Month: February 2020

STANDING FIRM

For many of us in the Baby Boomer generation, a good many of our battles are behind us.  We survived childhood, battling measles, chicken pox, mumps and the practices of drinking from the garden hose and riding in the back window of the car.  God was definitely sending His angels to watch over us.  My mother’s biggest fear for her children was polio and she made us take a nap every day during the summer (somehow summer was worse for polio).  I hated those naps; now I love them!  

We made it through our teenage years with no atomic bomb, but we had those drills to prepare us.  Although too many of us did not survive the Vietnam War, those of us who were fortunate were able to begin our adult lives.  Some of us went to college, some got jobs, and some got married and started families.  We survived those early years of adulthood, stretching our paychecks and saving our Green Stamps.  We had babies and managed to keep them alive (more angels!), we worked hard to raise them right and teach them about the Lord. Then they left us, becoming responsible adults, eventually with families of their own.  

We became grandparents and had to relearn everything about babies because we found out we didn’t know anything.  The rules changed!  Do they sleep on their backs or stomachs?  We struggled with complicated car seats and strollers.  I still have flashbacks to the parking lot at Dillard’s trying to figure out how to fold the stroller and get it back in the car while a toddler howled in her car seat.  

Many of us are now retired. We have completed are careers and are now finding new ways to be useful. In theory we have more time now, but the time whizzes by at breakneck speed! Some of us are now (gasp) great-grandparents and chuckle at our kids wrestling with car seats.  But one of my favorite pictures is of my daughter falling in love with her new baby granddaughter.  Pure love!  

So even though there are challenges ahead, we have completed the biggest part of our earthly assignments.  As I thought abut these things, this verse from my quiet time particularly resonated with me: …”and having done all, to stand firm,” Ephesians 6;13b. We still need to stand firm, and that might be our most important job right now.  

My Bible study group (https://www.communitybiblestudy.org) has been doing a study called Return to Jerusalem and currently we are looking at the life of Nehemiah and the rebuilding of the Jerusalem wall.  In last week’s lesson the Jews completed building the wall (in only 52 days!) so Nehemiah’s next job was to make sure what they had accomplished was protected.  He needed to stand firm. He did this by appointing gatekeepers to control who came in and left the city and guards to patrol the walls and guard the houses. 

As I was reading these words I thought of my family and especially my grandchildren.  As parents and grandparents  we have done our jobs but we need guards at the gates and watchers on the walls.  I am so grateful that all my children and grandchildren have a saving relationship with the Lord, but that relationship must be carefully guarded because we have an enemy who would love to come in and confuse them and capture their hearts and minds. My job now is to be a watchman, to stand firm.

Although I don’t have as much daily influence as I did when my children were small, I have all of the armor of God that Ephesians 6 describes: the belt of Truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes that equip me to spread the gospel, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit (God’s Word).  And then verse 18 admonishes us to pray at all times, to keep alert with all perseverance, and to pray for all the saints.  I love how The Message version completes this verse:

In the same way, prayer is essential in this ongoing warfare. Pray hard and long. Pray for your brothers and sisters. Keep your eyes open. Keep each other’s spirits up so that no one falls behind or drops out.

This is how I can guard the gates and keep watch on the walls.  I can pray.  Jerry and I have really ramped up our prayer lives this year.  And although many of my big battles are behind me, my job as a guard and watchman is not over.  This is how I stand firm.

POWER SOURCE

We are all so dependent on power.  If you have ever had a power outage, you know the helpless feeling as you wait for power to be restored.  At our house we are having issues with power and connectivity.  Most of it is self-inflicted because we changed Internet providers.  Once we get everything connected things should run smoothly, but oh my goodness!  We have a lot of devices, and when I say we, I actually mean me.  I love gadgets.  But when they don’t work they become a source of frustration.  

Jerry and I watch a good deal of streaming television, so the first order of business was to connect all of our TVs (yes, we have many) to the Internet.  Then we connected our phones and iPads.  We thought we were pretty much set after that, except Jerry struggled to set up a new email account.  I admit it was difficult for some reason, so I am just keeping my Gmail account.  Easy.  Later, I realized all my Amazon Echo devices were down, and one Echo Dot just would NOT connect to the new Internet.  Finally, after several hard resets I got it up and running.  I told you I have a lot of gadgets! 

So this morning, after getting everything connected (I thought) to the new Internet, I discovered that we have a faulty power outlet at our house.  It just happens to be the outlet I use to charge all my devises at night.  Even my watch must be plugged in.  So this morning when I opened my iPad, I was surprised to find that I only had 28% battery left.  Nothing charged overnight!  We checked the reset buttons and then the breaker box.  I guess we will need to replace that outlet.  When I sat down to my laptop to Google electrical outlets (and there are so many fancy ones!) I realized I hadn’t connected it to the new Internet.  Network connection was a quick and easy fix, but just writing these words has made me realize how dependent I am on my power sources.

All of this has happened at a time when God has had me studying and writing a conference talk about prayer.  I want to pray powerful prayers and I am completely dependent I am on my heavenly power source.  When I lose my connection to God, I am weak and my battery runs low.  Trying to do what I am called to do on 28% doesn’t work.  Just as I have to recharge all my devises, I must recharge my heart.  I must be connected to God’s network if I am to be effective.  

I read that the biggest power sources in the United States are the Grand Coulee Dam and the Palo Verde Nuclear power plant.  I can’t even wrap my brain around the amount of power they produce every second.  And yet, our God is infinitely more powerful. 

There is so much power in prayer.  I want to pray big, bold, fervent, persistent prayers!  Importunate prayers.  Jerry and I are doing something new this year.  Since we are both retired, we have more time for morning prayers.  We decided to pray specifically for one family member each morning.  We have nineteen in our immediate family, so when we get to day twenty we begin praying for our extended family, our friends, our church, our country, and our world.  As we have practiced this way of praying, I’ve noticed out prayers have become bolder and more specific.  One of our first sermons of the New Year was a challenge to pray Ephesians 1:19-21 for our children and grandchildren.  It is a passage about knowing God’s power.  What a privilege it is to walk right into the throne room and speak to God on behalf of my family.  I can’t wait to see how God answers these prayers.  

 “I ask that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know the hope of His calling, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.”  Eph. 1:19-21 ESV

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