PRAYERS THAT REALLY WORK

POST SCRIPT NOTE: This Blog concept is quite different to our newsletter and other writings. In this entry, I would like to lay a foundational overview as to how I would like to use our Blog. I plan to daily (but will slip when we travel to the nations) input some thoughts as the Lord deals in our lives, current happenings with our family and with Beholding His Glory, all mixed in with some articles I will write. So, let us please step off together and see how God uses this Blog to ever keep His wonderful Son Jesus Christ before us. As we behold His glory we will be changed into the same glory, not all glory, but only the glory we can behold of Him. Please let us keep this verse prayerfully, "But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." (2 Corinthians 3:18) How much of God's glory can you behold? At the measure of what you can behold of God's glory you can become that same measure, no more no less.

THOUGHTS TO CONSIDER: I have changed the picture for our Blog this month to support our time in Istanbul, Turkey. In Nepal the Buddhist write their prayers on colored flags and find the highest place in the wind hoping their words will fly off the flags and find their way to the heart of their god, well I do not believe this system of prayer really works. In Turkey they have asked me to teach on prayer what an impossible task. I will be honest, I do not know how prayer functions. I hope the Brethren in Turkey will not be too disappointed, but prayer is beyond my feeble understanding. God took me all the way to Hyderabad, India to teach me this lesson. It seems the longer I go with God the less I know and understand of Him. I believe that is the way God has things divinely arranged. For if we know and understand too much we will not be very useful, it is far better to move in faith not in what we know and understand. I think this is what Paul was teaching us, "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." (1 Corinthians 13:12) The same "dark glass" that is in both verses is what we look deep and long into to find our spiritual way, God certainly has a sense of humor. He leads us into the light through looking into a "dark glass" like prayer. One thing I do know about prayer is; it is an anchor that holds us and not an anchor we can hold to in troubled times. It is one thing to say I have Jesus, but it is a far better thing to say Jesus has me. I can and have let go of Jesus, but He will never let go of me unless I want Him to. This truth, this anchor of prayer holds us sure and firm not based on what we have done, but based alone on who He is and what He has done for us. I look forward to our time in Turkey and to what God plans to teach us. Written by David Stahl.