The peacefulness of a sleeping human is unlike anything else.
You know they aren’t dead but they aren’t really in the realm of where we are standing either. Often times I like to double check everyone before turning my lights out at night. Kissing and asking God to protect them from scary dreams and lures of Satan. I see their angelic faces, their thoughts lost inside a world where I am not. I see them grow right before my eyes. They were a baby last time I checked them, weren’t they? Just yesterday they were a tiny new baby, and then morning came, and now they are bigger. People always say, time flies. They aren’t kidding! Some people out there know a few things I don’t.
What a wonderful time to pray over the children. Yes, it blesses them to hear your prayers for them, but to pray for them while they sleep, it feels different some how. We have a drawing of a man bent over his child’s bed obviously praying for his son or daughter. In the big window behind him, an Angel from the Lord is spreading his arms and wings preventing an evil angel from coming into the room where the sleeping child lay. I envision that picture often.
Because it’s real. I know it is.
My prayers for my kids protect them from things that I will never know how they protected them or when.
Praying can be like that a lot. Not knowing where they go or how they are helping someone or a situation, it’s like writing letters and requests and holding the paper in the wind and letting it go. Never seeing that it gets anywhere, but fully trusting that it will get exactly where it should get too. I think thats why us humans aren’t very faithful in prayer is because we want results and we want to see , and touch and hear them now. Praying can seem silly and useless. Boy do I get duked. Prayer is a highly powerful tool, that we don’t use often enough. I know for me, when I get out of the habit of prayer, my life and attitude turn to mush. And I start relying on human beings to glue my brokenness together. And they can’t. I must be patient. For He is patient, and many times slow to answer.
God doesn’t do things our way. He doesn’t need me. He wants me and He loves me and He will use me, but He doesn’t need me. And sometimes I think I forget that He doesn’t need me.
If I won’t do a job he is asked of me, He will find someone else who will. Understanding this concept can and does change the way I think about prayer. It becomes a privilege to speak with my Lord. Not a have too chore. I get too talk to HIm! I mean, who do I think I am? I am a little claymation character that can be squashed and remolded. Thats who I am. And I like the analogy of a clay person because, clay can be baked into something hard, Where you can not remold. I don’t want to be cooked clay.
I must stay soft and pliable to be made into a new creation everyday. (Can you just put big, curly, hair swirls on my clay head Lord?, and maybe some red lips?)
Prayer molds me. There is power in it. And in all my 34 years. I feel like I have barely tapped into it. I am not asking where have you been Lord, I am asking where have “I” been Lord?
I am on a journey. And I have come into the realization, I can not take breaks with prayer. I don’t need them. Breaks and vacation from prayer hurts me. There can be no such thing. I don’t actually intend on taking breaks, but it happens. Satan hands me more invites on a daily basis to do something other then prayer then there are tea bags in the Buckingham Palace pantry. I mean, its unreal sometimes when I finally take a look at my patience level without prayer in my diet, and realize, oh I guess I haven’t been letting Christ have control, maybe thats why I’m falling apart here! Its like a supplement we are suppose to be taking, and don’t because we “keep forgetting” and then wonder why we keep getting “day cramps”! A horrible thing to forget, is to ask the ruler of the universe, the one who has the power to change my day, or at least my attitude with what the day brings, to help me thru it.
Some trials are downright nasty to me. How can I forget to give it away so I don’t carry the ball and chain myself? Why am I so bent on keeping my trouble? I forgot. I had someone who would take it for me. And my consequence for not praying my troubles away, is stress. The stress of trying to be in control and knowing I can’t control it. And I think we can ad, grouchiness to that too…
I must make prayer like the water I drink, the food I eat, the shoes I wear. It must be, throughout my day, everyday. And it will change me. He loves me, but He doesn’t need me… I need Him.
-Prudence
Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.
? I recently finished a book I would recommend by Bob Russell called When God Answers Prayer. You may find it interesting, the man is amusing in his writing and conveys his points about prayer fairly clearly.
Just want you to know, Alice, that I think your husband is right on about your being insightful about prayer. What a privilege prayer is! What an important part of each day, and when we allow things of this world to crowd out our connection with the Lord through His Word and our choosing to talk with out of our need not His, we are definitely the losers, but not the only losers. Those are around us are affected as well. By the way, we have the picture you referred to in puzzle form. Several of our family members put it together one Christmas, and we have it up in the hallway where our extra bedrooms are. Powerful message for sure. Thank you for sharing your encouraging thoughts with others, Alice!