A Prayer For Willingness To Receive What We Need In Whatever Form It Is Given To us Today

We spoke yesterday about Jesus meeting up with His disciples in the storm on the Sea of Galilee after He’d fed more than 5000 people with a small lunch of 5 buns and 2 fish.  Well, once He’d calmed the storm that had the disciples all out of whack with fear, they crossed over the rest of the sail and came to Gennesaret and anchored there.

Now once again, I’ve stood on the shore that is likely near where this took place and can just imagine the next scene we read about.  Jesus has been up all night praying and helping his friends and now when they all need a break and time to rest here’s what happened.

After they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and anchored there. As they got out of the boat, people immediately recognized Jesus. They ran through that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever he was rumored to be. And wherever he would go—into villages, towns, or countryside—they would place the sick in the marketplaces, and would ask him if they could just touch the edge of his cloak, and all who touched it were healed.  Mark 6:53-56

Tons of people with so many problems and needs descended upon Him.  What did He do?  Hide away until He had rested a bit and gathered His strength?  Apparently not?  Wherever He went, there they were or would soon be and He took time to be with them.  What I find very interesting about this passage is that it is not only the ones who had the privilege of having Jesus put his loving hands on them and pray for them who were healed, but those who even just touched the edge of his cloak.  So much was going on.  So many needs were gathered around Jesus and yet He made a way for anyone who was interested and persistent.

How about us?  Do we get ourselves into the mindset that Jesus is too busy with others to have time for us?  Are we unwilling to come to Jesus in whatever ways are available to us – just a touch of his cloak rather than his hands laid on us – and yet know that even in that way we will receive the healing we need?

My heart is saddened by the responses of some faith communities around us who seem to be giving a bit of “bad name” to the church by insisting they must break the health orders we’ve been given to not meet in person for worship services for a while until the virus spread is under more control.  While it is lovely to meet together with others, we are So So blessed by all the resources that are available to us digitally.  God has many ways to touch us with what is available if we will open our hearts to that.  I think of persecuted Christians languishing in prisons around the world for their faith without all the richness of church services and worship music and teaching available to them, and their hearts are on fire for God and their willingness to bless God in the middle of their hard times should be a challenge to all of us.

You know, on Sundays, I have to smile.  I get up just before 7am so I can tune in to my mother’s church service – they are 3 hours difference in time zones.  Then, on the weeks my brother, who is a pastor in a Presbyterian church is the speaker, we will go to his online service and hear him speak and often listen to one or two of the hymns.  What the folks down the hall in my condo think about me singing away at 8am here on a Sunday morning, I don’t know, but no one has complained yet.  Then, in an hour or so my friend Evelyn comes to my place for brunch or I go to her condo and we have two other local services that we watch.  So by noon I’ve heard 4 good words from God’s word, lots of wonderful uplifting songs of praise and worship, had the chance to pray for all sorts of people around the country and the world, and as was the case this past Sunday, 3 times heard and received the blessing that touches my heart every time I hear it:

The Lord bless you and protect you; The Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you; The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.  Numbers 6:24-26

I’d been blessed by a challenge to remember how powerful and personal the Lord Jesus Christ is.  I’d been invited to reflect on my prayer life and reminded that even if prayer is a mystery in some ways, if Jesus practiced prayer with His heavenly father, maybe I ought to as well.  My own heart had been comforted by how Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law, and how in response she got up and served Him and maybe if I would open my heart to more of God’s healing, I’d be able to serve Him and others better.

Lord make us grateful for the richness we have right now during this pandemic.  Forgive us for grumbling about how many things are wrong and how tired we are of all the restrictions that seem never ending.  You know the weeks and months have been long and yet through it all You have been blessing us and putting a feast before us – preparing a table before us in the presence of our enemies.  You are ready to meet us and supply all our needs today if we will just seek You and be willing to receive from You in the ways You are providing for us.  Whatever it means for us today to even just touch the edge of Your cloak, we want to do that, and welcome all the blessing and healing You are pouring out to us.

Give us grace to be grateful, humility to know You are true to Your word, and faith that just does what we can with what we have, knowing that You will make it something abundant for us.  Give us eyes of faith that see beyond the visible to what is real in the invisible – Your ever present help in time of trouble.  Amen

God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.  Psalm 46:1

Oh, and you know what, I was feeling a bit tired and so on Sunday afternoon while I stretched out on the couch to rest I put David Suchet on Youtube (Inspector Poirot) and what an amazing reading of the entire Gospel of Mark he gave in one evening at St. Paul’s Cathedral.  I heard some and slept through some but was blessed by it all. 

So, let’s not squander the blessing God is making available to us in this day.  Let’s be enriched and share the blessing with others.