THE PATHWAY TO THE HEART OF THE FATHER (6 OF 9)

Continuation of my teaching on prayer. We need this work of God constantly in our lives. Jesus said, "And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint;" (Luke 18:1) It say and He (Jesus) means "always." Just like we have a life of breathing, we must have a life of praying. Do not try to move yourself to the next prayer pattern, it does not work that way. Being faithful in duty prayer and a prayer life, will lead us into the next pattern, a life of prayer. And next, I do not know. All I know is it will be beyond our ability to understand. Paul tells us to, (a continual direction) "Pray with out ceasing." (1 Thessalonians 5:17) God will put things in our heart so we can carry them with us until God gives us the understanding. Carry them until God, what Paul called, "the pure conscience" (1 Timothy 3:9) of the mystery of Godliness." (1 Timothy 3:16) causes things to happen in our lives and cause things to function that we do not understand. You know we do not really need to know everything. There are some things that God knows and not meant for men to know and we must stop wanting to know the things that belong only to God. But we do not need to try so hard, just relax, go along for the ride. We do not need to think about things so hard. But in "pure conscience" just allow God to do the work, He understands and we do not need to. What we need to do is surrender ourselves to His work and He then can bring it all to pass, not us. The more surrender in our lives the more work of God in our lives. Often, most Christians get into trouble trying to bring things to pass for God. We do this in trying to get people saved. God knows the times and seasons, He knows when one is to be saved. We press on for our own time and our own season. We want what we want when we want it. So often, we cannot wait for God, He is too slow for us. But God will teach us to wait for Him if we allow Him. Our wants in and out of God gets us and most often others in trouble in God. Funny how our disobedience to the LORD affects others more than us. Take heed, it does matter who your Christian friends are. Now no one wants to wait. Just go to a food store and see how long you can stand in line patiently. Most people (me too at times) cannot wait 5 minutes without saying something to themselves. But in these waiting periods in our lives God is teaching us to wait, even at a food store. The best making places God teaches us to wait is in our failures and the loss in our lives. Yes tough places indeed, but a sure method of teaching patience none the less. Jesus goes into the wilderness to pray. The wilderness is a great place to pray. It is a great place to develop that communion with God. When it seems you are all alone and no one understands. No one understands what you are doing. And when you tell them they, seem never to have the right answer. They can tell you exactly what is wrong, but they cannot touch you. But God's servants are developed in silent (you can scream in the wilderness and no one will hear you) heart searching and confession before God and man if need be. In Luke we read, "What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?" (Luke 15:4) Here the good shepherd goes looking for one sheep, but he leaves 99 of his sheep in the wilderness. I would think he would have left them in a well watered place with green pastures, but no he leaves the 99 in the wilderness. Why? Because God has lured us into the wilderness to get alone with Him. Strange as Luke 15:4 is in Hosea we find something even stranger, "Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her." (Hosea 2:14) God "allures" or tricks, even baits her to get into the wilderness not to see her suffer, but to "speak comfortably unto her." The wilderness is the place God speaks comfort to us, where we will finally listen. The wilderness has a way of getting our attention. God brings us there alone with no answers. Away from the crowds and masses of people. There in the wilderness He can give us the answers. Unless we get alone with God we will never have our answers from God, the world yes, but not from God. If we find our answer from the world and the religious folks then we do not need to lean on Him. Solomon said, "Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved? . . . " (Song of Solomon 8:5) Our direction in prayer will lead us by way of the wilderness to be given answers and learn how to lean on Him. The purpose of the wilderness is to LEARN to lean on God! I promise you one thing here if you go through tough times, bad situations, dry periods, etc. one of two things will happen: you will learn to pray or your carcass will fall in the wilderness and fall out of God. Speaking of the Children of Israel the writer of Hebrews (I believe to be Paul) says, "But with whom was he grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness?" (Hebrews 3:17) He knows everything. We do not need to know everything, so now we can rest in Him not knowing , but can trust Him and His wisdom for our life. The wilderness is a great place to learn how to have communion with God, to learn how to pray. God will have to keep us into the wilderness (depending on us learning) for a time, until we get over the complaining, before He can begin to teach us how to trust Him and be quiet to know Him, to walk with Him. So He will lead us to the wilderness to teach us in the wilderness to pray right. We do not need blessings we need God. The one we are to be dedicated to. The blessing and such are by-products. And in the learning process in the wilderness He must strip us of things. Because we seem to want what He gives and not Him. The more we can be stripped by God (we cannot do this work in our lives) of the world and ourselves the more of God we can have. The more of the blessings (the by-products) of God we can have. Now even deeper my friend. When we then learn, when we pray, and things keep getting worse, we must resign ourselves to the situation by resigning ourselves to trusting God in this situation. No longer do we want to get the monkey off our back. We say okay God, I will give your monkey another piggy-back ride around the track. It is not the devil as most Christians say from wrong teaching, oh no, he does not want to see you develop in God he wants to keep you in deception, take heed here. The only way to get to, "my cup runneth over" is by way of the "valley of the shadow of death." We need to be content to trust Him in the valley, in the situation without crying to Him for deliverance from the situation. Until we are at home in the wilderness. Even the valley of the shadow of death is home to us. We then learn who God is. God teaches and trains us who He is by delivering us from difficult situations even when there is no deliverance. Our deliverance comes not by magic wand, but by walking in the making places (the wilderness) of God where we can be developed unto deliverance. Nowhere did God deliver His people. Daniel had to go into the lions, den, the three Hebrew children had to go into the fiery furnace, Jesus had to go to the cross, and is the servant greater than the master? I think not. If God has to deliver us without developing us think not you have been saved, oh no you have lost. God knows the plan and purpose for our lives are in jeopardy of being lost, but think not we have won we have not we have lost the best for our life for now. Written by David Stahl