Last night and this morning I heard an incredible sermon preached by James Allison, a local area pastor who is also a friend of our lead pastor Joel. Wow. I’m not going to attempt to recreate it here because you’re better off just listening to it (I’ll post the link when the audio becomes available), but I’ll just share one little tidbit that stuck out to me. James and his wife have three children, two boys and a girl, and their youngest was diagnosed with aggressive leukemia when she was 2 years old. She’s spent 2 1/2 years battling, going throug intense chemo and treatments through her tender toddler years. Amazing. The story he shared was from 2 Chronicles 20, where King Jehoshaphat leads the army of Juday in prayer and worship, and God goes before them and defeats the three massive armies that had come to destroy the people of God.
I love it when I hear passages that I have even taught myself, and yet God brings them alive in amazing new ways. That’s what this was for me. I’d always gotten the part about “worship God first and watch Him fight your battles” (by “gotten” I mean seen, not that i’d necessarily lived it out!!), but something James said really stood out to me. He pointed out how Jehoshaphat received the bad news (armies are coming to destroy you) and he turned his full attention to God. That’s literally what the phrase means there in the passage. Now our normal reaction in a crisis is to pray, yes–everyone prays. It’s naturally for us to go “Help! Help me! Look at me! Focus on me! Help me!” But even though our mouths are going a mile a minute to God, our hearts, attention, eyes, focus, and energy if still firmly fixed on the problem at hand, on the circumstances. What Jehoshaphat modeled is what we should do instead: Rather than just blabbering to God as if He doesn’t already know about the problem, we should turn our full attention away from the trial, away from the fear, away from the circumstance, and consciously turn our attention on God and His greatness, His glory, His perfection, His faithfulness. That is different than just whining to God about our problems all day long while we are still firmly focused and fixed on the tragedy or trial. Huge difference!
I’d really suggest listening to the audio if you have a chance. Very powerful sermon with even some subpoints that were awesome regarding parenting and leadership. For me, my goal this week is to not just pray with my lips, but to pray with my heart, mind, energy, attention, and emotions firmly fixed on God rather than the waves tossing and turning around me. To turn my attention to Him.