Heart Tracks - Praying Through

"Commit your way unto the Lord, trust also in Him, and He will bring it to pass." Psalm 37:5....."A man quietly reading a newspaper may not look as pious as a man on his knees in prayer. But if he has committed his way unto the Lord and left it with Him, while he calmly moves on to something else, he is a better Christian than one who never leaves his way with the Lord but is always trying to." Vance Havner

Why do we find it so hard to actually live out the command, and it is a command, and a promise too, of the above Scripture? Why are we so often much more like the man on his knees, constantly seeking peace and rest, than we are the man with the newspaper, actually living in His peace and rest? Why can we not reach the place that we know we want to reach? What's the blockage? Does God just dangle His promised rest before us like a carrot on a stick? Of course not, but so few of us ever enter into the fullness of that rest. We're in the main, an anxious, stressed out, weary people. Why does His promise not bear fruit in us?

I think the answer is found in how we approach this promise, and how we pray it. First off, we seem far more familiar with all that works against the fulfillment of His promises than we are of experiencing their fullness. They seem to just be too good to be true for this fallen world we live in. More than that, I think we know little of what it is to "cast our burden upon the Lord," and what is involved in that. Casting involves effort on our part, and I'm not speaking of a works kind of effort, but an effort of our will. By God's grace, our will is yielded fully to His. We let go, completely, and surrender the burden, all of the burden, to Him. We do this at the cross. We give to Him all that robs us of His peace, we spiritually nail it to His cross. It is now His, and subjected to all the power of the cross, His blood, and His resurrection. What's been surrendered is rendered powerless there, and it can oppress us no longer. Coming to this place in Him is by way of prayer, and we have to realize the enemy is going to do everything in his power to prevent it. He will do all he can to oppress us and rob us of His peace. All those obstacles will fall as we press on and through them in grace empowered prayer. Christians of an earlier time called this "praying through." Praying through all the blockages to our laying hold of that which He's promised. In our "instant results" culture, this spiritual discipline is fast disappearing. Along with His promised rest. But if we will do this, we will lay hold of His fullness, of His rest, and the grace to trust as He works, and He always works, to bring us to the place He desires for us.

Where in our lives is unrest prevailing? Right before us, in Him, is the fulfillment of His promise. Commit, trust, rest. The adversaries to having this from Him are many, but if we determine to "pray though" them, we will have His peace because He has us and all that concerns us. There is so much to be anxious about today. There is only One who can release us from that bondage. There will be blockages to reaching Him, but He has given us all the grace needed to persevere, to pray through them all. If we will commit our way to the One who is the Way, we will know and experience His rest, live in believing trust and faith, and see Him bring to pass all the fullness of His will for our lives. Praying through to Him is a matter of of the will, being determined that we will have Him, all that is Him, all the while having what is not Him cleansed from our lives. Our flesh desires to be anywhere but at the foot of the cross, but its there, and only there, that we find the fullness of His Life. We die to all that is not Him in us, and come alive to all that is His Life. We don't struggle to find peace, we are peace, in Him. May this be our testimony. May this be our life.

Blessings,
Pastor O