Yours, LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is Yours. Yours, LORD, is the kingdom; You are exalted as head over all. 1 Chronicles 29:11
“The greatness of the sum required affords me a kind of secret joy; for the greater the difficulty to be overcome, the more it will be seen to the glory of God, how much can be done by prayer and faith; and also, because when God himself overcomes our difficulties for us, we have, in this very fact, the assurance that we are engaged in His work and not in our own.”
George Müller (1805-1898) in A Narrative of Some of the Lord’s Dealings with George Müller as recounted in Heaven and Earth: Sermons from the 2016 National Festival of Young Preachers, edited by Dwight A. Moody (Lexington: Academy of Preachers, 2017) 178.
I have secret joy today, so I have resolved to worship with the words of David in today’s Scripture. My secret joy is not linked to my situation. Far from it! I am traveling on my longest set of consecutive flights ever (departing Friday afternoon from Denver to Los Angeles to London and arriving in Johannesburg, South Africa, on Sunday morning). My back hurts thinking about it. I find “secret joy” as Müller calls it, when I combine prayer and faith.
As we focus on prayer this week during Lent, let’s consider what happens when we combine it with faith. We move beyond trying to navigate life on our own and then taking to God the things we can’t sort out, such as illnesses or challenges, to taking everything to God. It leads to secret joy because when we do, we become more aware of God and His work around us, which beckons us to engage with Him in His work.
I don’t know how else to describe it. While I’d appreciate your prayers for safe travel and a fruitful week of facilitating meetings with 80 men and women from 43 countries, I want something more from you, or rather, for you.
I want to join me in living like George Müller. As he would say, let’s show the world that God is still the living God but trusting Him for everything we need to live, give, serve, and love others like Jesus. And Müller would add, as God supplies, we must put it to work so that we remain in a posture of dependence, of prayer and faith, so that the world sees the living God through the way He faithfully provides.
Whatever you are afraid to trust God about, I pray you will trust Him for that this Lent. He not only can handle it, letting go will transform you. God is bigger than any challenge you can face or comprehend.
That’s what it happens when we combine prayer and faith. When we live like we believe God cares for us and that He will provide everything we need, we discover that His care has been there all along. And a watching world notices because they are straining at the oars of life trying to sort things out themselves. When we share this secret joy with others, our generosity moves from giving something tangible with a monetary value to giving something intangible that is priceless.