My God is the Almighty

So lately it feels like my friends and friends' loved ones have been going through some pretty tragic stuff and I find myself feeling a bit helpless when I can offer them nothing else but prayer. I don't know why I feel the need to come up with a more concrete action plan for them. When I know there is nothing else to tell them but to have faith and pray, there is a feeling of resignation that comes along with it.

Today I was overwhelmed by a reminder that while we consider action an essential part of our faith, prayer is its foundation. I think maybe the reason we feel the need to "do" something in addition to just praying comes out of a good and pure desire to be an active witness of the gospel. But I suspect Jesus' intention in sometimes leaving us in helpless situations where we can do nothing else but pray is his way of molding us to be humble, to remind us that even our best executed plans can never hold up to his will and that He does not will us to be attached to what we can do but instead rely completely on his grace, and what abundant grace it is!

Prayer is not something we fall back on when all else fails. Prayer is not a bookend to our action plans. Prayer is coming before him and remembering to empty ourselves and admit our helplessness. It is remembering that all we have is his and that we can claim no glory or credit for what we do. Prayer is a call for his majesty. It should not come out of hopelessness but of a thirst to be awed. The state of heart I resolve to have when coming to God in prayer is that of the prophets when they called down fire from heaven, boastful of nothing else but a God of awesome mind-blowing majesty.

When Elijah stood up to the prophets of Baal, I bet you he wasn't thinking "Man I'm screwed! Nothing to do now but pray." I like to think it was something more like "Oh yeah pray game on!" Elijah's only recourse was to turn to God in prayer but it was not out of despair but more of an excitement to share something he knew first hand was mind blowing. I pray for the grace to have that same attitude when people come to me in despair asking for prayer.

I pray that I may constantly be reminded to have a child-like faith in God, one that sees him for who he is: a majestic king at whose feet the whole of creation bows down, one whose might I can't even begin to describe with mere words or this page would be filled with superlatives and it still wouldn't be enough. This is the God I come to in prayer, so how can I ever feel despair, how can I ever feel resigned. My God is The Almighty.



13 April 2012
by Shae Vencilao
SFC Qatar