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“Go get the paper,
Lucy.”
These words are said almost daily at our house. Then the big eighty-pound chocolate Aussiedor flies,
as much as a ten year old dog can fly, and fetches the paper—a trick I taught her when she was a
puppy.
She trots back to the
door, a treat in mind.
If the Lucy video fails to load, you may go HERE.
What you don’t
see in that video is she’s learned that her humans can get distracted and
forget to give her the dog biscuit she’s earned, so she holds onto the paper until
the very, very last minute to be sure a treat is in the human hand.
Smart girl.
It seems almost every day and from
every direction this past week, we’ve received news of serious and difficult situations
that require much ongoing prayer. I’ve been reminded of Lucy's holding on and
need to take a cue from her so that I, too, hold on and persist in prayer.
In years past, we
used to use a phrase in the church called “praying through.” It meant to
continue in prayer until we saw God move. This doesn’t mean that we try to manipulate
God into getting the answer we want, because so many times, the answer will not be exactly what we had in mind, but it does mean we don’t offer up a quick prayer
and go to the next. We are changed through our intercession. I’ll say that again,
WE are changed through the prayers we pray for others.
As we're on our knees, transformation
occurs because we are emptied of our own desires and allow them to align with
what God has in mind.
The Amplified
version cites Jesus’s words in Matthew 7:7 this way, “Ask and keep on asking and it will be given to you;
seek and keep on seeking and you will find; knock and keep on knocking and the door will be opened
to you.”
God reminded me again this week, that some of the most incredible
things I’ve seen God do had nothing to do with my own actions, but how He acted
when I was able to persist in prayer.
So, my friends, let’s keep holding on in prayer. I know there
are some who may be feeling things are sliding off the mountain right now, but God gets
the last word. Let’s pray through and see what He will do.
