As we obediently move into this season of prayer and miracles, the voice of the Lord opens my mornings. For several years, I wrote on prayer on a weekly basis and published across the world by email and later blog. One of those series is 52 lessons on praying for other believers based on Ephesians. Those who attend these sessions will receive a prayer journal to focus your prayers. They will know we are His disciples by our love for one another. When we find time to focus on each other and truely and transparently love one another with all of our blips and glitches and problems and pains, we will find extreme revival through personal redemption.
Here is a beginning lesson written first in 2006 updated to get you moving forward in prayer.
Through the Eyes of My Heart
“Bring to me, God, what you have spoken of me.
Bring me, O Lord, to what you have spoken of me.”
Genesis 18:19 19 For I have known him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the LORD, to do righteousness and justice, that the LORD may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him.”
“Bring to me, God, what you have spoken of me.” That is my prayer. I want what Abraham had. Every day for a week, I have prayed it all day long. In the night, I wake praying that prayer. There is something about it that will not leave me alone. Why won't it go away?
Along with it, I now pray, "Bring me, O Lord, to what you have spoken of me." Yes, He has prepared the package and the place and the people. Yet, He must bring me to that place on my journey of faith. Through my mistakes and successes, He must mold me to the person ready to receive and bring me to that moment.
My heart turns toward my physical and spiritual and relational children. All are important. As a Dad, the children of my wife, Dian, and I are precious. They count a lot in my thinking and praying. As a minister of some 37 years now in the same metro and beyond, spiritual children who have looked to me for guidance and leadership are priceless. As a businessman and manager and community participant, those that have looked to me for direction are powerfully on my mind. As a personal mentor of men, those that have looked to me are present in my thoughts. In all of these ways people have been impacted and had direction pushed into their lives through example.
“Bring to me, God, what you have spoken of me.
Bring me, O Lord, to what you have spoken of me.”
Abraham was a commander of lives. Command pushes. Command influences. Command is generally not gentle. In Genesis 18:19, God tells us that Abraham received so that he could ‘command’ into the lives of his children and his grandchildren and his community. He was to command righteousness and justice. He was to command the way of the Lord. God gave to Abraham what He had spoken of him because He could trust him to live the message into the lives of others. Abraham was a generational influencer. God gave him much because of that.
“Bring to me, God, what you have spoken of me.
Bring me, O Lord, to what you have spoken of me.”
Abraham was a harvester of lives. What he commanded into others brought back to him the promised blessing. Through Isaac and his sons, Jacob and Esau, nations were born. Through Ishmael and his sons came nations. Entire people groups were birthed out of Abrahams fathering. He was known among the peoples of the area and respected and followed as an example. Not many dared mess with Abraham.
“Bring to me, God, what you have spoken of me.
Bring me, O Lord, to what you have spoken of me.”
Boy, I sure don’t measure up to Abraham. On the other hand, I need to. Every father does. Every businessperson does. Every pastor does. Every community leader does. We need to measure up. Our stature needs to go up not down. The world is a downward measuring stick. Someone like Abraham is an upward measuring stick. We need to measure up. lives should flow over into others that they would change. Our lives should change our world not just bounce off.
“Bring to me, God, what you have spoken of me.
Bring me, O Lord, to what you have spoken of me.”
Abraham was a flawed and failed human like the rest of us. He needed redemption. So do I. When God found him and redeemed him to the task of Canaan, Abraham had been under the leadership of his father. They had not journeyed forth into the promise but sat on the outside edge. Abraham took up the challenge after his father died, but he made some career ending mistakes. He traded his wife off to another man. He added another woman into his home to attempt to deliver God's promise with his own power. Yet, God redeemed Abraham and delivered the promise at 100 years old. Can I be patient to be redeemed from my mistakes?
“Bring to me, God, what you have spoken of me.
Bring me, O Lord, to what you have spoken of me.””
Daily thankfulness for all God has done impresses on me. There is a reason for His bringing to me what He has promised of me. There need to be bridges into the lives of others over which the blessing is carried in the ways of God, righteousness, and justice. Those bridges are built on trust and honesty and walking in the ways of the God of righteousness and justice. I am thankful and I am sober.
Bring to me, God, what you have spoken of me.
Bring me, O Lord, to what you have spoken of me.”
The prayer is dangerous. You are accountable to do something with what He brings. This journey is not just about hoarding. It surely is not about living with the world’s definition of humility. Humility is power and presence under control and right realization that God is in control not us. Great humility is only displayed when we have great resource.
“Bring to me, God, what you have spoken of me.
Bring me, O Lord, to what you have spoken of me.”
Prayer is meant to change us. This one will change you from the inside out. Are you prepared to handle God delivering everything He has spoken of you in His word? Get prepared. Focus on being prepared. Quit pretending in faith and make living God’s way in righteousness and justice a priority. Make sure your life is adequate and your bridges are in place. Then pray that prayer in faith believing. Your family, friends, neighbors, coworkers, congregants, and others are depending on you doing just that. Your Father is depending on you doing just that. He is ready. There is much for which to be thankful. There is much more He would like to perform even as He has spoken of you.
“Bring to me, God, what you have spoken of me.
Bring me”
Remember what God has done for you. Expect more. Remember that what He has done for you He did so that you could pass it on.
