By Jenny Catton
“When you find yourself in a crisis situation, what do you do?”
I was reading a book by Sheila Walsh, and she posed the above question which challenged me very much and made me think honestly.
The situation can be something we are experiencing of family or people we know. It can be to do with health, work, and relationships, financial worries etc.
When I thought about the question, I had to admit that the first thing I do automatically is to try and sort it. I have always been like that – what can I do, how do I sort this? When I think about it afterwards, I realise the first thing I should have done is to ask my heavenly Father; I should have prayed!!! But that is often the last thing we do!
In May 2011, after I had been ill for nearly 27 years, I had reached the end of my capabilities to cope anymore, and just had to pray, “Lord I can’t do this anymore either heal me or show me how to cope.” As I did this, a great weight seemed to lift from me. I had to wait until August before I was healed, but I knew God had heard my cry. Maybe he was waiting for me to let go and stop trying myself, I don’t know.
We often feel we aren’t good enough, or spiritual enough for God to hear us, but He doesn’t care; He says in Isaiah 43:1,
“This is what the Lord says…..fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name you are mine.”
That means you and me.
When Jesus chose the 12 disciples, they were not His “dream team”. They were ordinary just like us. He chose them because He wanted them to be His friends, to be taught and trained by Him, and then sent out with His message. I often wonder that right at the beginning of their calling, did Jesus already know that Peter would deny Him and Judas would betray Him? Whether he did or not, He chose these disciples with all the faults and failures the same as us, and He chose you and me.
We know because we read it in the Bible and hear it in Church that God wants us to bring everything to him, but sometimes there are barriers we feel are in place. It is one thing to understand in my mind that I have a heavenly Father who doesn’t simply tolerate our requests for help; He longs to come to our aid, but it is another to instinctively turn to Him FIRST in our distress. This is what He stands ready to do, we only have to ask. Also, we sometimes think it is too trivial, or He won’t want to hear from me, or I don’t know what to say.
It struck me then that we make prayer this holy thing where we feel we have to say the right words, be in Church, but it isn’t that at all. Praying is just the same as chatting about things like we do every day with family and friends.
Prayer is not this mysterious thing that we feel only the “better” Christians do; it is that simple. I have found that in doing that with little things that we might feel are too mundane to chat about – lost car keys, our daily little things – that God has answered and in answering the prayers about little things has given me even more faith to bring the big things to Him that I can do nothing about.
I know that all of us experience times when it seems as though either God isn’t listening, or He hasn’t answered. Don’t give up; just keep asking. You might have to keep on praying and asking as it seems the answer hasn’t come, but the Lord is on the case. We just have to trust Him with that particular problem.
Why not try it today? When you get up, go through the day looking for things you need help with, ask for it and He will answer. How exciting it will be when you find prayers answered and that gives us more faith to ask more, to pray more. Share that excitement with a friend!
Matthew 7:7 says this:
ASK and it will be given you; SEEK and you will find; KNOCK and the door will be opened to you.
So, keep ASKING, SEEKING, and finding.
God bless.
(Photo by Ben White on Unsplash)
