Divine Moments

You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. (James 4:2-3)
The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. (James 5:16b)
If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. (John 15:7)

Do you ever get caught in the monotony of life and wonder if God is really hearing your prayers? You might feel like you are exactly where you need to be and just need a little confirmation from the Lord. There are many reasons that God may have you in a place of silence. Sometimes, God seems silent and distant, because we are silent and distant toward Him. Whenever there is a communication breakdown, there are always problems with sending and receiving messages from God or each other. At other times, God may be silent just to see if you are willing to open up and share your heart with Him. He has so much to share, already knows everything about you, but it seems that when we talk to Him, our hearts are set free in the vulnerable yet freeing force of prayer.

Yesterday, I was having one of those days when I had been talking and talking over the past few days and hadn’t really seen the evidence of my communion with God. For the most part, it is often easy to neglect, overlook or take for granted all of the daily blessings of being a child of God. I do this often and I am sure that I miss many blessings, because my spiritual eyes are sleepy and heart becomes calloused. However, God can give us breakthroughs into eternity just as we need them. They are divine moments… I had one about 9:05 yesterday.

While walking beside the 12-15ft high fence with razor barbwire, I prayed a simple prayer to the Lord. “Father, are you listening to anything that I have to say. Will you please let me know today?” How many times have you felt like this? It was about 8:45AM. I went through checkpoint, behind two metal doors and into the common area of the prison. The inmate I was visiting had not arrived, so I opened my Bible and began reading. At 9:05, a man named Mr. Whitaker came up to me and asked if I was the one who spoke at a prison across town about 8 months ago. He said that he was there that day and remembered the message very well. He encouraged me to continue to share the Gospel. He was around 40 and was encouraged by a 27 year old who loved Jesus. He told me to keep pressing forward, because the Lord was with me.

Of all the people and places that I could have been, God chose to use a prisoner that I couldn’t even remember his face or name to remind me that He was looking down at that moment and saying keep pressing on my son! God has a special way of encouraging us. He spoke to Hagar the Egyptian servant of Sarah by a well, and she called Him the LORD who sees (Gen 16). When Elijah needed food by the brook Cherith, God used the ravens that are normally pests to feed him (1 Kings 17). God has enough power to use anything at anytime to get His message through. The Lord encourages us in Jeremiah 29:13, “You shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.”

What do you think are divine moments? Or, what do you think makes a person so great in the eyes of God. Is it some great milestone or achievement that automatically places someone into a class of the spiritual elite? I don’t think so. I believe God’s greatest treasures and pleasures on earth are those who consistently pursue the His heart, day in and day out. Over the course of a lifetime through the rigorous day-to-day activities, those divine moments where heaven touches earth paint a picture of grace through a godly man or woman of the life Jesus lived. The last line of an old hymn says it best, “May I thy consolation share, Till from Mount Pisgah lofty height, I view my home and take my flight, This robe of flesh I’ll drop and rise to seize the everlasting prize and shout while passing through the air, Farewell, farewell, sweet hour of prayer.” Let those moments spent with Jesus add up to minutes, hours, days, weeks and years until at the end your life becomes one big conversation with God!