Prayer To Keep Our Heart Open To What God Is Doing During This Pandemic

Over and over again the people of God, the nation of Israel was sent back to consider how they responded to God that resulted in them wandering in the desert for 40 years.  This was done to encourage them to do what was right.  Listen to this reminder:

So, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the wilderness, where your ancestors tested and tried me, though for forty years they saw what I did.

That is why I was angry with that generation; I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways.’ So I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest.’ ”

See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.  Hebrews 3:7-14

The first invitation in this warning is to actually hear the voice of God.  As we’ve been reminding ourselves this week, we need to take time to listen to God’s heart and let His Word fill us with His perspective on what is going on in us and around us. 

The second invitation in this warning is avoid hardening our hearts.  It’s so easy to let wrong doing by others and injustice bring about anger and resentment in us rather than sending us to our knees to pray for God to move.  It’s always easy to consider how we are right and our opponent is wrong and in our own limited wisdom decide how to go about stopping them. 

Sometimes challenges come because we see God’s plan and we simply want our own way – we rebel.  At other times, we are actively seeking God’s heart and calling out for His plan, and it seems the situation isn’t changing.  Desperation overcomes our willingness to wait through whatever time of testing God is allowing in our circumstances.  We give in to the arrogance of thinking we are smarter than God in this particular set of circumstances.  Even though we have a history both in scripture and in our own lives of God acting in compassionate and power ways, in a moment of crisis we can easily focus on what we think is needed rather than trusting God.

The consequences are awful when we do this:  ‘Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways.’

So today we pray to trust God, to make wise choices and to encourage one another in all this.

Heavenly Father, we do feel challenged by what we hear on the news and choices individuals and governments make during this season of pandemic and social unrest.  We pray today to have sensitive hearts to what the Holy Spirit is saying so we hear Your voice and respond accordingly.

We feel like this time of testing has gone on for quite a long time – it’s not 40 years or even 40 months but it still feels long.  Give us eyes to see and hearts to remember all the ways You have been with us and all the ways You have been working on our behalf.  Help us to shift from the problems to Your peace, Your presence, and Your power making us strong even in our times of weakness. 

We don’t really know if this is a time of judgment for our rebellion against Your holy ways as individuals and nations, or if it is a time of testing but regardless, we know that we need to hold on to you and in humility and faith, choose to live today well, with our own lives demonstrating the fruit of the Holy Spirit’s presence in us:  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  Help us to filter all our responses through these things which we have power to enter into and responsibility to live out.

We do not want to have our hearts hardened by sin’s deceitfulness and so we are committing ourselves again today to turn to You God, and cling to You, and trust Your heart and Your ways.  You are God.  You are alive.  You are caring.  You are working out Your purposes in our lives.  Change us Lord so we seek You more and trust You more so we can become those who can be useful in Your hands to impact our sinful society more.

We want to enter into the rest of mind and heart that is ours when we follow You rather than veering off in our own reactions and arrogance.  Once again today, we encourage ourselves to “Be still and know that I am God.  I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.  Psalm 46:10