How gracious God truly is that He would answer my prayers and speak to my soul even when I am illogical, irrational and selfish. In my fallen humaness, He doesnot try to bring the eternal rational, He does not use His authority, His rod of discipline nor His reproach to my pettyness. No, instead the creator of the universe sits beside me and holds me as I cry. He whispers into my soul and I pick up a book. As He reads it to my bruised heart I hear His voice again. And it is not harsh nor brusque, it is gentle and edifying, encouraging and full of oh such beautiful love. I mourn the loss of that which I was ready to lay my life down for, that I poured so much of myself into. God could easily have, rightly, pointed out that He did not always ask me to pour as I did nor that I should not be mourning what was never mine but always His. Instead He points out that where noone else remebers those who lay foundations, that He has created me not only as a fire starter but a foundation builder and HE has seen. He shows me those of old who have found themselves in similar situations and so, after letting me cry until there are no tears left, He gently shows me I am not alone, indeed He calls so many, if not all, of the saints to walk the same path. When we lay our lives down for Him, when we give HIm everything and our sole prayer is one of desperation and dependance, He rejoices, His heart leaps as He can be God through this one. It is of no surprise then, that He will not allow us to cling to tightly to anything that it might be attributed to us and not Him, or that it might prevent us from continuing to move like a leaf on the wind, wherever He asks.
Once again I realise that it simply is not about the things we do, however admirable or for His kingdom, He is growing us, developing us, jealous of every bit of us and calling us away from the world that has so infected our souls. He uses the situations we get ourselves in to being us into a greater freedom. It is from that place of total liberation and total surrender to Him, that the works and the salvations comes.
The greatest fruitfulness comes when we lay down, when we give up, when we get lower still, when we choose again and again, every day and every second, that we choose the cross, we choose to give it up, we choose to say yes even when He asks us to leave somewhere our hearts are rooted. We choose to say yes even when it hurts and we must entrust those dearest to us into His hands. The yes that i have said is so insignificant in light of so many other billion other yes's sounding around me and throughout the years, but it is no less important. How can we run with horses if we stumble walking? Unless we can say yes not only in the little things but consistently in the little things, every time He asks, how will we ever be able to lay down bigger and bigger things in our lives. Rees Howells talks about getting victory over things, that once God has dealt with something in us, it is done. If we learn how to say yes and that He alone has everything in His hand and we own nothing and noone, we have victory in the area of dependance.
My prayer has never changed. It is an incredible breathtaking privelige to be one born and living in the west who has a tiny clue what it is honestly like to really need Him. I pray for two things; dependance and desperation. And I live for one: Jesus.
Rees Howells Intercessor - page 123-124In separating him to Himself, the Lord was preparing to take Rees much farther than this. He was going to call him away from public ministry altogether and the next step came through an attack of the enemy on his special friend and co-worker in the mission. They loved each other and "by nature", observed Mr Howells, "he was one of the most loveable persons I have ever met. Also, like Apollos, he was eloquent and mighty in the scriptures." But the enemy, through some believers, began to tell his friends that so long as he remained with Rees Howells in the village he would never be at his best. He needed to have a work of His own.
The Lord showed Mr Howells the seriousness of this attack, and that he was the only one who could save his friend: "The only way you can do it is by giving him the very thing the enemy says he will never get. Why don't you give the leadership of the mission to him? Retire behind and be an intercessor for him. Pray that the mission will be a greater success in his hands than in yours. "And He reminded Rees that this was one of the very things He had spoken to him about years before in Llandrindod.
He had to face the effect it would have in his life. "For three years I had put all my time, money and everything into the mission." he noted, "and had been over every night. And now, when there were great prospects, He was asking me to step down and help behind my friend, as he had previously helped behind me. The mission was growing, and would become still more popular, and the people would naturally attribute all the success to my friend. There would never see nor remember that it needed someone to put down the foundation.
"It was a great inward conflict to allow my friend to get the onward success. This was the next grade of self the Holy Ghost was going to deal with; and it was a hard process, allowing self to be replaced by His divine nature. For three days I could not willingly accept it, but I knew I would be pulled through. It was God's way of working one up to having as much joy in a hidden life as in an open and successful one. If my aim in life was to do God's will, then I could truly say either way would be equal joy."
