Doing unto others...
Over the past week some sad news has hit our small community.
A parents worse nightmare.
A 16 year old boy named Jacob diagnosed with cancer.
As the days linger on waiting upon waiting on pins and needles for more updates-- I can only imagine how his parents feel.
Yesterday I sat on my back porch imagining the scenario with one of my own children. My throat closed, my eyes welled with tears and I just sobbed.
How do you help someone in this situation? Your mind scurries for ways to help ease their pain, to help in some way be comfort to them.
Instead of racking my brain on ways to help, I thought to myself, my own mother heart..."What would I want someone to do for me if my child was in the hospital?"
I knew immediately.
I grabbed my Bible, opened it to the most worn pages in the Book....Psalm 91.
I prayed it out loud on my back porch. Inserting the boys name as I read, I pictured his face in each passage.
My mother heart, more than anything else in the world, would be for my community to pray God's Word over my child. To put their name in the passage and lift those prayers of God's own Words right back up to Heaven to His ears.
Peace came as I read. I pray this family felt God's Comforting Hand in that moment.
"Do onto others as you would have them do unto you." The Golden Rule from Luke 6:31.
This. This is what I would want done if I were in their place.
God's Word tells us over and over to pray without ceasing. To lift each other up in our times of need.
Yes, we are also to be the Hands and the Feet of Jesus when we can, but so often what is needed most is our prayers over them.
There is nothing greater than prayer.
I am reminded of a story in the Bible. A boy and his father. The boy was unable to speak or hear. His body would convulse and be thrown to the ground in seizures by these awful spirits.
The disciples were unable to heal him. They did all they knew to do...but still could not heal the boy.
Jesus was able to heal him immediately.
Amazed, the disciples asked Jesus how He was able to heal the boy.
Jesus responded, "This kind can only come out by prayer." Mark 9:29
Could this be the missing link in our lives?
Are we praying, are we really truly praying fervently and unceasingly?
I am convicted greatly with my own words.
This morning I read about the persistent widow in Luke 18 asking the judge for justice from her adversary. She begged, she pleaded, day after day.
Finally, because he was so tired of hearing her and seeing her face every single day, the judge granted her what she asked for.
How much more will God answer our prayers if we will only ask and keep asking? We are His children. He loves us so much. Yet, we give up on prayer so easily. We get tired. We relent instead of persist.
Father, forgive us for our lack of faith. Help us to pray. Help us to pray without ceasing! Help us to lift others needs up as if we are the one needing what is being asked.
When a Christian shuns fellowship with other Christians, the devil smiles, When he stops studying the Bible, the devil laughs. When he stops praying, the devils shouts for joy. -Corrie Ten Boom
Every great movement of God can be traced to a kneeling figure. -Dwight L. Moody
Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.- St. Augustine
There is nothing to be valued more highly than to have people praying for us; God links up His power in answer to their prayers.-Oswald Chambers
Would you stop where you are and lift up Jacob and his family? God hears us.
headed back to the porch,
jill
