these daily e-mails, you can subscribe online and you will get a positive devotional in your e-mail inbox every single day. Thousands of people subscribe. I wrote one for Father's Day, and it was entitled "Heavenly Father's Day." In it, I talked about my dad, and what a great dad he was. In response, I received an e-mail back from somebody who said, "Sheila, you talk about your father and what a great father he is. But my father was a monster. My father abused me. My father abandoned me."
I hear these stories. So many of you had challenges with your earthly fathers. You did not have a godly, earthly father. So when you come to something like praising, when you come to something like "Our Father who art in heaven," that's hard for you because it brings back memories, it brings back images that get in the way, and it's hard. How can you praise? How can you praise God, the Heavenly Father, when you had such a horrible earthly father?
What would be my response to this woman? I had to chew on that one. What could I say - that I had been blessed with an amazing godly, earthly father, and she had not? After praying, I said, "You're right, but you know what? It's my responsibility, then, to share my godly, earthly father with all of you who were not as blessed. To share him with you, to help use him, paint a portrait of what an earthly father is supposed to be. And, in so doing, maybe your image of God, your Heavenly Father, can be changed. Maybe that paradigm can be switched."
So today, I just want to share with you a little bit about what it was like to have this amazing godly, earthly father and what he taught me about my Heavenly Father.
When I was a little girl, every Sunday I loved to go and stand with Dad as he shook hands with everybody at the end of the service. He wore a robe like he does now. And, as a little girl, I thought I was being very clever. I would slip underneath his robe. All you could see were my little shoes and my little bobby socks. When people came to shake hands with Dad, I would stick my hand out right about where dad's tummy was, and they would giggle and they'd shake my hand and then they'd shake Dad's hand. We would do that all morning long, shake hands.
What I learned from that experience was that my father, my godly earthly father, who teaches me that my Heavenly Father is all-powerful, was a safe refuge to me. When I start to feel afraid, sometimes I imagine myself as a little girl covered in dad's robe, covered by my Heavenly Father. The Lord says, "I have you covered in My power. My dad my earthly father, is bigger than life. And our Heavenly Father is bigger than life. My dad would push doors open and all I had to do was walk behind him. He opened doors for me that it made it so much easier for me. All I had to do was walk behind him
This past year, I've heard God say to me so many times, "Sheila, I go ahead of you. Just walk behind Me; I'm pushing doors open for you. I'm pushing doors open for the Crystal Cathedral. All you have to do is hide behind Me, hide. I cover you because I am an all-powerful God. There is nothing too big, nothing too hard for Me to do."
One day, I'd had it. I was probably in 5th grade. I was fed up to here with my family, and so I packed my few belongings in a pillowcase, hid it under the bed, and I wrote a little note that said, "Dear Mom and Dad. I've had it; I'm running away from home. Don't take it personally. Love, Sheila." Then I hid it in one of the napkin rings. I thought that at dinner that night, when I was gone, they would find my runaway note in the napkin ring. We little kids, we think kind of weird sometimes.
I remember it was about three o'clock in the afternoon and I was contemplating where I was going to spend the night. I was thinking about the park. I had a little flashlight in this pillowcase of mine, along with a hairbrush, I think, and that was about it. I don't remember what I was going to eat or anything, but all of a sudden Dad came into my bedroom and he sat on the edge of my bed. "Sheila," he said, "where would a little girl go if she were to run away from home?"
"Oh...well," I said, "she'd probably run away to the park." I was so dismayed. He had obviously found my note before I'd had a chance to run away. Everything was spoiled. And here's my father with me, a prodigal daughter. I didn't even have a chance to run away from home.
God is all-perceptive. He knows everything. We think we can hide those little runaway notes in the middle of the napkin ring. We think we can hide things from Him, but it's good that He knows everything because He wants to step in between you and anything that will harm you. He will come in, then, and rescue you. And He's all-pardoning, like the prodigal father. He doesn't care; He just wants to welcome you home with arms that say, "I love you as you are, today."
