TIME TO REBOOT..... TO HOPE

Senior citizens in the west are treated as almost a disposable group. I have seen in first hand, in over a decade of ministering to and at Senior; Retirement and nursing homes. To be fair, many residents in these homes do need professional medical and other care which they may not be able to receive at home by themsel
ves. However the Lord has a great message for those feel lost, lonely and neglected.  If I had a dollar for every person who told me that our service to them, on a regular monthly basis, makes it easier for them to get through the week, I would be a rich man (in worldly terms).

There is a way for those who are aging, as we all are, to turn to the Lord, get out of the funk they're in..... and just reboot. The great inventor Thomas Edison, founder and creator of the functional light bulb and the record player, once lost over $1 million in property and equipment when his place burned down in West Orange, New Jersey. Think of all the things this genius inventor lost in that fire. One million dollars in 1914 was a huge fortune. Yet Edison said the following “there is value in disaster. All our mistakes are burned up. Now we can start anew!”

Imagine how different things can be for folks in their later years….and even the modern depressed younger generations, if they just turned to the Author and Perfecter of our Faith – the Lord Jesus Christ? His Words, the Words of the Father, inspired by the Holy Spirit are the Trinity of Excellence – timeless and true for all ages of all time. Yet, only even 9-11% of Christians even have the Biblical worldview necessary to live in that peace, joy and contentment. Look at the powerful teaching and encouragement from even a small portion from the Prayer Book of the Bible – the Psalms. Psalm 71:9-14 is the plea of a person who is older. Yet, the Scriptures applies to everyone and a young single mom, or a soldier away from home can place his or her name in there and have the same power from Above as the plea reaches heaven.

Psalm 71.

9    Do not cast me off in the time of old age;

Do not forsake me when my strength fails.

10  For my enemies speak against me;

And those who lie in wait for my life take counsel together,

11  Saying, “God has forsaken him;

Pursue and take him, for there is none to deliver him.”

12  O God, do not be far from me;

O my God, make haste to help me!

13  Let them be confounded and consumed

Who are adversaries of my life;

Let them be covered with reproach and dishonor

Who seek my hurt.

14  But I will hope continually,

And will praise You yet more and more.

The inspired author is asking for the Lord not to cast him in Psalm 71:9 (Do not cast me off in the time of old age; do not forsake me when my strength fails). Sometimes the combat vet with extreme PTSD returning home, or the abandoned teenage girl under peer pressure or the young father struggling to pay medical bills for both his autistic son and an indigent parent DO feel unwanted, unloved and without a lifeline.  Sometimes it feels as if the silence from Heaven is even more overbearing when you’ve spent most of your Christian life talking about the goodness and trustworthiness of the Father. Yet, no help is around the corner.

In times like these, we do not just stop there in verse 9. We do not jump in with the crowd, who sound eerily like Job’s friends and the unbelievers who mock Christians and tell us “God has forsaken him….there is none to deliver him” (Verse 11). We press on. We pray on. We persevere on. We never give up.

We keep reading on and praying ahead and looking up and forward saying, as in Verse 12 in an even MORE intense plea “Oh God do not be far from me….make haste to help me!”  There is nothing wrong with desperate prayers, because if we stick with it. If we stay faithful. If we never ever give up, give in or throw in the towel. If we lift our eyes up unto the hills from where cometh our help...from where our help cometh from the Lord, the victory will come. Though weeping may endure for a night, joy cometh in the morning.

We may be in pain - young, old, middle-aged. We may feel forsaken. We may see the mocking and the scoffers making fun of our faith. We may even question our faith but HOLD ON! But look at what's coming! HOPE! Hope never dies! Faith is substance AND evidence so we do have a hope.

Look at verse 14 "But I will hope continually, and will praise You yet more and more"! That's powerful. Sometimes the thing we are praying for never gets answered or is answered in the negative. We never turn back because the Eternal City lies beyond Jordan! The Eternal City where the King lives across the cold running river with its unknown currents and turns. But we have Hope based on the substance of our Faith. This will never leave us stranded.

The bottom line is this - when the rubber meets the road and when trouble comes, reboot! Yes - start anew! It matters not if we are 75 years old, retired on a park bench feeding pigeons at 9 am or a 25 year old in the drive up line for a morning Java - start anew. Hope is around the corner. Reach out and grab it! Start anew by grasping for the Ancient Words from the Ancient of Days - Holy God. By doing so, a new God-ordained paradigm, which will immediately come into alignment with the Plans and Purposes of God to confirm our Hopeful Future! Glory to His Name. 

MOVING BEYOND "THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS".....

"With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints." (Ephesians 6:18)

We have all heard it and some of us have even said it "so and so are in our thoughts and prayers". Even people whom we know could not say a prayer to save their lives, or say they are atheists or not Christians will repeat this cliche.

But even worse than this, Christians are using the same phrase when wrapped up in the moment. Beyond all of the bluster about "being in our thoughts and prayers", do any of these folks actually pray for those to whom they say these things. From personal experience, before I realized I used to do the same thing, I can tell you that it is very easy to tell someone you will pray for them, then walk away and completely fail to do. Such a move is not right, even if we remember to pray three of four days later. After realizing my shortcoming, in this area of Faith, corrective action needed to be taken so this aspect of ministry could function with an unction.

Basically, when a person says to another that "you are in my thoughts and prayers" and then does not do so, it is deception. There are ways to avoid that and do the right thing...and that is, to really pray for there person right then and there. Sometimes, circumstances and potential discomfort of the recipient of those prayers, WILL prevent us from praying then and there with the person. In this case it is really beneficial to such a person, and then pertinent to our spiritual growth, if we take a note of the situation and immediately begin to pray in silence. Then, after getting to a place we can pray intensely, for real, we must bear down and contend for the recipient of our intercession.

There is a really memorable passage in Scripture of a woman who was the beneficiary of more than just "thoughts and prayers". 1 Kings 17:21-22 tells us of the great prophet Elijah, who had been staying with a widow woman and her son. He had already blessed the widow and proven himself as a man of God by miraculously causing her food not to run out, so that the widow, her son, and Elijah could all eat during a time of famine and drought. But during his stay, the widow’s son became ill and died. When Elijah prayed for the child’s life to return to him, God answered right away. This is a dramatic, immediate instance of God answering prayer....and instant prayer!

The Bible said of Elijah in these two verses: "Then he stretched himself upon the child three times and cried to the Lord, ‘O Lord my God, let this child’s life come into him again.’ And the Lord listened to the voice of Elijah. And the life of the child came into him again, and he revived". We may not be able to pray someone back from the dead, but we sure can lift high such a one to the One Who heals, reveals and blesses all things and all people - Yahweh Rophe - the God Who heals! He is Yahweh Shammah - the God Who is there for us if we cry out earnestly and pray for those ....truly pray for them, with all the Faith we can muster in our spirit, so that the Lord will hear from Heaven and answer our prayers. Why did God listen to Elijah? He listened because of the close relationship He had with this imperfect man who was serving a perfect God. God listen to Elijah's thoughts, prayers and then ACTIONS to put His prayer and Faith into action mightily!

Then God responded by restoring the child to his mother....all because Faith in the Lord changes everything and FAITH IN ACTION, brings results. Amen.

(Image Credit Here)