Back to the fundamentals

I'm really a little too long in the tooth to be learning this again, but apparently, I'm a slow study.

Frustration has set in, even though I know it to be an exercise in futility.

Perhaps it is because the garden exists only in my mind while we wait, more impatiently day-by-day, for the salvage yard to come and collect the refuse leftover from the recent truck rehabilitation. Until they do, there's no room to build the trailer and no garden space to till.

It could be because the nights still turn cold and it takes most of the day to reach a comfortable working temperature.

Perhaps I have let the spring-cleaning chores languish overlong and I'm now overwhelmed by the prospect.

Most likely, I caught a good case of frustration-flu during our recent trip to Denver. The traffic there continues to be a challenge, even during non-peak travel times. And when we're in the city, there isn't enough time to do half what needs doing and very little time to do what we want to do. (Apologies to my brother and his wife, Joanie, Ben and the girls, and the list goes on.)

Even though time is always short when we're there, we are always more than ready to make our way home. Any luster the city-life once had has faded to almost total darkness and we wonder, all the way home, how we ever managed to live there in the first place.

I know the solution to what ails me and it is simplicity itself. Now if I can only set aside my frustrations long enough to put it into play and settle myself to prayer and the Word.

There is a part of me that lives in a constant attitude of prayer. I keep short accounts with the Lord and am grateful every moment of every day that he is not caught up in frustration and exercises of futility, ever ready to hear my frequent prayers of thanksgiving, and my earnest appeals for mercy when only mercy can serve.

But I have neglected too long that sweet hour of prayer that first revealed his faithfulness, his sovereignty, his constancy, his peace and his will.

I was reminded of this during a talk I gave recently on the subject of prayer. I know first-hand the peace that is there, the power that is there, and the fellowship that can't be found anywhere else. It's just like our Father to use the sweet women in Stratton to remind me of what really matters. And, as good as a garden is, as nice as a spring-cleaned house is, as pleasant as it is to be with family for a brief season, nothing else can satisfy a hungry soul except the presence of the One who formed it.

When I first committed myself to prayer and study, it was after a situation similar to the one on Saturday. At the last minute, I was asked to fill in for our regular teacher during our monthly women's Bible study. I was told the lesson would be easy because it was on prayer. Thusly, thrust into the lesson, I learned that day that I had much to learn. I still have much to learn.

When Jesus taught his disciples to pray, he included the request for "daily bread" in the prayer he modeled. Undoubtedly, he meant that we should ask for more than simple daily bread, for more than supper each night or breakfast every morning.

Time to clean out that prayer closet and to commence praying, until the prayer becomes praise.

"Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." Matthew 4:4 (KJV)