GOD Praying
With The Prayers Of The Bible: Hannah's prayer Praying
With The Prayers Of The Bible: Praying
in the Silence of the Heart: 'O
Lord of hosts ... if you will give me a son ...I will
give him to the Lord all the days of his life.' (1
Samuel 1:11) Three
'C's will help us to grasp this most personal and moving
prayer. First,
the prayer's context. Hannah was the
childless wife of Elkanah, who had sons and daughters by
his other wife, Peninnah. As she longed for a child, she
was taunted by 'her rival' (see v.6) who reproached her
for being barren. It doesn't take much imagination
to understand how miserable and lonely and useless Hannah
felt. Although Elkanah loved Hannah, his well-meant
sympathy, 'Am I not more to you than ten sons?' (v.8) was
hardly calculated to ease her pain! Making the
annual pilgrimage to the Tabernacle at Secondly,
the prayer's content. Above everything else, Hannah
longed to have a son. 'O Lord of hosts, if you will look
on my affliction and give me a son, I will give him back
to you in service all the days of his life' (v.11).
It was a cry from the heart. A lonely wife, longing
for a child, taunted by her rival, and not really
understood by her husband, poured out her very soul in
grief. And it was all done without spoken words! As her
lips moved, Eli the priest, misreading the signs, rebuked
her for being drunk (v.14). There are times when
the burden of our heart is so great that no words can
express it, but how comforting to know that God hears us! Thirdly,
the prayer's consequences. The Lord graciously
answered Hannah's distress and a year later she was
nursing her baby son! (vv. 21, 22). Hannah's dark night
had been eclipsed by a glorious morning. Grief and
sorrow had given way to joy and delight but as she
cradled her infant son, Hannah did not forget what she
had promised the Lord. In token of his
faithfulness, she named her son Samuel, meaning, 'asked
of the Lord' (v.20). Some time later Hannah took Samuel
to SERMON
NOTEBOOK: 'People Like Us' Road
to Emmaus: Luke 24: 13-35 The
story of the two disciples walking the road between Hearts
Opened The
disciples displayed 'downcast' faces (17), as their
hearts were preoccupied with grief. They felt let down by
God (21), as well as bewildered by all they had heard (22).
No doubt their emotions prevented them from recognising
Jesus walking with them (16), even though their hearts
burned within them (32). Despite our feelings, Jesus is
with us in situations of loss or desolation, as well as
when we feel let down by God or other people. In
such circumstances, how have we known Jesus' presence? Minds
Opened Although
this pair knew the Scriptures, they didn't understand
what they said about the Christ (25-26). Therefore, Jesus
opened their minds to make sense of the events they were
experiencing (27). The Holy Spirit also brings God's word
alive for us, as He challenges our preconceptions about
Jesus. In
what ways has this been your experience of reading the
Bible? Eyes
Opened The
couple only recognised Jesus when He broke the bread as
they ate together (30-31). The turning point came when
they invited Jesus into their home, and allowed him to
take charge. If we are to recognise Jesus' presence with
us, we need to open our lives to him. What
part does Holy Communion play in this? Open
eyes, minds and hearts lead to open mouths. Having
discovered Jesus, the disciples can't keep the news to
themselves. The Christian message is never truly ours
until we have opened our mouths and shared it with others!
Pull
up a chair He
is close to all who call on him sincerely – Psalm
145.18 The
old man was very ill, so his family called the minister.
When the minister came in, he noticed an empty chair by
the bed and said, “I see I'm not your first visitor
today.” The
old man smiled and said, “Let me tell you about that
chair. Years ago I found it difficult to pray.
