Pastor Heather…
Welcome everyone.
Today, we don’t have a worship person, so we’re just going to have to be worshipful in our hearts this morning. And that’s good. God can still do that, right? He doesn’t just move when there’s music as much as I think He does sometimes. I’m a worshiper so…
Taking the time to get our eyes on Him…
This morning, I was preparing my heart for today. I usually ask the Lord, “What should I say? What should I do? What should I bring?” And this morning, I think He was laughing at me a little bit. And He’s like, “Do you mean what do I want to say? What do I want to bring?” I said, “Yes. Yes sir.” And so just that time of getting our eyes back on Him, what does He want to say? What does He want to bring? What does He want to do in our lives? And I think sometimes we’re so, “What can I do? How can I change this? What can I bring? What can I say? What can I… I… I…” And just taking that time to get our eyes back on Him. And that’s something that He’s really been inviting me into lately.
How do I invite Him into that process…
I can’t say I’m perfect all the time because, I want to run ahead and say, “I got this, Lord. I’ll figure this out. You’re busy.” Instead of inviting Him into that process, inviting Him into my morning, inviting Him into my problems… my family… my workday… my every task… How do I invite Him into that?
Be still and know that I am God…
And that’s really what He’s been leading me into lately, is just “being still and knowing that He is God.” And I’m not. And I don’t know how many times I can say it, but every time it’s like a new revelation to me again. You know? And so I keep thinking like, “Do you want to say that again? You want me to bring that again? Okay. Yes sir. Okay.” But I do feel like there are things that He’ll just keep pressing until we get that full revelation of it. And right now for me, it’s “Be still and know… be still and know… be still and know that I’m God.” I’m God over your finances. I’m God over your family. I’m God over your health. I’m God over your job. I’m God over your church. I’m God over your city. I’m God over your state, your nation, this world…
Getting to the place where “You are God over everything…”
And it’s like, if we can just really understand even the fullness of that, I don’t know that we fully do. If we can just get into that place where “You are God over everything.” And if I trusted Him half as much as I worried, half as much as I sometimes even prayed in worry… We’ve all been there. We prayed in worry. He still meets us where we are. I don’t think there’s anything that He would shut His ears to us. He still meets us there and He loves us, but He wants to invite us into a deeper place. Just a place of rest and knowing. And instead of the striving and the pushing and the working and the arranging… Even sometimes praying can be works if we’re not doing it from a pure place where it’s just, “What do you want to say today, Father? Where do you want to take me? Where do you want to go today? What do you want to do?”
Trying to get into the spirit…
And as I was driving here praying and people were cutting me off and I’m trying to get into the spirit… Has that ever happened to anybody? Literally, almost got sideswiped twice because people are like… they’re trying to get to work. And I’m like, “I’m just going to go to that place with you… HEY!” And you’re trying to stay in that place. And the awesome thing is that He knows. He knows the world that we’re in. He knows the pressures that are around us. He knows my daughter is just getting over a fever. She’s at home, so I’m taking care of her. So it’s been a lot of nights getting up and checking on her and getting her medicine and praying over her, and praying over her, and praying over her… You know?
Days where you feel a little empty, He meets you there…
And so some days you wake up and you’re kind of like, “Whew, I feel a little empty today.” You know? And He meets you there. He meets you in those moments too. And if we can just be honest and be open to what He wants to do, and yielding, yielding… And that’s the biggest thing, just yielding and stop putting all this pressure on yourself. I mean, even just planning for prayer. Sometimes I’m putting pressure on myself. Like, what can I say? How can I present this? And it’s like the pressure’s off. This isn’t my prayer time. This is His prayer time, and if I would just yield myself as a vessel, like a hose, I’m just a hose, just “get all the crud out of my hose, Lord, so that you can flow through and that you can bring what you want to bring to the people.”
And so, planning for prayer this morning, which by the way, I’m Pastor Heather. I’m one of the pastors here at Living Word. Nice to meet you all. Most of you know me, but I don’t know if I’ve ever formally introduced myself to the online audience. But I’ve just been honored to be able to lead and Pastor Ken’s been asking me to lead a little more. And I’m so thankful.
He takes your hand and He walks with you…
And, you know, it’s a “get out of the boat and walk on the water” moment for me, honestly. And I find that the more that we do that, the more He shows up… the more that we say, “I am going to do this scary thing, or this thing I think I can’t do, or this thing that feels way out of my comfort zone, I’m going to get out and do that, and He’s like, “Okay, come on.” And He takes your hand and He walks with you. And there are times where He wants you to walk out and take that step of faith on the water. And as you do that, He’s right there. And we don’t always do it right. Sometimes we look at the waves, sometimes we look at the circumstances and what happens? We start to sink.
