Not In MY Power

From time to time K-Love radio station will ask an artist to host a video devotional series which they post on-line. Their most recent one was from the lead singer of Tenth Avenue North. In his series, he went through the Lord's Prayer. Something he said in one of the devotions really struck me. Now bear with me, what he taught and what God showed me are related. not just in a way you might think.
      In this particular video, he spoke of the phrase dealing with forgiving and being forgiven. He said that often people think they are too bad to be forgiven. He pointed out that for us to say that is to tell God that He is wrong about forgiving us and that there is something we can do to earn forgiveness...which of course, we can't. Forgiveness is about what He's done for us, not what we do for Him.
     God used this idea to talk to me about the impossibility of this prayer. Early on in this journey God had to do some teaching over the idea that He wasn't interested in my perfect obedience to answer this, He was interested in my faith and faithfulness to answer this. Recently, that struggle has been resurrected. There is a sin in my life that I struggle with, one I fall to far more often than I desire. It is a struggle I have brought on myself and Satan has used it to batter me. My fear has become that God will not answer this request because I battle a sin, because my obedience is not perfect. God used the teaching from that video to show me that for me to think I have to have a perfect, sinless life for Him to answer is basically saying God will answer this request because of something I have done and that's not true. How many times have I prayed that God would allow nothing in this prayer to draw attention to me, that only He be glorified in it? If God answered this because I was perfectly obedient, then I would get some of the credit for the answer.  How have I missed this truth?
     God isn't going to answer this prayer because my obedience is perfect, He's going to answer it because HE is. He's going to answer it because He is true to what He promises. Now, that's not to say my actions don't have some bearing on God working, they do. I can not live a life of un-repented sin and expect God to answer. Isaiah says our iniquities have separated us from God and that He can't hear us with unconfessed sin...and that's the key...the sin must be confessed and an effort made to abandon it. God knows our nature, He knows how susceptible to sin we are. That's why, when you look at the conditions for answered prayer, they are all about believing and having faith, not about obeying perfectly. God will answer this, and it won't be because I've lived a life of perfect obedience. He'll answer because I have struggled to keep this sin from my life. He'll answer to show that it is HIS power and not mine that brought about an answer.

God Is Indeed For Us

It astounds me how, when we take one small step in obedience, God rushes to meet us where we're at. Two nights ago I recommitted myself to UNINTIMIDATED and to begin earnestly praying once more that my 'sophomores' meet Tim Tebow. How God has shown Himself is amazing to me. God really is interested, He was just waiting for me to be interested again too.
     Last spring, I had asked a good friend here to join me in praying daily. We were able to do this pretty faithfully until school ended. The summer happened and with the start of school, volleyball happened. Praying together fell by the wayside. As soon as volleyball was over, I asked her if we could begin praying together again. We committed to it, but did not follow through. Within 10-15 minutes of me ending my prayer of recommitment Tuesday, she texted and asked if we could pray together that night. Circumstances prevented her from coming to my apartment and pray, but we did pray at the same time in our own apartments. That was God at work, Him encouraging me immediately upon my steps back to Him.
     Yesterday, I recommitted to this with my students, asking them to consider meeting together once again at least once a week. I told them I was back in full-force and challenged them to recommit if they too had fallen away. This morning, one of the girls told she prayed for this last night. After school, another of the girls and I were able to share with two current sophomores the story behind this journey and UNINITIMIDATED. The two current sophomores asked my student why she committed to praying for Tebow. Not only did she share her reasons, she told them that this commitment had not only changed her prayer life, but drew her closer to God in her devotions. She felt like she understood her Bible better. She told them she slacked off on her commitment during the summer and could tell a difference in her prayer life and devotions, they weren't the same and has struggled more to understand what she was reading. She told them and me she was taking up the commitment once more and had prayed over it last night. This time of sharing led to a time of once again getting to pray with at least one of my kids over this and included two new students who are now praying about whether God would have them join us or not.
     God is indeed for us. These last two days have shown so clearly how much God wants my obedience and how much He wants to answer this request. All I can think to say is thank you, God...and that seems so inadequate, but it'll have to do.

