Category Archives: Prayer

Reflection from Isaiah 45:7

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“I form light and create darkness,
I make well-being and create calamity,
I am the LORD, who does all these things.”
Isaiah 45:7

Calamity as a creative act?
This is the ‘deeper magic’, as Aslan would put it, that gives understanding that suffering and calamity can be entirely the work of God.

Never forget that Satan is on a leash and needs permission for everything he does. Job and Luke and Revelation reveal this to us.
If Satan brings calamity it’s because God superintended and ordained it, and governs it entirely as it happens. He is NEVER absent and ALWAYS in full control.
For the sons of God, we have all the information we need in the Bible to show us God’s goodness and favour in bringing ‘calamity’ into our lives as it will always be for our training, always lead us to a place of perfect goodness free from suffering, and result in the glory of Jesus displaying radiantly in our lives with thanksgiving.

Just read the first part of Hebrews 12 and see that suffering, toil, struggle, wrestling, pain, sorrow, doubt, uncertainty etc are all in view in the context of God turning us into gold medal winners, through His discipline, BECAUSE He loves us.
He is purging, and will continue to purge our sin, and it’s a life and death struggle DAILY. Each day Christ must be crucified in our lives, and each day we must die with Him to our sin, and each day we must put to death the things of the flesh by the Holy Spirit.
Because we grip onto deadly things like love of money, sinful desires, sloth, deceit, malice, unforgiveness… God will do WHATEVER IT TAKES to remove from us this body of death.
Is it not a cause for great thanksgiving that He would dislocate our hip in order to bless us if that’s what it takes?

The implications of this ‘deeper magic’ are staggering and amazing!
If God could only use the ‘good’ things of this world and this life to bless us then that would be fine, but thanks be to God that He can use EVERYTHING to bless us in and through The Beloved.
In extremis it’s the extreme suffering and death of Himself, in His Son that gives us life and blessing. There is no eternal life or blessing for us UNLESS the Suffering Servant is crushed, according to the will of God, to take away our sin and rebellion (Isa 53).

So my prayer is this:
In calamity, thank you Jesus.
In despair, thank you Jesus.
In pain, thank you Jesus.
In suffering, thank you Jesus.
In darkness, thank you Jesus.
In sickness, thank you Jesus.
All of these serve you so that they might serve me.
Suffering serves you.
Pain serves you.
Loss serves you.
Cancer, MS, disability and all disease serves you.
Death serves you,
And will serve me to bring me to your eternal presence.
Sanctify me in your Truth; your word is Truth.

“The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.”
Job 1:21

Pentecost

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Sound,
Then wind,
Then heat, light, fire.
How the power moves
Transcendentally
From heaven thru Earth,
From God to man.
Spirit, like energy;
Energy, like Spirit,
Never created,
Nor ever destroyed,
But transferred and transformed,
Given and returned.
Spirit of energy,
Dynamic Life,
Move to us and through us,
In power today.
Bring to us,
And in us,
Your Divine person
Into our quickened souls.

Written for Pentecost Sunday, 27th May 2012

Work

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You work
Full of splendour and majesty.
You work
In faithfulness and love.
You work
To show even greater works.
You work
All things for the good of those who love you.
You work
Righteousness and justice for all the oppressed.
You work
Salvation for your people in the midst of the earth.
You work
And have been working since the beginning.
You work
All things to perfect completion.
You work
Until it is finished, and then you rest.
On the sabbath,
May we rest in your work.
May we rest in your rest.

Wounds

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Wounds
So deep, so long lying there as a space, a gap between us.
It’s you – your everlasting and eternal majesty,
My God, my creator, my life –
It’s you who meets me in that place of unknown pain
Where wounds so deep have scarred my soul,
And in my pain I have scarred you.
Yet you received it,
And on the cross your deep wounds
Are meeting mine now.
In the meeting of my soul with you, the wounded one,
Do I see my real pain,
And only in the overwhelming and crushing experience
Of the knowledge of your eternality;
In the face of this truth –
Your face which is The Truth,
Do my wounds yield to allow you in.
Come in Lord, come deep, and place your wounds on mine.
Let it be a meeting place, of your grace and compassion
With my scarred and damaged soul.
And there let me yield to you, to your mercy,
And so let me be healed.
With you and I in that place together,
I am healed.

Isaiah 40:27-31
Why do you say, O Jacob,
and speak, O Israel,
“My way is hidden from the LORD,
and my right is disregarded by my
God”?
Have you not known? Have you not
heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might he
increases strength.
Even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted;
but they who wait for the LORD shall
renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like
eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.

To the praise and glory of Christ (that moment)

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That moment.

That moment when everything will make perfect sense.
That moment when beauty and passion will dissolve into my being,
Changing me to receive more of you more fully.
That moment when all my desires will be instantly fulfilled by looking upon you.
That moment when nothing will be lacking and everything will be overflowing.
That moment when you will fill all space and time,
And all my senses will know your sweetness.
That moment when I will receive all that you promised me
Simply by being before you in your presence.
That moment that requires me to first die
So I can live with you in it.
That moment which you willed to be
That you might meet me there and fill it with all of you.
That moment which you let me glimpse
So I know it is coming.

How I long for that moment
When I will fully know that all and everything is
To the praise and glory of Christ.