Stationed on the Wall

Father has been pushing on my heart in recent days truth on prayer and my role in it. Many of the thoughts and truths are not new thoughts and for sure not new truths, but fresh once again for my learning.  I have been challenged and convicted.  My prayer life is one of those areas that I don't ever think is what it should be and one area that I am certain I will be growing in until I breathe my last!  You too?

Prayer for us as believers is how we participate, let me re-phrase that, its how we GET to participate with Father as His will is accomplished in our lives and the lives of those around us, the people we love, our cities, and our world.  So what a privilege it is to get to do this thing called prayer and I wonder why I become weary and slack in it?

Every year we travel to Thailand.  The city we go to is ancient.  The original city has a moat around it and just behind the moat are the city walls and it's gates.  Every year I do something that has become a very sweet part of my trip; I physically climb up on a section of the wall to pray. As I sit up on the crumbling ruins I pray over Thailand and the beautiful people that live in it's land of smiles.  I pray over the city that the walls belong to and those that walk it's streets.  The scripture that is pressed into my heart during these moments is, Isaiah 62:6-7 "On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have set watchmen all the day and all the night they will never be silent.  You who put the Lord in remembrance take no rest and give Him no rest until He establishes Jerusalem and makes it a praise in the earth."  In context the prophet Isaiah is talking to Jerusalem, calling God's people back to God, telling them that God still wanted to be their God and He wanted them for His people.  And, those that were talking to God on their behalf needed to keep talking, to keep praying day and night before God until He did what only He could do and that is to make them something that was praiseworthy to Him!  On this side of the cross God still has His people, us the church.  He still desires to show Himself mighty on our behalf so that He can show Himself as our God and we as His people. When we are known as His, He will be able to show others through our lives that He is faithful, good, and a God that saves.

On the day I was praying I thought of how many other walls besides these physical walls in Thailand I should be stationed on, walls that I need to be a watchman on and to not stop talking to God about until they become something that is praiseworthy to the Lord.  That's really what its about, isn't it, that He gets honor and praise?  Some of the walls that I know God has stationed me on are, my marriage, our children, and our grandchildren.  The church, the church that I'm in and the global church, that she would be salt and light; light in the darkness and be the salty preserving agent in a world that is decaying.  I thought about other people's marriages also, I believe we need to station ourselves on the walls of marriages that are crumbling, to stand and fight in prayer for them.  Also, other people's children who are wandering away or are yet to come. What an encouragement it would be to enter into standing on the wall with a mom and dad that are battling for the life of one of their children. God has appointed us to this kind of prayer.  It is not a watchMAN but watchMEN, plural.  Giving me the picture that this is something we do together, shoulder to shoulder, or should I say knee to knee.  

Jesus told us twice in the gospels to watch and pray.  I think the two go together and are a prayer plan directly from Jesus.  If we are not watching, if we are not alert, or if we are so caught up in our own world, then our vision is limited and short-sighted. We then don't know what to pray.  Being watchful, being alert, and being a watchman on a wall gives us the vantage point to know what and how to pray.  It is a powerful word picture!  Someone who is stationed, who is praying, never keeps silent, and who is not going to climb down but stay on point talking constantly to God.

A watchman on the wall, to stand for my city, my country, people groups that have not yet heard the good news, to stand against evil in these days of travail, and not keep silent. It's not that God needs me to remind Him, its that He wants me to be seeking Him with and for the people and situations He has allowed my eyes to see.

What are the walls you have been appointed to be stationed on? Do you view them as walls to keep a watch over and to pray continually over until God does His work in each?  He is worthy of our marriages, our families, our churches, our cities, our countries ,and of peoples from every tribe, tongue, and nation to one day stand around His throne and ascribe to Him all praise and glory.

Still learning AND Stationed on the wall,

Kim

kimday1964@gmail.com

P.S. would love to hear about your walls and would count it an honor to stand with you