Monday April 10, 2011

Once we have humbled ourselves and admit that we can’t do it on our own, we are in the best place to pray. The question is “To whom do we pray to?” There are many gods that we can worship and turn to in times of being humbled. We could look to others who have the resources we don’t and try to depend upon them to get us out of our dilemma. In II Chronicles 16 there was a man by the name of Asa who was a good king and he sought the Lord most of his life. But in the later years of his life rather than turning to God when he was in a pickle, he turned to his neighbor for help. His prayers were directed at others.

Sometimes when we are in depression and are feeling inadequate, we can pray to the material gods to seek relief. I know of one such person who would buy jewelry ($10,000+ per shopping spree) to take the edge off, but never wore the jewelry because the good feeling she had when she bought it wore off when the jewelry was put in the jewelry case. It could be a shoe fetish as was the case for Imelda Marcos who had 6000+ shoes in her closet. Do you know how many years it would take to wear one pair of shoes a day (you guessed it 16+years). Husbands be thankful.

What is the god or gods to whom you seek to get comfort when you are feeling inadequate? It could be recreation equipment that we take out in the desert on the weekends. It could be a love for money that you depend upon when times get tough. Sometimes when we think of other gods, we think of the golden calf that Aaron made and caused the people to bow down. But a god is really anything that we give attention to and alligence to and turn to when we are in crisis or when times are good. God was aware of this and made the first commandment of the ten that we were to have no other God’s before Him. Why did He put that in? Because He knew that when we were having difficulty our natural tendency would be to turn to others or other things to seek to satisfy our feelings of inadequacy.

The healing process works when the creator of the universe is at the center of our prayers. On this healing journey take time to pray to the One who not only hears our prayers but has the power to answer them.