A Simple Prayer

Of all that I read this morning, in the book of Job, of the book of Acts.  Of Spurgeon's book or even Blackaby's.  What I think God had me look at was the prayer at the end of today's Our Daily Bread.

Father, give me the courage to live for what matters most.

Think on that for a moment.

What do you live for?  Work? Family? Don't know, but are just getting by?

There's a lot of potential power in that verse to change every aspect of your life and heart.

I have loved the fact that my Wife introduced me to Mark Lowry through videos a long time ago. 

In one of them he talks about what it means to come to Christ.  I will not direct quote him here. But you can Google it yourself but will summarize.

Life is a series of ups and downs. Hills and valleys. Joys and pains. That's without Christ.  Jesus said that when we come to Him that He gives us life more abundant. 

So what does that mean?  It means higher highs that we could ever imagine. It means lower lower than we could ever live through on our own apart from God.

Why would a Holy God put people He's calling His Son or Daughter through all that?  Why?

When we come to Christ, we are made new. Are born again. The life we begin to live has many purposes.  Not just to get out of Hell.  We are being made new. Transformed from a life of sin to a life of holiness.  We are also changed along the way in order to reach others who are themselves going to relate to some aspect of your life.  If we are living as we should before God, it will prompt them to either ask you about Him and how they can receive Him or it will have the opposite effect. Not everyone will say yes to Christ's offer.  If they had there would be no weeping and gnashing of teeth by the people who rejected Him.

Father, give me the courage to live for what matters most.

What DO you live for?  Chasing your wants and dreams or are you living for Jesus?  Hey I am only calling it as God tells me to type it. 

In a few places in Scripture it mentions you can't love God and love the world.  That you can't serve two Masters. You will love one and hate the other.  Read it, it's there.   Google it.

For many of the last 6 or 7 years I had been struggling with the whole notion of trying to figure out what dreams to live for.  As a kid you have dreams of life you would like to live. I couldn't do what I had dreamed of.  Which was to be an astronaut.  Oh I was passionate about the Space program.  Somewhere I think I might still have my folders full of clippings from the Shuttle program.  One for each ship. I had known the path to becoming an astronaut. But God said no. My physical limitations wouldn't allow me to go that path.  My eyes, my flat feet etc.
So I got as close to that dream as I could. Ended up eventually working at a place that made parts for the Shuttles. I could even see my handiwork in action at every launch.  Made stuff that went to Mars. To the International Space Station. That was long ago now, but hey that made it for me.

But then what do you do after you have lived that childhood dream? What's next?

Father, give me the courage to live for what matters most.

You find yourself either looking for a new dream or you find yourself coping with life.  No dreams or aspirations.  No working on anything that could be seen as a dream.

But God never stops working.  I now believe there's physical dreams for life and Spiritual dreams.  God's plans worked out through us.  To learn to live in this physical world you are taught by parents, family and other adults until you graduate from school.  Then you start applying what you are supposed to have learned.
In Christ you are taught by the Spirit, and go through life applying what you have learned.  In my beginning years of life in Christ, I was shown what my Spiritual dream was to be.  Foolish me thought that I could handle it right then and there.  I was a toddler trying to run a marathon without any training or preparation.

I wasn't ready for the dream.  After my physical dreams ended.  God brought me back around to my Spiritual dreams.  My training in writing and the times He taught me lessons were coming together. 

It was time to start living that Spiritual dream.  So with more changes to bring about His plans, which were indeed painful, but necessary I began a new journey.  This blog and posts on Facebook.

Father, give me the courage to live for what matters most.

I began asking God to explain the Bible to me.  So He did.  A little more each day.  I keep asking Him to show me more.  He does.

I had a vision once that I believe was God granting me something special.  I was sitting at a desk and all the sudden was seeing myself being drawn away from it, straight up.  Could see it quickly get smaller and smaller.  I then pulled my head up to look in front of me. I was in space.  I could feel a little bit of the coolness of space.  But what took my breath away was the beauty of seeing everything. The sun, moon and stars from where I was.  To see the Earth.  It lasted a minute or two then I was back here.

Have heard a phrase that goes along the lines of God gives His best to those who leave the choice to Him.

Ask yourself, who do you live for?  Are you living for yourself and what you can get out of life or are you living for Jesus?

I think on an old hymn "Living for Jesus". The words ask that question.

Pray this for yourself.

Father, give me the courage to live for what matters most.