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Kneel Day 13 Surprising Answers

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Read His Words Before Ours!

Acts 12:1-19
2 Kings 20:1-7
Isaiah 55:8-9
Matthew 7:7-11
James 5:13-18

Kneel, Day 13

Have you ever been surprised by an answer to prayer?

The people praying for Peter in this account from Acts certainly were!

Peter has been imprisoned for following Jesus, and as he waits for his public trial after the Passover celebration, the church is “praying fervently to God for him.” (Acts 12:5)

They are under no illusions about how the situation is likely to end for Peter. Herod Agrippa recently had the apostle James killed with a sword, and seeing the Jews’ resulting pleasure, has prompted Peter’s arrest. (Acts 12:1-2)

The church knows it is a matter of life and death, and so they pray desperately. Different translations of Acts 12:5 describe their prayers as constant, intense, earnest, persistent, continual, and without ceasing. This is prayer that is intentional and focused.

Consequently, God intervenes in a miraculous way. Awakened by an angel, Peter is told to get up. His chains fall off, the prison gates open, and the guards meant to be watching him closely seem oblivious!

The events are so unexpected that even Peter struggles to believe at first, but finally the truth sinks in.

“Now I know for certain that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from Herod’s grasp and from all that the Jewish people expected.” (Acts 12:11)

Immediately, he goes to the house where he knows the believers have gathered to pray, which leads to a rather comical scene. Rhoda, the servant girl who answers the door, is so overwhelmed and overjoyed to hear Peter’s voice that instead of letting him in she rushes to tell the others, only to be met with astonishment and unbelief!

As they argue about whether or not it could possibly be true, the answer to their prayer is standing outside the door the whole time!

Finally, they let Peter in to see for themselves and hear his story, but it raises the question: if they were praying so fervently, so passionately, so continually, why were they so surprised when their prayer was answered?

I think I’ve gained insight into this over the last six months as I, and several others, have prayed earnestly and continually for a friend’s husband who is unwell. There has been so much prayer that my friend says her husband must be the most prayed-for man in the world!

Yet, despite our many prayers, he has deteriorated. His condition has been declared inoperable and, humanly speaking, it is only a matter of time.

We continue to pray for a miracle, yet I admit I would be surprised if my friend’s husband suddenly appeared at my door cured of his illness.

I don’t doubt for a moment that God can do it. I just have no idea whether He will.

I imagine the believers praying for Peter had similar thoughts. After all, James had been killed. Would praying for Peter really make any difference?

Yet, despite their uncertainty, they prayed; this act itself evidenced their faith, imperfect as it was.

They prayed because they knew they were helpless to fix the situation; they knew it was something only God could do. While their prayers may not have been rooted in perfect faith, God heard, and He answered.

As James writes, “The prayer of a righteous person is very powerful in its effect.” (James 5:16)

The difficulty we often have with prayer is that it’s unpredictable. It doesn’t work according to a formula. It’s not about how much we pray or trying to find the magic phrase or perfect combination of words to unlock the miracle or the answer we seek.

In fact, it’s not about the quality of our prayers at all; it’s about the One to whom we are praying.

If our prayers are answered as we hope, as in Peter’s situation or when God healed Hezekiah (2 Kings 20:1-7), we rejoice and give thanks to God. Only He can do the impossible, and there is no credit we can take. The glory is His!

When our prayers are not answered as we hope, it doesn’t mean our prayers were lacking in flawless faith or that God doesn’t care. It doesn’t even mean our prayers are unanswered, simply that God’s purpose is different.

“’For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways.’ This is the Lord’s declaration.” (Isaiah 55:8)

We can’t always understand God’s ways, but we can trust in His goodness. My friend’s husband may not be healed on earth, but we know that, because of his faith in Jesus, an eternal future awaits him, free from pain and suffering. In the meantime, we continue to pray.

Jesus urged His disciples to persistently keep on praying and trusting God’s character as a loving Father who longs to give good gifts to His children. (Matthew 7) Likewise, He invites us to partner with Him in His work, bringing our situations before Him with faith and confidence, trusting in His power and love, and confidently knowing He loves to hear and answer us.

Sometimes, as with those believers praying for Peter, the answers to our prayers can be even more amazing than we would ever have expected!

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Fruitful Day 11 Cultivating Fruitfulness

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Read His Words Before Ours!

Numbers 14:1-10
Joshua 14:6-15
Joshua 21:43-45
1 Thessalonians 5:23-24
2 Timothy 2:11-13

Fruitful, Day 11

Faithfulness is a fruit of the Spirit requiring time to grow.
Therefore, in a fast-paced world seeking instant gratification, it is sometimes underrated.
Faithfulness may not be glamorous, exciting, or fashionable, but it’s a fruit with richness and depth making it well worth the effort of cultivating.

