Are You Delighting in the Lord?

Have you ever reached a point in your life when it seemed that your prayers were just bouncing off of the ceiling? Times that your prayers went unanswered and left you without hope? If you haven't, then you are one of the fortunate ones that has your walk with the Lord in the primo position...and I say to you, "CONGRATS"...and keep up the good work.  In fact, you need read no further; however, if you are like me and so many of our other Christian brethren, this feeling of abandonment and disconnection from our Father creates a real and emotional emptiness that may very well overwhelm us and leave us impotent to do the Father's will.

 GOOD NEWS....this situation is fully TREATABLE and REVERSIBLE...and the answer(as always) can be found in God's Holy Word in Psalm 37: 3-4 that reads:

 Trust in the Lord and do what is right. Settle in the land and maintain your integrity. Then you will take delight in the Lord, and he will answer your prayers.

This is the remedy for unanswered prayer, but there are several things we need to unpack to fully understand what needs to be done (continuously) in order to have our prayers answered with the love and consistency that comes from our Heavenly Father who ALWAYS has our best interest at the center of His heart.

First and foremost, WE MUST TRUST IN THE LORD...and that means we need to have a relationship with Him; we must have accepted what He did for us at Calvary and have asked Him to enter our lives, not as a guest, but as a full-time resident. For when we truly TRUST in the Lord, His desires WILL overwhelm our desires and our greatest pleasure becomes serving Him in obedience. I am always amazed when people tell me they asked God to save someone they loved from a horrible disease; give them a new job; heal their broken marriage or a myriad of other "I WANTS"...only to find out that the last time they spent any time with God in worship was at Christmas service a year ago; or they know they have a Bible at home, but they are not really sure where it is kept....imagine if you treated your spouse this way and then asked them for anything...WHAT DO YOU THINK WOULD BE THEIR RESPONSE...Most likely it would be SILENCE!!! Why should we expect more than that from God when we have ignored Him for so long?

 Secondly, we need to DO WHAT IS RIGHT, and in God speak, that means to strive to be holy and live a righteous life in front of a world that has lost its moral compass. If you want God to answer your prayers...then, LIVE LIKE YOU MEAN IT...in short, you've got to do more than talk the talk; you've got to WALK THE WALK.

 Thirdly, we are to "settle in the land and maintain our integrity"....to me, this means that we are no longer living in and for this world; rather we have set our sights on the land of promise...THE KINGDOM OF GOD...brought to earth by His Son and now left in our hands to live as Jesus would. We settle into the land by being God's Heavenly representative now in this "foreign" land, so that others may long to have what we have and will choose to become citizens of Heaven as they come to know and follow Jesus...and how can that happen? Simple! Let the people of God live with INTEGRITY....DO WHAT WE SAY WE WILL DO, WHEN WE SAY WE WILL DO IT AND BE SURE THAT WHATEVER WE ARE DOING, WE ARE GIVING OUR BEST SO GOD RECEIVES THE GLORY!!!!

 If we do these things, then the best part of this Scripture will come to fruition....when we have chosen the first three life-altering courses of living, our hearts will be filled with love, adoration and JOY...and we will DELIGHT IN THE LORD...His desires will truly be our own!!! We will no longer pray with our selfish agenda for God to give us the desires of our heart; rather we will pray for HIS DESIRES TO BE ACCOMPLISHED IN OUR LIVES and when we pray with a broken and contrite heart, GOD STANDS READY, WILLING AND ABLE TO MEET US AT THE POINT OF OUR NEED AND GIVE US ANSWERS TO OUR PRAYERS.  It is only then that our connection to Him will grow stronger; and in good measure, we will see the hand of God work in ways we could not fathom before. When we have met the Lord at this juncture in our walk with Him we will see that when we pray for our needs, in accordance with the work God is doing in our lives, we will become mature in our relationship with our Heavenly Father and know that the answer to our every prayer is on its way...in the perfect timing of the One who loves us and gave His only Son so that we may become children of the Most High!

 So, what is your answer to my question? Are you delighting in the Lord? Are you confident that your prayers will be answered...all in God's perfect timing? If so, congrats and keep up the good work of living for and delighting in the Father. If not, grab a copy of His Holy Word and dig into its pages; it is there that God will begin to speak to you and prepare your heart to delight in HIM!

It is a place where old things will pass away and a place of new beginnings; it is where you will become a new creature in Him and the journey that begins here will give way to a life of....

 LOVE...JOY....and never-ending  DELIGHT!!!

 

Settling in the land...living in delight,

WPQ

 

 

Poem for the day....

 If trials and troubles have beset you

And you decided that you should pray;

But your prayers bounce off the ceiling

And no answers come your way...

 

Then maybe it's time to examine

Your relationship with Him;

For you just can't reach out in prayer

Like it's just another whim.

 

It takes a prayer warrior

That seeks the Father's light;

For when you seek to honor Him

In your heart you will delight.

 

For His answer is just waiting

For those hearts filled with His delight;

And He will always answer prayers

For those who love and seek His light!

 

WPQ © November 2020