Weekly Thoughts

8/5/06 – Peace from the Father

Hi all,

I've been marveling at the all knowing of the Father, and grace and peace he gives; specifically how he knows what you are thinking and needing and sends confirmation and assurance before you can even ask.

Two examples from this week stand out. The first was during the week we received some discouraging news that made us feel a mix of 'down' emotions. That night the phone rang and it was a man in our church who called just because we were on he and his wife's heart and they were impressed to tell us they loved us, and that Lord was going to bring to pass everything he had told us.

I was so appreciative of the Father to prompt this friend to call, though he didn't know what had happened earlier in the day, he was just willing to call and express his love and support, and that it will all come to pass as we've been told.

The second example happened yesterday afternoon. In our Tulsa churches we have 2 couples who are expecting, and I'll call the wives A and M. A is due now and M in 6 weeks. I got a call from the mom of M asking for prayer because her daughter was in the hospital with labor pains and high blood pressure. The call came about 2pm.

During this time my wife, Barb, was out getting groceries and expected to be home around 4pm. In response to this mom's call I had called some people who knew how to pray or sent an email, and we waited for word, but I had the cell phone instead of Barb, so there was no way to contact her.

Now, Barb is an intercessor. About 3:30 she came roaring up the drive, parked the car, praying in the spirit and groaning in intense prayer...as she rushed past me headed to our bedroom to pray she managed to get out..."Gotta pray for someone pregnant, it's a life or death situation, I don't think it's A, unload the car, gotta pray." Or something to that effect...it all happened so quickly I just obeyed, unloaded the car, and put groceries away while praying quietly in the spirit for M.

A good time later Barb came out saying the burden had lifted and victory received, but that it had come on her about 2:45 or so and it was all she could do to finish getting the groceries while praying, and rushed home as quickly as she could. When I told her of M she concluded that it must have been for her and her unborn son. 

About 5:30pm we got a call from the mom of M who said the contractions had stopped and they had released her daughter to home, under orders of complete bed rest for the duration. Everything was OK now.

There are times when we need direction from the Father that he seems totally silent and detached from our lives. You know he is watching, but the mind starts to wonder sometimes how much he really cares about what you are going through. There are times you feel like you need an 'atta boy' from the Lord, but often it seems that is not in the plan.

Then there are times when you know that you know the Father sees the deepest parts of our thoughts and emotions, and he gives a sign, a confirmation, that he is indeed a faithful Overseer of our lives.

Psalms 44:21; 94:11; 103:14 all talk about the Lord knowing our thoughts. But to take it from the realm of reading it in the Bible and knowing it intellectually to the realm of seeing proof in action is an encouraging thing!

I love the answering of silent prayers found in the Bible. It's further evidence of the Father knowing all that is in our hearts. One example is when Abraham sends his eldest servant to find a wife for Isaac. During the narration he mentions that he said thus and so about the girl that comes to water the camels, but when he retells the story himself it becomes clear he was talking in his mind rather than out loud.

Genesis 24:44-46: "Oh Lord God...When a young woman comes to the well, And if she says to me, you drink and I will also draw water for your camels: let the same be the woman whom the Lord has appointed for my master's son. And before I had done speaking in my heart, behold, Rebekah came with her pitcher on her should; and she went down to the well and drew water, and I said to her, Let me drink, I ask, and she said, Drink, and I will give your camels water also..."

The other example is Hannah in I Samuel 1:10-13. She is 'in bitterness of soul, and prayed to the Lord and wept much." Verse 13 says: "Now Hannah spoke in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard."

In each case the Father saw and responded to the prayers of the heart. Another example is Genesis 29: 31: "And when the Lord saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb..."

Proverbs 24:17-18 says: "Rejoice not when your enemy falls, and don't let your heart be glad when he stumbles, lest the Lord see it and he turn away his wrath from him."

I walk each morning, usually starting about 1/2 hour before sunrise and continuing to about 1/2 hour after the sun comes up, about 5 miles a day. Earlier this week as I was walking and watching the sun rise behind a bank of clouds, sending out rays of light that looked like the Father's hand reaching out to the world and at the same time conveying that he has all in hand, I silently thanked the Father for the beautiful sunrise. Immediately he shot back: "Thank you. I knew you would like it."

I was pleasantly surprised that he responded so directly, and as it is so often with the things of the Spirit, the Father communicates so much more in his words when he does so. His words being merely containers of a wealth of information 'downloaded' by the Spirit into our own spirits.

Suddenly I knew inside that the quail I had seen on previous walks were there in part so I would see them and be blessed. The same of the deer and turkey, the woodpeckers and cardinals that greet me each morning. The Father arranged my steps and timing to see these things. He IS personally involved in minute details of our lives.

The two earlier examples for this week make me not only thankful that the Father watches over our hearts, but that in our situation at least, which is our house church family, we have close friends who are praying for us as we pray for them, as we all walk through life.

I know it is the closeness of our friendship that the couple felt the freedom to call us and tell us they loved us and that the things the Father had spoken to us would happen. It was because of our friendship that the mom of M could call and get immediate prayer, and that the Father put that burden for her daughter on Barb while she was in the middle of getting groceries! It is that interweaving of lives and relationships that form a web of support in the natural and spiritually speaking that is found in our house church. It's so assuring.

I recently watched a report on the news that talked about a study of friendship in the US. It said that 25% of all people studied did not have a single friend. Think of that, one fourth of everyone in the US do not have a single friend. If we guesstimate our census at about 300 million, that is 75 million people who don't have a friend in the world.

It also said that of those that have friends, in the last 10 years the average person has lost at least 1 friend for good during that time.

The report indicated that in the US at least, many are too busy to have friends. Too busy to stay in one place long enough to be committed to each other. Too busy to allow someone to get to know us and speak into our lives.

I am thankful the Father and the Lord Jesus are there, never leaving us nor forsaking us. But I am thankful as well that an extension of their loves comes in the form of a burden for prayer and a phone call of encouragement. How lonely life would be if those elements were missing.

As I was walking this week and realizing the intricate details of our lives covered by the Father's gaze, I wondered how much I had missed; how many other signs along life's road that indicated his attention and care that I had perhaps barely noticed or perhaps let slip by entirely.

I purposed in my heart to be on the lookout for signs of the Father's care from here on out. From the sunrise to the burden to pray to little coincidences in life, the Father knows the secrets of the heart and mind, and lets us know he loves us and has everything under control.

 

My thoughts this week.

John Fenn
cwowi.org