"My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts," says the Lord. "And My ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so My ways are higher than the earth, so My ways are higher than your ways and My thoughts higher than your thoughts."
Isaiah 55: 8-9
How Janet loved those verses. And how she pondered those verses. How many times she wondered why God was doing certain things, why her life was going in certain directions, why were there wars, and also what would happen to her and what would happen to her family in the days and years to come. Those verses helped her to realize that God is beyond her limited knowledge and beyond her ability to control most of what is in this world. God is all powerful, in control, omnipotent, omniscient and too amazing for her to begin to understand!
For one thing she thought about their four children and how much she and Dick loved them. She thought back over the years and fondly recalled those precious memories of infancy, toddler years, then school age, then college, then weddings and grandchildren. How fast those busy years flew by but she was so thankful she and Dick had spent time and energy loving and caring for their precious off-spring.
Now she thought fondly about their four adult children and how much they loved and cared for their own children (our twelve grandchildren). How beautiful to see! And the realization hit her. We love our children more than we love our parents! It is a downward progression! Sure she loved her parents, respected them, spent time with them as they grew older, cared for them and now remember them with absolute endearment. But...there was this deep passionate love for her own children that surpassed even the love she had for her parents. And now she saw that reality passed down into her children's love for their children.
In fact, she knew that her adult children preferred to spend time with their children rather than with her. And that is OK because the love is constantly transmitting downward to the next generation. And she realized that is the way God designed it. Love never stops...it just continues passing on.
God is the same. It made her realize that God the Father, the Creator of us all loves us with a deep passionate love because we are His children. Look what He did for us? He loved us so deeply, He sent Himself, through His Son, to shed His blood and die for us so we could be given the gift of eternal life.
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." John 3:16
Janet knew, if necessary, she would literally die for her own children so she began to understand the great love God has for all of His children. Yes, the whole world...everyone whoever lived, because we are all created by our loving Father, are given the gift of spending eternity with our Father IF we believe that indeed Jesus died for us. Very simple...and very awesome!
She had never totally understood the depths of God's love, but when taken in the context of a mother's or father's love for our own children, she began to understand.
That parental love never ceases, even when the children are older and graying! Never a day goes by that she does not pray for each of them....that the Lord will protect them, keep them in His care, send His angels to surround them and continue to lead them in His path of love and wisdom.
She praised God that He has given her the gift of living in these senior years to see how God's ways are far beyond anything she could imagine!
Sunday, June 29, 2014
Friday, June 20, 2014
Teach us to pray
What did she remember about prayer? Did someone teach her? Did someone pray with her? Janet thought back on her childhood. Yes, her mom and dad prayed. They took her to church and Sunday school. Teachers at church told the children, "Close your eyes and fold your hands...like this...and we'll pray to God." She remembered peeking around at her classmates and seeing them seriously and dutifully closing their eyes and folding hands. She heard the Lord's Prayer as a youngster in church and then at school.
Every school day at Roosevelt School in Ridgefield Park, NJ the 'Opening Exercises' promptly began the day. The teacher or one of the better readers in the class would read verses from the Bible. Since this was during the 1940s, the black leather bound Bible that sat on the teacher's desk was the King James version. Usually chosen was Psalm 23 or Psalm 100 or even Psalm 1, but the reading was reverent and respectful. Following the reading everyone in the classroom recited the Lord's Prayer. No giggling, no excuses...everyone joined in praying. Then, of course, the class would stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. A normal day in the life of an elementary school child during the 1940s.
Janet thought about praying the Lord's Prayer. As a young child she wasn't sure what some of it meant. "Our Father"...that was simple enough. She understood at an early age that God the Father was a God of love. And of course, since her own father, Daddy, loved her intensely, she could identify with that.
The next phrase always baffled her. The version she learned as a child was, "which art in Heaven". As a child she always wondered why that phrase wasn't more personal with a 'who' instead of the word 'which'. "Hallowed be Thy name" was understandable even though 'hallowed' was a difficult word for a young child to spell. "The kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven" was a phrase she always loved because it made her think of Heaven as a glorious, happy place. "Give us this day our daily bread" made her thankful she would never be hungry. "And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors"...she remembered how confused that phrase meant to a young girl in the Presbyterian church. After all, what were debts and debtors? Then when her parents decided to attend the Methodist church, the wording changed to trespasses and trespass. That was even harder to say! "And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil" gave her protective comfort. Then, how she loved the closing phrases..."For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen".
As an adult she had sung Albert Hay Malotte's musical arrangement of The Lord's Prayer hundreds of times for weddings, funerals and special events. A vocal joy to sing those words, understand those words and communicate those loving words that Jesus spoke to teach His disciples how to pray. A special privilege to sing!
Oh how her knowledge of prayer had grown over the years. She had recently discovered the intimacy one gains with Jesus when in prayer. By opening her heart, pouring our her struggles, her uncertainties, her fears, her confessions but also her praises and worship to this wonderful magnificent, holy God was a humble experience! Long ago she had realized prayer isn't a formal collection of proper verbiage but a conversation...simple, direct and open.
