Wendy has just come off the treadmill today. She has committed to doing five days, 30 minutes each day this year.
She said she almost underlined all of the reading today, but what jumped out at her was the intercessory prayer that Abraham beckoned on behalf of Lot to the Lord, found in Genesis 18.
Wendy defined intercessory prayer as falling flat on your face before the Lord and petitioning for somebody else. You are interceding for someone else. You are the middle person from another to the Lord.
She said we don’t always know what to pray about and that’s OK. Wendy says she doesn’t want too many details because she doesn’t want her prayers influenced at all by human knowledge of a circumstance. She claims Romans 8:26,27 where the Holy Spirit ushers the groanings of our heart up to the Lord Himself. We don’t have to know what to pray.
Here we see Abraham pleading for Lot, but did you notice he never even said Lot’s name? That gave Wendy insight into Abraham. The Lord really looked at Abraham’s heart and He saw Abraham’s concern. The Lord even saw Sarah laughing. (As an aside, Wendy said she thought that was so funny that the Lord was a tattletale and told Abraham that Sarah laughed. That entire passage of scripture made Wendy laugh.)
God knows our intent. Wendy believes Abraham was not only praying for Lot but for everyone. He approached the Lord and pressed his request further. Abraham asks the Lord not to be angry. Wendy always thought it wasn’t the right thing to do to question the Lord as Abraham asked, would You take the righteous with the unrighteous? Would You punish the innocent with the sinful? In this circumstance Wendy believes that Abraham wasn’t questioning the Lord, but petitioning and reasoning and trying to get the Lord to look again and possibly change His plan in the circumstance of getting rid of Sodom and Gomorrah and everyone involved there.
We have a great message from Abraham here. Number one, when we go to the Lord, we need to go with the right heart and motives. That’s why it’s important no to know all the information about something. We need to go with honest hearts. Lord, I don’t understand this. How can this be? Why are You allowing this? Wendy has often prayed on behalf of those who have cancer and they have died and she doesn’t understand. She has prayed for families to be mended and they are broken and she doesn’t understand. She still however went on their behalf and questioned and still questions to this day why God would, in His Sovereign plan, take her husband’s father over 20 years ago. She doesn’t understand why that happened, but God has secrets He reveals to no-one and that’s OK. She has learned how to live with prayers that aren’t answered in the way she desired.
Wendy felt the reverence in Abraham’s beckoning of the Lord and she just loved the gentleness and patience that the Lord had as He was listening to Abraham. That could have only happened if He had really looked at Abraham’s heart and understood the meaning. The bottom line was, don’t destroy my nephew. Don’t destroy my nephew and his family. Please Lord, is there another way?
We do see that Lot was able to get out of Sodom and Gomorrah before it was destroyed. Wendy loved Gen 19:29, “But God had listened to Abraham’s request and kept Lot safe, removing him from the disaster that engulfed the cities on the plain.” That stopped Wendy. Abraham had never mentioned Lot’s name. God knows the intentions of our hearts, our thoughts, the fullness we feel, the emotions of our prayers and He looks upon that and takes it into consideration when He hears our prayers.
Wendy wants to encourage us to pray fervently. Her theme verse for 2010 is John 3:30, Lord increase so that I (Wendy) might decrease. Wendy is currently praying for some hurting families. She’s praying on the behalf of some P31 team members who are suffering through some situations. She concludes by saying let’s look at Abraham’s example and lets not give up. Let’s not have impure motives when we go to the Lord. Let’s be honest and lay it on the line and say I don’t know the details to the problem, but you are O Sovereign Lord (how Abraham called the Lord). We can approach God Almighty, our El Shaddai, and El Roi, the God who sees, because He is faithful and He is true.
(All thoughts transcribed from Wendy's blog to aid those whose computers are not capatible to view these videos.)
No comments:
Post a Comment