The Vow

"Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay." Eccelesiastes 5:5

Nine months and six days ago God laid it upon my heart to begin praying that my sophomore homeroom class meet Tim Tebow. Out of that burden came a commitment to become a prayer warrior for Tebow. The commitment to pray for a meeting and for Tebow himself was relatively easy when I thought God was going to answer this request before school let out last May. It's not been such an easy commitment since then, in fact it has been an awful battle to just not quit since it often appeared to me that God was no longer interested.
     In many vain efforts, I tried to renew the passion and drive I had last winter and spring to see this done, but I never seemed quite able to sustain a full-on prayer campaign and I grew very frustrated. I couldn't figure out why God wasn't talking anymore or why He didn't really seem interested in answering anymore. Tonight, I laid everything aside and asked God point-blank if He still intended to answer this. His answer was yes. I asked Him then why I was having such trouble keeping up this prayer and why He didn't seem interested anymore. He answered that I was the one who had lost interest. Why should He work to answer something so huge if I really didn't want Him to? He pointed out that I was the one who went back on my vow to see this through to the end. The condition of my promise verse is to pray and ask, then He'll answer. If I'm not asking, He's under no obligation to answer.
     He went on to remind me that I had made a commitment to not only see this prayer through to fruition, but also to be a prayer warrior for Tebow. He brought the above verse from Eccelesiastes to mind. God would have rather I not made the commitment than not followed through. He didn't force this journey on me, I took it on willingly and as such He expects me to honor it. He told me I needed to renew my commitment in full to this journey and to UNINTIMIDATED.
     So that's what I did. I went back to some of the earliest blogs in this journey to remind myself just why I committed to this at all. Let me say, I am so thankful for Stephanie's suggestion to blog this. It was good to be reminded why I took this on. God is capable of doing something amazing in my life and the lives of my kids. Seeing so many of the reasons God had shown me why He wants this has definitely helped renew my commitment...I'd forgotten some of those. These reasons stirred up the passion and desire in me once again to see God work...an answer to a much repeated request. Reading about all the ways God has worked and shown Himself to be in this journey were amazing. It's good to be reminded.
     God has most definitely been in this from the beginning, no doubt. God still has a vested interest in answering this, but He is only interested as much as I am. Tonight, I am recommitting to my prayer and to UNINTIMIDATED...full-on. I will pay the vow I have vowed. If you have committed to pray, and like me have gone back on that commitment in anyway, I challenge you to join me and recommit and let's see how our amazing God is going to make this happen.
   

Geometry...In the Bible?

Today in Geometry class we learned about conditionals and "if-then" statements... "if the Broncos go to the Super Bowl, then we will have a party"...those kinds of statements.
Since school has started I have had a difficult time sincerely keeping this prayer before God. More times than I care to admit, this request has been tossed up to God in the mornings just so I could say I've prayed for it. Tonight was a blessed night in that I got home early, got to get school work and house work done before 7 and had some real, honest time to spend on this prayer...not something I've had much of. I asked God to just reaffirm that He was still going to answer this. He took me back to Matthew 18:19, my promise verse. The verse says IF two of us agree in prayer, THEN He will hear and do it for us. Of course I laughed when I realized conditional statements were indeed in the Bible and I had new-found ammunition for the statement often whined at me, "why do we need to know this? When are we ever going to use this?" Because knowing conditionals is how you'll get God to answer your prayers...that's why!!! :)
Along with learning how to write conditional statements, we learned how to evaluate the truth-value of a conditional. To do this, you have to come up with an example that would make the second part of the statement untrue. If you are able to do this then the conditional is false. Looking at the conditional in my verse, there is no way to make the second statement false, there is no instance that will cause God to not answer when the condition has been met. And that's because we serve a God Who is incapable of being anything other than what He says...He is absolute.
Needing geometry to better understand your Bible...who'd have thought?!