Moments

 

“Moments”

    We never know which moment will be our last.  What if you were driving and this is what you saw in front of you?  Would you re-evaluate your life at that moment, or would you be wonderfully glad that you have given this moment and every other moment already over to God? 

    There are a lot of moments that we might quickly ask for God to be involved.  The soldier on the battlefield, sunk deep in the foxhole and surrounded by the enemy will often call out to God “Lord if you will get me through this, I will serve you the rest of my life.”  The heartbroken husband or wife who just found out that the person that they had trusted has been found unfaithful, might cry out to God to help them through that heart-wrenching moment and through the many difficult moments to come.  There are many serious moments of life where we realize our limitations and the gravity of the moment and we reach out to the Lord to help us through it.  When we cry out to Him, the Lord Jesus jumps at this chance to come to us and provide us with comfort, encouragement, and hope.  Sometimes He miraculously delivers us out of the pressure cooker of life and sometimes He miraculously gives us the strength to endure it.  This paper is to motivate us all to give more and more of our moments… to the loving arms of Christ.

    We live in such a prosperous society that it is very easy to fail to acknowledge the Lord in the moments when things are going well.  I believe that during those times the Lord longs for us to visit with Him, to include Him, and to at least acknowledge Him. 

    There are some good moments when it is our tradition to acknowledge the Lord.  It is very common to acknowledge God in our weekly Church service.  It is also common to hear the Lord being spoken to even by the non-believing during Weddings and Funerals, and sometimes we even hear His name when someone is receiving an award or trophy.   For the most part though, we do not talk with the Lord nearly as often as we should… and we miss out on His blessings when we do not turn out thoughts to Him.

    Years ago I had a great moment with God.  My wife and kids were out running some errands and a South Texas thunderstorm had quickly come up.  While I was waiting for the family to return home, the power had shut off to our neighborhood.  For just a short time I was alone and quiet in my living room and used the time to talk with the Lord for a while. 

    We had put our house on the market during a time of very high-interest rates.  A lot of people told us that we would probably have a hard time selling the house, but we had prayed about it and the very first person that looked at the house bought it and they put in an offer that was within fifty dollars of the appraised value!  I remember thanking the Lord for this wonderful miracle.  When I was finished I remember feeling very good and I asked God “Why don’t I feel this close to you all the time?”  The Lord very quickly answered by saying “Lee; when things are going good, you do not talk to me as much, but when things are going bad – you pray to me more often.  I really enjoy our times together and I wish we could talk more.” 

    I realized that if we only talk with Jesus when we are going through difficulty, then maybe He will help provide those opportunities more often.  If we talk with Him during the calmer moments, then maybe He will provide more of those.  Do you catch the point?  If the only time that you really put your heart out to God is when you are going through difficult moments – then since God loves to talk with you – maybe He will provide more of those difficult moments!  The goal is for us to grow in our relationship with the Lord through our conversation with Him through prayer and reading His Word and He will lead us to do that more.

    The story of Israel in the Old Testament is a good illustration of this.  They would constantly go through a ridiculous cycle.  They would experience prosperity by following the ways of God –>then they would stop calling on Him for a while and would become indifferent and begin to compromise their beliefs –> then some difficulty would happen and they would begin to suffer the consequences –> they would then realize their sin and would cry out to God to deliver them –> God would then help them out of their situation and raise up a deliverer–>then they would experience peace and blessings.  Then they would once again take their blessings for granted and forget God… and the cycle would repeat itself once again.

    I believe the key is to learn to lean on God more frequently.   There is a great story that I heard a years ago about the life of Mark Buntain and the work that he had done in India for the gospel.  If you were to research his life, you would find out that he was the protestant version of Mother Teresa as far as helping the poor and suffering in India.  He did an awesome job of providing for the physical and spiritual needs of the suffering people of Calcutta and other places in India.  Someone asked him how he was able to do so much for the Glory of God and found out that he had the reputation among his fellow workers that you had to interrupt his praying in order to talk with him!  Mark would talk with God so much that it was no big secret why he was able to accomplish great things for Him.

    I believe that is the normal path of the Christian life.  We involve God in some of the moments of our lives and as a result, we experience His blessings.  It is the natural progression of our Christian life to gradually involve Him in more and more of those moments.

    I was recently talking with a Christian brother and we were talking about how we both have the practice of talking to God before we start our day at work and ask for His strength and blessing.  We were discussing how that we did not have the practice of taking the time to talk with God after we had gotten off of work to ask for His strength and blessing for the ending of our day.  We both thought that we were probably missing out on His blessings by not doing so and we encouraged each other to add these moments and every other moment to our conversation with God.

 

(Proverbs 3:6)  In all your ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct your paths.

 

(Philippians 4:6,7) Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.  And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

 

Written by Lee Malden – lmalden@hotmail.com     09/23/2020