Worship
Scripture
One Saturday afternoon, our church gathered at a community park for a church-wide picnic and softball game. After I got home and started changing clothes, though, I couldn’t find my keys. As I frantically rummaged through the shorts I wore that afternoon, I discovered a hole in the left pocket. Uh-oh! These were the very most important keys, the keys I needed every day at home and at work!
Immediately, I drove back to the park to retrace my steps from the afternoon, hoping against hope to get lucky. I also remembered to say a prayer for God’s help in finding the keys, although I confess that I feared the worst.
I arrived and approached the park, assuming I’d have to walk over two or three acres of parking lot and playing field to do a thorough search. But immediately upon entering the field, I spotted the prize, resting on the turf in plain view by the on-deck circle, seeming to smile at me. The keys! Immediately, I remembered the prayer. I thanked God, and the next morning in my Sunday School class, I even shared the experience as a testimony to prayer.
The question that came after that day is this: Why are we sometimes timid about faith? I even wondered if God had really answered my prayer, or would I have found the keys on my own had I not prayed? Shame on such pride!
In this experience, on reflection, I relate to the woman with the medical problem that Jesus healed in Mark 5. She unquestionably had faith, but she still approached Jesus timidly, trying inconspicuously to sneak up behind him so he wouldn’t notice her. Expositor Alexander McLaren wrote this about the woman’s timidity: ”We have here [a] great lesson, that very imperfect faith may be genuine faith.”
That statement made me feel a lot better about my key episode, because like the woman in Mark, my faith had been imperfect. God could have told me, “Ha, if your faith is that shaky, you don’t need my help. Go find your keys!” But no, rather than turn away, the heavenly father acted to perfect the imperfect, to find my wavering faith genuine in spite of my timidity.
We must thank God that for all that we are not, he is!
Prayer
HONOR GOD
John 3:16 NIV
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
God has given us new life in Christ. Take a moment and thank Him for this incredible gift!
ASK GOD
John 3:21 NIV
But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.
Living by truth brings light and sight. Ask God to give you a heart for His truth. What do you need to confess to Him? Where do you need His help?
SUBMIT TO GOD
John 3:18 NIV
Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.
Submit your heart to God today and live free of condemnation!
CLOSING PRAYER
Father, thank you for these passages that illustrate what the Jews went through in order to stay pure in your eyes. Thank you that we do not have to bear the same burdens. Thank you for making the yolk of Christ light and perfect. Lead us to seek closeness and “cleanliness” in your eyes that we may honor Christ and his sacrifice he made for us. In Jesus Name, Amen.