When I was in junior high, we had to walk quite a distance from my junior high school to home. And back then there was no air conditioning and it was hot. I walked home with two girls who lived on our block; they were twins. There were two of them to one of me and, as we were walking home, we stopped in a little deli. One of the girls, as she was buying ice cream, said to me, "Sheila, don't you want to buy ice cream?"
I said, "Oh I can't. I don't have any money."
"You don't need money. You can slip that ice cream right there between your sweater and your notebook." I had never thought of that. I could? So I took the ice cream, I slid it right there between my sweater and my notebook, and I walked out of the store with it.
As we were walking home, that ice cream began to melt underneath the sweater. One twin said to me, "Sheila, aren't you going to eat your ice cream?"
I was feeling so guilty. I said, "No, doesn't sound good now."
"Oh, can I eat it?"
"Sure, you can have it."
I walked in the back door of our home and Mom happened to be facing that door. She said to me, "Sheila, what did you do that you should not have done?" I could never get away with anything, so that's part of the reason why I was kind of a good girl. So I spilled the beans immediately. Of course, the guilt had been building and building and I was eager to confess. I said, "Oh Mom, I stole an ice cream."
Later that afternoon I was in my bedroom, probably grounded, and the doorbell rang. I still remember looking peering around the corner of my bedroom doorway down the hallway to the front door, as dad went to the front door. At the door were the two girls, the twins. And they said, "Is Sheila here? Can we hang out with Sheila?"
Dad said, "No. And you can't hang out with Sheila anymore. You've not been a good influence on her." Do you know what I felt standing in that hallway hearing my dad say those words? Whew! What a huge relief! Those two girls - there were two of them to one of me - put peer pressure on me that was not good for me. My dad stood between me and something that would harm me. Our Father, your Heavenly Father, He's all-powerful. He's all-knowing. And He's all-protective. He's all-pardoning. That is who this God is that we pray to. That is who our Heavenly Father is.
When I was a freshman at college, I had a roommate who became depressed when a boy broke a date with her. It happened to be the middle of winter and my father happened to be at Hope College where I was attending. He was on the board of trustees at the time. And when I came back to my cottage, I was met by a resident adviser who said, "Sheila, I have terrible news. Sarah is in intensive care. She tried to take her own life. She tried to commit suicide. She's in a coma. We do not expect her to survive."
I remember those icy, slippery sidewalks, racing, running across the campus to where I knew my father was meeting. I knocked on the door and I said, "I need to see my dad. I need to see my dad." And out came my dad and we walked the snowy sidewalks together as we talked about what had happened to my roommate. He was there for me.
People, your Heavenly Father is all-pardoning. He loves you no matter what. He is always there for you. He is all-protective. He stands between you and anything that can harm you. So praise Him. Praise Him. Begin your prayers with a He-can-do-it attitude. Otherwise, we can pray "I can't do this." But, no, we can't but He can do it! He can do it. That's what we learn with the very beginning of the Lord's Prayer.
And I have learned to pray in all circumstances. Look at Paul, when he was thrown in prison and bound in chains. There they were at midnight, he and Silas - they were praising God and they were singing songs to Him when their chains broke free. It was the praising. Their chains broke, an earthquake rattled, and they were free, they were liberated. As a result, the jailer and his whole family came to know God and came to know Jesus. Praise, praise at all times. Praise in your prisons, praise even though you feel bound, praise even though you don't know how you're going to get through this. That's the time to praise. Praise heals; praise can break the chains. It's one thing to praise, but the more you pray it, soon you're living it, and you notice things.
This morning, I went out into our garden to get fresh basil for my omelet and I noticed a spider web. In the morning, the dew clung to it as the sunlight shined on it. I said, "Thank You, Lord. Look at this beautiful world that You have created!"
When I've walked across this campus during times when it's been especially hard, I've said, "Thank You, Lord, that there's not enough money because Your will will be done, because Your glory will be revealed!"
So, begin your day, begin your prayers, live your day praising God. Hallelujah always!
Lord, here we are, Your people, and we are here to praise You. Lord, You can do it. You will protect us. You will pardon us. You will always be there for us. And so, Lord, we Your children look to You, our beautiful, loving, powerful, Heavenly Father. And we say, Lord, thank You. We worship You. We bow down before You. We praise You. Amen.
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