At the customary time for offering the evening sacrifice, Elijah the prophet walked up to the altar and prayed, "O LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, prove today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant. Prove that I have done all this at your command (I Kings 18: 36,NLT).
Prayer can be filled with surprises. I have written about this before . . . but it seemed right to share today. Years ago our son, age three, had an eye disease that required radical surgery. We put it off as long as we could; however, the day finally came when we were told that he would lose his vision without the surgery. We made all the necessary arrangements for the surgery . . . and . . . the hospital arranged to fly a surgeon across the country to head the team that would perform the unusual surgery. Unfortunately, he had already had a simplifier surgery on his eye that had gone wrong and had made matters worse . . . so we were understandably nervous.
Our church actually made time in our services for special prayer for the surgery. Believe it or not . . . though we prayed for healing through the surgery . . . the next day it appeared the problem was gone . . . he never had surgery. In fact, sadly . . . there were a few of the members of the medical team that were a little cranky about the healing . . . after all they had put a lot of time and effort to plan his surgery. To this day . . . I can hardly believe that the healing occurred . . . but . . . it happened.
It seems to me . . . that we put prayer in a box . . . and really don't understand the power of prayer or how prayer changes ourselves and the world around us. Sometimes I wonder if we prayed more and worried less if the world would be completely different.
Elijah prayed with incredible faith. In the ancient days, names defined the essence of an individual's identity . . . Elijah stands for ‘Yahweh is my God.’ So, it makes sense that Elijah prayed to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel. He was not only identifying himself with Yahweh but all of the people, reminding them of their identity as covenant people of Yahweh. A covenant differs from the legalism of a contract through co-participation and the hesed, or union, of love.
God has made a covenant with humanity, with you and me . . . the covenant through Christ is a part of our identity. Christ, God with us, has revealed that He desires to participate in our life through an incredible power of love. Prayer is our way to communicate and commune with God in a way that is surprising. Prayer is never boring . . . it is just that we human beings can be so boring when we pray . . . we need to be ready for the element of surprise . . . the participation of God who has created the universe and cares about every detail of life through the power of love.
Refuse to pray boring prayers.
Talk to God . . . tell Him everything . . . then be quiet . . . trust . . . be ready for the element of surprise . . . for the power of God is greater than we can ever think, imagine or ask.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:20-21, NIV)
Learning with you to be ready for the element of surprise,
Shalom,
Kerrie
(All devotions written by Kerrie Palmer ©2008 All Rights Reserved)
