PRAYER IS AN ACTION WORD!

DAILY WORD

10/24/22

20. As the flames from the altar shot up toward the sky, the angel of the LORD ascended in the fire. When Manoah and his wife saw this, they fell with their faces to the ground.

21. The angel did not appear again to Manoah and his wife. Manoah finally realized it was the angel of the LORD,

22. and he said to his wife, “We will certainly die, for we have seen God!”

Judges 13:20–22 NLT

With Today’s Passage, I will do something I rarely do. I will repeat a Verse to help punctuate Today’s Lesson. If you’ve been following the Story, Sampson’s parents have been visited by an Angel of The Lord, who delivered them an amazing Message. He told them they would conceive and bear a son.

The Message was considered Miraculous because the woman in the Story, Sampson’s mother, was unable to have children. Overjoyed by the Revelation, Manoah, the woman’s husband, asked the Messenger his name and offered a sacrifice to him.

The angel, understanding the Power Dynamic in a way they did not, refused to give his name, indicating that it was secret, and told Manoah that he should make his sacrifice only to God. Manoah was about to make a terrible mistake, giving God’s Glory to His Messenger. Thankfully, the angel knew better and spared Manoah and his wife from the consequences of his ignorance.

However, though Manoah has no idea who he is talking to, what happens next informs him, in no uncertain terms, that he is ignorant of his positioning in the heavenly hierarchy. Verse 20 indicates that after Manoah set fire to his burnt offering, the angel they’d been talking to vanished. God’s Messenger was caught up in the flames rising from the sacrifice, and streaked up into the heavens, never to be seen by them again.

Imagine for a moment that you’ve been talking to a man who’d spoken to your spouse, and that person told you God would be Granting you a particular Blessing you’d been praying for fervently for years. Think of the joy you’d experience, understanding that this Blessing was forthcoming.

The overwhelming elation such a Revelation would elicit is almost inconceivable. That level of exultation sparking through one’s consciousness could cause an individual to make some rash and unsound decisions when all that is truly required would be Thanking and Praising God before ever even seeing the announced Blessing.

That would have been the proper response, but what did Manoah do? He seemed to give God’s Messenger the Honor due to the One Who Sent him. We know that Manoah was incorrect in his assumptions by what his reaction was to seeing the angel ascend.

Both he and his wife fell to the ground and bowed their faces to the earth. Their reactions may have been a show of respect, but I think it was fear. They were so taken aback at what they’d witnessed, an individual they thought was a man turning into flames and flying into the sky, then disappearing into thin air. Yeah, that might elicit a little trepidation!

Manoah immediately told his wife they would die because they’d seen God. But he still didn’t get it. He was blinded by fear and ignorance of the true beauty of what had just happened. Manoah couldn’t see past his own flaws to perceive the wonder of his Blessing, which brings us to Today’s Lesson.

There is a Responsibility attached to God’s Blessings. We can miss it altogether if we do not even see the Blessing because we are so caught up with the deliverer. We must Be Ready, Prepared to accept and assimilate His Favor if we expect to glean all of the benefits that come along with them.

Besides that, if we are too enamored by the delivery to act on it when it comes, what was the good of getting it in the first place? We must be primed and ready to receive God’s Blessings the moment He delivers them or risk missing our moment. So, what does that mean for us?

It means that Praying with anticipation is not enough. We must Pray, and as we await our Answer, we must Prepare. We must be ready to hit the ground running if we expect to make the most of His Providence. That means asking God, then getting to work in expectation of His Answer.

A pro athlete doesn’t get a contract and THEN start getting ready to play. By then, it’ll be too late. They come in ready and then fine-tune their skills for the specific team or position they’re hired for. That is how we should be Praying!

Ask for what you want. Expect your Answer and Thank Him for it in advance. Then get to work as if it’s already there, so you’ll be ready to run right out of the gate when it does come!

Otherwise, you may end up feeling stupid as your Blessing slips out of your grip because you didn’t develop the strength to hold onto it. How terrible a feeling would that be, knowing that you had it, and let it go, because you didn’t Prepare Properly?

Don’t let that happen to you! Pray, then Prepare; otherwise, you might miss out on your Blessing!

Have a Marvelous Monday And Remember, Prayer Is An Action Word! Don’t Just Wait For Your Answer; Prepare For It!

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