The Strengthening of Prayer

This morning, as I try to do every Monday morning, I prayed in my morning prayers for people I know and love, and who have a variety of needs. Included in them today were four men I know who, having grown up in evangelical, gospel-centred Christian homes or churches, have made the decision to pursue homosexual relationships or lifestyles.

I pray for these four men quite frequently, moved in part I guess by the knowledge of the brokenness of my own sexuality. My prayers are not from a position of superiority. In fact, this morning as I came to prayer I was quite burdened by that sense of my own brokenness. When I came to the names of these four in my prayer diary, I thought "O Lord, how am I going to pray for them when I am so poor myself?" But I did pray for them, and in the prayer a wonderful strengthening happened to me.

The Spirit of God is for the weak and the broken. There is probably nothing weaker in the world than honest praying. I found in praying today that the Spirit of God came to me in a fresh way, lifting the despondancy and bleakness of the sense of my brokenness, and energising me with knowledge of the grace of the Lord Jesus that will guard me and keep me until the great final day of renovation, renewal, restoration. And with that came a renewed resolve to wait faithfully in weakness, not to let the brokenness be the last word, but to live in Jesus Christ, the Lord of grace.

Each day and every day...

Just outside my office window is a grevillea bush, which currently is bursting all over with pale pink flowers. Every day a wattlebird comes to sup from these nectar-laden flowers. Each flower has many little stalks with only a tiny spot of nectar on each, but the wattlebird goes from flower to flower gathering these little morsels of sweetness. Every morning, through the cool of the night, the flowers have replenished; every day the wattlebird returns to feed. Along with the wattlebird, there are dainty little spinebills, cheeky, chatty New Holland honey eaters, and the occasional rosella who call in for a sugar hit.

But it is the wattlebird who most amazes me. He is a large bird, and the amount of nectar he needs to collect in a day must be enormous. How does he go when the heat of summer burns off the flowers and the nectar dries up? The birds can't store up supplies. Each day and every day they must be fed by the Father.

Jesus said, "Not a sparrow falls to the ground but the Father knows it." And he told us of how kind the Father was in providing for His creatures. He really does care for both humanity and beast. And he told us this so that we would not be anxious or foolish in how we view the future. Anxiety and foolishness would push us to do what the birds cannot do—to try to store up for the future. Wisdom and freedom comes from trust in the Father's good hand. He loves birds, and we are very precious in His sight.