Opportunity to Grow

I was awakened to an early phone call for my husband. Soon after, I heard the stirring of my son and decided that it was time to rise. I stopped, recently, I have stopped more frequently to take time before my feet hit the floor so spend earnest time in prayer. Praying before I get out of bed became a routine after I spent time with my Zambian friends at overnight meetings. They would sing a song that said, "In the morning I pray, I pray to you Lord" then they would pray. I was convicted and changed.

In my routine, I had become more programmed in my prayers, "Father God, please guide me today in my words and actions that I may glorify you. In Jesus' name, Amen." Then I would jump out of bed and quickly forget that I had even prayed. It's quite interesting what suffering, strife, trials, and difficulties will do to a person's prayer life.

Through this long season of suffering, I have returned to passionate prayer and intentional intercession. I had failed to cry out to Him before crying out to my husband or my friend. But in suffering, its funny how we run back to our Savior and ask Him to carry us and to sustain us. I believe that suffering not only causes us to suffer but draws us near to the Father's heart, if we so desire. His Word and His will truly are water to a weary soul. Why is it that in the good times of life, His Word isn't so much of a deep desire or need it's more of a filler?

We can't always understand the reason for our suffering, but as for me, I see it as a time to refocus, draw closer and return to our first Love, Jesus Christ. Suffering is not always fun, but it may be some of the most amazing times of spiritual growth. I know that in my own life when I look back at the spiritual markers along the way I can see that my times of growth were in conjunction with times of suffering. I choose to praise Him in the suffering and spend more time drawing near to His heart so that I can hear His heartbeat and slow my heart enough to have my heart beat in rhythm with His.

May we never forget that although we may feel alone and that our cries to the Lord are being screamed into a vacuum, know that they aren't and that He hears them all. In fact, we are top on Jesus' prayer list. In John 17 we see the High Priestly Prayer. If my Savior intercedes for me, how can I fail? May we see through the storms of suffering an amazing opportunity to grow in the Lord.

"I ask on their behalf; I do not ask on behalf of the world, but of those whom You have given Me; for they are Yours; and all things that are Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine; and I have been glorified in them. I am no longer in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are.  While I was with them, I was keeping them in Your name which You have given Me; and I guarded them and not one of them perished but the son of perdition, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled."

John 17:9-12