thoughts from Sunday's sermon

This past Sunday, I had the privilege of hearing Ravi Zacharias preach at TFC (you can download the sermon here: http://www.thefallschurch.org/ - definitely worth listening to!). Dr. Zacharias has long been a favorite speaker of mine and I am always struck by how accessible and humble he is as a communicator, while at the same time speaking Truth in a clear, unflinching, and intelligent manner.

Dr. Zacharias' sermon was entitled "Who is God?" and the content was drawn from 2 Chronicles 20, in which Jehoshaphat poses three questions to God as he prays: are You not the God who is in heaven? did You not drive out the inhabitants of this land? will You not rescue us?

Dr. Zacharias pointed out that these are good and honest questions to ask - and that they offer not merely a pattern for our own prayer lives, but a means to knowing God better as our Holy Father:

are You not _________? (instead of having prayers focused only on our experiences/circumstances, we should also be reflecting on who God is, His character - reminding ourselves of the mighty and changeless and loving God we know.)

did You not _________? (it is pivotal to recognize the times when God has intervened in our lives, and then to thank Him for that and live out of gratitude in response. This could be as simple as starting a "God-sightings" list on the fridge...where do we see Him showing up?)

will You not _________? (God tells us to fear not because the battle is His - praise the Lord! And Scripture is full of so many more promises God has made to us that we can claim and live in light of.)

Dr. Zacharias closed with a quote that has stayed on my mind the past few days:
"I said to a man who stood at the gate of the year: 'Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown,' and he replied, 'Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than a light and safer than a known way.'"

What an excellent picture of this whole journey of learning-to-trust-the-Lord, as well as the struggle we all have in actually doing so. My prayer for today is that I'll grab His hand . . .

(When looking for the source of the above quote, I found that it has an interesting story - read more in this 1940 article from Time magazine: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,763156,00.html?iid=chix-sphere)