Exodus 34:4 “So Moses chiseled out two stone tablets like the first ones and went up Mount Sinai early in the morning, as the Lord had commanded him; and he carried the two stone tablets in his hands.” Today's episode is about how Moses approached God with a blank slate and what if we did the same? It also talks about how God wants us to be persistent and to keep asking for the healing we are looking for. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Blank Slate
Exodus 34:4 “So Moses chiseled out two stone tablets like the first ones and went up Mount Sinai early in the morning, as the Lord had commanded him; and he carried the two stone tablets in his hands.”
I was listening to Father Mike’s weekly homily from the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. He talked about this verse, which is just one sentence and yet he used this sentence to show us how we should come before the Lord each and every day. He told us how we can enter into each encounter with Him and even a different perspective on how we look at the mass. I will put a link for this episode in the notes if you want to listen to it. I am not going cover all that he covered, I will just touch on two things that really touched me.
The first thing he said was that when it talks about Moses going up the mountain he brought two blank tablets in his hands. This is Moses second time up the mountain. The first time up the mountain he brought two tablets and God gave him the 10 commandments. Then when he came back down the mountain the people were worshiping a golden calf. Moses threw these tablets down and broke them. Now Moses was headed back up the hill with two new blank tablets. Father Mike was saying this is how we should approach the Lord, with blank tablets.
Often we approach the Lord full of expectations, not just about who the Lord is, but what He can and can’t do and how He does and does not want us to act. We walk into a prayer session expecting it to go exactly like every other prayer session has gone. What if we approached the Lord without any exceptions, without any preconceived notions and let Him tell us who He is and what He wants us to do? How would your prayer life be different if you entered into it open for anything? How would your relationship with the Lord change if you approached Him with a clean slate each and every time you approached Him?
What the Holy Spirit keeps bringing me back to is when I said we have expectations and preconceived notions of what He can and can’t do. I think this is what He wants me to talk about today. This is something He talks to us about often. Are we asking Him to answer our prayers and then assuming we know how they will be answered? Are we placing our constraints on God and not letting Him do all He wants to do? They Holy Spirit just brought a great example of us limiting Him to my mind.
Yesterday I was at Eucharistic Adoration and when I was leaving there was another lady leaving at the same time as I was. The other woman had a limp and her foot was turned to the side a bit. I felt the Holy Spirit asking me to ask her if I could pray over her. I was resisting as I tend to do. I was explaining I didn’t know the woman and I would feel weird, as if God didn’t already know any of that. Finally, I got up the courage to ask the woman if I could pray over her leg. She said someone already prayed over her when she was a kid. Her mother was part of the charismatic renewal and brought her to the meetings. She had a priest pray over her leg back then.
This happened 60 years ago and it seemed as though this woman believed she didn’t need any other prayers because someone had already prayed for her and it was not healed. I do not know what she was thinking because I didn’t ask, it was not my place. I do know that some people think if God wanted to heal them, He would have done it, so there is no point in asking again. I agree, if God wants to heal you, He can absolutely do it at any time. However, I disagree that just because He didn’t heal you that one time then He doesn’t want to heal you. I can’t explain why He didn’t heal you or your loved one the first time they were prayed over. I do know that sometimes things we do or don’t do can get in the way of our healing. We talked about a big one yesterday, unforgiveness. If you are harboring a lot of resentment and unforgiveness in your heart then that might be blocking the healing God wants you to have.
I have heard many people say that since they have prayed and they were not healed then maybe God has just given them this cross to bare, just like He did for Paul. It says in 2 Corinthians 12:7b-9 "Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” People hear this verse and they resign to living with their chronic pain, their disease, their hearing loss, their blindness, whatever their ailment is because they think God wants them to have it to teach them a lesson, or show them something. They think it is just their thorn in their side.
They taught us in our Encounter Ministries class that this thorn that Paul is talking about is actually not a physical ailment, but actually all the persecution he received while carrying out his public ministry. Whether you think it is a physical ailment or not is not as important as what Paul did about this thorn in his side. He did not ask God to heal it one time and then stop. It says in this verse that he asked, no he pleaded three times to the Lord for Him to take it away and then the Lord responded to Him. The Lord told Paul why he had this thorn and what would come from it. What I feel the Holy Spirit saying to you is to keep asking the Lord until you hear back from Him. Did you hear Him clearly say He wants you to stop asking? Did He explain what would come from this? God wants all of His children to be healed. Also, God loves persistence. There are many examples I can think of off the top of my head. If you are wanting a healing, needing a healing, keep asking. Ask God every single day. I don’t know why we have to wait sometimes. God’s ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts higher than our thoughts. I do know that He loves you and He wants to heal you. Just keep asking!
When we ask God for a healing, we should approach Him with blank slates, just as Moses did. Maybe God wants to heal you miraculously right now, maybe He wants to heal you through chemotherapy or radiation. Maybe he wants to heal you through lots of prayer. I don’t know what God’s plan is for you and neither do you. However, I feel the Holy Spirit telling us to be open to it all. Come and ask God how He wants to heal us, ask Him how he wants us to pray for healing. We might think we know how to pray, and we probably do, and also, God might want us to do something different this time. We won’t know until we stop and ask Him. This is something I struggle with, remember to pause and ask God what I should do. I like to just jump in and do what is comfortable, what I know, and yet my praying is always more fruitful when I pause and ask the Lord what He wants me to do. What if we all just tried to approach God with blank slates this week and see how it changes things? I was going to talk about the other point Father Mike had, but the Holy Spirit took me in another direction, on I am sure someone really needed to hear today. (CLICK HERE) for Father Mike’s episode if you are interested. He had some really great points.
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we want to approach you with blank slates, please show us how. We are sorry for all the time we assumed we knew what you wanted and didn’t actually stop to ask you. We thank you for being so very patient with us as we mess up time and time again. Lord, we ask that you help us to be persistent in going after that healing that we so desperately want. Lord, we believe you can heal us, we believe you want to heal us, help our unbelief. Lord we love you so very much and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. If you would like an autographed copy of my book with a personal message just for you, CLICK HERE. If you get a message that says it is unavailable, that will go away as soon as you pick regular or personalized. Also, if you would like to receive my weekly newsletter CLICK HERE. I look forward to seeing you all right here tomorrow. Remember Jesus loves you so much, and so do I. Have a blessed day!