Where Are Your Shoes?

So what's your "thing"? Everybody's got something. Is it your relationship with your spouse? Parents or In-Laws? Friends? How about your job situation? Maybe it is the fact that your kids, as precious as they are, are literally driving you up a very slick wall. Is it loneliness, faithlessness, hopelessness?

Isn't it nice to know that Jesus, being fully God and fully man, was tempted in every way yet never succumbed to the pressure to crumble? It makes you feel that there is at least someone who understands what you are dealing with. However, maybe you have felt like I have from time to time that, although I know that He has gone through the same feelings and situations, that doesn't always make me feel better about where I am. Is that wrong? Perhaps, but no less true. Sometimes, I rationalize this point to Him in my prayers. "Lord, you know how this feels. I know that you've been here. Since you know what this is like, why aren't you fixing this? Why haven't you taken care of this circumstance? I trust you can take care of this with one thought or one wave of Your Hand. Why aren't you?!?!" I have been reading and came across a passage that gave me a different perspective on the plethora of discouraging, frustrating, and/or sometimes, just hard circumstances that everybody I know deals with during seasons of life.

"God can change our circumstances, but sometimes He waits for us to show real desire for change as well as our faith in Him....

How do you and I show our eagerness to receive all that God has promised us? One way is through persistent prayer as we ask God for change and seek His Word about the change then persistently and respectfully pray until He brings it about. (Matthew 7:7) If you have asked God to change your circumstances in some way, claiming His promise for yourself or for a loved on, what are you doing to demonstrate your faith?

The Korean church is known around the world for being a praying church. Korean Christians pray and fast on specially designated mountains for days, weeks and even months. Literally hundreds and thousands of Christians attend daily prayer sessions at 4:30 A.M. One old Korean lady who attended the early morning prayer meeting every day always put her husband's empty shoes on the front pew of the church, saying, "Here are my husband's shoes, Lord. I believe that one day my husband will be here to fill them." One year after she began demonstrating this confident hope by bringing her husband's shoes to the prayer service, the shoes were filled! Her husband can with her and placed his faith in Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.

What 'shoes' do you have to put before the Lord?

Biblical hope is not a 'hope so' attitude.

It is confidence that although you have not received

what God has promised yet, you know you will."

-Anne Graham Lotz, God's Story (W Publishing Group, 1999), 202.

In Matthew 7, the verse referenced above is written in the imperative form which is why I like the how the Amplified version states it:

7 Keep on asking and it will be given you; keep on seeking and you will find; keep on knocking [reverently] and [the door] will be opened to you.
8For everyone who keeps on asking receives; and he who keeps on seeking finds; and to him who keeps on knocking, [the door] will be opened.

My Dad encourages us by saying, "Keep on Keepin' on!" Does it sound like God is saying the same thing? "Keep on Keepin' on!" Keep on asking. Keep on seeking. Keep on knocking. Keep on. Keep on Keepin' on.

Here is where I have a little bit of a conflict. Is God likening Himself to a one stop shop? Come say your quick prayer and immediately you get what you want. Here is newsflash:

He is not Burger King and you might not "get it your way".

I think that is hard, but what helps me through that is knowing and trusting the Almighty Sovereignty of God. When David talks in Psalms 37:4 about delighting yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart, I don't believe this talks to God giving us every little thing our heart desires. I think it is speaking to the fact that if you are delighting in the Lord, your desires become His desires become your desires and your "dream list" finally falls in line with His "dream list" for you. Personally, I delight in my nieces and nephews; I delight in helping children learn to talk; I delight in Mom's home cooking. "Delight" means "to take great pleasure in", or "to give keen enjoyment". I have delightful relationships with people that I have spent hours upon hours of my life with. We have shared good times and bad times, more CW talks than they care to recall, and lots of coffee, cards and phone calls. I have invested myself in them and they have invested in me. These are the relationships that are truly special.

Does yours or my relationship with the Lord resemble those type of relationships? Are we truly delighting in the Lord? Are we investing more than a few minutes driving in the car to work to get to know Him? Based on your daily activities, what priority does our relationship with Him have? If we are not delighting in Him, then I think we can expect to have a lot of our desires unmet because they are just that - our desires. When we get to the point that our true delight in found in the Lord and our relationship with Him, this is when our faithfulness reaps the benefits of hopefulness.

In Hebrews 11, the "rollcall of faith" is printed in black and white with what each one was able to accomplish by faith. What is faith exactly?

"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see... And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and He rewards those who earnestly seek Him." (Heb 11:1,6)

Are you earnestly seeking Him? It is hard with so many distractions every minute of every day but we are called to it without excuse.

So, what shoes are you faithfully placing before Him to fill? What are you laying down by faith in hope? How often do you pick it back up when you lay it down? He has always been faithful and always will be faithful. Why? Because He can never be anything less than Himself! It is His character. He is faithful. To you. Always and without question. Delight in that faithfulness and be rewarded with a hopeful today.