Good Saturday morning! Sometimes we are at a complete loss for what to do about a particular situation, but most of the time we have some ideas about what to do. Sadly, we often think of the worldly things first. We want to say, "don't worry, Lord, I got this!" We rush in self-confidently and fall on our faces or worse, we succeed. What could be wrong with success? For one thing, we fail to recognize that God wants to be involved in all that we do, for our own good. When succeeding in our own strength, we either attempted too little or we set ourselves up to fall harder the next time. God will let us take off on our own, but we need to come to Him first.
In listening to John MacArthur and Chuck Swindoll this week, one of them said that he believed our biggest problem as Christians is prayerlessness. We don't come to God in prayer first in every situation. In thinking about some problems yesterday, I did that very thing. "What can I do? If this worldly thing would happen, then I would be able to help in this situation." The Holy Spirit of course, jumped in with that warning that I needed as soon as He could get a word or two in, "Why don't you come to God in prayer first?" Exactly, what is that natural inclination to look around us first before we look up to our Heavenly Father?
Probably the answer lies in that lust of the flesh thing we must struggle with throughout our lives. We tend to think: physical problem needs physical solution, and worldly problem means worldly solution. However, God says that all problems have a godly solution, if we will call upon Him and step out of that driver's seat for a bit. Too often we look to things in this world that are quite unlikely to change a situation for the better. We put our faith where it doesn't belong!
Today, try once more to put your faith in Jesus; trust in Him completely with all of your problems. The world might gasp a bit, "We have provided thousands of self-help books, get a few of those!" How many of those books have helped us without prayer and the guidance of God first? I can answer for my case: none. I have always needed to come to God in prayer first, then the help books might help in specific situations. The Bible of course is the first God-help and self-help book, and it works in all situations. Often the first thing the Bible does is to get our minds off the problem and onto... God. It seems kind of obvious in hindsight, but I need reminding just as often it seems.
Praise God for the guiding and helping hand of the Holy Spirit in our lives!
Bucky
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