“Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”
Tumultuous and treacherous waters challenge us to navigate differently.
Warnings and dangers give opportunities to become strengthened in togetherness.
God puts value in the journey as He reorders and reforms. Disorientation is the opportunity to orientate.
The disciples had a glimpse of Jesus as king when He commanded the storm to still in the boat where he rested.
Dependency on His Father was His starting point.
The man lowered through a roof was totally dependent upon friends and Jesus received his healing while the aloof and critical Pharisees in the room received nothing.
The enemy has us fake that we are alright instead of our honesty to admit our vulnerability, the posture to receive a miracle.
We will make the enemy nervous when we share our needs without shame and open a door to show God’s power.
Me in my weakness and brokenness has the capacity to reveal reality and God’s glory to manifest.
We receive the fullness of what we need when we stop faking being full already.
We can become the dwelling place of God in the submission of coming to the end of ourselves.
Confession is a birthplace.
Being guarded behind a wall or mask is death. Life is being open.
Come with honesty, vulnerability and love not with critique, judgement and hard hearts.
We choose belonging to one another with its intimacy and mess and untidiness as well as its bonding and beauty. From ashes to beauty.
Failure and things not working out can become our gift to become dependent upon God. Therefore failure is not final but formative. Preventative of settling in complacency instead of going further.
“Therefore I will hedge up her way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her, so that she cannot find her paths.”
Where there is grief and loss and a sense of failure God has a purpose to reveal love never fails in the bigger picture.
“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
Jesus on the cross demonstrated what looked like failure in the moment but in the bigger picture was the biggest victory.
Often what we see is not what God sees. Some level of pain in our journey may be our sacrifice.
The illustration shows God seeing the sacrifice of our pain as we navigate the tumultuous waters and the victory within our journey emanating light that pushes back the darkness.
Three Scriptures that come to mind:
“Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” James 5:16 ESV
“Therefore I will hedge up her way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her, so that she cannot find her paths.” Hosea 2:6 ESV
“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” 1 Corinthians 13:7 ESV
The song Perfect Grace. Philippa Hanna
Lessisgreater 