Like every fruit of the Spirit, faithfulness begins with God. It is a key attribute of His character, woven through every page of Scripture; His faithfulness is unchangeable. Paul writes, “If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.” (2 Timothy 2:13)

This is a relief! Firstly, because in a rapidly-changing world, it is comforting to know God is constant, but secondly because we don’t need to look far in Scripture (or the world around us) to see the unfaithfulness of humanity. The whole of the Old Testament is a story of God’s faithfulness despite His people’s failure and disobedience.

We see this on multiple occasions as the Israelites journey to the Promised Land. Despite God’s repeated promise they would receive the land, and although He’d already demonstrated His power and love by rescuing them from slavery in Egypt, the Israelites’ journey through the wilderness is marked with their faithlessness. The result was complaining, lack of trust, disobedience, and even idol worship.

Consider how the Israelites waited at the edge of the Promised Land for 12 spies to bring back a survey report. (Numbers 13) Overwhelmed by the ferocity of the land’s residents, the Israelites doubt their ability to conquer it. Their focus on challenges, instead of God’s power and faithfulness caused fear to infect the majority of Israelites resulting in a refusal to enter the land.

Amazingly, God doesn’t give up on His people. There are consequences for their faithlessness, and they wandering in the wilderness for 40 years, but the Lord continues to go with them and guide them, showing His faithful commitment to them even in small details, “I led you forty years in the wilderness; your clothes and the sandals on your feet did not wear out[.]”(Deuteronomy 29:5)

When they finally arrived in the land, the challenges continued, but through the ups and downs of their circumstances, God’s faithfulness remained constant.

“None of the good promises the Lord had made to the house of Israel failed.
Everything was fulfilled.” (Joshua 21:45)

Amid the Israelites’ unfaithfulness, two men stand out as shining examples of faithfulness. Caleb & Joshua

They were two of the twelve spies who explored the land, but, unlike the others, Joshua and Caleb remained confident of God’s presence and power to enable them to conquer the land.  s willing to stand against the crowd.

Their courage to stand against the crowd nearly resulted in death by stoning as their fellow Israelites were unwilling to listen or follow in faith. (Numbers 14:10) Caleb and Joshua were left with no choice but to join the rest of their nation as they turned around and began their journey away from the Promised Land.

It must have been incredibly frustrating, but when we meet Caleb and Joshua again, 45 years later, we see they have remained faithful to God. The two men are just as sure of God’s faithfulness as they were all those years earlier.

“Here I (Caleb) am today, eighty-five years old. I am still as strong today as I was the day Moses sent me out. My strength for battle and for daily tasks is now as it was then. Now give me this hill country the Lord promised me on that day[…] Perhaps the Lord will be with me and I will drive them out as the Lord promised.” (Joshua 14:10-12)

Their passion and determination are undiminished, and their faith in God is as strong as ever.

When I think of examples of faithfulness today, I think of Ian. In his mid-80s, much like Caleb, Ian is still actively involved in his church and community, and has a passion to share God’s Word with younger generations.

Until last year, he ran a club in a local school helping pupils explore the Bible, and each year he organised funding for them to go on a weekend away, then accompanied them on the trip. One year, when we were short on space, he even offered to sleep in a tent if necessary!

Ian will never be well-known, and he doesn’t seek any reward, but his life is one of quiet faithfulness to God. A few years ago, I had the privilege of attending a prayer meeting Ian participated in. This group had been meeting together once a month to pray . . . for over fifty years!

It is one of the most inspiring prayer meetings I have ever attended. There is something wonderful about hearing the prayers of people who have followed Jesus for decades, who have known His faithfulness through the ups and downs of life, and who in turn have faithfully committed themselves to Him.

So how do we cultivate a life of faithfulness?

One step at a time, one day at a time, as we seek God, hold to His faithfulness, and allow His Spirit to work within us.

There is no quick, easy way to grow this fruit,
but people like Joshua, Caleb, and Ian encourage me it’s worth it.
Paul’s words in 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 remind us it’s possible
because of God’s faithful commitment to us.

“Now may the God of peace sanctify you completely. And may your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will do it.”

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Embracing God’s fullness in our lives is rooted in scripture and memorizing His word is vital to our continued growth and depth with Jesus. Tap and hold from your mobile device to download this week’s verse and make it your phone’s lockscreen!

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Relentless Day 10 The Lord’s Victory

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Read His Words Before Ours!

