"FIRST RESPONSE"

Good Evening to All!

O GOD, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; (2) To see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary. Psalm 63:1-2 KJV

I liked this little picture to the right here on top. As we all know the most common phrase for this acronym is As Soon As Possible. Well, I have a new one. How about ASAP, ASAP? As Soon As Possible, Always Say A Prayer. This will remind us that Prayer should come before anything else.

When I read the little devotional that went with this verse tonight a couple of ideas were brought to mind, so please forgive me if I sound like I'm "all over the place" with this post tonight. I'll try to keep my thoughts together.

My first thought was "I wonder how many people (me included) go from person to person asking advice or even help to see if SOMEONE , ANYONE will tell us what we want to hear or do what we want them to do in the way of help. I know I'm guilty. I will sometimes go to one friend and ask for advice, and I always say "be honest with me". The problem is if they are, and I don't like what I hear, I don't get upset or angry, but I'll go to another friend and ask the same question or for advice. If I don't like their advice or way to help, I'll go to someone else. Finally, I say ok, God, I give up. It's all your's!

Luckily, I'm getting better about that. I still go to different friends for advice sometimes, but if it's really important help, then, I will go to God. I know, I still have it backwards. I do talk to God every morning, and ask Him guide my steps that day and to be included in every decision that I make, but then I fall back into my old trap of trying to find someone to give me advice I want to hear. That's not a good thing. It shows that I don't have enough faith in God to let things alone. Once I talked to God, that should have been it. Whatever decision I make after talking to Him should be the one I go with. Yes, He's still working on me, and still has a lot of work to do, but I am getting better.

Now the second thought about this subject I have is the fact that we struggle way to long with situations and problems before going to God. We whine, grumble, complain, and even lash out at people for "no reason", all because of our inner turmoil of problems, situations and issues. We tell our friends all about them and say I've done this, I've tried that, I've called such and such, but nothing has helped. I've heard people make comments like " If God sees what I need before I ask, then why doesn't He help me? Well, DUH! If you know that much then you should also know that God wants you to ASK HIM FOR HELP. This is called a relationship. It takes two. Someone to ask for help or advice and someone to give help or advice. Not only that, it shows we love and trust Him enough to ask for His help and guidance.

Prayer should be our FIRST RESPONSE to any situation or problem. Not a last resort. It will save a lot of mistakes and heartaches if we would pray first.

I've heard the saying and seen pictures that say "PRAYER CHANGES THINGS", but if we leave prayer til last, we're speaking "loud and clear". The thing is God tells us to cast all our cares upon Him. We do this by praying and telling God that He can handle these problems better than we can, so we're giving them to Him. Also, By holding on to our problems we are dwelling on them. When we dwell on them, they tend to get bigger and bigger, until they consume us and take over our thoughts, then we don't have time to concentrate on the good things in life like what God has done for us and the blessings which He has given us. We are making our problems and situations bigger than God. We are in a sense saying we don't think He can take care of them, or we don't want to relinquish control of them to Him. Well, as I said last night, I believe that this is human nature, but that's all the more reason to do it, to give up a little more of our "human nature" to become a bit more "Spiritually natured".

We also don't realize how we can make life a lot harder than it has to be. If we would turn things over to God, I can't help but think that our lives would go a lot smoother and easier. We really don't have any idea how powerful prayer actually is. If we did, we would talk to God on a very regular basis, listen to what He says about everything and also do what He says to do. We would do this as a FIRST RESPONSE, not a last resort.

Let GOD be the first "friend" you go to for help and advice. He will tell you what to do or who to see about everything. We must remember, He has hindsight, present sight and foresight about us, thereby letting Him be the best one to know what the best avenue of advice or help can be in any given situation in our lives.

I guess the only thing left to do is pray. Let's see if we can rectify this statement and instead of prayer being "the only thing left", let it be the first thing we do, then whatever remedy that comes along afterward will be blessed by God, because we will be able to feel the right thing to do in our spirit with peace.

Good Night to All and May God Bless!