I had written a piece to post today, but the more I thought about it, the more I felt I should put it on hold to talk about something else.
There are so many things going on all around the world right now that need our prayers. The conflict in Ukraine. Closer to home, the massive floods Queensland with hundreds of people still missing right now as I’m typing. Crazy restrictions on people’s lives under the thin disguise of trying to keep them “Covid safe”, which are really prime examples of government overreach. The list goes on.
These are huge prayer points which make us think, “Well, my own problems don’t seem anywhere near as big compared to that.” As terrible as these events that we see unfolding before us are, they do provide much-needed perspective.
But I find myself getting tempted, after the initial times of extended prayer for events happening around the world, to cut back on the “ordinary” prayers. After all, it’s “just me and my usual problems”. Nothing to write home about.
Sometimes even though I know our God is omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient, able to save people on the other side of the world and hear my quick prayer for enough patience to get through the last hour of work, it’s still easy to let little niggling doubts sneak in. Sometimes those split-second thoughts enter and then leave so fast that I hardly realise what they really were… but it’s enough to change my mood. And my mood is enough to change how I go through the day. Before I know it, I’ve neglected an important task, snapped at a family member, and fallen asleep at the end of the day still wondering where things went wrong.
Well, just now it’s occurred to me again that those little doubts, when they are allowed to reside as regular thought patterns, which cause many to hold off praying at all until the “big events” happen to them. Truth is, some “big events” – not all, of course! – can be self-inflicted: internal wars that spill out into external situations.
Our internal wars are not invisible to God. They’re not headline news on the major TV channels. No one is retweeting them. But they are important.
God’s arm is not shortened that He cannot save those far away from us.
God’s eyes are not long-sighted that He cannot see our troubles.
I don’t know who’s reading this, but I hope you’ll take a moment (like I will) to lay your burdens down before the Throne. The personal ones and the global ones.
Liv'n'Hope 