James 5:13-16 "Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise? Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they ahve sinned, they will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective."
I am going to make today's blog personal again, God has put it on my heart to be honest with you about some of my struggles so that others may learn from them.
I have been battling some health afflictions since January of this year and I will admit I have not asked for prayer for myself as I should even though God has told me to. I have not been obedient and gone to the altar when he told me to, I have not asked our ladies to pray for me and until very recently I have not asked the elders of the church for prayer even though God has been telling me to for months.
Why you ask? One of the biggest reasons is fear if I am being honest, fear of opening myself up to others and being hurt again. I have been hurt by so many adult humans in my adult life that I have trouble trusting not just people but myself. It has nothing to do with other people that I have recently met and how they are treating me know, it has to do with how I have been treated in my past and until recently I hadn't completely let all of that go. It has taken a lot of prayer and time on my knees to get past this, but I am finally to a place to where I have realized that I am not defined by the way other people treat me or have treated me and that I have a lot of great people waiting to come into my life and if I don't open back up soon I may lose that chance.
The second reason I don't ask for prayer for myself is I feel as if I am being selfish, there are so many other people that need so much more than I do, that I think there needs should come first. That is probably why over that last three weeks God has very strongly been putting the true meaning of the Sabbath on my heart and having me study that almost every where I turn. And bringing me to verses like the one above from James where we are to ask for prayer, we are to turn to our church family.
The verse above also says we are to confess our sins so I am going to confess a disobedience, the week before I came to the altar to be anointed by oil, I felt called to do that very thing and I completely ignored it. Yes, you read that I right I ignored instructions from God and he disciplined me, I had a week of stress and suffering over my upcoming procedure that if I would've just gone to the altar and asked for prayer like he directed I am positive I would not have gone through. Because as soon as I had the elders pray and anoint me, there was a warm peace that wrapped itself around me and all of my concerns about my procedure were gone. Praise God! I am 100% positive he has used this as a teaching moment to show me that if we just pay attention to his word and guidance he will take care of us and to quit thinking that his word doesn't apply to us because we are scared or think we are being selfish. Truth that is Satan attacking us and keeping us from the peace God has promised.
In closing, we have a wonderful loving Father who knows what's best for us, and even though we want to be rebellious children at times and he has to discpline us to get us back in line, he is true to his word and will keep his promises if we just listen.
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