Today’s Manna – Our Daily Bread
http://bible.com/116/lam.2.19.nlt
Rise during the night and cry out. Pour out your hearts like water to the Lord. Lift up your hands to him in prayer, pleading for your children, for in every street they are faint with hunger.
Today’s Observation
What am I supposed to do?
Why am I doing it?
When I read the Word, am I listening and applying it to my life? I should be.
And what does this passage tell us to do? This passage is about sin and how it separates us from God, and about how God’s judgement will be poured out upon those that are not His. Yes, there is judgement. Yes, there is punishment. Yes, there is consequence for our choices. Yes, we will account for our lives.
So we are to recognize this and understand it. There is a very real reason for us to find fear of God. There is a very real need for grace and salvation and redemption.
Prayer isn’t just an empty set of words spoken to God. Prayer isn’t just rubbing the genie lamp and asking for what we want in this life.
Prayer is surrendering our thoughts, pouring out our hearts to the Lord. Prayer is pleading with the Lord for ourselves and others.
Pleading.
Do we even understand what pleading is when we live in a world where everything we want is at our fingertips? Have we lost the meaning of pleading and replaced it with treating God like a Google search engine where we mention something and expect it done? Have we made it all about our receiving and forgotten the change that is supposed to happen on the inside as a result of prayer?
plead·ing [ˈplēdiNG] noun
1. the action of making an emotional or earnest appeal to someone.
“he ignored her pleading”
2. LAW a formal statement of the cause of an action or defense.
Are our prayers an emotional and earnest appeal to God? Are we presenting our case before God for His consideration. Are we pleading with Him on behalf of others?
And why should we pray like this? Because we need it, the act of pleading changes our perspective, we become invested, we begin to care, we begin to examine how the Lord might use me to help and encourage and serve. Because others need it, the prayers of the righteous are powerful. If we are not righteous, then we need to fix that so that our prayers are effective, and so that we are paying in His will.
Hope
We find Hope in this passage when we realize that we feed others, that we help others, when we pray for them, when we plead their case. All of us have the ability to take a moment and to care enough to spend time with the Lord pleading.
Faith & Love
The question isn’t whether or not we have the time or ability. The question comes down to whether or not we believe that our prayers matter and whether or not we care enough about others to pay for them. If we believe that our prayers have power, but we withhold our prayers and do not plead for others, how can we say that we have Love? If we care about others, but we don’t believe that our prayer males a difference, how can we say that we have Faith?
Teach us to trust. Teach us to love.
There are many hungry for the Word. There are many lost and in need.
Will we plead for them today?
Harold J. Ballinger 