The Journey Podcast launches a new season today with former MLB player Alex Presley. We discuss a search for identity when what you gave your life to is over—available now at the link at the bottom of today’s email!
Every believer needs a time of refreshment. The journey is long, with many uphill climbs. As the psalmist says, our soul thirsts for God “as in a dry and weary land where there is no water” (Psalm 63:1). There are days when we need renewal. Check out this verse from the Old Testament prophet Habakkuk.
Habakkuk 3:2
O Lord, I have heard the report of you, and your work, O Lord, do I fear. In the midst of the years revive it; in the midst of the years make it known; in wrath remember mercy.
Standing in awe of God. That’s where prayer begins. We cannot stand before the Creator without appropriate reverence. At the same time, God comes near to us and invites us to come near to him. It is an amazing privilege to approach the eternal God and talk with him. The writer of the Hebrews says we can do that with confidence.
One of the best descriptions of prayer I have ever read came from a seventeenth-century Frenchman named Francois Fenelon. I first came across this in one of Charles Swindoll’s books. Consider and follow Fenelon’s powerful instructions.
Tell God all that is in your heart, as one unloads one’s heart, its pleasures and its pains, to a dear friend. Tell Him your troubles, that He may comfort you; tell Him your joys, that He may sober them; tell Him your longings, that He may purify them; tell Him your dislikes, that He may help you conquer them, talk to Him of your temptations, that He may shield you from them; lay bare your indifference to good, your depraved tastes for evil, your instability. Tell Him how self-love makes you unjust to others, how vanity tempts you to be insincere, how pride disguises you to yourself and others.
If you pour out all your weaknesses, needs, and troubles, there will be no lack of what to say. You will never exhaust the subject. It is continually being renewed. People who have no secrets from each other never want for subjects of conversation. They do not weigh their words, for there is nothing to be held back; neither do they seek for something to say. They talk out of the abundance of the heart, without consideration they say what they think.
Blessed are they who attain to such familiar, unreserved conversation with God.
Father, teach us to talk with you “as one unloads one’s heart, its pleasures, and its pains, to a dear friend.” In Jesus’ name. Amen.
0 Comments