PRAY HOPE WAIT TRUST

So it was, year by year, when she went up to the house of the Lord, that [it] provoked her; therefore she wept and did not eat. 

1 Samuel 1:7

Have you every wanted something so much that not having it caused soul-deep distress? Have you wanted it so badly that you felt provoked by the people who did have it? In this sermon, we are talking about those as-yet-unanswered prayers and the (sometimes long and arduous) process of blessing. We have an extraordinary God who makes it easy for us to love Him, but that doesn't mean it's easy to wait for Him.

We open with Hannah, who exemplifies in scripture the level of desperation we experience in life. Hannah was hollowed and wearied by not having what her body, mind and soul, desperately hoped to have. Hannah had a good life, an almost full life, but there was still a prayer in her heart that had not yet been fulfilled. She cried to the point of anguish; her prayed slurred and bitter to bystanders, to her own self, but not to God. He understood clearly not just her speech but her heart.

It's sometimes funny and easy to be glib about human melodrama, but our emotions can truly cause hurt in our heart: so quickly do we determine that "not yet" actually means "no," "never" or "not at all". But actually God has a history of answering prayers in the affirmative. He also has a history of what appear to be rather delayed affirmatives... but if we look closely at scripture, God never delayed anything at all. God chooses a perfect moment, time and season to deliver blessings and sticks with it. So how to fill and even thrive in the space between asked and answered? We pray, hope, wait and trust. Simple in concept? Fairly. Simple in execution? Not exactly. Effective? Yes. 

• PRAY 

The basis of our life and relationship with God is communication. It is in fluid conversation with Him that we learn about each other's heart. Steadily as we grow with God our character develops, and as our character develops we begin to develop the cornerstone hopes for our lives. The cornerstone hopes for our lives are dreams that solidify as the pursuit and purpose of our life.

We were encouraged to pray without ceasing, 1 Thessalonians 5:17 for there is so much development that occurs while we do. The more time we spend with God, the more inspired is He to deliver blessings intricately-specific to us as individuals. God is a skilled creator in the art of blessing; constant communication with Him allows Him to know what you need better than you do, and He will put His whole heart into creating it, His full strength into delivering it, Romans 8:28. It is good to have clout with God in the business of blessing, for when the boss of blessings intercedes for you, you're sure to get some.

Yet prayer is also a space for the weariness and even hollowness that crops up as we live, praying for blessings to manifest. There are many outlets for our outpourings of distress but only productive one is God Himself. God honestly does renew and rejuvenate the broken spirits that are placed in His hands. We must be able to talk through our emotions with Him. He helps us to understand our emotions and even cope with their negative effects on our lives. He assists us in lightening and shouldering burdens in healthy and productive ways. He teaches us to dismantle the grip fear and desire can have on us, causing us to give in to temptations that only harm and derail us. Indeed prayer is a space for the weak days, when we need God to be strength for us, 2 Corinthians 12:9:10.

Prayer is also a place to claim God's promises, to remember what He has spoken to us; Isaiah 43:26. Prayer is a space to call upon God as He has encouraged us to do. So often God's children forget that option, Isaiah 43:22. God has made Himself accessible to us in the hope that we do access everything He has to offer: strength, patience, endurance, and anything we lack but need is available in His storehouses: 

And try Me now in this,”Says the Lord of hosts,

“If I will not open for you the windows of heaven

And pour out for you such blessing

That there will not be room enough to receive it.

Malachi 3:10

Ultimately we need to remember Jesus' promise on God's behalf: knock and the door will be answered; ask and it shall be given, Matthew 7:7. Did God say "ask so I can deny"? Absolutely not, so why do we live wearied as though that is what He has said? Actually there is reason to be joyful even before blessing because God as already assured us of its arrival. We must combat the pricks of desperation-born-of-hopelessness we feel with bursts of hopeful light that God has provided. We must develop skill in spiritual combat, able to deflect negative emotions that will crop up with the strength we have derived from prayer.

• HOPE 

Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them,  and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 

Matthew 18:2-4 

Lack in life can cause us to be jaded in spirit. Therefore Jesus taught us to retain our youthful spirit, the one that readily hopes and is easily inspired. Adulthood can cause us to spiral into daytime nightmares where instead of dreaming as we once did, we only contemplate the depths and darkness. It pleases God when His child is able to retain the vulnerability of hope, the daring to dream. He wants us to think in color, to contemplate what could be coming rather than dwell on what might never arrive.

