what prayer is all about...

now i don’t know exactly what you are going through today but i do know that GOD is right there with you and HE wants to interact with what is happening in your life but HE won’t.  but HE won’t until you ask HIM.  that is what prayer is all about.

some of you are reading this, thinking of this as intellectual truth and you’re filing it in your mind.  others of you know exactly, from experience, what I’m talking about.  you’ve been through some deep waters in the last two or three weeks and you have felt GOD’s presence in your life and you have reached out to HIM and HE has comforted you.  HE has given you the strength and encouragement to keep on going.  HE’s an encourager. 

psalm 116.8-11 (good news), the LORD stopped my tears and kept me from defeat.  so i walk in the presence of the LORD.  i kept on believing, even when i said, ‘i'm completely crushed’ and even when i was afraid and said, ‘no one can be trusted.’ 

time after time when i have been discouraged and ready to quit, i thought i was in the wrong direction, without the presence of GOD’s encouragement in my life i would not have made it.  times when you think, “i’m defeated.  i’m completely crushed.  nothing can be relied on.  everybody’s let me down.”  that’s when you need to recognize the presence of GOD in your life. 

a whole new life is about to open up to you if you will grasp the simple truth i have just shared with you.  if you will become aware that GOD is always with you it is going to change your life. 

it will cheer you up, it will calm you down, it will help you out, it will see you through when you become aware of that.  no matter where you find yourself this week, GOD will be there, in advance, with you when you get there – school, vacation, traffic jam, flying 35,000 feet high – GOD is everywhere.  HE’s in the jail, in the bar – everywhere.   

i see all kinds of reactions that people have in life.  i see the reactions to funerals, the hospital stays, the crises that come that nobody can predict or plan.  i don’t know how people make it without the LORD.  they don’t make it.  they have scars and they don’t get over things as quickly as people who depend on the presence of GOD do.  they hurt much more deeply and much more severely than those who know that GOD’s presence is there.  HE’s there to encourage them. 

just a thought from the front porch…