Devotional Thought of the Day:

16 But he would go away to lonely places, where he prayed.  TEV  Luke 5:16

But there are other reasons why God has bestowed this external knowledge of Himself upon the minds of all men.
In the first place, He has done so for the sake of the external discipline which God wants all men to observe, even the unregenerate.
Paul explains the second reason in Acts 17:27 with the words “to seek the Lord.” This expression has been placed in the causal construction, “because of or on account of our deficiency.” Thus there is absolutely no doubt that this knowledge has been revealed so that we will seek God.

Nay, you must even accustom yourself to know how to pass from prayer to those occupations which your state of life lawfully requires, though ever so distant from the affections you have received in prayer: for example, let the lawyer learn to pass from prayer to pleading, the merchant to his mercial transactions, and the married woman to the care of her family, with so much ease and tranquillity that their spirits may not be disturbed; for, since all of them are in positions according to the will of God, they must learn to pass from the one to the other in the spirit of humility and devotion.

Chemnitz, in the reading in blue, notes our need to seek the Lord.  In the passage it comes from, he is talking about what we see from natural revelation, but that too only wets the hunger for contact with God, and more than contact, for intimacy. In the intimate moments, we find peace and rest.  When we enter that peace and rest, then something miraculous happens, we find healing, for we are being transformed into His likeness.

We need God, we can’t make it on our own, we have broken too much, and been broken too many times. The requirements of scripture primarily show us this, not just a path to enlightenment.  We need him as much when we have been made His children, as when were alone in the darkness.

We are made for fellowship with the Father, we see that in Jesu’ own life, as He seeks the peace that comes as He finds rest in the Father’s love.

Why are we more in need of seeking God, of finding HIs presence?  Don’t we mature?  Don’t we become strong believers who can handle things on our own?

No

Simply put, no.

If anything, we become more aware of our brokenness, More aware of the healing needed in our lives, and in those around us.  So we need Him more, we need HIs comfort, His peace, His presence.  We need to be assured we are healing. The affections that he talks of maintaining.

Which is where prayer is so desperately needed.

I am not talking about praying unceasingly, as some portray it.  Prayer is not a text message here and there or sending a tweet to God and occasionally seeing if.  That isn’t the unceasing prayer.

Rather it is like De Sales advocates, this times of prayer where we find ourselves so enamored of God’s love that it becomes part of our parenting, part of our being an employee, part of being a boss, whatever it is.  We move from our time of peace, our time of healing through our life.

That is unceasing prayer, a life of being there, in the presence of God, which stems from our sacramental time (3) where we deliberately take time to seek God and realized that He is our life, our breath, our breathing, as Paul states in Acts 17:28.

So go, spend some time crying out to the Lord!  Find your rest and peace in His presence.  Take your time there, consider the Lord’s supper, your baptism, the promises made then.  Explore the dimensions of His love, allowing Him to relieve you of all your anxieties, your worries, your burdens, and yes your sin and shame.  Then, knowing the glory of God’s love, re-enter life, assured of His presence as you walk by His side….

The Lord is with you!

(1)   Chemnitz, Martin, and Jacob A. O. Preus. Loci Theologici. electronic ed. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1999. Print.
(2)  Francis de Sales, Saint. An Introduction to the Devout Life. Dublin: M. H. Gill and Son, 1885. Print.
(3)  Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Article XIII talks of prayer as a sacrament, and if we knew it as one, maybe we would be more quickly run to it!