From the Edges – Morning Devotional – Prayerful Faith

From the Edges – Morning Devotional
Pastor Calvin Cook
April 15, 2024 – Prayerful Faith
Scripture focus – John 16:31-33
31 “Do you now believe?” Jesus replied. 32 “A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me. 33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Sunday morning as I prepared for worship the words of the hymn “What a Friend we Have in Jesus” began playing in the background and begin to draw me to some self-diagnosis. I like you, if we would admit it, go through seasons of doubt. There are those moments when it seems everything, we do is ineffective. I am not just talking about in relationship in God, though I believe that must be first and foremost, but the doubt and ineffectiveness seems to overpower and overwhelm everything.

It is in these moments that we need to cling in a mighty way to the heart of God, not just for comfort but for direction. It is in these moments that the value of the means of grace and spiritual disciplines come into play. If I had not set this Sunday morning time aside, I would have certainly missed a great lesson of the Holy Spirit visiting and guiding me.

As the hymn “What a Friend we Have in Jesus” these words from the first verse especially rushed my soul and spoke to me, in a very emotional way. “What a friend we have in Jesus, “Oh, what peace we often forfeit, Oh, what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry Everything to God in prayer!”

It was if a lifetime of doubt and questioning was replaced by the peace that Jesus promised He would bring into my life. Bring into the lives of those who also doubt and are in a sea of unsteadiness. Before the world began, God had this plan and because of our own unsteadiness and self-centeredness we have sacrificed or as the hymn writer relays “forfeited” as we continue to carry the pain that should be surrendered so that we can move into the beauty and security of a life in Christ.

I just ask that you spend some time in prayer realizing that the reason we have so much negativity going on in our lives. We have allowed the present day to guide us and not the friendship that we have in Jesus. We have had strong opinions and chose ways that lead to greater harm instead of hearing and responding to the words of Jesus. “Come to me, you who are weighed down, and I will give you peace”.