When we retain or reclaim our youthful spirit, we readily choose love and mercy and humility instead of their opposites, which circumstances in the world can cause. Darkness cannot get a grip on a happy spirit. There is hope able to be fulfilled in every day, not just in the future; God does not want us to pass by those ripe fruits because our spirit was too downcast to notice them. 

The apostle Paul understood the power of hope when we stated, in Romans 15:13, May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Are we right then, to wallow in hopelessness? Certainly not! We are children of the God of hope. Even though it is a truth, we must train ourselves to believe it. The human spirit is not always inclined to hope. Often feelings of lack, loneliness, depression, dejection, and other miseries are merely our forgetfulness to be hopeful. We neglect to realize that we are walking in the wrong direction, looking down not up.

God will always fill our hopeful expectations... so make that hope big. Do not allow life to lesson your faith, shrink your hope, shrivel your expectation. Once again, God wants us to become spiritual combatants against these invisible invaders.

• WAIT

Arguably the most difficult in the process of blessing is the reality of waiting. 

We have to remember that God is a creator skilled in the art of blessing, and that the process of creation is a quiet one. Focused. Determined. Sequestered. God is quietly planning, sketching, measuring, sculpting, and perfecting your blessing. The silence may seem like neglect or absence but it is actually the sound of hard work! We cannot expect to hear or see or feel the final product when it is in the development stage.

But waiting is difficult further still because we have homework during it. 1 Peter 5:10 states:

And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.

Before big blessing can come into our lives, God has to ensure we have the space and skill for it. While He plans and creates the already-assured blessing, He teaches us how to care for that blessing. But the lessons are never so on the nose obvious. Seemingly purposeless and even trying circumstances are lessons and courses in patience and mercy and generosity. God is also working on our character as though it is a masterpiece. He wants us to be well rounded, complex individuals. He wants us to be able to execute justice, discern, love, submit, lead, support, feed. 

Even though the process of character growth and spiritual discipline is not always enjoyable, it is for the purpose of ensuring that once we receive our blessing, we are able to keep it. And keep it healthy. And since it's natural that life is always going to challenge us, God wants us to be balanced. To, like Paul, be able to find contentment in every situation, Philippians 4:11. He needs us to be able to see the miracle and value and opportunity in every moment so that we waste none of them! So that we claim every blessing on the path of our lives. Because even though we may be solely focused on one specific blessing, there are quite a lot of them God wants us to claim. But we cannot do that if we are distracted by hopelessness and impatience. Impatience will cause us to reject the process of blessing and trade it for something immediate, cheap and temporary. 

We have very complex and convincing brains. We cannot allow them to convince us that we are starving. We cannot allow ourselves to develop an inner mantra of desperation. We must never believe that we have no more left to give, no strength left to wait, no inspiration left to hope. We are not starved for God will never allow a righteous soul to famish, Proverbs 10:3. The thought that you have nothing left is a lie you have allowed yourself to be convinced of not a reality. We must not give lies power; for with power lies will control our lives and obscure the hope and blessing and active presence of God that is there.

• TRUST

Waiting was "arguably" the most difficult stage in the process of blessing because it can also be argued that trust is. But if we truly do pray without ceasing, trust in God will develop naturally. Not only will it develop naturally, evidence of God's faithfulness will manifest in the  "little things" as proof of its overall truth.

In 2 Kings 6:17 the prophet Elisha trusted God emphatically... the man accompanying him did not. All the servant could see was that they were confronted by an enemy army. But because Elisha had developed trust in God, he saw the full picture: an angel army at his back. We are well covered by God and His host and their methods of protection are more advanced that our enemies skill at destruction. 

Similarly Jesus in Matthew 26:53 assured the people around him that nothing could happen to him that was not sanctioned by God: "Or do you think that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He will provide Me with more than twelve legions of angels?" When, and only when, we submit our whole selves and whole lives to God's authority, we can rely on every circumstance working out in our favor and in accordance with His will. Even loses will eventuate as gains. But trust is required! God awaits us to proclaim Him as the authority in our lives. He will not do anything in our lives we have not trusted Him with. He respects our boundaries... so when it comes to God, ensure that you don't have any.

