Faith, prayers, tears and groanings

My dad doesn't use an alarm clock. He just prays that God will wake him up when he should wake up everyday and that he'd get to work on time. And everyday he wakes up and gets to work on time.

It would make sense if my dad had an 

8-5 job his natural clock would be set and conditioned to wake up at the same time every day in order to get to the office on time, but that's not the case. 

My dad works at local hospitals and his patients arrive at different times every day so the times he would have to leave the house at different times, not to mention he works at different hospitals in the area so the travel time varies from day to day. There isn't a certain time he is conditioned to wake up, God wakes him up. That's the faith of my dad and God has proved Himself over and over through it. 

Then there's me, completely dependent on an alarm clock. However, here lately I've been praying that God would wake me up when He wants and that if it was Him, I wouldn't be able to go back to sleep. This morning He honored that prayer.

My alarm was scheduled to scare the living daylights out of me at 5:19 and 5:24 a.m. (yep, not just one but two alarms), so I could hit snooze for about 40 minutes, make it to the shower around 6, spend time with God then make it to work at 8:30. But God had other plans. 

Hello 4:30 a.m. Hello wide-awakeness. Hello world. Hello heart-wrenching burden. 

The kind of burden squashing my heart is something I can't explain. I'm not going to lie, I tried to go back to sleep. That didn't work. I tried getting on Facebook. That didn't work. So I started praying. (What kind of last resort is that? Why it was not the first obvious choice, I don't know.) 

 After writing several pages of prayers asking God for deliverance for a certain one of my disciples, the tears were blurring my vision and I gave up writing and just started crying out to the Lord asking for help and His leadership, wisdom and sensitivity. 

The battle was intense. Our enemy is so strong. But praise God, our Lord is stronger. 

Before long I opened up His precious Word and went to Romans 8:26, but before I made it there I started reading verse 18. The truths of these verses were like aloe vera on a sunburn, so soothing.

"For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. ¹⁹ For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. ²⁰ For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope ²¹ that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. ²² For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. ²³ And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. ²⁴ For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? ²⁵ But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. 

²⁶ Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. ²⁷ And He who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. ²⁸ And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose. ²⁹ For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. ³⁰ And those whom He predestined He also called, and those whom He called He also justified, and those whom He justified He also glorified."  

³¹ What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? ³²  He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things? ³³ Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. ³⁴  Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised— who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. ³⁵ Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? ³⁶ As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;

    we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

³⁷ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹ nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

-Romans 8:18-39

The amount of gratitude I have for the Word of God is inexpressible. And if His sweet Word--filled  with exceedingly great and precious promises--wasn't enough, it tells us the Spirit Himself is interceding for us. It says that twice then goes on to say Jesus Himself is sitting beside the Father in heaven praying for us, interceding on our behalf, begging our Dad next to Him to hear and answer us and so fulfilling His High Priestly duties. 

Although I was doing some tear-filled groaning with the Spirit this morning and it wasn't the most comfortable feeling, I pray it is the first of many mornings to wake up in prayer and feel the Lord fighting for me. 

He really is the best.

My encouragement for you is that you remember you are not in this battle alone. You have brothers and sisters that want to help you fight and you have a Comforter and Savior who is not only interceding for you, but One who has already clinched the battle. "It is finished."