So often on Monday mornings our heads are a blur. The weekend flashes past us and a new week of duties finds us before we really feel like we got to catch our breath from the previous week. Life can be hurried and I find that no other day of the week feels more jumbled than Monday. For this reason I like to narrow my focus to a handful of achievable items and do my best to funnel my efforts into them while putting the remaining clutter on hold for the following day. Here are my three items today and I extract them from Paul’s chapter on purposed worship in the life of Jesus’ followers. He says in simple instruction to you:
“Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.” – Romans 12:12 {ESV}
Rejoice in hope – this command is not the typical “cross your fingers and hold out for the best” kind of thinking. The hope which Scripture unfolds is the believer’s certainty that everything in her life is under the perfect providence of the God to whom she belongs. We do not hope in our ability to completely understand all that God is doing but, instead, we anchor our assurance in whom He declares Himself to be. God is not to be figured out. He is to be trusted and enjoyed – herein we find true hope. God is good, faithful, holy, all-powerful, wise, compassionate and active towards us. He has confirmed His promises to us in the person of Jesus Christ and has revealed to us a destiny in Christ which can never fade or become corrupted. We are in the midst of a frequently rocky voyage but the glorious and true God has promised that He will bring us safely to the appointed and desired haven. Because of the certainty of this overriding hope, we are commanded and empowered to rejoice today.
Be patient in tribulation – Oh, how this grates against our nature! Tribulation, we think, is to be avoided, lessened, denied, refused and brought to its quickest end. To endure it with patience is simply not in our nature. This is yet another reason why the believer must abide in his Savior. Only in Christ can we experience patient steadfastness when life presses in. Pressurized fear, pain, loss, powerlessness, solitude, depression, persecution and spiritual warfare come against all saints who have once raised the banner of God’s glory outside the castle of their hearts. Even if we had nothing from the outside coming against us there is the reality of tribulation from within – our sin, our accusing conscience, our woefully intermittent dependability, our fears and our desire to be in control of life. All of these things war from the inside while the other provocations assail from the outside and we find our soul caught in the squeeze. And to all of this we are called to be patient. We wait on the deliverances. We occupy until He comes in a designed and well-timed rescue. It is not only for His Second Coming that we wait but we also look for specific comings where He delivers us from our present distresses as they come to us. He is a Helper in our time of trouble. We are made patient through tribulation so that we may magnify Him by becoming patient in tribulation.
Be constant in prayer – This is where we always end up finding ourselves, is it not? When we cannot solve the puzzles, when we cannot mend the breach, when we are unable to retrieve what has been taken, when our logic fails and our words melt down…we are afforded this high privilege of praying to God. It is a shame that many have grown up and out of this high calling. They read but no longer pray. They get and give counsel but do not groan in petition to the God who awaits their cries. They are duped by their own theology and ask, “Why pray when the sovereign God already has His plan enacted?” They certainly give their minds to the issues which haunt them but they do not give their lips to speak with God nor their ears to discern what He would say back to them. Paul does not merely tell us to be prayerful but he rather emphasizes the need to be constantly praying. This speaks of a purposed, definitive commitment to dialogue with God in the Spirit. It involves articulated words but there is so much more. It calls for our brokenness, our desperation, our convincing that we can do nothing apart from Christ. We are called to drop all pretense and all self-confidence and to approach the Almighty as boldly and yet as helplessly as children who need something far beyond the scope of their ability and understanding. We cry silently to Him in our minds. We cry aloud with passion and faith, working through the dilemmas of knowing His precise desires. We call out in the seasons where we hear back from Him quickly. Yet we also call consistently when His silence is His answer to us again and again. Our job is to petition Him. His obligation is to show Himself true by working all things together for our good. The process is deep and mysterious sometimes but the responsibility is very clear: be constant in prayer.