Prayer ~ Jan Landsbaum

One of the best answers to prayer I ever received was “no.” Not a gentle, “no, my child, I have better things in mind for you,” but an emphatic “NO! NO WAY! NOT EVER! QUIT ASKING!” Apparently, God had been answering my long-term prayer and I hadn’t paid attention to gentler versions of that answer. I wanted my answer, not His. I wanted my will, not His.

My entire working career was at daily newspapers in Arizona and California. For a long period I continually sought to work for bigger newspapers and more important beats. I always accompanied these efforts with prayer – after all, God tells us to “Ask and you will receive, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened” Matthew 7:7.  In hindsight, although I prayed for God’s will in my life, I really sought my own glory.

For 10 years, I periodically applied for various jobs at the Los Angeles Times, the largest and most prominent newspaper in the western United States. Finally, in the spring of 1988, I prepared another application packet and told God that I would accept the response as His final word on the subject, expecting that it would be “yes.” The rejection letter came back so fast that I’m convinced the editor had pre-typed it and stamped the envelope before receiving my packet.

"OK, Lord, I get it,” I prayed without enthusiasm, peace or joy. “I won’t apply to the Times again. But what do I do now?” God had every right to wait years, decades or a lifetime to answer that prayer, which though joyless, was completely sincere and offered with a contrite heart.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. – Psalm 51:17

Within weeks, my editor at the newspaper where I worked offered me the job of writing a column about the problems small businesses face and solutions to those problems. It was in addition to my current work with no additional pay. The column wasn’t high prestige; after all, covering small businesses isn’t as important in the journalistic world as covering the large, public companies. But the timing told me this was God’s answer to my prayer. I accepted and over the following 25 years, that work shaped my professional career. My prayer journals over that time reflects a move toward what God wanted me to write about, how He could use my work to help others and glorify Himself.

I certainly encountered other struggles and problems in this work but I always saw it as God’s assignment. I came to understand that the lessons, which apply to one’s life calling of the Lord, include:

1.     Pray fervently and continuously about anything that you care about.

Praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication – Ephesians 6:18

2.     Listen more than you pray for God’s answer.

My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding; yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. – Proverbs 2: 1-5

3.     Continually examine your motives in prayer.

 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. – James 4:3

4.     Accept when the answer is one you don’t expect or don’t want.

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. – James 4:7

and

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” – Jeremiah 29:11

God is infinitely wiser than I. As C.S. Lewis said, "If God had granted all the silly prayers I've made in my life, where should I be now?" And Terry Glaspey wrote, "Sometimes we realize only in hindsight that the answer we had hoped for would not have been the best thing for us. God, in His wisdom and love, often withholds our requests on the grounds that they would be harmful to our ultimate good."

Neediness ~Susan Ray

Joni Eareckson Tada is a needy person.  As a quadriplegic she has to have help to do things that most of us do without a thought.  I read an account of her daily routine and this is what she said.  “You know that time when you’re awake, but you haven’t yet opened your eyes.  For me I can hear my girlfriend in the kitchen running water for coffee.  I know she’s going to come into my bedroom, give me a bed bath, do my toileting routines, get me dressed, sit me up in a wheelchair, push me to the bathroom, brush my hair, brush my teeth, blow my nose.” 

 

To me that is a powerful picture of neediness.  Apart from her helper, Joni can do virtually nothing.  It’s easy to see Joni’s need; it’s sometimes more difficult to see our own.  Yet Jesus has said that we are actually worse off than Joni.  Jesus says that apart from him we can do nothing—not virtually nothing—nothing at all (John 15:5).

 

I was once a person who thought I could do a lot.  The beginning of John 15:5 says, “Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit.”  I thought that described me.  I believed that I was abiding in Christ because I drove myself to be good and to do good.  I did not see myself as a needy person.  I saw myself as competent and hardworking Christian, a good Christian, and I was proud.  I didn’t realize that I was busy building with wood, hay, straw (1 Cor. 3:12) that would not stand the testing of God.  I was so busy doing good things that I didn’t notice that I was, apart from Christ, doing nothing.

 

God is a loving Father who doesn’t leave us undisciplined, and through times of suffering, he began to teach me that I could actually do nothing.  I have been shown my barren branches as my life lacked love and joy and peace and patience no matter how hard I tried.  I have been forced into dry, hard places so that Psalm 42 resonated in my soul.  As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.  My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.  When shall I come and appear before God?  My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all the day long, “Where is your God?”

 

The world wants strong people.  It loves the beautiful, the powerful, the rich.  God’s kingdom, however, isn’t built on strength but on weakness.  He makes that point again and again.  For example: 

My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.  (2 Cor. 12:9)

God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.  (James 4:6 and 1 Peter 5:5)

But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; ²⁸ God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are. (1 Cor. 1: 27, 28)

Blessed are the poor in spirit. (Matthew 5:3)

 Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. ¹⁹ For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,” ²⁰ and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.” ²¹ So let no one boast in men.  (1 Cor. 3:18-21)

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. (Prov. 3:5)

I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit.  (Is.57:15)

I was happy when I thought that I was strong, but I am blessed by sorrowing in my weakness.

 

In the interview with Joni Eareckson Tada, she shared another of these weakness verses.  She said, “I identify so strongly with 2 Corinthians 1, where the apostle Paul was writing to his brothers in Asia, and he inasmuch says, ‘I don’t want you friends to be uninformed about what we endured.  We were facing conflicts far beyond our ability; for beyond it, to the point where we even despaired of life.’  Hello!  I get that, because I’m there often, Oh, God, I’d rather be dead than face this.  I mean, even the apostle Paul struggled with that.  But then he says in the next verse; this is so powerful, ‘But these things happened that we might not rely on ourselves, but on God, who raises the dead.’  I think of that verse virtually every morning…And my eyes are still closed, and I’m thinking, I can’t do this.  I cannot face this.  I cannot face this one more day.  I have no strength for quadriplegia.  But, Lord God, I can do all things through You, even quadriplegia, if You strengthen me.  So give me Your smile.  Jesus, I need You urgently.  Please show up big time.  And I’m telling you, by the time she (her helper) walks into my bedroom with that cup of coffee, I’ve got a smile that has been sent straight from heaven.  Hard fought for, hard won, and profound, deep and powerful; that peace that…passes all understanding.  I don’t get it, but I have it.  And I think that’s what Paul is talking about in that verse.  These things happen that we might not rely on ourselves, but on God, who raises the dead.”

 

May we continue to work to see our neediness just that clearly.  Apart from him we can do nothing.  Apart from him we can do nothing in the weak times, the times of suffering where we are just panting from the drought of our souls, and apart from him we can do nothing in the easy times when we feel strong and happy and at peace.  Knowing that will bring us great blessing because Christ says to us, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  Therefore let us boast all the more gladly of our weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon us.