If Women Did Not Share

 If Women Did Not Share

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I am just about to conclude that if women did not share their life struggles, we would never know how to pray for men.

 

Just the other day, I received ed a prayer request from a sweet Christian lady. She said, and I paraphrase, that they were going through so many impossible situations at the moment that she had no idea where to begin asking for prayer support.

 

Here’s the thing, I speak with her husband with reasonable frequency. He always approaches with a smile and speaks with a quiet sort of confidence. If he has situations that he views as impossible, or if he is concerned about those impossible situations, he certainly does not communicate those concerns around myself or any of those he and I hang around.

 

I get it that men tend to be much more private than women are. I counsel women quite regularly to learn the skill of discretion.[2]

Guys, come on! When your wife senses situations that she feels are so impossible and so numerable that she, who regularly asks for prayer, can’t find a place to begin to pray, she needs you to pray. You will help her more, not by taking the bull by the horns and handling things, but by asking for prayer from your male circle too. Can’t you see how she would find comfort and support knowing that you will enlist men to pray? 

 

I’m not suggesting you have to reach into your innermost being and share all that is in your heart with your peers and “besties.” I’m just telling you could use some prayer support too.

[2] Titus 2:3-5 (KJV)

The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things;

That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children,

To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.

 

Prayer

It’s the most I can do on behalf of others but the battle to remember that is fierce.

When real burdens happen, the flesh always wants to take leadership.

·      What can I do?

·      How can I fix it?

·      Who can I get to help?

Illness, financial trouble, legal issues, spiritual issues, we always want to find our own way out. When it is for someone I love, I am tempted to search every possible resource to solve their problem.

Of course, we want prayer. We wouldn’t be very good Christians if we didn’t want prayer. But we want to pray AND …

·      And money

·      And advice

·      And help

whatever practical thing that really fixes our trouble, we want prayer and that thing.

There are occasions when we understand we are unable to do anything. In these cases, prayer is valued. But even then we have conditioned ourselves to think so little of prayer that we either don’t really pray or don’t really appreciate prayer as we ought.

Oh, how I want to give myself to prayer and the ministry of the Word.

Marvin McKenzie

In the field

Consider To Whom You Are Praying.

Some prayers are designed to move the hearer rather than God. Sometimes when say we are praying for a thing what we're really asking/hoping is that those who read our "prayer letter" or hear our "testimony" are moved by it to meet the need for which we claim to pray. We are not really asking God to meet the need. We're wondering if, by saying we're asking for God to meet the need, there might be somebody who will do it for Him.

To pray and ask God to meet the need would be, as George Mueller suggested, to not tell people what the need is.

Those especially in "dependent" type ministries, such as itinerant ones, have been conditioned to see answers to prayer in the form of gifts and offerings from God's people, especially in the churches. A Prayer letter or report letter might then subconsciously become an appeal to people for needs rather than an actual expression of dependence upon the Lord.

Certainly the Bible teaches that God answers our prayers most often by moving His people. I am in no way suggesting that, to receive an answer to prayer through the gifts, offerings or actions of people, is to not receive an answer to prayer. My point is one of the heart.

•       Do we not have to be careful that our hearts are more dependent upon the giving culture of Christianity rather than upon the Lord?
•        Is it not true that we might easily convert our Christian faith into another one of the myriads of religions?

Christianity is not man centered but God centered. Let’s keep our prayers directed to Him.

Feed My Sheep

I read an article today at bloggingtheologically.com having to do with the responsibility of the pastor. The article takes us to John 21:15-17 (and I wished the author used the KJV, unfortunately he does not) and emphasizes the work of the pastor to feed God's sheep. It is not the responsibility, he suggests, for the sheep to feed themselves; it is the pastor's duty.

I had a conversation with a pastor friend of mine just last week. He shared a portion of his own testimony and said that when he got saved it was almost immediate for him that he began reading the Bible regularly and studying it on his own. Upon entering the ministry, he was frustrated for some time because others would get saved but would not be so faithful and diligent. But then it struck him; he was led to study the Word of God because God had gifted him to become a pastor. Others are not so gifted. Pastors must study the Word of God so they are able to feed the sheep God places in his care. The sheep are not as moved to care for themselves. He said he learned from that to make it his responsibility to tell his congregation weekly what portions of Scripture they should read. He began to give them a reading plan, and then he gave the a plan for prayer.

Rather than chiding them or being frustrated with them for not doing what he now believes they are not called to do, he took the responsibility for their study of the Scripture and their personal time in prayer. He helps them feed by taking them to the pastures he wants them to feed upon that week.

Not bad!