He immediately is there to pull us up…
And does He stand there and go “tisk, tisk, tisk…” No. He immediately grabs us. He immediately is there to pull us up and to say, “I’m here and trust Me. Why don’t you trust Me?” And it wasn’t a shaming thing that He said to Peter. It was more of a “Why did you get afraid? I’m right here.” It was more of a loving, keep your eyes on Me. And I think for a long time I read that as like a “Oh you of little faith.” It sounds like a rebuke. It wasn’t a rebuke. It’s like, “Why did you get afraid? I’m right here. Keep your eyes on Me. Don’t look at your circumstances. Keep your eyes on Me.”
We forget the importance of getting away…
So this morning as I was preparing and asking the Lord, “What do you want to say, Father? What do you want to bring to this moment?” I was just thinking of the times that Jesus would get away on the mountain with the Father. And I was just thinking, “What did that look like?” Do you think there was more talking or more listening? Maybe a little of both. What did that look like when He got away with the Father? And sometimes we just forget that importance of getting away. And even in prayer… prayer is just communing with God. It’s spending time with Him. It’s listening to His heart and maybe emptying the contents of your heart before Him. And also, what do you want to say? What do you want to do? And sometimes we come to a place of prayer and it’s about we’re going to declare and we’re going to bind and we’re going to… and those are all good things too.
Part of prayer is listening…
You guys are the hardcore pray-ers that come early in the morning. I just want to remind everybody, a big part of prayer is listening and just abiding in His presence. And when Jesus took those times to get away on the mountain, He left a lot of need behind Him. And I think sometimes we Christians can feel the need around us. There’s a lot of need. And, you know, being a pastor here on staff, there’s a lot of need. There’s a lot of people that are hurting. There’s a lot of people that need prayer. But the best thing that we can do is to withdraw from that sometimes. Excuse me, not sometimes, often, daily. And get in His presence, because that’s where we get filled.
And I think there was times that Jesus left and there was probably people standing on the bottom of that mountain and they’re like, “You didn’t pray for me. Oh, He must not care about me.” There probably was that. We have that in the world, so I don’t imagine it was any different then.
We all must set a boundary and get away to get filled…
But there is a time where you have to just set a boundary where you have to get away and get filled, and hear what He’s saying to you. It’s like, you know, in the airplane, put on your own oxygen mask first before you help others. It sounds counterintuitive, but you have to be well in order to help others.
Even Jesus had to stop what He was going and pull away to get to the Father…
And so that time of just getting away and just stopping, “Okay, I need to maybe say no to going for coffee with that person. I don’t have what they need right now. I need to stop and find what I need so that I can be there for that person in a right way.” And, you know, we live in a busy world. There’s a lot of needs. There’s a lot of distractions. And finding that time to just pull away from everything—even the good things—pulling away from that. Everything Jesus did was good, but even so, He had to take time to pull away, to stop what He was doing, stop putting His hands to things and get with the Father.
And so if Jesus, who was walking this perfect life of just listening to His voice, only doing what God said, only saying what He said, only doing what He saw Him do had to get away and be in His presence and stop serving for a while, stop doing for a while, we definitely need to do that.
And so that’s really what I want to do today, is just take that time. Let’s just get before His presence. I don’t have anything specific to pray, but I know the Holy Spirit will give us things if needed, but more just that let’s get away on the mountain today with Him. And let’s go to a place that He wants to take us. And so just do that. Close your eyes. Maybe you’re a visual person like me. I have to literally see myself getting into a quiet place. Maybe it’s a mountain, maybe it’s a hammock by the beach. That’s my favorite. Maybe it’s a quiet forest. Maybe you have a room in your house. Wherever you have to go, just go there now in His presence. And right now, you see Jesus. He’s coming into that space with you, wherever that is.
And He’s sitting next to you and He is bringing everything that He brings when He comes into a room healing, peace, abundance, strength, joy, restoration. Every need is met in His presence. Nothing missing, nothing broken. Shalom, peace.
Worship and prayer…
And so right now, we do that, Father. We come into your presence. We say thank you, we know you’re already here, but right now we choose to be aware of your presence. We choose to be intentional right now and to push out all the distractions, to push out all the heaviness, the burdens, whatever is on our to-do list for today. We just set that all aside because right now, like Mary, we want to choose the most important thing. And so we do that. We come, we get down at your feet right now, Father, and we thank you.