“Life is fragile; handle with prayer.”
A new joke on YouTube: Do not use GPS when heading towards a cemetery; the lady will say, “You have now reached your destination.”
Which raises the questions: What is your destination? What are your goals? Life is fragile. Just recently a 51 year old friend was laughing and joking, proud of her achievements as a health products distributor. Then she gets a massive stroke, and two days later is dead, leaving a son in his late teens.
Life indeed is fragile, and one day we will all meet our Maker. The One who is our Judge, but who loves us all unconditionally! God proves his love for us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8; Cf. John 3:16) We get ready for the judgment day by asking Jesus in to our lives—our daily living—to save us from our sins and be Lord over everything. Any parts of our lives we refuse to turn over to Him, out of pride, resentment or rebellion, are simply unsaved, and we can’t take them with us!
Life is fragile, so handle it with faith and prayer. Even Jesus sometimes, like before big decisions, would spend all night in prayer. While struggling with. praying over, the fact of the incredible suffering he soon must endure, plaintively asked his closest disciples, Could you not watch with me one hour? (Mark 14:37) It was as if God had become so human He was actually praying to men! But Jesus always stayed grounded in his prayer-relationship with the Father, even through feelings of abandonment on the cross.
If He, being God in the flesh, needed that relationship with the Source, should we not likewise need to pray, with faith? (If you lack faith, ask the One who loves you to give it to you.)
ON FAITH AND PRAYER
If you through faith my kingdom knew,
You’d know my mustard see will grow,
And tell that Thing that blocks your view:
“The fig tree withered, and to the sea you go!”1
So keep your sight2 on me and keep it steady,
Let your prayer be fervent, without fear;
Picture your dream as here and now already,
And it will be. But no longer hold so dear
The hurts and doubts that bind you. No matter
Contradicts my law of prayer: you’ll not receive
Until you give, and let hurts go. So totally tatter
Your pride. At the Cross let all resentments leave.
Then with the risen Christ you too will rise,
New answers in your heart, vision in your eyes. –HPK
1, Mark 11: 12-14. 2,. See Hebrews 12:1 & 2
Here we have no enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come. (Hebrews 13: 14)
The great 4th Century Saint, Augustine, after many years of giving into sexual sins, finally gave in to Christ (he had actually prayed, Make me pure, but not yet!) and wrote in his classic Confessions– You have made us for yourself, Oh Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.
Another prayer of St. Augustine. Bishop of Hippo in N. Africa, is very relevant for us in the 21st Century, with all its confusing distractions and temptations:
-Prayer on Finding God after a Long Search
Too late have I loved you, O Beauty so ancient, O Beauty so new. Too late have I loved you! You were within me but I was outside myself, and there I sought you! In my weakness I ran after the beauty of the things you have made. You were with me, and I was not with you. The things you have made kept me from you – the things which would have no being unless they existed in you! You have called, you have cried, and you have pierced my deafness. You have radiated forth, you have shined out brightly, and you have dispelled my blindness. You have sent forth your fragrance, and I have breathed it in, and I long for you. I have tasted you, and I hunger and thirst for you. You have touched me, and I ardently desire your peace. Confessions, X, 27, 38
When we pray these kinds of prayers, we will find the answer to the fragility of life, find peace, and exciting meaning and purpose for our lives! As we start each morning in prayer, asking God to guide us and give us love to share with others in some way, we will discover the “peace that passes understanding” (Phil. 4: 7) and “the joy of the Lord.” (Matt. 25: 21, 23) You have made us for yourself, Oh God. . .
