—Chapter Twenty-Five —
A radio sermon had challenged me to linger after prayer instead of getting up off my knees right away. “Have pencil and paper and be prepared to stay a while,” this pastor encouraged.
So one afternoon after I had spent some time on my knees, I sat down on the bedroom floor with my journal and pen in hand and waited. Smiling, I remembered the story about Elijah and the widow’s jars of oil in the Old Testament. Elijah had instructed a penniless widow to “go around and ask all your neighbors for empty jars. Don’t ask for just a few. Then go inside and shut the door behind you and your sons. Pour oil into all the jars, and as each is filled, put it to one side.”82 She kept filling jars, the Bible stated, until there were no jars left. Then the oil stopped flowing. We’re not told how many jars she ultimately filled, but there was enough oil to sell so she could pay off her debts and still have money to live on. Like the widow, I had plenty of paper in my journal for God to fill. I also needed an extra measure of His grace to forgive my debtor as well as a large portion to live on.
As time ticked away, this communion brought portions of Scripture I’d not thought about nor noticed before. Three challenges surfaced as I lingered in the throne room with God.
“Donna,” He warned me, “The enemy will continually try to discourage you. This warning is not for today, but every day. There will always be temptations and lies that Satan will use to try to distract you from seeking Me. You might as well expect it; he targets those who are on their knees. Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you that your faith would not fail.”83
Believing that Jesus was deeply concerned about my faith brought reverence to these cloistered moments. I couldn’t leave. Upon finding Jesus’ prayer in the seventeenth chapter of the book of John, I put my name on the lips of the Son of God as He knelt before the Father and prayed.
“Father, I pray for [Donna]. You have given [her] to Me. My prayer is not that You take [her] out of the world, but that You protect [her] from the evil one. Father, just as You are in Me and I am in You, may [she] also be in Us so that the world may believe that You have sent Me. Father, I want [her], and [she] is one You have given Me, to be with Me where I am, and to see My glory, the glory You have given Me because You loved Me before the creation of the world.”
As if His prayer acknowledged my presence, Jesus continued, “Donna, I pray that when you walk through fiery trials, you would hold onto the truths I left for you in My Word. I pray that you will trust My Spirit to be your Comforter and to empower you with victory over the very one I conquered through My death. I pray that you will not deny the power you have through Me by faith. I know you can’t see Me, but trust what I tell you in My Word.”
I turned another page in my journal and wrote down another truth that intertwined with the one just observed.
“I want you to glorify Me.”
“Glorify!? Lord, I used to think that people glorified You when things were going well. David glorified your name throughout the earth. He was a king. He had a platform from which to praise you. I’m no king! I have neither crown nor platform! Glorify? Lord, help me understand.”
“Donna, do you love Me? Do you really love Me? With all your heart?”
“Yes, Lord, I do.”
“Lord, didn’t you ask Peter those same questions? Then You told him, ‘I tell you the truth, when you were younger, you dressed yourself and went where you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go. Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, “Follow Me”’ (John 21:18, 19 NIV, emphasis added).
“Lord, You knew that Peter would die a very painful death! He was stretched out and crucified upside down, scholars tell us. And yet in his death Peter would glorify You. And then You added, ‘Follow Me.’ Lord, that must have been so hard!
“Are You glorified when Your children depend on You during the painful and difficult things in life? If so, then I, too, want to glorify You. I will follow You.”
Lastly, God asked that I remember all that He had done for me.
King David sat before the Lord and asked, “Who am I, O Sovereign Lord…that you have brought me this far?” (II Samuel 7:18). Overwhelmed that he was part of God’s mighty plans for his generation and generations to come, David took time to worship God.
Did he recall as a young boy the cold and lonely nights he gazed into the fire, poking it with a stick and watching the colored sparks fly as he guarded his father’s sheep? Or did he hum one of the songs he used to sing to God while lying on his back looking up at the stars?
What about the time Samuel, a renowned prophet of God, visited his father’s house in search for the next king? Rumor had it that David’s father, when Samuel inquired if there were other sons, nonchalantly admitted, “Oh, yes, I almost forgot, I do have another son. David. But he’s only a shepherd boy. He’s out in the field. You want me to send for him?”
Or did David get lost in thoughts about the times he wrestled with a bear and a lion?
Facing Goliath was another story. Defeat seemed inevitable. His own brothers and countrymen were stymied with fear! With God’s confidence and strength girding him, this small shepherd boy walked out from those fields that had become his sanctuary into a blinding glare of human weakness.
“Who do you think you are?” they smirked, jabbing each other in the ribs as David stepped forward to face Goliath alone. Those same brothers who had once ignored him were now chiding him for his boldness. But David’s unquestionable faith allowed God to use him as an instrument of His power. Goliath fell with one blow from young David’s small slingshot. Look what God accomplished through David on that day! And it all started on those cold and lonely hills as David desired to know God.
As I poked at the charred remains of my marriage, I recalled some of the place I’d been and how far God had brought me.
“Lord, I remember the days after my abandonment when close friends took me out-of-town so I could escape the stares, questions, and suspicions. I remember the fear as I stood in a hotel room, so weak and unable to eat. In the blurred midnight hours, I remember singing ‘Great is Thy Faithfulness’ with a tear-stricken voice. That song sung ever so faintly came from within a frail, broken skeleton of a rejected wife; but it came. Lord, where did it come from?”
“Donna, My Spirit bore witness with your spirit that you are My child!”84
“You implanted that song in my heart!”
“Donna, that simple, powerful song, full of truth, was given to you by My Spirit to relay My message to your heart. That was all that you could take in at the time. And when that chorus came out of your choking tearful heart, it was as though a full chorale accompanied by a symphonic orchestra resounded throughout the heavens! The angels rejoiced around the throne of grace at the magnificence of that song.
“Lord, I remember facing the pressures of a new job. I remember the wrenching in my heart when alone I flew to greet my first grandchild. I remember the confusion and disruption that came with the knowledge of my mom’s Alzheimer’s disease. I remember how numb we all were at my younger daughter’s wedding when it wasn’t shared with her dad. I remember my sister asking me to take her son should the doctors find her cancer terminal. I remember that temptation when I could have lost everything!
“The air conditioner and an unexpected root canal were challenges that topped my heavy load. Lord, I needed You so much! I needed Your strength. I needed Your comfort, and I needed Your power to stand. And You were there supplying my every need.
“Lord, had I not gone through this “day of trouble,” I could never have testified how You sheltered me in the secret place of Your tent. I would have never known the protection when You lifted me up on a rock. I would have never known Your strength that enabled me to stand. I would never have magnified You in my midnight. Thank You, Lord, for bringing me this far!”
“For who is God besides the
Lord?
And who is the Rock, except our God?
It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect.
He makes my feet like the feet of a deer and enables me to stand on the
heights.
He trains my hands for battle; my arms can bend a bow of bronze
You give me your shield of victory, You stoop down to make me great.
You broaden the path beneath me, so that my ankles do not turn” (II Samuel
22:23-27, 51 NASB).
Copyright 2001, 2004 Donna Christensen
All rights reserved.
Published Online by: The Biblical Reader
www.biblicalreader.com