The Torah portion this week comes from Genesis 47:28 to 50:26.
It seems lately I have been hearing and reading about how God is everything we need. He is our strength, our provider, our shield, our refuge, and so much more. These are true statements, but sometimes in our times of distress, these words don't always help.
Bad things happen to all of us. Loved ones die. Homes and jobs are lost. We sin and create disaster in our lives. But even without any sin on our part we can find ourselves in troubling situations. We can make choices that don't pan out, or they don't provide what we thought they would. We can pray for God's leading, but we still can end up in a place where we don't want to be. Sometimes we feel like we've become little Jobs. We may not have experienced all that Job went through, but find that our small portion pushes us to the end of our resources. We may pray for rescue, but find no answer. "What is God doing?" we may ask.
In Genesis 49 we read about the death of Jacob. Then in chapter 50 his sons and a large contingent from Pharaoh carry his body back to Abraham's burial place in Canaan, to the cave of the field of Machpelah. When the mourners return to Egypt, Jacob's sons are afraid. Now that their father is dead, perhaps Joseph will hate his brothers and take revenge on them for their selling him as a slave so many years earlier.
Genesis 50:16-18 (KJV)
16
And they sent a messenger unto Joseph, saying, Thy father did command before he died, saying,
17
So shall ye say unto Joseph, Forgive, I pray thee now, the trespass of thy brethren, and their sin; for they did unto thee evil: and now, we pray thee, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father. And Joseph wept when they spake unto him.
18
And his brethren also went and fell down before his face; and they said, Behold, we be thy servants.
The brothers hoped that because Jacob had commanded Joseph to forgive them, he would. They even fell down in front of him and offered to become his servants. What was Joseph's reply?
Genesis 50:19-20 (KJV)
19
And Joseph said unto them, Fear not: for am I in the place of God?
20
But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.
Joseph told his brothers not to fear. They had meant to do evil to Joseph, but God, in His infinite wisdom, allowed the evil to occur so that many people would be saved alive. God meant it for good!
Count the blessings that we know God has given us. Then thank Him for the times when He was our shield, our provider, and our refuge and we didn't even know it. Lastly, know that every awful thing that happens to us, God uses for good! We may not see the good, but it is there. It is hard sometimes, but we must trust in God and His working all things together for good!
Romans 8:28 (KJV)
28
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
Showing posts with label Prayer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Prayer. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 5, 2016
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Mealtime Prayer
Many Christians come from homes where prayer is said before every meal. It was like that in my home even though my family was really only nominally Christian at the time. We were very faithful at the practice as well. I don't really remember ever not praying.
"Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts, which we are about to receive from thy bounty through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen."
While praying before eating is a commendable habit, notice the focus of the prayer that my family and many others use. It is a prayer to God that He would bless us and the food that we are about to eat. It does recognize that the meal came from the bounty of God, but there is no word of thanks to God. In fact, this particular prayer makes it sound like we are afraid that the food might be poisoned or will be harmful to us. So we pray that God will bless us and keep us from that harm. This is superstition. I'm not sure that this is the kind of prayer we really should be praying.
John 6:11 (KJV)
11 And Jesus took the loaves; and when he had given thanks, he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down; and likewise of the fishes as much as they would.
In this verse we see that before feeding the 5,000, Jesus gave thanks for the food. This was a tradition of the Jews and Jesus obviously approved of it. But did you know that there is no command in Scripture to pray before eating? There is a command, but it is to pray after eating.
Deuteronomy 8:10 (KJV)
10 When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the LORD thy God for the good land which he hath given thee.
After eating we are to bless the Lord, which means to "honor as holy, or glorify" the Lord (The Free Online Dictionary). Basically, we are to thank Him and praise Him, not ask Him to bless us or our food. Secondly, we are to bless Him because of the good land that He has given us. This was written to an agrarian society that had to work hard to provide food for their families. For many of us, today, we get our food from the grocery store. This doesn't change where food comes from. So we should still thank Him for the land that has produced our food, but I think a general blessing of the Lord for our food, wherever and however we get it, is an acceptable aspect of our prayer.
So let's examine our mealtime prayers. When do we pray? We can pray before we eat, but don't forget to pray after eating. Are we praying with the right focus? Remember to bless God and to thank Him for His provision. It is acceptable to pray a standard prayer or to pray spontaneously as long as the focus is correct.
My guess is that we all could use some improvement in our mealtime prayers. They deserve our attention and our best effort.
"Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts, which we are about to receive from thy bounty through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen."
While praying before eating is a commendable habit, notice the focus of the prayer that my family and many others use. It is a prayer to God that He would bless us and the food that we are about to eat. It does recognize that the meal came from the bounty of God, but there is no word of thanks to God. In fact, this particular prayer makes it sound like we are afraid that the food might be poisoned or will be harmful to us. So we pray that God will bless us and keep us from that harm. This is superstition. I'm not sure that this is the kind of prayer we really should be praying.
John 6:11 (KJV)
11 And Jesus took the loaves; and when he had given thanks, he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down; and likewise of the fishes as much as they would.
In this verse we see that before feeding the 5,000, Jesus gave thanks for the food. This was a tradition of the Jews and Jesus obviously approved of it. But did you know that there is no command in Scripture to pray before eating? There is a command, but it is to pray after eating.
