They Prayed for Boldness

Hello and welcome back to the blog!

Today I'd like to leave you with a quick devotional. 

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When I was single, I had lots of time to spend in prayer and Bible study. As soon as one baby arrived, all that extra time seemed to vanish. I stopped reading my Bible entirely and only found a way to work Bible study back into my days after about a year. 

Fast forward another year and a half, and I'm still maintaining the same daily routine. I'm able to read about a paragraph each day and to write in a prayer journal. I spend about 15 minutes in quiet time, and the rest of my faith-focused activity happens alongside my girls. We sing, pray before meals, and talk about Jesus. 

Someday this will change, but for today, here's what I got out of my 15 minutes:

The scripture:

Peter and John have been preaching and teaching others about Jesus Christ. The priests, the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees are upset about it, and they throw Peter and John into prison overnight. 

When Peter and John are released, the priests, the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees threaten them and tell them to hush up, or else. Peter and John say, "Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard" (Acts 4: 19b-20).

Then Peter and John leave and go tell their friends, all of the believers, what happened to them. And when all the believers hear this, they lift their voices to God and pray,

"...and now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus." And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.

Acts 4: 29-31 (ESV)

The thought:

What would you have prayed? 

Maybe you're Peter and John, and you were thrown in jail for a night, threatened, and taken away from your friends. 

You get released and you pray.

God, please let me never go to jail again. I can't spread Your message in a jail cell. 

God, take away this pain. Ease my sorrows. So much was done to Your glory yesterday, and now things look so low.

God, that was awful, and now I'm afraid.

Or maybe you're one of the believers who are just hearing what's happened to the men who are your teachers and friends.

God, is this what happens to Christians? Have I made the wrong choice?

God, protect my family. They depend on me, and I can't go to jail.

God, if I love you quietly, is that okay?

Maybe, you and I, maybe we're thinking that Peter and John and all those believers were so close to when Jesus lived that it was easy for them to remember they were supposed to be taking up their crosses daily and following Him. That the Son of Man had no place to lay His head.

So when the believers prayed for boldness, when they prayed to have the courage to continue their mission and spread the message of Christ, maybe they were remembering Jesus's greatness on earth and had extra-special motivation to pray for boldness instead of comfort. 

But jail is jail. Martyrdom is martyrdom. And a whole lot of folks had been baptized in the name of Jesus the day before, and those folks were getting their first dash of cold water to the face - following Jesus could mean jail.

And they prayed for boldness. 

With that in mind, I have a question for you: how committed are you? 

When you work with a group of folks you know aren't Christians, will you avoid saying anything about needing to take a Sabbath's rest instead of working all seven days in a week because you know their whole opinion of you will change? Or will you pray for boldness?

When you are convicted to make a change in your life, but you know it'll make you a social weirdo, or it'll be "more trouble than it's worth," or your family will never go along with it, will you let the conviction sit on the back burner until you can forget it guilt-free? Or will you pray for boldness?

Or maybe in all of these situations you'll pray for something else, convinced that God will ease the problem in another way.

You'll pray He'll give you the energy to work the seven day weeks, because they help you support your children.

You'll pray that God will also convict your family with the exact same conviction He gave you, so that at least you won't have to fight an uphill battle in your own home.

Instead of boldness, we pray for comfort. All of those things are comfortable compared to the sufferings, big or small, that come from bold dedication to the Lord.

I pray you'll go forward in boldness today, and in each day from now on, and I hope you'll pray the same for me.

All the love,

Emily

Please feel free to contact me at admin@tulipsandbasil.com!