Yes, and since the cancer, she fully realized how powerful prayer really is! When friends, family, acquaintances found out she had the diagnosis of brain cancer, they prayed! She now knew that God hears every prayer and always answers how He knows best. We sometimes get upset and even angry at God because he doesn't answer our prayer the way we think is best. But Janet knew with certainty that God is in control of all things, so prayer is answered in accordance with His plan. She was reminded again and again that God had chosen to save her from cancer and prolong her life because she still had work to do. How humble she felt! How glorious she felt knowing that God was using her for His purposes!
Now she prayed with vigor for friends and family to come closer to God, to surrender to Jesus and be assured of graduation into His heavenly paradise! Prayer is special, prayer enables us to talk with God and prayer gives us opportunity to listen to Him. What a blessed conversation!
As Rev. W. M. Clow wrote, "One of the gravest obstacles in the way of believing that God answers prayer is that to do so would be alter His own natural and moral laws, and hence to 'change His mind'. The answer must be along such lines as to ask, 'What is God's mind?' According to Jesus, it is fellowship with man and that forever. All else subserves that great plan, and prayer, the medium whereby man enters into communion with his God, is surely provided for in the scheme of creation. Christians do, in fact, experience answer to prayer, whether it be direct or indirect, immediate or deferred; and the final answer to prayer is summed up for us in Jesus' words: 'How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit.' Whatever we want, all that we really need is God; and prayer brings us God."
Every school day at Roosevelt School in Ridgefield Park, NJ the 'Opening Exercises' promptly began the day. The teacher or one of the better readers in the class would read verses from the Bible. Since this was during the 1940s, the black leather bound Bible that sat on the teacher's desk was the King James version. Usually chosen was Psalm 23 or Psalm 100 or even Psalm 1, but the reading was reverent and respectful. Following the reading everyone in the classroom recited the Lord's Prayer. No giggling, no excuses...everyone joined in praying. Then, of course, the class would stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. A normal day in the life of an elementary school child during the 1940s.
Janet thought about praying the Lord's Prayer. As a young child she wasn't sure what some of it meant. "Our Father"...that was simple enough. She understood at an early age that God the Father was a God of love. And of course, since her own father, Daddy, loved her intensely, she could identify with that.
The next phrase always baffled her. The version she learned as a child was, "which art in Heaven". As a child she always wondered why that phrase wasn't more personal with a 'who' instead of the word 'which'. "Hallowed be Thy name" was understandable even though 'hallowed' was a difficult word for a young child to spell. "The kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven" was a phrase she always loved because it made her think of Heaven as a glorious, happy place. "Give us this day our daily bread" made her thankful she would never be hungry. "And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors"...she remembered how confused that phrase meant to a young girl in the Presbyterian church. After all, what were debts and debtors? Then when her parents decided to attend the Methodist church, the wording changed to trespasses and trespass. That was even harder to say! "And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil" gave her protective comfort. Then, how she loved the closing phrases..."For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen".
As an adult she had sung Albert Hay Malotte's musical arrangement of The Lord's Prayer hundreds of times for weddings, funerals and special events. A vocal joy to sing those words, understand those words and communicate those loving words that Jesus spoke to teach His disciples how to pray. A special privilege to sing!
Oh how her knowledge of prayer had grown over the years. She had recently discovered the intimacy one gains with Jesus when in prayer. By opening her heart, pouring our her struggles, her uncertainties, her fears, her confessions but also her praises and worship to this wonderful magnificent, holy God was a humble experience! Long ago she had realized prayer isn't a formal collection of proper verbiage but a conversation...simple, direct and open.
Yes, and since the cancer, she fully realized how powerful prayer really is! When friends, family, acquaintances found out she had the diagnosis of brain cancer, they prayed! She now knew that God hears every prayer and always answers how He knows best. We sometimes get upset and even angry at God because he doesn't answer our prayer the way we think is best. But Janet knew with certainty that God is in control of all things, so prayer is answered in accordance with His plan. She was reminded again and again that God had chosen to save her from cancer and prolong her life because she still had work to do. How humble she felt! How glorious she felt knowing that God was using her for His purposes!
Now she prayed with vigor for friends and family to come closer to God, to surrender to Jesus and be assured of graduation into His heavenly paradise! Prayer is special, prayer enables us to talk with God and prayer gives us opportunity to listen to Him. What a blessed conversation!
As Rev. W. M. Clow wrote, "One of the gravest obstacles in the way of believing that God answers prayer is that to do so would be alter His own natural and moral laws, and hence to 'change His mind'. The answer must be along such lines as to ask, 'What is God's mind?' According to Jesus, it is fellowship with man and that forever. All else subserves that great plan, and prayer, the medium whereby man enters into communion with his God, is surely provided for in the scheme of creation. Christians do, in fact, experience answer to prayer, whether it be direct or indirect, immediate or deferred; and the final answer to prayer is summed up for us in Jesus' words: 'How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit.' Whatever we want, all that we really need is God; and prayer brings us God."
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