Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
"I'd love to help somebody else but I don't know what to say!" If you bewail your incompetence as a "witness" for Jesus, welcome to the many who yearn to live for a purpose. They dread meeting Jesus at last with empty arms, a useless life. Let me try to encourage you:
(1) There is a prayer that Jesus HAS to answer, HAS to respond to; He can never say no. It's that of the man in Luke 11 who wakes his neighbor in the middle of the night banging on his door, "Lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine in his journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him" (vss. 5-13). That's the prayer of the empty pantry, "asking to give" to someone else. You're not asking the Lord to give YOU something; you're asking Him to give you bread for somebody else. That prayer goes priority to the throne, and is always answered.
(2) It's the idea that permeates the "cry" of Jesus in John 7:37-39: "He who believes on Me, as the Scripture has said [Song of Solomon, that is], 'Out of his inmost soul will flow rivers of living water.'" If that "living water" is not flowing out of my own heart to refresh somebody else, it must mean that I don't "believe" on Him! Everyone who "believes" has the well of living water. Is unbelief the problem?
(3) Well, welcome again to the special "club" of fortunate people if you have begun to realize that your basic problem is that of ancient Israel--unbelief. Now you're ready to pray the prayer that can NEVER be denied: "Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief." Go kneel down beside the anxious father whose child is devil possessed (Mark 9:24). You can NEVER perish if you pray that prayer!
(4) You must FEEL, must realize, must confess, must know forever, your weakness before you CAN be "strong" (2 Cor. 12:8-10). Under heaven there is no substitute for the "broken and contrite heart" which God, fortunately different than we are, "will not despise" (Psalm 51:17).
(5) Yes, this means much less TV and novel-reading, and more hungering and thirsting for "righteousness." Kneel and tell the Lord your plate is empty; wait before Him, "wait, I say, on the Lord" (Psalm 27:13, 14). Don't rush off in a spin; give Him a chance. WAIT. Unbelief drains out of one's soul in a tiny drip. WAIT.
Copyright © 2009 by Robert J. Wieland.
Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.
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Daily Bread - Readings about life and the Word of God.