A friend told me not to worry about it. He said
'Just sit down, put a chair in front of you, and begin to
talk to him as you would to a friend.'” Then
the old man added with a smile: “I've been doing
that for the last 30 years, and it's been wonderful; it
really works.” Soon
the old man died. His daughter called for the
minister. She said, “When I left him this
morning, he was sleeping comfortably. But when I
came back, he was gone. Then I noticed something:
his hand was on the empty chair beside the bed. Isn't
that strange?” “No,”
the minister replied. “The One in the chair
just took him by the hand and they left together.” If
it helps you, pull up a chair today and spend some time
talking to the Lord. Come to him confidently, for
He couldn't love you more than He does at this moment
– and that will never change. The Bible says:
“Let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious
God. There we will receive his mercy and we will
find grace to help us when we need it.” (Hebrews 4:16). UCB
The Word for Today Have
a teaspoon of Prayer If
you have trouble praying, try just it by the teaspoonful
(tsp): T
– thank you One
way of putting it A
man spent many years as a drunkard and a layabout. But
through the Salvation Army, he turned to the Lord and his
life gradually changed. At Sunday service he became
well known for his prayers – like this one, perhaps
a little strange, but full of truth: “Lord,
we ain't what we want to be, we ain't what we ought to
be, and we ain't what we're gonna be – but praise
Thee, Lord, we ain't what we used to be!” QUESTIONS
AND ANSWERS Is
Jesus Christ 'IT'.... or is He only part of something yet
bigger still? Are there other systems out there,
alien to our own? The
answer to the question lies in the nature of Christ
himself. He is the key to the whole of our
existence. The Christian apostle Paul sums up the
divine purpose vividly: “...to bring all
things in heaven and on earth together under one head,
even Christ.” (Ephesians 1:10) Why
a universe, and not a series of universes? Christ
is the single, unifying reason. As two student
leaders – Tom Parsons and Stephen Nichols –
once explained in a Bible study at All Souls Church in
London, “Even the origin of the university (Latin:
'uni'- one; 'veritas' – truth) reflects the vision
of a single coherent story, one truth. From the
beginning, all subjects on our campuses – physics,
music or mathematics – were separate chapters in one
over-arching story, slices cut from one cake.” But
in recent years a widespread loss of confidence has
resulted in a growing collection of highly diverse and
irreconcilable 'stories'; there are as many narratives as
there are narrators – 'my' story, 'your' story, the
Marxist story, the feminist story. The university
curriculum has widened to bizarre dimensions. “You
can even do courses in Star Trek,” says Tom and
Stephen, “or studies on the career of some football
star!” The idea that there could be one story
that explains all the rest – a single factor, an
individual Person – is dismissed as naïve. But
this is nothing new. The Christian apostles were up
against the most fragmented world-view imaginable. There
was As
the message of Christ took hold – by whose 'blood'
all things on earth or in heaven could be made one (Colossians
1:20) – a new and unprecedented unity of thought
began to take over. Tatian, the second century
Christian leader, spoke of the relief of exchanging the
tyranny of 10,000 gods for the benign monarchy of one.
Augustine, two centuries later put it, “This Child
of the manger fills the world.” The
apostle Paul put it still more dramatically: “He
who descended is the very one who ascended higher than
all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.”
(Ephesians 4:10). By this, Paul meant that there is
no part of the universe that is free from Christ's
control. Secondly, there is no room for anyone else.
Diana, Mithras, Jupiter, Osiris and Venus had to go.
Jesus has taken all the space! Thirdly, the
ascension of Jesus implies, not a Christ-deserted world,
but a Christ-filled world. There
is just one great universe – and Christ is its
explanation and goal. From
'The Top 100 Questions – biblical answers to popular
questions’ by Richard Bewes (Christian Focus) Good
likeness Some
children were asked: “What do you think of Jesus?” “Jesus,”
said one little boy, “is the best photograph God
ever had taken.” Follow
him God
desires a unique destiny for your life, not a run-of-the-mill
destination. There's no way to know where He
intends to lead you, but there's one way to get there:
follow where He leads, and leave the rest to him.
Anon. Our
God Our
God is able – (Daniel Exploring
Our Faith We
are all on a life journey of discovery and Christians
describe this as their spiritual journey, their journey
of faith. At the heart of being a disciple of Jesus
is our faith, but what does this actually mean? Before
we can begin to explore our faith we need to understand
what it is. In his book 'To Love and To Serve'
Jonathan Draper describes faith as knowing enough to get
on with, but having knowledge that is incomplete, limited
and partial. The Bible interprets faith as trust,
reliance or fidelity. Christ
has faith in his absolute unity with God. His is a
personal response to God's blessing. We strive to
be more Christ-like and therefore need to make that
personal response of faith too. Faith is not an
intellectual passive thing, but a radical and total
commitment to Christ; a conscious human act and
experience. Martha
explored her faith when she made time to be with Jesus
after Lazarus died. She moved from a general
statement of belief to a personal response of faith after
she heard Jesus say, 'I am the resurrection and the life...'. But
faith cannot be explored in unity with God alone. We
also need unity with each other for our faith to grow.
We need to respond and act together as members of the
body of Christ. We need to learn with, and from,
each other; open our eyes to see the world as God sees it
and share this with others; ask questions of ourselves;
and not be afraid to ask questions of others and God. No
journey of discovery is the same but if we want to move
forward in faith we have to consciously step out into the
unknown and put absolute trust in God to guide us. |