[Faith-talk] {Spam?} Daily Thought for Thursday, June 23, 2016

[Paul Smith]

Hello and greetings again for the second time to most of you.  I hope 
that you are all faring well today as you read this message, by God's 
matchless grace and His providential care.

Here is the third in a series of prayer articles, this one having been 
written by Richard Blackaby, the president of Blackaby Ministries 
International and the coauthor of "Experiencing God." The title of his 
contribution is "Spiritual Sight:  Watch and Pray, America!", rendered 
as follows:

In prayer, God beckons us to join Him for souls.

A businessman named Bob was skeptical of my claim.  I had told church 
members the night before that God is working all around us, but we need 
to open our spiritual eyes so we recognize His activity.  Bob had 
worked at his company for 12 years and had never witnessed God do 
anything, he said.  Yet, feeling guilty that he had failed to be a 
Christian witness over all that time, Bob prayed that he would see 
where God was working.



All across our rotting culture, God has providentially planted His 
people in offices like where Bob works, in factories, in coffee shops, 
along the sidewalk in your neighborhood, in the halls of power and in 
the hallways of schools.

God wants to transform our nation by transforming hearts, and He wants 
to use you and me and folks like Bob to do it by joining Him in His 
redemptive work.

During lunch on the Monday after I spoke at his church, Bob decided to 
eat at a table in the staff lunchroom where a man was sitting alone.  
Bob discovered the man was going through marital turmoil.  That morning 
he had engaged in a horrible argument with his wife.  As he left the 
house, he told his wife that when he returned that evening he was going 
to leave her.  The man was in anguish because he had a 7-year-old son 
he would also be separating from.

Bob invited his new friend to attend a church service with him that 
evening.  To his surprise, the man agreed to go.  In reality, the man 
wanted to delay going home until after his son was asleep so he could 
avoid a tearful confrontation.

Throughout the service, Bob prayed fervently for his friend.  Yet at 
evening's end, the man had not made a decision for Christ.  Bob drove 
the man back to the company parking lot to retrieve his vehicle.  As 
the man was about to leave, Bob asked him if he had heard anything at 
church he would like to experience in his life.  The man said he wanted 
the forgiveness and the new beginning mentioned in the sermon that 
evening.  Parked in the otherwise empty parking lot, Bob led his 
colleague to faith in Christ.  Then the man eagerly made his way home 
to introduce his wife to her transformed husband.

I heard Bob's story the next morning.  He was ecstatic! Then it dawned 
on him that God had been working throughout the 12 years he had been 
employed at his company.  He just hadn't recognized it.

On the night Jesus was arrested, he took His disciples to the Garden of 
Gethsemane and said, "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death.  
Stay here and watch with Me" (Matthew 26:38).  Sadly, the disciples 
fell asleep.  Jesus exclaimed:  "Could you not watch with Me one hour?" 
(Matthew 26:40).  Interestingly, though this passage is often used as 
an encouragement to pray, Jesus only mentions "Prayer" to His disciples 
once (Matthew 26:41).  However, He speaks of "watching" three times 
(Matthew 26:38-41).

While we generally understand what it means to pray, do we know what it 
means to "watch?" Our problem is that, after we pray, we often fail to 
watch what happens next.  Prayer is not designed for us to convince God 
of what we think He should do.  Prayer is the method God uses to lay 
His heart on our heart.  Jesus once chastised His disciples by saying, 
"Having eyes do you not see?" (Mark 8:18).  Our spiritual senses must 
be developed just as our physical senses.  This is best done through prayer.

My father and I work with Christian CEO's of major companies.  We teach 
people how to see what God is doing in the marketplace and then to join 
Him.  One day my father was teaching that we must rise early in the 
morning to spend time with the Lord so He can alert us to His activity. 
A CEO exclaimed, "But Henry, you don't know how busy I am!" My father 
replied, "Apparently you don't realize who you are going to meet!"

The man began rising at 4:30 each morning to spend time in Bible study 
and prayer.  He later shared how meeting with God had transformed his 
day.  Each day God prepared him for what he would encounter.  By having 
his spiritual eyes opened each morning, he led an employee to faith in Christ.

Churches, as well as individuals, must learn how to watch and pray--and 
also to obey.  During the early 1990s, a church was dying because its 
community had transitioned and the aging congregation could no longer 
maintain its property or pay a pastor's salary.  The remnant decided to 
do one final 12-week Bible study together before it disbanded.  They 
soon encountered the truth that God was at work all around them.  They 
struggled with this reality, for none of them had seen God do anything 
around their church for many years.  Nevertheless, as they prayed 
together, they sensed God inviting them to open their spiritual eyes 
and see where He was working.

That week an apartment manager approached one of the church members, 
asking if the church could do anything for the unsupervised children in 
the apartment block who were constantly getting into mischief.  The 
church member shared this request with the others and they decided to 
undertake one final ministry project before they disbanded.  As they 
began ministering to the children, several single moms approached them 
in need of help.  Over the next few weeks, the church members came to 
know some drug addicts, a prostitute, and various other broken 
individuals who lived in that complex.  God began changing lives.

When the group came to the end of their 12-week study, they realized 
there was far too much happening in their church for them to disband! 
What had happened? As the church prayed, they also learned to watch.  
As they did, they saw God working throughout their neighborhood.  Many 
lives were changed as a result.

God is mightily at work in our world today.  If you will pray and 
watch, you will discover He is not just at work internationally or in 
megachurches or in prominent ministries.  He is also at work all around 
your life.  Why don't you open your spiritual eyes and see?

Wow, but if the preceding articles didn't give you food for thought, I 
don't know what will.  Suffice it to say that, when we get to the end 
of this series tomorrow, the Spirit has prompted me to ask this 
question:  Perhaps we blind and others can get connected on one of the 
rooms on the Conversation Station or other chatlines to discuss what 
Brother Blackaby and others in this series have written about.  I for 
one would like that.  Of course, one would have to ask the moderator of 
a particular chatroom for permission to use his/her room on their phone 
chatline.  But I can foresee some very interesting conversation, and I 
hope that some of you will agree.  Of course, time of day and day of 
the week are also factors to consider as well.

And that will do for today.  Until tomorrow when, Lord willing the last 
in this series of articles on prayer will be posted, may the God of 
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob just keep us safe, individually and 
collectively, in these last days in which we live.  Your Christian 
friend and brother, Paul