Praying for Rain & Shocked When it Happens

To those disappointed,

Have you ever noticed how we have the tendencies to pray for something once, and then give up if we don’t immediately get what we want within the next .52 milliseconds?

Better yet how many times have you prayed for something expecting God not to answer it?

For example, some days I am really tempted to pray, “God deliver me from temptation or let me hear your will clearly on such and such,” and then after two seconds of deafening silence I feel dejected.

My question to you is, “Since when has our society taught us that our prayers are a one-n-done kind of thing?”

Seriously think about it. The majority of us often feel that if we pray once and nothing happens then surely God must not have wanted that. We act as if God is a frugal, hard God, a God whom we must squeeze a miracle out of every once in awhile. We act as if God is not generous. We act almost as if we desire good things, such as miracles, more than God is willing to give them?

There’s a nice little story nestled away in 1 Kings 18:42-45 that addresses exactly our tendencies to discredit God after our first prayers seem to not work.

“So Ahab went up to eat and drink. But Elijah went up to the top of Carmel; and he crouched down on the earth and put his face between his knees. ⁴³ He said to his servant, “Go up now, look toward the sea.” So he went up and looked and said, “There is nothing.” And he said, “Go back” seven times. ⁴⁴ It came about at the seventh time, that he said, “Behold, a cloud as small as a man’s hand is coming up from the sea.” And he said, “Go up, say to Ahab, “Prepare your chariot and go down, so that the heavy shower does not stop you.’” ⁴⁵ In a little while the sky grew black with clouds and wind, and there was a heavy shower.”

Did you catch that? Elijah prayed not once, not twice, but seven times for it to rain! Imagine what would have happened if Elijah would have prayed once and then came down off of Mt. Carmel with his head held low? Elijah decided to believe that God was a God of generosity, despite seeing no results, and in turn got to experience a miracle. Oh yeah by the way, it hadn’t rained in over 3.5 years! You see God wants to give us good things (Matt 7). Sometimes though, he wants to test our faith first.

Too many times our prayers are fueled by our desires to see results, instead of our desires to see God.

I can tell you one thing for sure. If you pray out of a place of immediate expectancy, then few times will you get results. If you pray out of a sense of expecting God not to move, then you never will see God move. If all it takes is for you to pray once before you quit, then maybe you should invest more of your time in strengthening your faith.

Maybe if we prayed more like Elijah, we would see God work miraculously.

You can pray.

You can see things happen

The question isn’t whether God will move, the question is rather do you trust that God will move even when you see no immediate results?

Remember God doesn’t act on our time, we act on His.

Merely,

Chris Gerac

“The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” James 5:16, NIV

Beautiful Misery & Amazing Pain?

To those hurting,

Some of you may have strong feelings against me after reading this, but as a future pastor I think it’s necessary that I begin answering critical questions that a countless number of us have.  In this post I am going to attempt to tackle the tremendous burden of why pain/ or bad things happen?

This idea came to me today out of nowhere in the middle of my church’s worship service (ironically our senior pastor talked exactly about this just moments later!) I’ve heard a number of people ask why a good, loving God could allow so much misery and pain to exist in life. I myself have even asked God and others this multiple times. 

 Why do natural disasters destroy millions of lives and why does God allow this?

 Why do innocent people suffer death at the hands of a smoking gun?

Why does something as terrible as cancer exist?  And why did so and so get it?

Why do thousands of children’s lives get ripped out from underneath them each and every day?

However, the question has always been something I had tried to sweep under the rug. I know it’s a complicated mess and because of this, I figured out that I never had come to a conclusion beyond the vague “we don’t understand” response. This morning, as I was standing there in the row singing songs about God’s love, I realized something that suddenly dispelled any vague mist that I had…

How can we truly say we love God unless we can boldly stare death in the eyes and say, “Jesus I still love You?”

By all means I never do want to suggest that I know the whole answer or can understand God’s reasoning but think about it. What good is it to say that we love God unless we actually mean it? And when your life is on the line that’s when the truth that your brain believes is separated from the truth that’s in your heart. How can we say that we truly love Christ unless we can say it while staring at our mother’s casket? How can we say that we truly love the Lord of our Lives unless we can say it while the Doctor points to the clipboard that says our baby boy has only 2 months left to live? How can we say that we truly love our Messiah unless we can say that he is still the one thing standing true when our whole world has been swept away?

Now I by no means am saying that we can’t have true faith unless our lives or those close to us are threatened, but I am saying that when you hit that brick wall of desperation and have nowhere else to turn but to Jesus Christ, something magical happens to your faith

In a sense you begin to see the beauty in the car crash

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James 1:2-4 clearly tell us to “consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, ³ because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. ⁴ Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”  1 John 4:8 tells us that “God is love,” and if he is the very definition of love than everything he does is made out of a decision of love.

Maybe we shouldn’t be asking why God allows pain and trials, and instead start asking ourselves if we are aligned with the Father Heart of God.

Author Graham Cooke says “every time a tragedy comes my way I think “Good, an upgrade.””

 Do you view your pain and sorrow as misfortunes and injustices or as opportunities for God to strengthen you?

In times of trials and grief the Father comes to us way before we come to him

“God has a firmer grip on us than we do on him. Whatever is your greatest struggle is God’s greatest place of visitation.”

So the next time you find yourself drowning in a sea of grief take your loss to the cross and crucify it!

Merely,

Chris Gerac

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, ³ because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. ⁴ Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”  James 1:2-4, NIV

Pierced Hearts & Broken Walls

To those needing,

The idea for this post I must admit is not mine, but my good friend’s Zach. You see, both of us (and thousands of others) went to an annual mission’s conference this past weekend known as World Mandate.  We went in expecting to be overwhelmed by amazing worship and excellent words of wisdom but I don’t think either of us was prepared to accept the magnitude of the words spoken at the conference. Below is simply a list of impactful sentences given by empowered people. For those of you who did not get to experience World Mandate, or those who simply could not write fast enough, this is for you…

After an amazing time of worship on the opening night, one in which I found that my voice was already beginning to become raspy and weak (due to praying alone!) a man by the name of Jimmy Seibert took the stage. For those of you who don’t know Jimmy Seibert is the senior pastor and the vehicle God uses to shake the nations through Antioch Ministries. This is compilation of what he said in (black) and what I said (orange).

“The earth is shaking, and God is shouting.”

“Your ultimate accountability partner should be Jesus. Any other and you will fail.”

“God is not intimidated by our pain”

“The pain of hurting hearts is only second in magnitude to the God who heals hearts.”

“Often the voices of fear can destroy the destiny of masses.”

“The day Constantine made Christianity common is the day we became passive.”

“When God shakes the nations it’s time for transformation”

“Don’t watch just move.”

“Pray, Give, and Go that is the Church role.”

“The Spirit of Fear really is a Spirit, and if you don’t conquer it it will chase you for the rest of your life”

“A witness is more than a voice… it’s a life.”

The following morning we had the privilege to hear Max Lucado give a brief testimony…

"Never stoop to be a king if God has called you to be a missionary"

After another AMAZING worship session, we had the opportunity to hear Floyd McClung, and international missionary and servant of Christ, speak about running to the battle …

“A lot of us run to the battle because we are running from the battle of our hearts.”

“We should finish more on fire than when we started.”

“When the Kingdom of God invade our life the Kingdom of Self must die.”

“You can plant a church without making disciples but if you make disciples than you will church plant.”

That following night an older gentleman with long blonde hair walked on stage, and when he spoke it was like Jesus dropped an Atom bomb…

“If we do things Jesus’ way, we get Jesus’ results.”

“There’s no success without opposition.”

“The problem isn’t that the harvest isn’t ready but that the harvesters aren’t.”

“The danger today is that the Church isn’t relevant.”

“The biggest gap in religion is that Christians don’t like to hang out with non- Christians.”

“Around the World “formal religion” is rejected but Spirituality is at an all time hall.”

“If your Church closed down would your city miss you.”

Ouch

Why is it other religions do more Godly things than we do?

“What use is it to live for nothing when I can die for something?”

Last but certainly not least, a fiery Aussie whom I mentioned in my last writing took the stage and leveled the audience with what’s to follow. This is Christine Caine (at least how much my hand could scribble down!)…

“Our culture always says don’t hope for anything great.”

“There is nothing more dangerous than a generation who want people to play it safe.”

“Jesus didn’t save us to play it safe but to make us dangerous to the Kingdom of Darkness.”

“We’re not a product of time but of eternity.”

“God did not put us in the world to run away from the World but to transform the world!”

“Our goal is NOT to arrive at death safely.”

“We’ve confused empathy and sympathy with compassion.”

“We always say But God… We need a BUTectomy.”

“The priest in the Good Samaritan wasn’t a bad person but a busy person.”

“I love how we write Christian books to encourage Christians to not be Christians.”

Ouch!

“Sometimes who needs the Devil when you have a Christian?”

“It’s not about the size of the darkness but the Magnitude of the light living inside of you.”

“In Jesus, you can start bad and finish Amazingly good.”

May these words pierce your soul like they have mine

Merely,

Chris Gerac
"He must increase, but I must decrease" James 3:30 , NASB