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- Written by: Don Goulding
For indeed both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, assembled together in this city against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, to do as much as your power and your plan had decided beforehand would happen. (Acts 4:27, 28)
“Ready or not, here I come,” I said.
Five-year-old Emily hid behind a door watching me through the hinge gap. I pretended to look elsewhere.
“Hmm, I wonder where she is. Let’s see, nope, not in the bathtub.”
Emily giggled. I knew her hideouts and how long her attention lasted. At the right time, I jumped behind her door, and we burst into a fit of laughing and tickling.
I sometimes feel the powers of evil play hide-and-seek from God’s justice. I was dismayed when I saw gypsies hatefully forced out of a store in Eastern Europe, and distraught when refugees in Africa lost a baby to starvation. And if my own rights are trampled, I suffer truly massive indignation.
The reality I miss is God’s sovereignty in every situation. It is not like the Devil catches him unaware every now and then. It was God’s sovereignty at work when Jesus was decimated on the cross. God saw through the ploys of those who thought they were winning against his Christ.
God is infinitely more sovereign over life than I was over hide-and-seek with Emily. She thought she was invisible, even though I saw her peek out and heard her titter. I chose to draw the game out for a more explosive reunion.
Father God does the same for me. Evil can’t hide from him, not my evil or the world’s. He’s waiting for the perfect time in history, then in an explosive moment, he’ll jump out from behind life and swoop me into his arms. He’ll finally remove all sin from my heart and the world, and welcome me home. Then maybe we’ll tickle each other.
Prayer: Holy Father, help me rest in your sovereignty.
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- Written by: Don Goulding
And this is the confidence that we have before him: that whenever we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in regard to whatever we ask, then we know that we have the requests that we have asked from him. (1 John 5:14, 15)
I performed a gospel sleight of hand trick before wide-eyed children at an evangelistic day club in Slovakia. An eight-year-old volunteer assisted me to slice a one meter length of rope in half.
“Satan uses sin to cut our innocence in two,” I said. “But Jesus can make us whole again.” We tied the ends back together.
I wound the repaired rope around my hand and reached in a pocket for some invisible Holy Spirit dust.
“When we wrap our life around him, he makes our sin disappear.” I sprinkled on the dust, unwrapped the cord with a flourish, and, voila, it was in one piece without a knot in sight.
Oohs and aahs rippled through the young audience.
I wanted the Slovakians to know I wasn't using magic, so I revealed the secret trick. The loop that was sliced and retied was actually at one end of the cord. I hid that fake end in my pocket as I pretended to retrieve dust. The kids were no longer amazed.
The Bible promises that if we ask and have faith, miracles will be done for us. I read these statements and shake my head. The supernatural seems impossible. But maybe it’s time to reveal the mystery shrouding answered prayer.
I’ve known prayer warriors who regularly ask for, and receive, God’s intervention. They’ve learned the secret that faith to access God’s power must accompany an understanding of his heart. They don’t believe in miracles so much as they believe in the the Father.
That’s what I want from my prayers—to be so entwined with the heart of Father, that I see what he is doing, and I’m used of him to call it into the natural.
Prayer: Father, help me ask for what you want.
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- Written by: Don Goulding
The one who covers his transgressions will not prosper,
but whoever confesses them and forsakes them will find mercy. (Proverbs 28:13)
I forced the blade of a utility knife through a plastic bucket, slipped, and stabbed my own leg. A friend used duct tape to wrap the wound until we could finish the project.
Later, a nurse prepped for stitches, but she left me to remove the tape from my hairy leg. After twenty minutes, she found me tugging in feeble increments. She grabbed the silver tape and ripped it free in one motion. Her method really didn’t hurt. I’d prolonged the agony by my lack of resolve.
I’m a spiritual Band-Aid baby, too. I expose only tiny bits of my old nature to the light at a time. But Jesus wants to shorten the torment with a ripping campaign.
Sin cuts. It doesn't matter if I slice myself, or if someone else knifes me. Either way, wrong choices cause heart wounds. The Spirit of Christ offers healing, but I cover my pain with Band-Aids—those easy fixes that never address root problems—and I never want to take them off.
Over time, my temporary bandages become a permanent part of my corrupt nature. I fear that if I remove them I’ll lose the attention I receive over my boo-boos, and it will lessen who I am. But I was never meant to assimilate false cures into my character.
True healing can’t happen if I hide. Anger will fester, and habits will rot, until I let Jesus in for surgery. Through meditative prayer, I must allow his touch to reach the depths of my wound. And to do that, my vague acknowledgment Band-Aids have to be torn off.
Prayer: Go ahead, Great Physician, rip away excuses and heal me deeply.