Bow Your heavens, O Lord, and come down! Touch the mountains so that they smoke! Flash forth the lightning and scatter them; send out Your arrows and rout them! Stretch out Your hand from on high; rescue me and deliver me from the many waters, from the hand of foreigners, whose mouths speak lies and whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood.
(Verses 5-8)
When You did awesome things that we did not look for, You came down, the mountains quaked at Your presence! From long ago no one has ever heard of a God like You. No one has ever seen a God like You Who helps those who wait for Him. Isaiah 64: 3-4
Three months after the Jewish nation left their captivity in Egypt and arrived at the base of Mount Sinai in the desert, God gave Moses three days to prepare the people to be in His presence. They had to be clean, physically and spiritually. And there were parameters set around the mountain so that no one could come near it or touch it. God's holy presence made the mountain itself holy. "On that day I, the Lord, will come down on Mount Sinai and all the people will see Me," God told Moses.
On the morning of the third day, there was thunder and lightning on the mountain and it was covered with a thick smoke. Suddenly a trumpet sounded, loud and long, and the noise of it came from within the mountain. Trembling with awe and fear, the people followed Moses to the base of the mountain where they all stood waiting for God. An earth-splitting shaking made Mount Sinai swoon and groan as God came in fire and power to settle on its peak while smoke rose ever thicker from the mountain as if it were coming from a furnace. The sound of the trumpet was deafening, unearthly and unsettling. God called Moses up into His presence and there spoke with him. With His finger, God inscribed the Law onto tablets of stone, prefacing the giving of the commandments with these words: "I am the Lord, your God, Who brought you out of the land of Egypt where you were slaves." The Law was the "therefore" immediately following the declaration of His power. I have bought you out was His point. Now you belong to me.
It is this God to Whom David prays. The Mighty One Who plants His foot on the orb He flung in order to bring us out of bondage. David needs a miracle. Something he can't define. A way out that the king can't conceive. Only God can do what needs to be done. And it is the all-powerful God Who needs to show up in thunder and lightning and prescience and the smoke of His glory. David needed his God to reach down from beyond the universe where He lives in vibrating power and brilliant light and do a thing the king can't even describe or imagine. An only God thing. The miraculous. Like the parting of the Red Sea, manna from heaven, gushing water, enough for thousands, from a rock. A rescue that is out of paradigm.
I have some only God things to pray about today. I can't even imagine how to work out the predicaments I pray over. Mary found herself at a wedding in Cana with Jesus one evening. Before any but she knew He was the spawn of her flesh and the seed of God planted on Earth. The miracle of miracles grew up in her home and was standing beside her when the wedding wine ran out (John 2). She turned to her Son. "There isn't any more wine." Stating only the need. Not the solution. She didn't say, "Maybe you and the boys should go to 7-Eleven and get some." She didn't stress and worry that the wedding was now a complete mess and everyone would gossip about what a bust it was. No. All she did was tell God, the Son, what it was she needed. And there it was. The reluctant beginning of the ministry of God come to Earth in an obscure Bethlehem manger instead of in earth-shaking smoke and fire. Jesus did NOT go to the local grocery. Mary told the servants: "Do whatever He tells you to." Still she didn't know. She trusted that her boy, God's boy, would do it in an unexpected way she couldn't imagine. "Fill up the ceremonial washing jars with water." Each of those jars held over twenty gallons. The servants obeyed the directive, and filled the jars to the very top. "Now take some out and give it to the master of this feast," said Jesus. "This wine is the best! Top of the line!" said the host to the bridegroom. "Most people serve wine this good first, but you saved the best for last!" Gallons and gallons of it. Who would have thought?
It won't be what you think when you get your miracle. Only God answers to prayer defy our imagination. Make for stories no one's ever heard before. If we are stuck praying within our human parameters, we might not even get an answer or we'll be disappointed when the answer comes...because God didn't do it our way. The way we told Him to. We would live with a lot more joy if we followed Mary's example and just gave the problem to Jesus. He already has the answer.
