Sunday Thoughts

Today was a Sunday not unlike most. Jason had to be in the sound booth and I had to sing on worship team. Both of those things on the same Sunday means that we usually miss out on at least part of our Flock (Sunday school) lesson. Well lucky for me our teacher was just starting when I walked in. Today we were talking about John 14:1-14. In this section Jesus comforts his disciples and also tells them HE is the way to the Father. I'm sure I've not only read but heard and visually seen these verses in the Living Last Supper numerous times, but I really hadn't given them much thought. Well today a specific verse stuck out to me. Verse 13 says "And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father."

So many times I treat God as a magic genie that I pray and He will do what I want. God save me from this situation, God make this circumstance go away, God help us find the right house. I read the first part of the verse "And I will do whatever you ask in my name" and I add a period there when God made it a coma. He intended me to read the first part but then pause and read the rest. The second part is a condition to the first. He will do whatever you ask, IF/WHEN/SO THAT it brings glory to Him! He isn't a magic genie, although He could anything He wanted to. He is the Alpha & Omega. The great I AM! He is Yahweh, the LORD, the God or Abraham, Isaac & Jacob. He can do anything He knows will bring glory to Him. I don't always know the reason why He does things from an earthly stand point but I do know from an eternal stand point that He does things to being people to Him and bring Him the glory.

A good friend of mine made an AMAZING statement today that blew my fuse (as my father-in-law- would say). We should be praying that God USES the circumstances, and not just that the circumstances would go away. He was speaking specifically about a family member with an illness. He was saying how when he prayed for her it was for healing, which we all would. But his attitude in the praying was wrong. He prayed for healing because he knew how much this loved one meant to her family and how she would be missed greatly. But he was saying that he SHOULD have been praying that God would use her illness to bring others to Him, even if that didn't mean healing. That is a such a hard thing to do. I can remember the first time my brother went to Iraq. I can remember praying for him before he left. And praying that God's will would ultimately be done, even if that meant he wouldn't come back home alive. How it hurt to think about my brother not being here but I knew that if God called him home, HE had a greater purpose.

Pastor Joel gave a example today of how God sees things as apposed to how we see them. When we watch a parade, we sit in our lawn chairs on the side of the road and see just a small part. We see the band come and go, we see the Shriners driving their little cars but we can't see the whole thing all at once. But God is like the man up in the helicopter. He is up so high that he CAN see the beginning and the end and the whole parade route. He sees how all the pieces come together to make the perfect parade. Much the same as He sees the beginning and end of all time and how all the parade floats (us) come together to make His parade.

I don't know why God had me write all this out, I just know I needed to hear it and I can only hope that someone else needed to hear it too. Don't forget to pray today, especially to praise Him for His blessings. If you list them out I bet you have more than you know! I'm trying to stay positive and keep listing my blessings.