Reflection

How can I possibly learn to hear the wisdom of God if every moment is full of my own thoughts, and the technology constantly at my fingertips, and all the projects that I think are so vital to my well-being and future? 

How does life get on track?  How do I accomplish HIS purposes and plans for the day, rather than the lengthy list of things to build MY kingdom?  Consider these words…

James 5:13-18  The Message

Prayer to Be Reckoned With

13-15 Are you hurting? Pray. Do you feel great? Sing. Are you sick? Call the church leaders together to pray and anoint you with oil in the name of the Master. Believing-prayer will heal you, and Jesus will put you on your feet. And if you’ve sinned, you’ll be forgiven—healed inside and out.

16-18 Make this your common practice: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed. The prayer of a person living right with God is something powerful to be reckoned with. Elijah, for instance, human just like us, prayed hard that it wouldn’t rain, and it didn’t—not a drop for three and a half years. Then he prayed that it would rain, and it did. The showers came and everything started growing again.

Honesty and humility seem to be the first steps to a life that can be useful to His amazing plans.  More than anything else, I want my life to be an ingredient that isn’t an obstacle for His will to come to earth, but rather is excited to hear every whisper and respond to every nudge to help it to get here more easily.  I could accomplish a lot of my own goals, but if I am successful at MY plans rather than His, I will trade the day for something that brought less than the surprising gifts He is ready to give. 

It is a sobering thing to consider a part of this passage said in these words in the New International Version:

“The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.”

It makes me want to weed out anything that isn’t what it should be in my life, things that have encroached into my time, habits that I know are not right, secondary things that have too long been screaming for first place in my attention.  What if I would be willing today to shift just one thing instead of avoiding it again?  Wouldn’t it be amazing if my prayers were powerful and effective?  He says they can be.  Let’s get there.

How can we reflect Him if we aren’t still to focus?