The King's Own Word

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The king said, "Go home, and I'll take care of this for you." (2 Samuel 14:8).

Once your petition has been set before the King, and He has given you His assurance that it will be handled by Him personally, and in your best interest -- well, to linger any longer in earnest angst would be most insulting to His majesty. Yet we do it all the time!

"Lord, when? Lord, why? Lord, how long?"

These, and many other hassling questions too often constitute the bulk of our prayer life. Our hearts flood with dark thoughts which spill from our lips in mournful pleas, as we seek His reply to our unanswerable questions.

Perhaps our hearts have been broken by the hammer of relentless disappointments, our minds bewildered by unfulfilled hopes, our eyes blurred by tears that never cease -- and we hasten to the Lord with our woeful complaints.

And He says, "Go home, and I'll take care of this for you."

But we linger in our lamentations, stating our case once again in pitiful details, rehearsing the matter over and over, as though He had not yet heard it. It seems in such moments that we are more in awe of our sorrows than we are of our Savior.

"Go home," the Lord says, "and I'll take care of this for you."

There is a faith, noble and true, that leaves the prayer chamber and enters into the day in utter confidence that the Lord will take care of things in a perfect way -- if we would only let Him do it.

As children bring their broken toys with tears, for us to mend;
I brought my broken dreams to God, because He is my friend.
But then, instead of leaving Him in peace to work alone;
I hung around and tried to help in ways that were my own.

He didn't do at all the things I thought that He should do;
He didn't mend my broken dreams; He didn't make them new.
In fact He seemed quite nonchalant, as though He didn’t care.
So, I increased with holy zeal my intercessory prayer.

Watching, waiting for His hand to do what I had prayed;
but nothing I could say or do helped Him on His way!
At last I snatched them back and cried, "How can you be so slow?"
"My child," He lovingly replied, "you never did let go!"

Oh, hear the Lord's word to you today -- "Go home," the Lord says, "and I'll take care of this for you."
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