subject: Handling Trouble with prayer [print this page] Handling Trouble with prayer Handling Trouble with prayer
Trouble invitited or uninvited might appear anytime and anyplace and the cencept of having trouble is rather familiar to most.
Hash it out with the Lord himself in prayer.
While the Lord works through the prayers of others, there is the invitation to the personal confrontation with grace in the times of trouble as for example in the case of the psalmists, who called to the Lord from realms of varied troubles, which is where they were.
As the person in trouble, I might prefer to edit out my personal travails and approach the Lord on a more ideal purist basis, as home free, unencumbered by sin among other things,
There could be that trouble is a sign of disfavor from the Lord and I should hide away rather than make the approach while in trouble.
But it says in James that the onus of the person in trouble is to approach the Lord herself or himself.
James Chapter 5 verse 13 from this NIV version of the Bible says,
13 Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray.
This is one prescription that is self evolving and the verse from James seems to contradict the hideaway prescription for troubles.
You see this when things go bad for people, they might withdraw from friends or try to put on a good face and make believe things are still going well.
However troubles corners can reach just about anyone and the King on down can face real trouble, often seemingly coming out of nowhere.
You can make the best plans, follow through precisely, do all you seemingly are supposed to do and trouble can still take a bite out of the situation.
You can still run into real trouble that hopefully will smooth over and hopefully will just be a bump in the road to mostly nirvana.
Hopefully the Lord can pick you up at difficult points in your journey and bring you into new tomorrows, the next good phase and paradise like bless
Continue and still run into real significant trouble that hopefully will smooth over, and hopefully will not be an impassable road.
Anybody from the king on down can face troubled times in a moments glance.
There can be guilt at times with trouble. What did I do now?
More optimistically, the hope is that the Lord can pick you up from different points on your journey, and bring you into turnarounds, new tomorrows, another phase,
An example is in the story of Joseph in Genesis.
Joseph certainly ran into significant troubles early on.
He was thrown into the well by his jealous brothers, and taken into an unfamiliar land in Egypt.
He was the subject of great bereavement by his father Jacob, who had no way of knowing his reported demise was not true.
Eventually, he arrived in Egypt and became a vaunted member of the household of Pharaoh, but was again in trouble when he was falsely accused by Pontiphar the seductress wife of Pharaoh
However, the Lord was with him for each of these circumstances with great blessings,
All of the circumstances were unusual, quite low odds as to ever happening, and really in a sense out there, wild and crazy, from what might have been known, familiar and conventional in maybe unconventional times.
It was certainly a foreign realm for Joseph to suddenly find himself at the bottom of a well, then in a totally unfamiliar land, and taking on the surreal ride of ending up in the Pharaoh's inner circle initially, then getting thrown into prison and subsequently rising again to be the de factor leader of Egypt and its grain supply in the time of vast worldwide famine.
Even in the midst of the rough and tumble of his troubles, the Lord brought Joseph into previously unseen and unknown but rapidly emerging" big picture" events and scenes.
Joseph did have within himself a vast reservoir of wisdom and the related gifts of interpreting dreams, as gifts from the Lord.
But the lesson here is that the Lord may sweep someone from great troubles into previously unknown and unforeseeable big picture scenarios that would have been especially difficult to envision and contemplate from the places of trouble.
For the trouble holder, the trouble itself tends to absorb the focus, and seemingly lessen the possibilities,
If I'm under a tidal wave of troubles, my outlook certainly can become constricted; from there it might be hard to be positive, focused and hopeful about other possibilities
The story of Joseph certainly exhibits that great shifts can happen for an individual right from realms of great troubles, even possible titanic shifts into being personally present into worldwide gigantic scenes.
And that goes to prayer itself, even the heavily wrought embattled person can shift in those places of prayer to the modes of a great worldwide intercessor.
Those prayer efforts and possible effects may be had even if the person is unreleased from their own personal troubles,
Joseph was literally in a prison and trouble itself can seem that way at times.
Most importantly, trouble doesn't have to be a life sentence, or some place you can't move from.
The Lord did move Joseph away from his troubles, and even the instant of his trouble with his brother's eventually came full circle.
Joseph gifts did have wider benefits, greatly found in his wisdom as an overseer.
Correspondingly movements of the Lord in your favor may also have wider benefits that may include many others.
Joseph, at first glance was deprived spiritually as far as others being there to help him in that arena..
He was deprived of the prayers of his kinsmen, including his father and others who may have held him up in prayer but now considered him lost forever.
He had lost any spiritual support that normally would have been there at the time from his many brothers
We don't know if he prayed in the well, but he must have given his prior sensitivity towards matters spiritual and his study of dreams for example.
There was no prayer line to call from the bottom of that well and he had to rely on his own call to the Lord for help.
When he was jettisoned into Egypt, even though he found favor from the Lord initially, he was still in a strange and unfamiliar land in terms of having spiritual support
No others were as astute, familiar, or in the know as to the ways of the Lord.
He was on his own.
It would have been desirable and preferable that others were with him in the support of prayer and spiritual help, but that was not the case.
He was in trouble and he should pray as it says in James, the onus was on him.
As far as prayer and the spiritual realms, he was left to fend for himself.
The story illustrates the possible need for self reliance in being able to pray yourself in the time of trouble.
It is probably better to focus widely, as Joseph focused widely on others throughout his story; despite his embattlements he was helping others including other prisoners who were symbolically also fellow sharers of a type of trouble, with indeed less spiritual means of their own to handle these troubles.
So the praying person in trouble, should also remember others as Joseph did in his own troubles.
And his ministry all along contained strong outward elements, even in practical matters of predicting the upcoming great famine and preparing the means for getting through it and subsequently knowing how to do this.
This verse from James does correlate with a major general theme of the psalms that the Lord will meet you where you're at, including if you are at the doorsteps of great troubles.
You may need to be released from these troubles to do other things for the Lord.
Joseph, could not have commanded Egypt had he perpetually remained in prison there.
While in trouble, keep the prayers going and also the openness to movements of the Spirit from these troubles in some unknown and maybe majestic ways brought forth and revealed by the Spirit, as did occur in the case of Joseph.