Are you not aware that you can pray for the very same? Our enemies are not always literal soldiers or weapons. Sometimes our enemies are depression, hopelessness, failure, regret, shame, listlessness, wandering. Sometimes our enemies are people but the way to combat them is not war or weapon or word. God can train us and provide trained assistance when it comes to adeptly outmaneuvering those people and circumstances. When we feel confronted or even surrounded by fear, depression or hopelessness we must remember that angel army at our backs ensuring that despite how we feel, we will defeat it.

Trust God's love for you; the whole Bible is a love letter written to you and for you to thrive. God loves to bless you, Luke 12:32. He's asked the whole world to, if nothing else, love you, Matthew 22:39. If you can trust that God loves you, you can trust that He will bless you as though He does. In perfect time and measure. Pursue His love and let Him do the hard work of adding blessing into your life, Matthew 6:33; you do not have to work and worry to manifest things God has in control and under development. 

Finally, Jesus asks us to use our common sense:

Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!

Matthew 7:9 

God blesses His children. He promises good things and gives good things. He listens to what we pray for and He answers in kind. We do not always receive blessings in the manner or timing that we desire but their manner and timing is always good. When we pray, hope, wait and trust in God, we come to understand and even enjoy the time it takes to get to that understanding. 

Therefore I will look to the Lord;

I will wait for the God of my salvation;

My God will hear me.

Micah 7:7 

EUROCLYDON

"When the south wind blew softly, supposing that they had obtained their desire, putting out to sea, they sailed close by Crete. But not long after, a tempestuous head wind arose, called Euroclydon." Acts 27:13-14

It began a difficult journey: a ship bound for Rome, and the apostle Paul bound in chains. Paul had been apprehended for preaching God's word. Paul's scripture-based preaching infuriated the Pharisees and Sadducees, two sects which denied the resurrection of Jesus. Fearful of their loss in power, as Paul's preaching was converting many away from their doctrine, they sought to capture and kill Paul. They accused him of sedition (noun. conduct or speech inciting or causing people to rebel against the authority of a state or monarch). 

Paul's Roman citizenship meant that his captors had to hold his trial in Rome (Acts 25:10-11). Not only did this preserve Paul's life, his supposed crimes might have gotten him killed in Jerusalem, but would not qualify for death in Rome, but it also fit neatly into God's plan. God had previously informed him that He intended Paul to be in Rome: "the Lord stood by him and said, 'Be of good cheer, Paul; for as you have testified for Me in Jerusalem, so you must also bear witness at Rome'" (Acts 23:11).

And so they set out for Rome, but the waters were tumultuous and dangerous. It was immediately apparent to Paul that the voyage would result in disaster: the loss of the cargo and possibly the lives of those on the ship. But the centurion (commander) decided to take the advice of the helmsman rather than that of Paul.

They sailed right into the Euroclydon winds, a cyclical, tempestuous wind. Control of the ship was lost as it tossed in the sea; the crew did all they could to keep it afloat. Days passed of the fight to stay alive. Storm clouds blocked the sun and stars and stifled the hope of the men on the ship. As the winds and waters continued to beat down on them and their ship, no longer did they believe they would survive.

Meanwhile, Paul appealed to God through abstinence. If the journey was to be survived, Paul knew that it would be by the Hand of God. Paul's fast allowed him to review the situation, reflect on the decisions made that led to it, and hear with clarity God's plan of restoration out from it. From here, the journey documented in scripture helps us to survive the Euroclydon winds in our own lives.

• NEITHER SUN NOR STARS

Hopelessness and defeat are perhaps the most able to extinguish a person's faith. Sometimes the darkness of the storms in our lives are so comprehensive that we lose sight and even remembrance of the light. The crew on the ship were not like Paul. They followed the advice of men rather than the plan of God. Their rejection of God's plan may have been inadvertent but the result was the same. 

Sometimes our desire to do something or for something to be done is so fierce that we ignore common sense in favor of impatience. Like the men on the ship, we have it in our minds that we must be certain places at certain times. Things to do. People to meet. Money to make. Prospects to take. We want all of it to occur on a timely schedule, a schedule in accordance with our impatience rather than God's plan.

Paul presented the men on the ship with a choice: wait and have a smooth voyage, go and possibly lose your life to a difficult one. They chose difficult, and so often do we. But that sort of thinking propels us directly into cyclical winds too. We go around and around making the same mistakes, beating back the same fierce seas, desperate to stay afloat until we finally lose the hope that its even possible anymore.

