Batlefield

Dressed in his best

Angel of light costume

He strides into the throne room

No bouncers with well-defined biceps

And dark suits bar his way

Even the Archangel Michael

With his flaming sword steps aside

He is vexed to have to seek permission

To sift the saved

He takes his cause before

The throne of heaven

It’s not in his nature to ask

And he’s not at home before

The One he once adored

He comes away with the authority

To cause damage

To ransack and dismantle faith

To shred souls

And God’s children surrender their footholds

Arming him with their inflated egos

Petty jealousies and resentments

His success is not guaranteed

Because he knows the Son prays

Not to undo the his plans

Or to bind his work and loose angels

Nor to break a curse

And pull down strongholds

The Son prays for His own

He prays that

Their faith will not fail

That the purpose of God in their lives

Will be fulfilled

He prays for turned hearts and anchored lives

For resilience and transformation

And a community built and flourishing

The Son of God prays and

Satan lies to himself that he can yet win

Like abandoned babies

Psalm 35:13b-14a “When my prayers returned to me unanswered, I went about mourning as though for my friend or brother. I bowed my head in grief as though weeping for my mother.”

This comes in the middle of a prayer of King David for God to stand up for him and fight against his enemies. It seemed to him that God was being silent while his enemies were free and unrestrained in their mockery of him. David was fulfilling his side of “treat others the way you would like to be treated yourself”, but he wasn’t being treated so nice by others.

I reached the bit about unanswered prayer and I started to think about my own response when God seems silent. King David digs in deep – out come the sack cloth and ashes. He mourns. He takes prayer to a deeper level, not content with God’s silence. It matters to him that God hears and God answers.

My own response is so very different. I had a very brief but clear picture of a new-born baby abandoned on a doorstep!

A mother is committed to the baby not just for the first few days, or until it no longer needs her milk, or until it can walk, or talk, or become a little bit more independent. The mother is committed right up until the child matures and leaves home, and even then she is still involved.

I may not have abandoned any babies on doorsteps, but I am quite sure I have abandoned some very important prayers, because I didn’t see an immediate response from God. Suddenly the burden became too heavy, I wasn’t sure that God was going to shoulder it with me, or that He was even interested, or that it really mattered that much. And so, just like an abandoned baby, I dropped it and walked away. I am not even sure that I dropped it on someone else’s doorstep!

I was reading earlier on this week about Caleb waiting forty-five years to finally claim his bit of the Promised Land. I don’t think I could even climb a mountain, let alone fight the giants who lived there. Caleb is not like me! He kept himself in shape and he held onto the word of God!

He abandoned none of his babies!