May 22
The Triple Move — part 2
• Too heavy a burden? How to press in with prayer
Are there happy, cheerful ones among you? Encourage them to sing out their praises!
Are there any sick among you? Then ask the elders of the church to come and pray over the sick and anoint them with oil in the name of our Lord. James 5:13–14 TPT
|| First Move — Ask!
The first move is asking for God’s help. Stating the obvious? No, because too often, we TRY everything WE can do, first. So it’s worth emphasising:
Asking God = fundamental, essential first step.
The move of calling for God’s help is our choice to make it His battle, not just ours. Coming before God and asking for His help is us submitting to Him –- we are recognising His mighty power and acknowledging our relative powerlessness and need.
And agreeing with God that we need His help is positioning ourselves in a humble stance. This is an important move to prevent our natural pride and self-sufficiency from moving in, and that would present a barrier to what God, in His goodness, wishes to do.
When you don’t need help, it means you’re too proud to know that you need help!
We all start there! The question is, how quickly do we move from being self-sufficient to being self-aware and able to receive help?
Asking a friend might feel risky! But asking your Father God should be the easiest thing and an intuitive move.
That’s why James, in his letter, urges us as believers, if we are “suffering…hardship and distress… to pray”. In other words, ask God first.
Hardship and distress also takes us spiritually to the wickedness and cruelty between Russia and Ukraine’s hard-pressed defenders, famine in East Africa and oppression in Afghanistan. They are asking God… and we’ll move on to how these ‘three moves’ make a difference for them.
// more follows…
Read this post and more on my Typeshare Social Blog
