Praying for Our Loved Ones (Part Two) | SERMON

[00:00:00] Real Truth Daily This is Daily Truths with Dave Ahlman. Now, it's interesting as you go back to this text, Mark tells us that the same man had a few doubts about his faith.

[00:00:16] He came to the Lord Jesus and he said, Lord, if you can, if you can, if you can, you can make by Son well. And what was Jesus response? If I can, anything is possible with those who believe. Then I love this man's response.

[00:00:30] And some of you know it, do you know what it is? Lord, I believe! Help me with my doubt. Do you have that? I do. You see my faith, my dependence upon God, my trusting the Lord, in behalf of prayer, often is tainted by doubt.

[00:00:52] And that Satan's Trump card. He loves to dissuade and discourage us and focus us off of the Lord and onto our problems, off of the providential care of God and onto us taking control

[00:01:06] and seizing the situation and casting doubt in our heart and mind whether God can do anything. And we know! We know! We know! That God can do anything at any time because he's Almighty God. And nothing can separate us from his love.

[00:01:25] So when we call upon the Lord, we say Lord, have mercy on my friend, on my son, on my daughter, on my loved one. Make them well. Take away their pain. Fix the situation. Solve the problem. He or their disease or sickness.

[00:01:43] And what do we have to say, Lord, if it be your, you say it will? That's a difficult prayer, is it not? And here's part of the problem. You see we have a difficult time waiting for the Lord to answer our prayers because we live in instantaneous age.

[00:02:03] Have you ever noticed that when you go to McDonald's or Burger King or whatever it is, you want your food immediately? Because it's fast food. And since it's fast food, you ought to get your food fast!

[00:02:17] But if you have to wait more than 5-10 minutes, what do you do? You become irritated. You become impatient. You start to worry. Hey, I've got appointments. Don't they know how much I've got going on? Don't they understand how busy I am?

[00:02:32] And it's the same thing with the Lord. You see the Lord's timetable is not ours. And many times we forget that. And one of the most difficult things to do when we call upon the name of the Lord and we say, Lord, have mercy on my loved one.

[00:02:48] One of the most difficult things to do is to wait. Listen to what Isaiah says. They that wait upon the Lord. They that wait upon the Lord. Shall we renew their strength? They shall mount up with wings like eagles.

[00:03:06] They shall run and not be weary walking, not faint. You call upon the name of the Lord. Your loved one is in distress. There's so much beyond your control. You don't know what to do. You pour out your heart and you say, Lord, have mercy.

[00:03:22] But then we forget it's according to his timetable. And not ours. I have a couple of powerful scenarios in my own life about this very prayer. Back some 30 years ago, I received a call to a beautiful church in our vada colorada.

[00:03:44] We were currently living at that time in El Paso, Texas. And my daughter, Ruth, your pastor's wife was a seventh grader and she had sunker roofs deeply into El Paso. She had friends that she loved.

[00:03:58] As a matter of fact, she had made a bond with whenever friends that they would be friends for life, right? And they still are. But you know what? I got that call and I said to my daughter, Ruth, we're going to be moving.

[00:04:13] She said, Daddy, don't do that. I love this place. I have friends. You know, I kind of struggle with connecting with people sometimes. And I've connected with some friends. Please don't do it and I did anyway. And when we uprooted her,

[00:04:27] it was like a plant that you literally uproot and then you put it off to the side and she was wilting. We put her at Bethlehem Lutheran school and she had a hard time connecting. At every time I'd pick her up, she'd sob with tears.

[00:04:41] She hears the amazing thing about my daughter. She never blamed me. She never got angry at me. I just knew her heart was breaking and I didn't know what to do. And the only thing I could do is pray this prayer Lord, I've mercy upon my precious Ruthie.

[00:05:02] These are burdened, take away your pain. Help her, five friends. Solve this mystery. Help her to root. Help us to love her unconditionally. Lord, I've mercy on my daughter. And here's the marvelous thing. He did. But it took a while.

[00:05:26] Fast forward some, oh, 28 years and we have a son who's 19 years old who went to a university and because of some decisions that he had made, he got kicked out of that university at the same time he lost his license. At the same time he lost his girlfriend.

[00:05:41] At the same time he lost his job and he had nowhere to go and so he came home. And I want to tell you my wife and I so many times in the last few months have prayed for our sons Josiah. Lord, have mercy on our son.

[00:05:53] The very same prayer that this man was praying was like son throwing himself into the fire kind of. In a not literal way was he isolated and alone and frustrated. Yes, could we fix it? No. Was there anything we could do? Yes.

[00:06:12] And what was it to pray and to pray, ardently, and to pray with tears sometimes because we felt so sorry for the things that he had done, for the trouble that he was in that was way beyond our control. In the Lord, I'd mercy on him.

[00:06:35] You see, our son grew up, especially after his accident, which you're all very much aware of. Pastor Tim lost his mom in the same accident. He went from being very athletic and smart and astute and studious and just incredibly intelligent to being very artsy.

[00:06:54] And so to deal with his trauma that he went through anyway six years old people bought him legos like crazy, right? Help your mind fix your brain, put stuff together and he loved it so much to this day. He still buys hate to say $300 Lego said, okay? Right?

[00:07:13] And he's really good at that. We had a job I won't say where that was just passing time. And now the Lord, two weeks ago, provided a job where all he does for eight hours a day is he gets these things and put some together.

[00:07:28] He's called a fabricator and he's learning how to weld. And the Lord, we call upon the Lord for so many years. Lord, have mercy on our son, help him to find his way, keep him connected to the church, resolve his situation, fix his ills. And finally, finally!

[00:07:47] He seems to be on the right path. And for this I thank God. Thank you for tuning in to Daily Truths with Dave Olman. Pastor Dave Olman is the pastor of Mount Holt Church in Boulder, Colorado. If you feel led, would you consider giving to this ministry?

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