Judges 7:3-23
2 Corinthians 12:7-10
Ephesians 6:10-12

Relentless, Day 10

“I was the lion who forced you to join with Aravis. I was the cat who comforted you among the houses of the dead. I was the lion who drove the jackals from you while you slept. I was the one who gave the horses the new strength of fear for the last mile so that you should reach King Lune in time. I was the lion who you do not remember who pushed the boat in which you lay, a child near death, so that I came to shore where a man sat wakeful at midnight, to receive you.” 

My eyes began to water as I read (and by read, I mean listened to, because I absolutely listened to this in audio-book form) this paragraph Aslan spoke to Shasta, the hero of this story.

That realization that rushes over each new reader of “The Horse and His Boy”, is the same realization that rushed over me just a few months ago, when God gave me a revelation that altered my perspective on the last ten months of my life.

As I’ve been in my own kind of battle for months, I’ve been amazed every time I’ve seen God’s fingerprint show up in an unexpected way, just like the lion for Shasta. I imagined myself climbing this exhausting mountain with God occasionally choosing to reach out and touch me to give me a push along the way. But one day, God showed me the reason I kept seeing His fingerprints around my life isn’t because He was choosing to reach for me here and help me there…

It was because He was holding me.
And when things are held, fingerprints naturally end up everywhere.

I wasn’t being lightly touched.
I was being tightly held.
Ah-Ha Moment! 

Shasta, the presumed-to-be orphan boy, who was journeying from the land of slavery to the land of freedom on the back of a talking-horse, could see, at last, that he wasn’t the most unfortunate boy, with his continual run-ins with lions and life as the son of a cruel fisherman. Shasta’s life was held by Aslan; the great Lion of Love.

There was love amidst every battle. 

Oh, how I’ve seen God’s love amidst my own battles!

Not-so-coincidentally (thanks to God, who always seems to make things like this happen), the writing of this journey coincided with my reading of C. S. Lewis’ third book in the Chronicles of Narnia series. So, it is easy to compare this book and battles fought and won with Gideon, the prophet of old who defeated a 120,000 army with only 300 men.

In Judges chapter six, we read about God calling Gideon, and Gideon testing God… several times. Our ever-patient Father responded to Gideon’s tests each time, displaying how God would indeed deliver Israel by Gideon’s hand.

Gideon felt small.
Inadequate.
The odds were stacked against him.
He could hardly believe that God would use little ol’ him to bring victory to the Israelites.

I’ve felt that way, too.
Small.
Inadequate.
Stupid and weak.
I’ve felt like the odds were completely stacked against me.
I’ve believed that there was no way God could use me to bring glory to His name.

And yet.

God chose to use Gideon…
God chooses to use me.
And you.

So there Gideon was…
Feeling like he was already a lost cause.

The troupes gathered together, 32,000 in number, significantly smaller than the 120,000-member opposing army. Still, God told Gideon he had too many.
If God handed Midian over to Israel, Israel would only praise themselves and their own strength. Victory must obviously belong to the Lord God.

22,000 men left for home when Gideon commanded only the fearless to remain, and his small army dwindled even smaller to 10,000.

Still not small enough for God.
He needed to be sure that it all pointed back to Him. There could be no way anyone could ever assume victory was won by human strength. 10,000 turned to 300.

300 men.

Against 120,000.
Ridiculous odds.

Remember, God had already promised Gideon Israel would win this battle…
But oh how Gideon must have quaked inside. He’d already doubted God calling him into the battle, and now he entered with a 1 to 400 soldier ratio.

Gideon and all 300 of his men were upheld by God.
He used the weakness of their numbers to showcase God’s magnificent strength.

Sisters, God uses us when we are at our weakest.
He will use that season of feeling small and weak to demonstrate how He is our strength, which ultimately brings Him glory because our story….it really points to HIM!

We’ll never be “strong enough”, if we were, we wouldn’t need Jesus to save us,
and that’s the whole point of the Gospel right there!

Jesus + nothing = salvation.
God + a measly army = victory.

He is the lion pushing us towards our calling,
bringing comfort when we are trembling,
strengthening and upholding us to be all He has called us to be.
His mighty strength surrounds us, holds us, and chooses to use our woeful weakness to make His name known!

He is the God who doesn’t look at odds being in our favor,
– because there are no “odds” with Him –
He just always wins.

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Embracing God’s fullness in our lives is rooted in scripture and memorizing His word is vital to our continued growth and depth with Jesus. Tap and hold from your mobile device to download this week’s verse and make it your phone’s lockscreen!

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