Most of Christians view prayer as a message in the bottle. We pour our hearts out in a one-side communication to our God who we hope has affection for us. Our prayers are cast out into the empty sea of quietness. Where are you God? I’ve just reached down into my soul and realized how I long for you. Please reply.
We are desperate for God’s voice—His words of affirmation, words of acceptance. We strain to hear Him in the crashing of the waves, in the thunderclaps, within the hurricane, but God’s voice was not there.
We sit back on the vast beach looking out into eternity and feel so small and insignificant. We lean back and feel the sand between our fingers, and once again are plagued by thoughts of insignificance. “I’m only just a grain of sand in this world.”
We need to persevere as Elijah and realize that God’s voice is in the whisper—the still small voice. Even though this grain of sand appears small, it represents one wonderful thought that God has for you. His amazing thoughts about you are as numbered as each grain of sand. One small handful has hundreds of grains. As you look up and down the beach, the sand endlessly goes on and on. Each one is a response to our request for returned affection.
The world is screaming at us that we are worthless and for the most part we have believed it. God is whispering it is not true. We are royalty in God’s kingdom (1 Peter 2:9). We are ambassadors of His Son (2 Corinthians 5:20). We are more than overcomers (1 John 5:4). We are the apple of His eye (Psalm 17:8). He risked it all that we may realize how much we mean to Him. He delights in us (Zephaniah 3:17).
The reason the affirmations in the last post are so effective is because Christians have bought lies about themselves. We tend to not believe the good news of the gospel. What we see is the best we can imagine to be true. Let’s reprogram our minds so that we will believe God’s whispers of love when they come. Let’s repent of our negative self-view. God is the lifter of our heads because He reminds us of how awesome we are. And, nobody has the right to tell you who you are except God.
- Do you relate to your prayers as a message in a bottle?
- How do you remind yourself of how God sees you?