Ask, I’m told. So I will ask. Seek, I’m told. So I will seek. Knock, yes, I’m told. So I will knock.
What am I asking? God, I’m hurting. I’m depressed. I feel weighed down. When will I get a break? When will this end? When will things calm down? God, send your angels to protect me and mine. Surround us with your love and safety. Bring peace to us here on this earth. Heal us with your love. Teach us to trust again. Share with us your bounty so that we can be generous to others. Forgive us our sins and help us to turn to you everyday, in every moment.
I am seeking you Lord. I am seeking you in your word. I am seeking you in the sky and in the mountains. I am seeking you Lord. Will you be found? I have searched for you in the music and found beauty. But you were not there. I searched for you in books and found knowledge. But your wisdom was not there. I searched for you in your word and there I found love. Your love reaches down into my soul and makes room for peace. It shoves out the cares and sorrows in my heart. The joy fills it instead.
I am knocking on the door. I want to be let into your presence. I want to be let into a different job. I need something to solve this puzzle that is my life. This isn’t what I was planning. This isn’t how it was supposed to be. I look and you are opening doors for me. You open the doors of my mind to show me your plans. You open the doors of my heart to come and live with me. You open the doors to others to show me your love through them. You ask me to do things for others to teach me to share. You are opening up life around me. I need to look and be aware of it.
The psalmist says: When besieged, I’m calm as a baby. When all hell breaks loose, I’m collected and cool. I’m asking God for one thing, only one thing: To live with him in his house my whole life long. I’ll contemplate his beauty; I’ll study at his feet. That’s the only quiet, secure place in a noisy world. It is the perfect getaway, far from the buzz of traffic.
James 5:13-18 Are you hurting? Pray. Do you feel great? Sing. Are you sick? Call the church leaders together to pray and anoint you with oil in the name of the Master. Believing-prayer will heal you, and Jesus will put you on your feet. And if you’ve sinned, you’ll be forgiven—healed inside and out.
16-18 Make this your common practice: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed. The prayer of a person living right with God is something powerful to be reckoned with. Elijah, for instance, human just like us, prayed hard that it wouldn’t rain, and it didn’t—not a drop for three and a half years. Then he prayed that it would rain, and it did. The showers came and everything started growing again.
