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- Written by: Don Goulding
He said, “Throw her down!” So they threw her down, and when she hit the ground, her blood splattered against the wall and the horses, and Jehu drove his chariot over her … “Dispose of this accursed woman’s corpse. Bury her, for after all, she was a king’s daughter.” But when they went to bury her, they found nothing left but the skull, feet, and palms of the hands. (2 Kings 9:33-35)
Racing one hundred forty kilometers per hour through the ancient tiled buildings of Esztergom, Hungary, three intoxicated medical students crashed their BMW. Two pedestrians were badly injured, one passenger went into a coma, the driver and his seat-mate were both decapitated.
The next morning, I sat across the roadway at an outdoor coffeeshop. The gore had been removed but I couldn’t avert my eyes from the site. The Spirit of God spoke to me about the horrific outcome of sin. It clung to me like smoke from rancid garbage.
I get too relaxed among evil. I treat wickedness like a rich uncle who lets me live with him. I laugh and stay in his house because he pays my bills. Just so, as long as the world pretends to care for me, I indulge its vile.
God is never comfortable with sin. It’s not my place to judge others, but I need to be sickened by my own wrongdoing as God is sickened. Everything from exaggeration to copy-write infringement, from rude comments to impure thoughts—it all adds up to revolt against Jehovah.
Our free will is a sacred right with eternal consequences. Every choice alters the universe for good or bad. So to God, sin is never laughable, rather it’s blood-splattering, head-rolling, life-decimating evil. Every unholy act, word, and thought will be punished, whether in hell, or, thanks to Jesus, there is one more way divine wrath can be spent against evil—on the cross.
Prayer: LORD God, help me to despise my sin as you do.
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- Written by: Don Goulding
A person who has friends may be harmed by them,
but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. Proverbs 18:24 (NETFull)
My childhood friend came for a visit. We laughed about old times and got somber over shared grief. How was it that I’d left this guy behind? I asked him how long he could stay and he said he’d be with me as long as I needed. I invited him to sleep on the couch and he was grateful.
I needed groceries from the store. I also wanted some unhealthy indulgences.
“Um, would you mind waiting out here?” I didn’t want him to see what went into the bag. “I know right where everything is and it will be quicker this way.”
A twitch of dejection crossed his face.
Next, we stopped to pick up documents from my office. I thought about asking my friend to come see where I worked, but what if we ran into my boss? I knew my friend was too direct for my manager’s tastes. I left him in the car.
That evening, I created a distraction for my friend while I planned an upcoming vacation with some buddies. I sent my childhood pal out to buy ice cream. He returned to see me with a bunch of off-color hooligans and watched without comment.
At the grocery store, I’d made him wait outside like a dog. I kept him out of my work life, vacation plans, and relationships like he was a flea on a dog. Soulmates don’t treat each other like that.
I broke the silence, “I don’t know what I was thinking. I want you with me everywhere I go. I’m sorry, Jesus.”
Prayer: Lord, I invite you into every activity.
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- Written by: Don Goulding
In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how we should pray, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with inexpressible groanings. Romans 8:26 (NETFull)
The needle pierced the blanket. “Lord, pull my friend to yourself as she lies under this quilt,” Dani prayed as she worked. She drew the thread up. “Father wrap her in your love.”
Dani spent more than one hundred hours hand-stitching a quilt for an unsaved friend and, as she did, she prayed anointing over the bedcover. I wonder how the Spirit will interpret those many prayers to bring about an answer.
What would I do if someone begged me to prevent the suicide of my child? Would I try to convince my daughter of my love and even die for her? Would I allow temporary financial loss or brief cancer to demonstrate the horror she was bringing on herself? These are the drastic measures God used to prevent my eternal suicide. So when I intercede for others, am I truly ready to pray these extremes into their lives?
I need to lose my shortsighted conception of good wherein I drone anemic prayers like, “Lord bless us with health and prosper the work of our hands.” I need allow the Spirit to pour his symphony of life-altering supplication through me. My prayers should be less about me and the temporal, and more about him and the eternal.
Only as my broken spirit comes into agreement with the Spirit of Christ do I release the radical methods of heaven upon a situation.
Prayer: Holy Spirit, move me into agreement with your bold prayers.