I was struggling to shake the sleep from my eyes as I started my day. I felt that I had awakened that morning as tired as when I lay down the night before. I settled at my kitchen table with coffee in one hand and my bible in the other, quietly asking the Lord to help me to reconnect my heart to His own. That is when I felt more than heard the sweet whisper echoing from my spirit, “ Will you walk with Me?”
After a moment, I pulled myself up from my seat and slipped on my shoes before heading out into the cool morning. Sunlight spilled onto the still damp grass as I walked out into my yard. Again, the whisper came, “Do you remember how this yard used to look?”
I thought about the years gone by when my sons were younger. At one time, there was a white and green swing set sitting in that yard. Little boys laughing and playing as they raced to go down the plastic slide hooked to one side had worn small footprints into the grass. Later as they grew older, that patch of lawn had been the home to a trampoline that drew both friends and cousins to play. In more recent times, my son’s first car, decrepit and somewhat rusty, had sat in the yard awaiting its sale. Though what sat in the grass had changed, the ground was still the same dirt. It had not really changed at all.
As I walked by the maple tree that sits at the corner or my home, the light filtered through bright green leaves clustered overhead. I heard it again, “Do you remember how this tree looked in the past?”
I recalled how every spring, the limbs would bud and small leaves would signal that the days were growing warmer. As summer progressed, the full branches would provide shade from the blazing sun. Many hours were spent under that tree with a book in my hand as my kids had played nearby. As autumn arrived, the leaves became brilliant orange as though the failing sunshine had found a new place to reside. Finally, winter’s cold chill found the barren wood dark and empty as it shelved snowflakes that fell from the sky. However, the tree itself had not changed. Time and season could dictate new growth and the adornment of branches, yet the tree itself was still the same maple.
I was beginning to sense a purpose to my early morning walk. Quietly I stood and listened as the Lord reminded me of countless conversations that I had with Him in prayer as I walked in my yard so many times over the years. I had walked with Him during times of sorrow and wept as I prayed. I had strolled with Him in rejoicing during seasons of blessing and accomplishments. I had leaned in close to Him whispering in supplication when fear was haunting me. I had quietly trusted Him as I was misunderstood and faced hardship and loss. I had delighted in His companionship as He had matched His pace to mine. In all those seasons of changing circumstances, the constant thread was the fellowship with God in prayer.
Just as the substance of the ground was unchanged no matter what was set on its grassy surface and just as the substance of the tree did not alter though its appearance responded to time and weather, my prayer life is the same. The substance of my fellowship with God is consistent no matter what I face or what emotional state in which I stand. It is not based on how I feel or how I perceive blessings that have come into my life. Instead, it rests on the solid foundation of God’s love for me.
God loves me. He is not tolerating me, as though I had slid under the gate because I responded to an invitation in church and had Him under some obligation to give me access to His presence. He picked me out for Himself before ever He had coalesced the rocky crust of the earth into being. (Ephesians 1:4) He loves me and He enjoys time with me.
I know that God loves me because He has demonstrated it. Jesus, the Lamb of God, hanging suspended between heaven and earth affixed to the rough wooden cross by nails, was the declaration of the Father’s love. The suffering of Jesus was the cost of my salvation, and it was a price freely given. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:10)
This will ever be a source of great wonder to me. I mean, He is God! He is the Creator of both heaven and earth, bending reality with the sound of His voice. He is eternal in nature and holy in character. He sits enthroned on a glassy sea in heaven with the voices of angel choirs singing His praises day and night. Yet He chooses me with all my frailties and faults to be the recipient of His vast love. I had no capacity to earn such affections, yet He offers it freely. God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)
With such a bedrock truth as a foundation, how could mere circumstances change the reality of my prayer life in all its intimacy and promise? I will walk and pray. God walks with me. If it rains or if sunshine is splashed along the path, it cannot change that He loves me. If I weep or laugh, the substance of faith is not changed. God loves me. I will pray.
Will you pray with me?
Father, we want to fellowship with You in prayer. We realize that You are not measuring our devotion or evaluating our eloquence. You just want us to come, and we delight to do so. Thank You for Your great, overwhelming, unflinching love. Draw us to Yourself. In Jesus Name, we ask it.
