Let's just imagine for a minute....a huge, ferocious, violent storm. Imagine the winds blowing 150 mph and trees being uprooted from the ground. Now imagine a carpenter out in the middle of that storm trying to build a house. Sounds crazy doesn't it? Sounds down right INSANE doesn't it? Why? Because he should wait until the weather is fair to build a house. What if I told you that this type of thing happens all the time among Christians. We don't store up prayers and fasting in times of plenty and in times of success. Many Christians wait until the devastations of life come to begin to fast and pray. Today we're going to talk about this and how to keep laziness and complacency from taking a hold on us.
Genesis 41:47-49 and 53-55 (Amplified version) says:
47 In the seven abundant years the earth brought forth by handfuls [for each seed planted].
48 And he gathered up all the [surplus] food of the seven [good] years in the land of Egypt and stored up the food in the cities; he stored away in each city the food from the fields around it.
49 And Joseph gathered grain as the sand of the sea, very much, until he stopped counting, for it could not be measured.
53 When the seven years of plenty were ended in the land of Egypt,
54 The seven years of scarcity and famine began to come, as Joseph had said they would; the famine was in all [the surrounding] lands, but in all of Egypt there was food.
55 But when all the land of Egypt was weakened with hunger, the people [there] cried to Pharaoh for food; and Pharaoh said to [them] all, Go to Joseph; what he says to you, do.
Before I go any further, I think that it's important for me to explain what I mean when I say "storm". There are various types of storms such as: tornado, hurricane, tsunami, blizzard, etc. In this particular post we're not talking about those types of storms, we are talking about the storms of life. What are storms of life you may ask? A storm of life could be any of the following: job loss, death of a loved one, loss of health, children misbehaving, poverty, trouble in your marriage, and other related issues. Now that we have explained that let's go into the Word of God.
In the above scriptures we can see that Joseph used foresight. He knew that according to Pharaoh's dream, there would be 7 years of plenty and 7 years of famine. Instead of overlooking the revelation that God gave him, he decided to put something back for the 7 years of famine. Many times Christians get that income tax check and go out and spend every last cent of it. I know because my husband and I have been guilty of this very thing. When tough times came we always ran into trouble simply because we didn't think about saving anything in our time of plenty.
People often ask me, why do you ask people to pray for your marriage when everything is still going fine? I tell them because I don't want to wait until things get bad before we get prayer. We want to store prayers up right now so that when we face problems, we will be able to withstand the enemy. Look around and see how many good people are ending up divorced and you'll completely understand why we have to get down to business with God when things are going well. Don't wait until the storm comes to build your house! 1 Thessalonians 5:17 (KJV) says: Pray without ceasing. No matter how good things are going in life, remember to stay prayerful. Don't wait until someone dies to pray...Don't wait until you lose your job to pray....Don't wait until another terrorist attack happens to pray....Now is the needed time.
Before I end this post let me also say that it's important that we not only invest prayers and fasting but we should also invest time. Not just time with God but also time with our loved ones. What usually happens is we get comfortable and complacent when it comes to spending time with our family, but when that person passes away we want to nut up and go crazy. We then start to regret that we didn't call or visit that person. I've been guilty of the same thing. I've been blessed with the best grandparents that any human being could ever have. They raised me from the age of 10 years old to the age of 23. They raised me in spite of the fact that they had already raised their kids to be productive adults. After I got married and had two kids of my own, I became so enveloped in them that I didn't give my grandparents the time they deserved. Now that God has brought this to my attention, I do all I can to spend more time with them. So it's important that we invest our time as well as our prayers into every area and aspect of our lives. Don't wait until the storm comes to build your house!!
Remain blessed
Chevonne Reynolds
God's Glory http://www.chevonnereynolds.webs.com
1 comment:
Loved your post and especially like when you mentioned some people wait till the storm comes before they pray and fast. I so agree with you on this matter I don't know what it is about us as humans we don't never want to pray until life causes us to be frazzled, or depressed and stressed. I am beginning to wonder do we really know the true importance of prayer. For if we did we would pray daily.
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