Immovable
I have a new prayer for all my family—Ray and me, our children and their spouses, our grandchildren and their spouses, and every future generation until Jesus returns.
God, please make each one of us immovable.
In our Sunday school class yesterday, we studied prayers in the book of Jeremiah. Poor Jeremiah. What abuse he suffered. Over and over again, he told the Israelites what God wanted them to hear. Over and over again, they abused him and rejected his message.
“Why didn’t they listen to Jeremiah?” one of our class members wondered. “They knew he was from God.”
One problem was that Jeremiah wasn’t the only one talking. The Israelites had other voices they could listen to as well. Those other voices told them what they wanted to hear.
It is the same today. Many voices compete for our attention. It’s easy to listen to the ones who are saying what we want to hear.
The world tells us to be flexible—and definitely not immovable. Flexibility is certainly good in many situations. Being flexible in simple day-to-day occurrences is one way to put the needs of others above our own. We should be willing to say, “Sure, you can leave your LEGO® castle in the floor until Grammie can see it” or “Yes, Honey, I don’t mind waiting until tomorrow for you to do X, Y, or Z, since you don’t feel good today.”
On the other hand, flexibility is not okay when it comes to our obeying God. Yes, He understands that we are weak. Yes, God offers forgiveness. Yes, He offers us grace. Praise Him for being that way because we’d all be in an impossible predicament if He hadn’t sent Jesus to make His grace and forgiveness possible. And yes, He commands us to forgive and give grace to others.
Still, God wants us to believe in Him no matter what, to submit to His will no matter what. He wants us to remain faithful, to be steadfast. That’s why I am asking God to make me immovable and to make my family immovable, too.
Move away from God? No way! As I’ve told Ray many times, you’re stuck with me. I’m not going anywhere.
I’m not going away from God either. I pray that is true for all our generations. I pray it is true for yours, too.
Finding today’s post a bit challenging to illustrate, I searched online for the word pray within the public domain images of New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Isn’t this a precious figurine? It represents young Samuel praying to God.
In the 15th chapter of 1 Corinthians, God inspired Paul to tell us what is most important. Of first importance is that:
. . . Christ died for our sins
according to the Scriptures,
and that He was buried,
and that He was raised on the third day
according to the Scriptures . . .
1 Corinthians 15:3-4
Paul goes on to tell the Corinthians about the day when death will be “swallowed up in victory.” He ends the chapter with a verse that combines a description of what we want for our children—that they “be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord”—and words of particular encouragement to busy homeschooling mamas—”your toil is not in vain in the Lord.”
Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable,
always abounding in the work of the Lord,
knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.
1 Corinthians 15:58