But as it is written, "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him"--these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. I Corinthians 2
(Verses 5-8)
When You did awesome things that we did not look for, You came down, the mountains quaked at Your presence! From long ago no one has ever heard of a God like You. No one has ever seen a God like You Who helps those who wait for Him. Isaiah 64: 3-4
Three months after the Jewish nation left their captivity in Egypt and arrived at the base of Mount Sinai in the desert, God gave Moses three days to prepare the people to be in His presence. They had to be clean, physically and spiritually. And there were parameters set around the mountain so that no one could come near it or touch it. God's holy presence made the mountain itself holy. "On that day I, the Lord, will come down on Mount Sinai and all the people will see Me," God told Moses.
On the morning of the third day, there was thunder and lightning on the mountain and it was covered with a thick smoke. Suddenly a trumpet sounded, loud and long, and the noise of it came from within the mountain. Trembling with awe and fear, the people followed Moses to the base of the mountain where they all stood waiting for God. An earth-splitting shaking made Mount Sinai swoon and groan as God came in fire and power to settle on its peak while smoke rose ever thicker from the mountain as if it were coming from a furnace. The sound of the trumpet was deafening, unearthly and unsettling. God called Moses up into His presence and there spoke with him. With His finger, God inscribed the Law onto tablets of stone, prefacing the giving of the commandments with these words: "I am the Lord, your God, Who brought you out of the land of Egypt where you were slaves." The Law was the "therefore" immediately following the declaration of His power. I have bought you out was His point. Now you belong to me.
It is this God to Whom David prays. The Mighty One Who plants His foot on the orb He flung in order to bring us out of bondage. David needs a miracle. Something he can't define. A way out that the king can't conceive. Only God can do what needs to be done. And it is the all-powerful God Who needs to show up in thunder and lightning and prescience and the smoke of His glory. David needed his God to reach down from beyond the universe where He lives in vibrating power and brilliant light and do a thing the king can't even describe or imagine. An only God thing. The miraculous. Like the parting of the Red Sea, manna from heaven, gushing water, enough for thousands, from a rock. A rescue that is out of paradigm.
I have some only God things to pray about today. I can't even imagine how to work out the predicaments I pray over. Mary found herself at a wedding in Cana with Jesus one evening. Before any but she knew He was the spawn of her flesh and the seed of God planted on Earth. The miracle of miracles grew up in her home and was standing beside her when the wedding wine ran out (John 2). She turned to her Son. "There isn't any more wine." Stating only the need. Not the solution. She didn't say, "Maybe you and the boys should go to 7-Eleven and get some." She didn't stress and worry that the wedding was now a complete mess and everyone would gossip about what a bust it was. No. All she did was tell God, the Son, what it was she needed. And there it was. The reluctant beginning of the ministry of God come to Earth in an obscure Bethlehem manger instead of in earth-shaking smoke and fire. Jesus did NOT go to the local grocery. Mary told the servants: "Do whatever He tells you to." Still she didn't know. She trusted that her boy, God's boy, would do it in an unexpected way she couldn't imagine. "Fill up the ceremonial washing jars with water." Each of those jars held over twenty gallons. The servants obeyed the directive, and filled the jars to the very top. "Now take some out and give it to the master of this feast," said Jesus. "This wine is the best! Top of the line!" said the host to the bridegroom. "Most people serve wine this good first, but you saved the best for last!" Gallons and gallons of it. Who would have thought?
It won't be what you think when you get your miracle. Only God answers to prayer defy our imagination. Make for stories no one's ever heard before. If we are stuck praying within our human parameters, we might not even get an answer or we'll be disappointed when the answer comes...because God didn't do it our way. The way we told Him to. We would live with a lot more joy if we followed Mary's example and just gave the problem to Jesus. He already has the answer.
But as it is written, "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him"--these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. I Corinthians 2
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