1 John Chapter 3

“Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.” ~ I John 3:21-22 (NASB)

A Prayer Over Our Children

Oh God, lavish Your love on my child and bring her into the Light so that she may become Your child. Please purify her through the hope she holds in You and forgive her of all sin. Protect her from being led astray, oh God, and make her righteous in Your eyes. Let her be born of You that she may do what is right and love others. I pray that You will raise her from death to life and fill her with Your love, ridding her of any hate. ... 

Oh God, make real to her Your ultimate act of love so that she may know what true love is through You. I pray that she will learn to love beyond just words but to love in truth and with her actions. Set her heart at rest in You without blame or condemnation so that she might be blessed with all that she asks. I pray, oh God, that she will obey Your commandments and do what is pleasing to You, believing in Your Name and loving others. Holy Spirit live in my little one and let her live in You. 

Stillness
A new season is dawning in my life. One which I welcome with great love yet much trepidation. So, it is no surprise that emotions fly high and crash low. This roller coaster ride of emotions can leave me breathless and wanting. It can even leave me feeling empty and dry. Whatever it is, today I felt broken and downtrodden. 
     
A weekend filled to the brim with truths, I felt overwhelmed by their vastness and number. A weekend also where hard conversations commenced and emotions rubbed raw, I felt spent and void. I sat there in Sunday School with a wave of sadness crashing over me and tears held back. Yet even in our sadness, the Spirit speaks on our behalf, uttering groans for words which we do not possess. For even in this crashing wave, someone attentive to the Spirit wandered my way.
     
“Are you okay?” came the gentle question, asked in the manner of one used to seeing the soul from within. I knew without hesitation the Spirit had prompted this kind and caring person to look my way and to offer an encouraging word. Isn’t this just like our Father? Showering love so richly upon us, that we are lavished by His care through the hands and feet of the body of Christ? And for this fleeting time, the wave lifted and set me free. 
     
Yet, I find when the stakes are high, the Enemy wages war thick and heavy, persistent and unrelenting in the attack. Two invisible weights sat heavy upon my eye lids as we drove home from church. It took all my effort to open them even a crack. It took more than I felt had to muster.
     
“What is wrong with me?” I wailed to my husband, “I can barely keep my eyes open and I feel so broken.” My husband, so wise after so many years of marriage, spoke not a word as I talked but simply prayed silently. Soon, the heaviness lifted, and the sun emerged once more. Normal activities resumed in the brightness of light. But clouds still lingered, and the chasm remained.
     
That night, God in His infinite wisdom orchestrated an activity with our evening Sunday class which identified the thrust to the bagging void. Are you yielded? Do you truly believe that I can do all things? Do you believe that even you can be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit? I sat there with these quiet questions ringing in my ears, convicted to the core. Did I believe? Did I truly believe?

“Put three things in your bucket that you wish God to fill and make whole,” came the instructions. And as an act of faith, I dropped each of these things in my own bucket. 
     
“Help my unbelief, oh Lord,” pleaded my silent whisper of the soul. “Help my unbelief that you can do all things even amidst the difficult and the seemingly impossible. Oh Father, fill me with the power of Your Holy Spirit and help me be fully yielded to You,” I silently implored.
     
That night, I fell into bed, exhausted at the core. My entire being felt emotionally, physically, and spiritually spent. Yet, I say again, when the stakes are high, the Enemy persists. For when the next day dawned, the spark of life did not fire up as I expected. I still awoke broken and empty crying out for God. What is this? I asked myself, why do I feel in ruins? 
   
​The answer came during my sweaty sprint on the treadmill with a friend. Amidst the music blaring, muscles straining, and breaths gasping, the quiet whisper spoke to my soul: "You must become broken before I build you up again."

Tears flooded to my eyes as visions of Nehemiah building back up the ruins of Jerusalem’s walls suddenly came pouring into my head. Deeper still were the vivid images of Jesus’s broken body which flashed through my mind with sobering intensity. Tears continued welling as I envisioned the body of Jesus hanging on the cross, pierced and dead only to be laid in a tomb that the grave would be defeated and life everlasting won. 
     
"That which is broken will be broken for me," spoke that gentle, inaudible voice, "and it will be me who builds you up again so that you may be made stronger. I will make you a foundation that is firm. I will make you a foundation that is strong."

​Even now as I write these words, emotion catches in my throat. For sometimes, we must be broken before we can be built back up in the Lord.
     
Brokenness allows us to sit in a posture of humility and dependence upon the Lord. It hurts, it causes pain, and it stinks. But, in time, this brokenness can become an unlikely instrument that will sharpen the iron of our spiritual weapons to even finer points so that it may thrust a more deadly blow against the Enemy. How? Because brokenness is a tool which God uses to refine us in the fire. He uses it to hone our rough edges that we may come out as pure gold. Brokenness is a hard place to be, but it is also a beautiful place to be.
     
For there we sit with nowhere else to go but to the Father. Our brokenness drives us to the cross with deeper intensity and greater thirst. For when we are nothing, we have nothing to bring but ourselves. We have nothing to offer but our emptiness, our pain, our brokenness, disappointments, and failures. We have nothing but our filthy rags. 
     
And as I sat listening to the rap-rap-rapping of the rain tap-tap-tapping against my roof, I found myself in intimate communion with our Lord. Birds chirped and the wind blew, breathing stillness over my soul. There I sat at the feet of my Savior, drinking in His quiet presence in the stillness of the cross. Here, at His feet, I can listen. Here, in His presence, I am yielded. Here, at the foot of the cross, I pour out my doubts, uncertainties, and shame. Here, He fills me with peace. Here, I am made whole. Here, is where I never want to leave.
     
Tree branches rustle and air breathes through the leaves, filling my lungs with deep, full breaths. The chatter of birds joins with the worship dancing in my soul while the sound of wind chimes fill the chords with praise. And it is well. It is well with my soul. 
     
Dearest friends and brethren in the Lord, I encourage you to sit at the Father’s feet. To soak in the fullness of His presence. To just be. For it is at the foot of the cross that we can lay all our burdens down and find rest. Jesus tells us, “Come, you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest (Matthew 11:28).”

Let us lay it all down before Jesus’ feet that we may know rest this day. Let us give to Him all our disappointments, brokenness, weariness, and pain for in His presence, we will be made whole again. Let us be still and know that He is God.

A Parent's Prayer

Oh God, help me to sit here at Your feet. I bring You all my burdens, my brokenness, the chaos, and the noise. Help me leave each one of these things with You. Take my weariness and my burdens that I may find rest in You. Help me be still and know that You are God this day. Amen.

A recommendation for your enjoyment: