I remember when I thought praying was boring.  I did try to pray regularly, every morning and then again every evening before bed, but my prayers were short and boring.  The years went by and as I got older I realized there were some things I needed that I couldn’t do for myself.  My prayers became longer and more intense.  Eventually prayer was no longer an obligation I needed to perform because that’s what good Christians did, but prayer became a place I came to expect conversations, a time of sharing, a time to experience the joy of spending time with God, rather than just a time of a few requests on my part.

I remember when I wished I could plainly hear the voice of God booming from the sky.  It would have made life so much easier to know exactly what I should do.  But, God  already has basic instructions for our lives written down in the Bible.  I’ll use a simple cliché example: “Love one another as I have loved you.” (John 13:34).  A plain and simple command, but how often do we really put that plain and simple command into practice?  But, that one simple, basic instruction can lead us in all our decisions.

Let’s go back to what separated created beings from God in the beginning.  First of all Satan wanted to be like God.  He wasn’t happy with his position in life, if he could just take one step up he could become like God, or so he thought.  In reality he could never  become like God, because God is the Creator, while the rest of us are created beings.  When Satan tempted Eve, it wasn’t just about eating the fruit that God had forbidden her to eat.  It was about desiring to be like God.  Eating the apple represented rebellion against humility and acceptance of pride.

When pride replaces humility in our relationship with God it is hard to hear what He has to say.  The pride that lives in our heart refuses to open the door when humility comes knocking. When Eve opened the door of her heart to pride and let it into her heart her eyes glazed over just like ours do with a taste of pride.  She didn’t’ realize how “high” pride could make her feel and yet how low it could bring her down.  The joy of being in the continuous presence of God was broken, her ability to hear the voice of God blocked by the voice of pride blaring the joys of independent living, the greatness of her own intelligence, the beauty of making her own choices.  It is easier to pursue the joy pride brings rather than the joy of humility.  The joy of humility comes after the pain of ignoring pride, the pain of pride comes after the joy of pride.  So we remain in a cycle of addiction to pride, in order to remove the pain pride caused us we seek more prideful living to cover it up.

God created you so that your purest joy would spring from total dependence on Him.  I challenge you to turn down the noise of pride in your life and choose the humility and nothingness that leaves God free to be everything in your life.  Pray for God to remove all pride from your heart, pray that the humility of Jesus will pervade all the dark recesses of your heart and that your actions will reveal the love and humility of the life of Jesus living in you.   Jesus came to show us the beauty of the joy of the presence of God.  He told us, “Learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart.” (Matthew 11:29)

Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.  Mark 1:35

Scrolling through Facebook this morning I found this post; “If you look at all the Bible greats, you find that they found their strength on their knees in a solitary place. Why do I have such a hard time with this…”

The difficult part isn’t receiving the strength once we are on our knees, the hard part is finding the strength and humility to get on our knees in the first place.  Finding time to spend with God seems to be a common problem. We tend to rush through the day thinking we can handle our lives quite well on our own.  We count on God’s patience towards us.  Our boss will fire us if we are late too many times.  Our significant other will become upset with us if we don’t spend time with them.  The dishes need washed, kids need taken to school, weeds pulled, grass mown, snow shoveled, trash taken out, the list never ends and no one and nothing is as patient as God.  So we rush on in our own strength to accomplish the deeds of the day.

What would your laundry pile would look like if you didn’t do laundry for three weeks?  What would happen if you just washed a dish or two when you had a couple of minutes of spare time?  What if you took the kids to school only when you felt like it?  Imagine how your paycheck would shrink if you only went to work half the time.  Or what would have happened  when you were a student if you haphazardly turned in half-done homework and didn’t bother to study for the tests?   The same concept applies to our relationship with God if we don’t take the time to go to a solitary place and pray.  Prayer gives our spiritual life power.  It breathes new life into our souls, new desire for more time with God into our hearts, and the love God has for all His children will begin to flow through us to them.

Draw close to you Father in heaven.  Sit near Him.  Abide in Him and He will abide in you.  Keep your eyes on Jesus.  Stay close to hear His voice. Rest in Him, and gather strength from His presence to be able to stay on the path He has prepared for you.  We are his sheep and need to stay close to Him for protection.

Know you that the LORD he is God: it is He that has made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture.  Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise: be thankful unto Him, and bless His name.  Psalm 100: 3, 4

“The Wind and the Sun were disputing which was the stronger. Suddenly they saw a traveller coming down the road, and the Sun said: “I see a way to decide our dispute. Whichever of us can cause that traveller to take off his cloak shall be regarded as the stronger.  You begin.” So the Sun retired behind a cloud, and the Wind began to blow as hard as it could upon the traveller. But the harder he blew the more closely did the traveller wrap his cloak round him, till at last the Wind had to give up in despair. Then the Sun came out and shone in all his glory upon the traveller, who soon found it too hot to walk with his cloak on.” (Æsop Fables)

Love is power.  Anger and hate are powerful too.  It’s easy to be like the wind and try to use our power to convince others to do things our way.  Why?  Because we think we are right.  But, just as the man held more tightly to his coat when the wind blew, those who experience hate and anger hold more tightly to their own ideas  and will not let go.

How did Jesus convince others to follow Him?  Did he have long scholarly debates with the priests while the congregation looked on?  Did he angrily berate Zacchaeus for stealing people’s money?  Did he use a stoney silence on the disciples when they just plain continued to not “get it”?  No.  Jesus didn’t use hate and anger to draw people to his message of love.  In the story of the woman caught in adultery He used love and forgiveness to repel the cold wind of her accusers.

This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.  John 15:12

There are no “if’s and’s or but’s in this text.  It doesn’t say, This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you with the following exceptions.  It doesn’t say that at all, in fact, taken in context the verse after it says this:

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.  John 15:13

Looking at the text immediately following the command to love everyone tells us that the greatest love is for someone to lay down their life for someone else.  We generally skim right past this text because we don’t really think the opportunity to lay down our life for someone else will ever really happen to us.  I’d like to look at this in a slightly different way.  While we may never have the opportunity to literally die for someone else, daily life presents us with plenty of opportunities to slay our pride, which is a painful nearly impossible thing to do.  Andrew Murray in his book “Humility”  suggests we,” look upon every person who tries your patience or irritates you as a means of grace to humble you.  Use every opportunity of humbling yourself before your fellowmen as a help to remain humble before God…..It is easy to think we humble ourselves before God.  Yet humility toward men will be the only sufficient proof that our humility before God is real.”

If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.  These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.  John 15:10, 11

It tells us that if we keep His commandments one of them being “Love one another as I have loved you” that His joy will live in us and our joy will be full, we will not need to seek more joy when we love others like Jesus does.

Do you want to have the joy that abounds?  I suggest we forget battling the wrong in others lives and start battling the pride in our own.  Only humility will allow us the pure joy of the Father to continually flow thru us to others.

He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?  1 John 4:20