Deuteronomy 8:10 (KJV)
10 When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the LORD thy God for the good land which he hath given thee.
After eating we are to bless the Lord, which means to "honor as holy, or glorify" the Lord (The Free Online Dictionary). Basically, we are to thank Him and praise Him, not ask Him to bless us or our food. Secondly, we are to bless Him because of the good land that He has given us. This was written to an agrarian society that had to work hard to provide food for their families. For many of us, today, we get our food from the grocery store. This doesn't change where food comes from. So we should still thank Him for the land that has produced our food, but I think a general blessing of the Lord for our food, wherever and however we get it, is an acceptable aspect of our prayer.
So let's examine our mealtime prayers. When do we pray? We can pray before we eat, but don't forget to pray after eating. Are we praying with the right focus? Remember to bless God and to thank Him for His provision. It is acceptable to pray a standard prayer or to pray spontaneously as long as the focus is correct.
My guess is that we all could use some improvement in our mealtime prayers. They deserve our attention and our best effort.
Monday, October 22, 2012
A Thought About Prayer
I have never really experienced depression and for that I am especially grateful. But when I was a teenager and had begun my high school years, I wondered just a little. I had to wake up before everyone else in my house and for some reason, this was just an awful thing for me. I don't know, maybe it was because my mother had always been the first one up and it was a type of security for me. Anyway, this began a pattern of life for me. When I would wake up I would be so depressed, so unhappy, and crabby, that I truly began to think that I was suffering from depression. The goofy thing, however, was that within about an hour, as I woke up more, the depression and crabbiness would pass and I would be my normal self. This never happened on the weekends, and as I got used to being the first one up, it was better, too.
As I entered college, work years, and then marriage, I really only had a problem when I had to get up early. If I slept until 7:00 a.m. or later, I wouldn't experience any problems, but earlier than that, I would again be depressed and crabby. Having babies and small children also played some havoc with my mood because of their erratic wake times. My poor husband quickly learned to stay silent in the morning until I was fully awake.
Considering my life in its totality, this played such a small part. Yet, increasingly, the depression became an every day affair. It no longer mattered what time I woke up, I was just miserable. It didn't matter if it was the weekend, I was crabby. And as a Christian this made me angry with myself. My life was good and I had absolutely nothing to be depressed about. So I began to pray that God would help me to be grateful and to end the depression and crabbiness.
I had heard from many others that upon waking it was good to pray before doing anything else. In this way, I could practice being grateful as well as take that depression to God and to deal with it. Still, the unhappiness remained. It still didn't last long, but it was plain irritating and prayer didn't seem to be helping.
I came out of Catholicism while I was in college. Most of the prayers that I knew from my youth were rote prayers, although I had always talked to God as a friend from my earliest days.After giving my life to Christ I was saved. In the first church that I found myself rote prayers were used, but there was some feeling that spontaneous prayer was better outside of the worship service. In the later churches that I was in, there really were no rote prayers at all. As I became Messianic I was introduced to the Jewish Siddur, their prayer book. It is filled with prayers that are recited. While there is room for personal additional prayer, the prayer used in worship is rote. I fell in love with many of them and I especially appreciated the Jewish focus on prayer that continues throughout the day. I began to use some rote prayer just as soon as I woke up in the morning. I memorized about four different prayers that I found meaningful. The first expressed my gratitude to God for giving me another day to live.
Oddly, enough, although I still wake in a bad mood, I pray and it's over. Perhaps, my spontaneous prayer was too often mixed with whining or it took too much effort to come up with truly grateful words. I don't know. But I have found that the prayer flows from my mouth and affects my thinking in ways that I had not expected. I will, of course, continue to pray spontaneously, but thank you, God for helping me to find a way for me to truly feel grateful in the morning!
As I entered college, work years, and then marriage, I really only had a problem when I had to get up early. If I slept until 7:00 a.m. or later, I wouldn't experience any problems, but earlier than that, I would again be depressed and crabby. Having babies and small children also played some havoc with my mood because of their erratic wake times. My poor husband quickly learned to stay silent in the morning until I was fully awake.
Considering my life in its totality, this played such a small part. Yet, increasingly, the depression became an every day affair. It no longer mattered what time I woke up, I was just miserable. It didn't matter if it was the weekend, I was crabby. And as a Christian this made me angry with myself. My life was good and I had absolutely nothing to be depressed about. So I began to pray that God would help me to be grateful and to end the depression and crabbiness.
I had heard from many others that upon waking it was good to pray before doing anything else. In this way, I could practice being grateful as well as take that depression to God and to deal with it. Still, the unhappiness remained. It still didn't last long, but it was plain irritating and prayer didn't seem to be helping.
I came out of Catholicism while I was in college. Most of the prayers that I knew from my youth were rote prayers, although I had always talked to God as a friend from my earliest days.After giving my life to Christ I was saved. In the first church that I found myself rote prayers were used, but there was some feeling that spontaneous prayer was better outside of the worship service. In the later churches that I was in, there really were no rote prayers at all. As I became Messianic I was introduced to the Jewish Siddur, their prayer book. It is filled with prayers that are recited. While there is room for personal additional prayer, the prayer used in worship is rote. I fell in love with many of them and I especially appreciated the Jewish focus on prayer that continues throughout the day. I began to use some rote prayer just as soon as I woke up in the morning. I memorized about four different prayers that I found meaningful. The first expressed my gratitude to God for giving me another day to live.
Oddly, enough, although I still wake in a bad mood, I pray and it's over. Perhaps, my spontaneous prayer was too often mixed with whining or it took too much effort to come up with truly grateful words. I don't know. But I have found that the prayer flows from my mouth and affects my thinking in ways that I had not expected. I will, of course, continue to pray spontaneously, but thank you, God for helping me to find a way for me to truly feel grateful in the morning!
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