Pleading In Prayer

Scripture

How long, O God, will you allow our enemies to insult you?
    Will you let them dishonor Your name forever?

~Psalm 74:10

Quote

It is perfectly right to plead with our Father in heaven; Moses did and so did Jesus.

Martyn Lloyd Jones

Do you ever find yourself begging God for something? After doing so, you feel guilty because we know that God loves the person we are praying for more than we do. We know that God is omniscience, He knows everything including the future. We live in time but He lives in the eternal present. So is it wrong to plead? Do you as an earthly father get angry with you children if they plead? I have struggled with this tendency to beg God to do the right thing when I know He is perfectly just and He always does the right thing. How can we explain this dilemma? Our Heavenly Father is infinite and mysterious. Obviously, no human will ever figure Him out but Jesus did teach us to relate to Him in the way that we relate to earthly fathers. In Matthew 7:11, Jesus said, If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!” As an earthly father, I allowed my children to plead with me; sometimes I yielded to their plea and sometimes I did not. One example is holding Joe David back in the seventh grade. He begged me not to make his stay back and I gave in. Of course I was thinking about sports and it would have worked to his advantage but I felt convicted that it was his life and that I didn’t need to try to relive my life through him. This may be a bad analogy but it was the only one that came to mind.  Martyn Lloyd Jones sees nothing wrong with pleading prayer and I tend to agree.

I know one thing for sure: Jesus taught us to ask. Prayer in and of itself is a mystery; it is an ocean too deep to fathom. I know not what others are going to do, but I am going to continue to approach our benevolent and all wise heaven Father as His child, and I am going to ask.

Extra

Sam Cowart was promoted yesterday about 3:45 in the evening. Sam suffered a massive stroke last week. The stroke left him in a pitiful condition. He could open his eyes, recognize you but he could not talk. It also affected his breathing and his BP. It broke my heart to see Sam in this condition and I told the boys that I am thankful God called him home. David and Mike are at the funeral home this morning making arrangements. Sam never got over loosing Joyce. Now they are together again, PTL.

I was at HH last Friday visiting Sam and some lady burst into the room where I was; she walked up to me and said, “So you are Jack Bailey.” I said, “Yes mam, how did you know.” She said, “I am Clairvoyant.” I said, “Nice to meet you Clara.” She gave me a go to hell look. I said, “Didn’t you say you were Clara-voyant?” Then she gave me a scowl. By this time, I realized I was dealing with a Yankee. Why don’t those people stay up north where they belong. I said, “I am sorry, I was injecting a little humor.” This time she says nothing but looks at me like a calf looking at a new gate. I said, “My children tell me not to try to be funny, because I am not.” She turned to walk away and said as she left, “Then why don’t you listen to your children?” Don’t worry, she did not upset me; in fact she made me thankful. How would you like to live with this beast? Compared to this transplant, Big Mama is sweet.

Extra/Extra

I started cleaning my office last Saturday. The clutter had gotten unbearable. Lexi or Mandy would not be able to relax in my office because it looks like an F-5 went through. Stacks of books and note cards galore. I hate to throw things away unless I have them recorded somewhere so I will share a few on the blog. These are thoughts that I had after reading other authors but I only recorded the thoughts which means I cannot give proper credit.

FOUR REASONS GOD ALLOWS US TO SUFFER

  1. He wants us to be totally dependent on HIM; not our gifts, abilities, skills, intelligence, resources or power.
  2. Brokenness is essential to our training or our sanctification, and suffering breaks us.
  3. He is teaching us to pursue HIS will instead of our will. He does this by crushing our idols one by one. In the end, we throw up our hands in surrender and say, “OK LORD, whatever you want is fine with me.”
  4. Suffering and failure exposes our weakness and we need to know what those are in order to advance in our sanctification.

Psalm of The Day

Though the Lord is great, He cares for the humble,
    but He keeps His distance from the proud.

~Psalms 138:6, NLT

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