The absence of sun and stars made it impossible for the crew to navigate the ship. They were tossed, lost and without hope. Which is a place many of us find ourselves to be in at times. Distress causes us to lose all ability to navigate the sometimes-rough waters of circumstance and emotion. Feelings of rejection, hopelessness, isolation, fear, anger, and impatience cause to behave erratically. That erratic behavior directly contradicts God's promises to us:

Rather than rejected we are chosen by Him, Ephesians 1:4. There is no such thing as hopelessness for a child of God, within the kingdom of God, hope is in constant supply, Malachi 3:10. We cannot be isolated from the presence or promise of God, Matthew 28:20. 

That erratic behavior directly contradicts God's instruction given to us: 

Do not fear, John 14:27. Do not be angry, Ephesians 4:26-27. Wait on the Lord, Psalm 27:14.

Extraordinarily, God has provided the emotional and practical instructions on how to survive the storm. Sometimes, in order to actually apply them to our behavior, we need to lighten the ship.

• LIGHTENING THE SHIP

Paul knew what to do in that darkness. Paul knew that he would make it to Rome because God had told him he would. Paul's advice and prayer and fasting was for the purpose of the preservation of the people with him. They were sinking. What do we do when we are sinking? We toss out the things that are causing us to sink. We remove from our ship, life, the things causing the water to weight us down. Paul did this through a fast. Sometimes a fast is about food, but other times a fast is the jettison of distractions. Secular distractions: attitudes, activities and other things that have no religious or spiritual basis. 

The world is full of secular distractions. The attainment of power and celebrity are cultivated by cultures around the world. The desire for control and admiration distracts us from giving and humility. The abundance and attainability of material wealth induces a desperate want of things. Our value of the material causes us to undervalue the actual substance of life. We corrupt the even the biosphere we rely on to exist in order to make and buy and have and use things. We neglect others' basic human rights and needs to pursue our own agendas, secure our own borders, protect our own reputation, clear our own day, have our own fun, claim our own rights and needs.

And so sometimes we need to jettison the things that perpetuate in our lives the distractions of our culture: the social media and music, biased news sources, commercialism and celebrity. We need to clear our lives of the distractions which cause the cloud coverage that blocks the sun and stars. The hope and the lighthouse that is God. We need to learn to be more aware of our susceptibility to the things our world says we should want. 

God is able to strengthen us. His love and instruction render us less vulnerable to the desperate desire of filling our bodies, souls and lives with those corrosive distractions. We need to clear the space, we need to jettison those things.

• TO TAKE NOURISHMENT

And then we need to be filled in. Once we have thrown overboard the distractions, we need to fill ourselves with something ordered and solid. We need meat and bread, that is: the deep and thorough word of God. Paul encouraged the crew to eat: "Therefore I urge you to take nourishment, for this is for your survival..." Indeed this is for your survival. God urges us to stop ingesting empty calories. To stop taking in the secular world as though it could ever possible sustain us. 

Our souls need actual, spiritual nourishment. Things and fame and vanity are empty. The fruit of impatience is unsatisfactory and insufficient. Like Paul, fast the distractions and then take the bread. Live with gratitude for the One who pointed out the problem and then solved it. 

Paul cautioned that only those who remained on the ship would survive. The people who decided to solve their problems on their own would fail. God has capabilities that we do not; the impossible for us is possible for Him, Luke 18:27. The meaning of this is that we cannot leave  the kingdom of God and expect to thrive or even survive. It is God's path that leads to life and safety and blessing. We cannot just abandon ship (pun definitely intended) and expect to be nourished. All along God's path are the fruit and meat that nourish us. Away from from God's path, we might sustain ourselves but God has bigger plans than for us to be merely sustained. He has plans for us to live, thrive and survive. 

We must throw the junk out and fill ourselves with love and patience, humility and compassion. Easy as it is to give in to our cravings and binge on our temptations, we have to train, spiritually, until we are stronger than that impulse. The impulse to let loose our anger, feed our desire, act on our impatience. It is the nourishment that God provides which grows within us the muscle subdue the things, people and emotions that have power over us. 

God will get you to where you need to be. The storms become irrelevant when you choose God as your helmsman, the One to navigate your ship. Your life. You may not, at times, see the sun or stars. You may feel hopeless, but you must remember that God is the light. God provides the hope. Jettison the distractions and the clouds with dissipate, the sun and stars will be visible once again.