A Heart Cry for Our Youth

This devotional speaks to the hearts of those who know what it’s like to be an intercessor and a parent.  It is taken from Barbara’s website, Harp Song.

Commit Your Way To The Lord

by Barbara Mullen

“Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass. “ Psalm 37:5

I have been wrestling with God. As always, He wins, and I find myself wondering why I ever question Him about what He asks of me. This morning when I woke up I was feeling a sense of grief in my spirit. Grief over losses that cannot be returned. . . .or can they? I have been praying for our youth and sometimes I am saddened by what I see and that grief spills out of my thoughts onto the written page.

As I pondered the losses that I see in today’s culture, I wrote this statement- I am saddened by the loss of innocence in our youth. More saddened, that they do not realize what they have lost. We are living in a dark time of human history. Culturally, we are standing at the precipice of destruction. For it is a grievous thing to knowingly and willfully choose to disregard the commands of God. Even more tragic, is when society gets to the place, where it no longer cares, no longer teaches it’s children to care, and even glorifies and teaches the “benefits” of sin. These children, like the lost boys of never land, carry out their folly not even realizing what is on the other side of their world. So fallen, that they do not know what it was supposed to look like in the first place.

Where do we go from here? As parents, how do we gather back what has slipped through our fingers? Is there hope to see the beauty of holiness in the midst of such a fallen world? Yes. There is hope. It rests in the arms of One who is called the Great Redeemer. This is not something we can fix. Only God can make a blind man see. Only God can raise the dead. The first step to healing is in coming to this fact: We fail. We are completely and entirely incapable of success. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. It is in coming to the place where we can finally say, “I was wrong about some things” that we can receive grace and restoration. From this place we can pray effectually for our children.

“Commit your way to the Lord” is what He tells us. What does this mean to us? Well, let’s back up a few verses and see what it is that we are committing. . . Verse 3-4 says, “Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and feed on His faithfulness. Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.”

We cannot go on our way, doing the same old things, ignoring what we know is truth and disregarding the word of the Lord, and expect God to honor that. We cannot commit to Him a stubborn and rebellious heart. For in our stubbornness, what we are really saying to God is, my way is what I am trusting you to bless. No, He says, trust in the Lord and do good. These go hand in hand.

Next He says, dwell in the land and feed on His faithfulness. Oh what a blessing this key is! He does not remove us from our troubles. He does not take us out of the world. But says to us, dwell in the land, and in that place. . . . remember that I am faithful. Dwell on it. Meditate on it. Let this be your focus, not the troubles you are seeing all around you. From this place of remembrance, from this place of confidence, He gives us yet another key. . . . Delight yourself also in the Lord. Get wrapped up in who God is. Become interested in and curious about what He thinks about. Thoroughly and completely fill yourself up with it. Be delighted with Me, is what He says to us.  In another passage, it says, “do not be drunk with wine, but be FILLED with the Holy Spirit.” God is inviting us to become completely intoxicated with Him.

Ok, so when we are doing these things, THEN we come humbly to a God we have come to know is kind and good and full of compassion. It is this God, who we are trusting and delighting in, that now says to us. . . . Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass.

How great is the grace of God! Nowhere does He say in this passage, to “get it right first”, or “follow these religious rituals first” or “get yourself holy first”. . . .no. He knows our frame. He understands that we are as dust. He “gets it” that we fail and cannot fix it. He simply asks us to humble ourselves and in humble obedience, begin to regard Him and His ways, then plainly bring Him our brokenness and expect that He will be the One to redeem it.

James says it this way, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.”

Do you wonder if you are doubting God ? Well, what is it that you are thinking is going to correct the problem? If your mind is still grasping for answers in thoughts that precede with . . . “well, if we do this. . . or if we change that. . . . if I say this . . .or say that. . . . then you are still living in the land of self fix, and that is sadly, doubting God. We need to get to that place of humility as a country, and as individuals, where we are able to say with heartfelt remorse, we cannot fix this! We are utterly and entirely broken! Compassionate Father- you who know my heart and my desires- I commit this mess to you and ask You to be my Redeemer. When we get to that prayer, God answers. Believe it is true. For the God who created all things is faithful. He said it and He does not ever lie.

I am praying for our youth today. I cannot fix what was broken. I cannot restore what was lost. But I can ask my Father, who can both fix and restore anything to come and to redeem what was lost. For with God, NOTHING shall be impossible.

A few years ago Barbara received her harp and the ability to play it as a gift from God. She has blessed many people with her inspired music. You may find out about her CD’s and ministry at her Harp Psalm website.