Some thoughts about prayer
in considerations surrounding
this incident described in Part 1 and 2.
Reading Part 1 and Part 2 of
the Power of Prayer will make these comments more meaningful. If you have
not read “The Power of Prayer” click these links:
The Power of Prayer Part 2
1. In
the writing “The Power of Prayer” there was an event of seeing soldiers with
their rifles on their shoulders marching to the firing range. This was a
most fortuitous event leading to an answer to my problem and some might say a
coincidence. However, with
God, there are no coincidences. He is creative and just as a parent,
wants to help His children. God is not in the business of making things
easy for His children and this is a failing of parents in their desire to make
life better for their children than they had. God will provide, supply,
and see to our needs but sometimes you have to give up, look up, and open up
your mind for His solution, or you just might not recognize it.
For the longest time after that Friday morning of May 1972, I thought the idea
of a gun sight to solve my navigation problem was my idea. When in
January of 2009 I began to earnestly pray often everyday, it was then I began
to think otherwise about everything about accomplishments in my life. At
the very least, God gave me life, God gave me eyes to see, God gave me this
brain to think, and God puts ideas in my head to follow through on. God
gives us ideas to follow through on and do His work. The difficult part
is our work, our following through on what He gives us to do.
...
2. Heavy emotional events in our lives requiring
solutions often come in profoundly low spiritual moments. It is then we
are equally more open to listening and confessing we are helpless, useless, and
without hope. I am thankful for perhaps the first moment in my life I
truly felt hopeless and I submitted to asking for His help.
It is when:
we in that helplessness we
submit ourselves to His grace,
in our acknowledgement of
helplessness and in His grace we
become our
greatest in the Kingdom,
when we acknowledge that we are
helpless to solve our
problems that we are more ready to
clearly open our
hearts to Him,
and we are humbly in acceptance
of His will, then
it is in
these spiritually low and “poor in spirit’ conditions
we are most
ready to receive the abundant Grace
of His
solutions in His kingdom; and
he will provide abundant
solutions,
often just barely on time.
God wants for us to have hope,
faith, and patience; He will take care of consequences. He did with
Abraham, He did it with Moses and King David, He did it with the Jews of Jesus,
Martin Luther, and others; and, He will do it with you.
...
3. Parental
guidance and living their faith all their life led me to remaining in church.
Even when I did not seem to be spiritually fed, I continued my practice
of going to church.
...
4. In
and through your faith, in your prayers focus your concern on others and pray
more for them rather than yourself. You will find your
concerns diminish and your sinful worry far less intrusive in your
life. Just as it did for me, humble prayer will open your mind to
solutions. Just remember, your solutions to important projects are often
inspirations within you but not of or from you.
...
5. In
my prayers in those days of war, I found my humble prayers the most powerful
when I prayed to be in God's will. I learned to end my prayers just like
Jesus did, "Not my will, but your will be done." Pray everyday
for God to show you His Plan, His Will, and His Way for your life. Pray
for the Holy Spirit to provide you the guidance to recognize what God has for
you.
...
6. Asking
God to show me the solution was a humble moment and as like most people, we
humans like to do things for ourselves. I firmly believed and submitted
to God that the only way this airdrop problem would be solved was for God to
show me. The “show me” came in the form of a question concerning
the rifle carrying soldiers. I firmly believe my knowledge and experience
initiated the details of the solution, but it was the inspiration of the
question that caused me to realize that solution. Man can do things, God
inspires great things.
...
7. Inspired
solutions can come in the form of a question as it was with me. The sad
part, I did not fully realize until many years later that the question was
truly an inspirational event. I prayed for God to show me a solution and
His answer was by putting a question in my mind the next day. It was a
question I thought came from within me. When the Holy Spirit inspires, it
is up to us to respond and recognize the inspirations come not from within
ourselves but from the Holy Spirit. This is hard to accept, deal with,
and incorporate into our thinking as society teaches us to depend on ourselves.
Self-dependence and self-confidence is a myth perpetrated by society
through selling books, videos, and other assortment of
self-help instructions. True confidence comes in our
dependence on the Lord and through the Guidance of the Holy Spirit.
...
8. A
result of prayer beyond the outcome of the request is the peace of mind that
comes through humble submissive prayer. On this and
other occasions of great stress, my experience, my witness, my Godly
realization is that my stress level is reduced and clarity in thinking is
enhanced through prayer. I have learned too, that there is scientific
evidence in the studies of the activity of the brain during prayer that bears
this to be true.
Thanks be to God
lonnie (c)
© lonnie coggins
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lonnie
Publication 0087
