I'm sitting on the bed in my room at the Torchbearers Bible School in Schladming, Austria. It took me a while to get here as I had to leave home at 3 am for a 7:15 flight out of Gatwick and now I've unpacked, gone for a walk and have spent the last hour reading the Word and talking to the Lord. He has been speaking to me a little in the last few days about prayerlessness. Not that I don't pray, I do, every day, in quiet time and throughout the day as situations arise. But He has been speaking to me about extended prayer, about going beyond my requests and supplications, going beyond even the thanksgiving that should go with it and getting into an area of quiet with Him where He can tell me what He wants me to lift up to His throne of grace.
Now that's tricky for me as that requires concentration. It means that I cannot allow my mind to just sit quietly and drift off at tangents of my own but that I must really wait on Him attentively. One of the books I'll be teaching this week is Habakkuk and in Hab.2:1 he says that he will do exactly what I am attempting and of course, because the Lord is faithful to His Word, he does hear from Him.
As I sat then and thought about that and how I would do as Habakkuk did, as I cried out to the Lord for His help and for Him to show me what I should lift up to Him, I remembered my daily reading - Lamentations 3:21-26 and I understood that the writer was so overwhelmed at what had happened to his beloved Jerusalem, that he was weeping almost inconsolably at the destruction that she had brought upon herself, that he was brought to that place of remembering who God is and what He has promised.
And it was as if God was speaking directly to me - remember Me, remember who I am, when you want to hear My voice remember I have spoken in My Son and He lives in you. I have revealed the secret things to you because you are My precious child. I have given you knowledge of My love and My grace. I have filled you with My truth and now I want you to remember Me in all the moments of your life - to recall the way I have brought you here and to abide in My love for you. Then you will know Me and know My heart and you will know what to bring to Me.
It's always about Him, always about God. It's not about me or what I do or how I concentrate or how I pray - it is always and only about Him and my worship is simply to remember and recall to mind His compassion and His faithfulness. Yes I want to spend more time in His presence and yes I need to properly discipline myself to enable this to happen without distraction but it will always be Him who does it, always be Him who enables me and always be Him who fills my heart with praise and with prayer and with adoration.
And then of course the picture on the bedroom wall - a mountain landscape with a Scripture printed on it - and I remembered His word to me years ago, in the midst of my anger and my tears and my wanting to do anything but serve Him in the way He had chosen - when I cried out and asked Hin what do you think of me? His answer came back oh so softly ' I rejoice over you with singing'.
This I recall to my mind therefore I have hope.
