Manna in the Morning

"Please be patient, God is not finished with me yet!” It’s absolutely true... we are all works in progress. None of us has reached the goal yet... not in our commitments, or our prayer life, or our service, or our worship, or our maturity... we are still growing. The Apostle Paul talked about that in his letter to the church at Philippi. He said, “...one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on...” (Phil. 3:13,14) On the specific matter of prayer, Thomas Merton had this to say about not trying so hard in prayer, “How does an apple ripen? It just sits in the sun. A small green apple cannot ripen in one night by tightening all its muscles, squinting its eyes and tightening its jaw in order to find itself the next morning miraculously large, red, ripe, and juicy. Like the birth of a baby or the opening of a rose, the birth of the true self takes place in God’s time. We must wait for God, we must be awake; we must trust in his hidden action within us.” Let God work in your life today.

Today is the National Day of Prayer. Prayer has played an important part in our nation’s history. All one needs to do is reflect on the faith of our founding fathers. “America’s first national call to prayer even predates the Constitution. In 1776, the Continental Congress called for a day of prayer. Their expression of humility and dependence on God provide a bedrock of faith on which the United States was founded and still operates today.” President Harry Truman was the first to sign a resolution of Congress to establish an annual national day of prayer. But it was President Ronald Reagan who permanently designated the annual National Day of Prayer to take place on the first Thursday of every May. That bill was then unanimously ratified by Congress in 1988! The times in when we live demand that we pray for America... for her leaders... for her people... for her troops and for her moral integrity. We also have the Biblical call mentioned by the Apostle Paul in his letter to Timothy, “First of all, then, I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority, in order that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity.” (1 Timothy 2:1-2)

So join with your fellow citizens today at Noon at the Union County Courthouse as together we observe this year’s National Day of Prayer.

There is an old Gospel Song that is entitled, “Let’s Have a Little Talk With Jesus.” I thought about that song recently when I saw one of the billboards that have sprung up across the country that offer things that God might say to us. An anonymous donor hired an ad agency to “remind people of God, especially people who used to go to church and for some reason don’t go anymore.” Here are some of the messages:

“That ‘Love thy neighbor’ thing. I mean it.”

“Will the road you’re on get you to my place?”

“Have you read my number-one best seller? There will be a test.”

“Loved the wedding. Invite me to the marriage.”

“I don’t question your existence.”

“Keep using my name in vain, and I’ll make rush hour longer.”

“We need to talk,” God.

The best way to begin this day and everyday is to spend some time talking with God. And since, today is Friday... that means that Sunday is coming! Why not make plans now to be in Church and “have a little talk with Jesus”?

Will Thompson’s hymn is a positive statement about one’s relationship to Jesus Christ and how that relationship impacts all of life. The first verse of his hymn is:

One of the great promises of Scripture is when Jesus gave the Great Commission to His followers and closed it with the words, “And lo, I am with you always to the end of the age.” In another place He said, “I will never leave you, nor forsake you.” What a great blessing it is to know that we do not have to travel life’s highway alone. Someone has written:

“It takes a lot of courage to put things in God’s hands. To give ourselves completely, our lives, our hopes, our plans; To follow where He leads us, and make His will our own. But all it takes is foolishness to go the way alone.”

You do not have to travel alone today. Claim God’s presence and He will walk with you every step of the way. Remember the hymn: Footprints of Jesus that make the pathway glow; We will follow the steps of Jesus where’er they go.”

One of the most beautiful revelations that God has given us of Himself is wrapped up in the name “Immanuel.” What makes this so important is that it is one of the most powerful ways that God expresses His desire to be close to us. So many think of God as “detached.” God is over there, and we are over here. But that is a sad mistake to make because Immanuel declares that “God is with us.” He is around us. He covers us. Through Christ He is within us. We need to grasp the wonderful truth that God desires a close, intimate relationship with us. He longs for us, our companionship, our fellowship. He longs for our love. There is passage of Scripture deep within the heart of one of the saddest books in the Bible, the Book of Lamentations, that expresses our response to God’s yearning for us. It’s a breath of fresh air surrounded by pain and suffering at the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians centuries before Christ. It’s found in the third chapter verses 22-24. Here is what Jeremiah says, “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.” God wants to walk with you today...let Him be your travel companion.

There’s a beautiful statement at the beginning of the 40th Psalm that reads, “I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry.” The term “inclined” literally means that God bent his ear in my direction. One of the wonderful things about our God is that he desires a close relationship with his children. He encourages us to pray...he assures us that we have his ear whenever we need it. The rest of the Psalm is also encouraging for us in our relationship with our Father in Heaven. “He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God; many shall see it, and shall trust in the Lord...blessed is that man that makes the Lord his trust.” At the top of our to-do list for today should be conversation with God and seeking his counsel for all that we may attend to today. Trust in the Lord will not go unrewarded!