God has continued to really pour out grace on me to enable me to go after Him with more discipline in extended times of prayer & intercession. It is a matter of discipline right now and I am learning that I don't have to wait till it's easier before I get to enjoy the benefits of just spending time with Him, e.g. more sensitivity to the Holy Spirit, more desire to please Him, overwhelming desire to be holy and walking His way, and a better attitude towards things that would usually irritate me. That is pretty gracious and kind of Him.
I have been asking Him to teach me more about intercession and was led to an amazing web-find called
Path 2 Prayer and in particular, the
Intercessory Prayer page. The site is maintained by Dan Augsburger who also has sermons and articles on the page. It is an overwhelming resource site utilizing many of the classic works of faithful Christians of the past. They really did leave gems for us - once we can get past the older forms of the English language and expressions.
Anyway, I made that particular page my new home page for a while and have been listening and re-listening Dan's
Prevailing Prayer series (January 2009). It is highly recommended and well organized series for a good foundational lesson on prayer, and was especially motivating because of the first hand testimonies of answered prayer. What comes through loud and clear is that God does in fact answer prayer that agrees with His word and fulfills His conditions. He stresses that we ought to pray expecting answers, even when we have to press on and persist for a while. Praying as if we're making a gamble or hoping to get lucky is self-defeating as it's already missing the ingredient of faith.
As I said, this website is replete with resources on various topics regarding prayer and Christian life. I came across a wonderful excerpt called
The God-Planned Life by James McConkey from
Life Talks (1911). It is long but so good. The significance to me hinged on the fact that God had to remind me a few weeks back in May, that He has a specific plan for my life. Ok. I know. I should have known that. I did...I used to. But it seems I forgot somewhere and entered into a lot of striving and grasping to make things work. This was after spiralling in the last couple years through a lot of mistakes and disappointment, and generally feeling that I'd fallen back so far from my pursuit of Him that I must have disqualified myself from His plans.
Well, He does have a plan. And He still has a plan for me. I didn't even know I had forgotten until He reminded me. Just the thought was so life-infusing to me that I found myself trying to tell my girl friend at the movies while we sat there just before the movie started. Needless to say, she seemed surprised that this was a major 'revelation' to me!
I want to include an excerpt here from McConkey here which will be more of a caveat for readers. There are other points in his writing that brings it all together in a motivating and hope-inspiring way - no matter how far you've fallen or how old you are, God has a plan. You really should go
here and read the whole thing:
"...created in Christ Jesus unto good works,
which God hath before ordained
that we should walk in them." –Ephesians 2:10
A Man May Fail to Enter Into God’s Plan For His Life
Among the curiosities of a little fishing village on the Great Lakes where we were summering was a pair of captive eagles. They had been captured when but two weeks old and confined in a large room-like cage. Year after year the eaglets grew, until they were magnificent specimens of their kind, stretching six feet from tip to tip of wings. One summer when we came back for our usual vacation, the eagles were missing. Inquiring of the owner as to their disappearance, this story came to us. The owner had left the village for a prolonged fishing trip out in the lake. While he was absent, some mischievous boys opened the door of the cage and gave the great birds their liberty. At once they endeavoured to escape. But kept in captivity from their earliest eaglet days, they had never learned to fly. They seemed to realize that God had meant them to be more than mere earthlings. After all these weary years the instinct for the sky and the heavens still smoldered in their hearts. And most desperately did they strive to exercise it. They floundered about upon the village green. They struggled, fell, and beat their wings in piteous efforts to rise into the airy freedom of their God-appointed destiny. But all in vain. One of them, essaying to fly across a small stream, fell helpless into the water and had to be rescued from drowning. The other, after a succession of desperate and humiliating failures, managed to attain to the lower-most limb of a nearby tree. Thence he was shot to death by the hand of a cruel boy. His mate soon shared the same hapless fate. And the simple tragedy of their hampered lives came to an end.
Often since has come to us the tragic lesson of the imprisoned eagles. God had designed for these kingly birds a noble inheritance of freedom. It was theirs to pierce in royal flights the very eye of the midday sun. It was theirs to nest in lofty crags where never foot of man had trod. It was theirs to break with unwearying pinion the storms and tempests of mid-heaven. A princely heritage indeed was theirs. But the cruelty of man had hopelessly shut them out from it. And instead of the limitless liberty planned for them had come captivity, helplessness, humiliation and death. Even these birds of the air missed God’s great plan for their lives. Much more may the sons of men.
Is not this the very thing of which Paul speaks when he says, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure”? What are these inner voices which, if we heed not, cease? What are these visions which, if we follow not, fade? What are these yearnings to be all for Christ which, if we embody not in action, die? What are they but the living God working in us to will and to do the life work which He has planned for us from all eternity? And it is this which you are called upon to “work out.” Work it out in love. Work it out in daily, faithful ministry. Work it out as God works in you. But more than that – you may miss it. You may fall short of God’s perfect plan for your life. Therefore, work it out with fear and trembling! Searching words are these – words of warning, words of tender admonition. That blessed life of witnessing, service and fruit bearing which God has planned for you in Christ Jesus from all eternity--work it out with trembling. Trembling – lest the god of this world blind you to the vision of service which God is ever holding before you. Trembling – lest the low standard of life fellow-Christians about you lead you to drop yours to a like groveling level. Trembling – lest some little circle in the dark ends of the earth should fail of the giving, the praying or the going which God has long since planned for you. Trembling – lest the voices of worldly pleasure and ambition dull and deafen your ears to the one voice which is ever whispering – “Follow thou me: follow thou me.”
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