Monday, December 6, 2010

Your prayer has been heard

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbbtOlo_zj0

Let's examine some amazing statements in scripture for the coming weeks, beginning with Luke's telling of the coming birth of our Lord (as seen through the cockeyed mind that is my own).

Fromt the first chapter: "It so happened that as Zachariah was carrying out his priestly duties before God, working the shift assigned to his regiment, it came his one turn in life to enter the sanctuary of God and burn incense. The congregation was gathered and praying outside the Temple at the hour of the incense offering. Unannounced, an angel of God appeared just to the right of the altar of incense. Zachariah was paralyzed in fear.

"But the angel reassured him, "Don't fear, Zachariah. Your prayer has been heard. Elizabeth, your wife, will bear a son by you. You are to name him John. You're going to leap like a gazelle for joy, and not only you—many will delight in his birth. He'll achieve great stature with God."

What strikes me here is that that an angel appears and says, "Your prayer has been heard." And, "You're going to leap like a gazelle for joy."

Now, old Zachariah had not, one presumes, prayed for a son who would become the forebearer of the Messiah. He simply wanted a child, and his wife was barren. Imagine that you had spent years upon years as a priest and wanted one thing, one thing only, and it wouldn't happen.

Not so hard to imagine, huh?

You've wanted a home of your own, and nothing.
You've wanted a healthy mate, child, friend, and nothing.
You've wanted to get out of debt and it grew.
You've wanted to change yourself, and you drank more, snorted more, ate more, cursed more, were more selfish and nothing works and you're near your end with this prayer stuff.

And an angel appears and says, your prayer has been heard.

Oh, my, goodness.

However a gazelle leaps, that's what you would do, I imagine.

Divine promise is something amazing, to us the reader and to those who were the recepient. Old Zechariah wanted a child. He got a man of God whom the Messiah would call greatest of all men.

I'm so very proud of my children. Their accomplishments are their accomplishments big and small. But they are who they are, and I love them dearly.

But imagine if you were gifted with John. Or for that matter, Jesus.

Leaping like a gazelle doesn't really cover it, does it?

But the point is this: they didn't know when their children were born who or what they would become. They, Elizabeth and Zechariah, Joseph and Mary, only knew they had children, and prayers were answered.

Isn't that enough? Isn't that all we really want? Just a closer walk with thee, Lord, to know that you are there and these prayers we offer are heard. That is enough.

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