Divine Restoration // Step Into Your Divine RoleVoorbeeld

A Father’s Plea

Why do you want to remain here? Stuck? Convinced that this is all that there is for you?  Your faith is small, your imagination limited by the problems pressing in. Problems are not going fully away--not while you are on earth. Not while my Son has not yet come again. But why do you not lift your head? Why can you not look into my eyes? Why won’t you look away from the problems? Why are you fixating on them as if worrying about them will give you control over them somehow? 

Look at Me. See Me looking at you. See my love for you. It is all around. It is in you. For I am here, all around you; I am within you. 

You are my beloved. But do you hear Me? You often don’t hear Me. But I am speaking. I am talking to you. I am loving you. I am going before you. I am before you and beneath you. I am to your right and to your left. I am in the air and in the soil. I am in all thing that breathe. And I am where breath is not, too.

You are my dearest one, my child whom I protect and I rejoice over. You are my favorite. You are my favorite. There is no one else I love more than you. There is not one bit of my love that I withhold from you. So, I want to fill you. I want to restore you. I want to help you to feel my love, trust in my love, make every decision from my love. Because while problems may not go away anytime soon, you need not despair. 

There will be a day when you realize your problems are so, so small, and you are okay. You’ve always been okay. You’ve always been cared for. You’ve always been carried. You’ve always had Me. You’ve always been enough. You’ve always had enough. You’ve always been the one I’ve loved. But why wait for that day? Why assume it’s not coming anytime soon so you’d better hunker down and try to figure out a solution to your every problem? Why obsess over the problems you can’t fix--worry and worry and worry about them? This is a wasted life. This is a foolish way to live. This is a throwing away of what I give you. This is an ignoring and rejecting of my love. 

And you get to do that. Reject Me. Ignore Me. Forget Me. Not love Me. You get to choose how to spend your days. You get to choose indifference. You get to choose complacency. You get to choose stubbornness. You get to choose hard-heartedness. You get to choose pride. You get to choose self-righteousness. You get to choose to go away, go so far away from Me in your heart. But I am not leaving you. And I am not giving up on you. And I am not forgetting you. 

I will let you resist Me. I will let you deny Me. I will let you not love Me. And I will love you always the same, always the same.

I am here, my son. I am here, my daughter. Come home. You are loved here. You are cared for here. You are wanted here. You are enough here. Come, come, come.

Exercise:

As Jennifer and I move along these paths, as we journey toward God, toward more maturity and more wholeness, we’ve come to a greater appreciation of the power of prayer. We both grew up in Christian homes, so we’ve been quote/unquote praying for a very long time. But, this last year, we tried something new—and, quite frankly, we were kind of astonished.

In 2018, we pulled together, and formalized, an intercessory team for our ministry, Gather. We asked a small number of people to begin praying for us on a consistent basis—and to be there to pray for us when we ask, when we come to them with particular issues and prayer requests.

And let me tell you, we’re getting to see the power of prayer in real time. There have been times where Jenn and I would be experiencing something—reconciliation after an argument; increased creativity around a particular project; unexpected provision for our nonprofit; whatever—and right in the middle of that experience, a message from one of our intercessors would show up on our phones indicating that a team member was praying for exactly what we were, at that moment, experiencing.

This happened multiple times—and each time it impressed upon our hearts the truth of what James, the brother of Jesus, wrote: that “tremendous power is released through the passionate, heartfelt prayer of a godly believer!” That’s James chapter 5, verse 16.

James’ words are amazing, and they’re true—and we’ve gotten to see that truth up close.

So, you, dear friend, can, if you want to, release tremendous power into your life and the lives of your loved ones. You’ve been given the ability and the authority to call the most powerful force in all the universe right down into your circumstances, even the most difficult—to pour into your circumstances the power of God Almighty, the very power of the maker of heaven and earth, of the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end of all things.

And there is no limit to this ability or this authority. We cannot do it too much. The apostle Paul, in fact, encouraged us to “pray without ceasing.” “Make your life a prayer,” he wrote. Those are two different translations of 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, verse 17.

We can call the awesome power of God into our circumstances whenever we want, as often as we want. We can do it every day.

One of my and Jennifer’s favorite daily prayers is attributed by ancient tradition to Saint Patrick, who’s also known as the Apostle to Ireland. This prayer is called “The Breastplate of St. Patrick” or “The Deer’s Cry.” And we love it because it’s beautiful and just a great prayer to start a day.

You will read it here in a minute—and we’ll include the text of it in the show notes—but let me give you a bit of lore first. Now, Ireland in the fifth century was a dangerous place for an evangelist of Jesus. All of Europe was a bit dangerous during the middle ages, for everybody—but telling people about the goodness and love of Jesus was particularly dangerous in this time, in this celtic and pagan land.

So, Patrick traveled about and did his work in the constant fear of being captured and killed. And one time, according to tradition, Patrick prayed this particular prayer, the one I’m about to read, upon realizing that an ambush was laid against him. And as a result of his prayer, says legend, he was able to walk right past the would be murderers—because he and his fellow monks appeared to them, not as men, but as wild deer with a fawn in tow.

True or not, that is one cool story about the power of prayer.

Anyway, here is The Breastplate of St. Patrick:

I arise today, through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity, through belief in the threeness, through confession of the oneness, of the Creator of Creation.

I arise today, through the strength of Christ's birth with his baptism, through the strength of his crucifixion with his burial, through the strength of his resurrection with his ascension, through the strength of his descent for the judgment of Doom.

I arise today, through the strength of the love of the Cherubim, in obedience of angels, in the service of archangels, in the hope of the resurrection to meet with reward, in the prayers of patriarchs, in prediction of prophets, in preaching of apostles, in faith of confessors, in innocence of holy virgins, in deeds of righteous men.

I arise today, through the strength of heaven; light of sun, radiance of moon, splendor of fire, speed of lightning, swiftness of wind, depth of sea, stability of earth, firmness of rock.

I arise today, through God's strength to pilot me: God's might to uphold me, God's wisdom to guide me, God's eye to look before me, God's ear to hear me, God's word to speak to me, God's hand to guard me, God's way to lie before me, God's shield to protect me, God's host to save me, from the snares of devils, from temptations of vices, from every one who shall wish me ill, afar and anear, alone and in a multitude.

I summon today, all these powers between me and those evils, against every cruel merciless power that may oppose my body and soul, against incantations of false prophets, against black laws of pagandom, against false laws of heretics, against craft of idolatry, against spells of smiths and wizards, against every knowledge that corrupts man's body and soul.

Christ to shield me today, against poisoning, against burning, against drowning, against wounding, so there come to me abundance of reward. Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left, Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise, Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of every one who speaks of me, Christ in the eye of every one that sees me, Christ in every ear that hears me.

I arise today, through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity, through belief in the threeness, through confession of the oneness, of the Creator of Creation.

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