{"id":3928,"date":"2014-10-18T14:10:49","date_gmt":"2014-10-18T18:10:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/?p=3928"},"modified":"2014-11-26T00:03:56","modified_gmt":"2014-11-26T04:03:56","slug":"pastors-ponderings-help-is-only-a-prayer-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/?p=3928","title":{"rendered":"Pastor’s Ponderings: Help is Only a Prayer Away"},"content":{"rendered":"
The following devotional was submitted by Pastor Jim…<\/span><\/address>\n

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Greetings Friends:<\/p>\n

PLEASE READ: Luke 11:1<\/a><\/p>\n

One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, \u201cLord, teach us to pray….,”<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Some of you may have seen the Walt Disney movie “Snow Dogs.” It tells the story of a dentist whose name is Ted Brooks, who inherits a cabin and a dogsled team in Alaska. His efforts to master dog sledding are recorded in the film as he meets bumps, bruises and bears…<\/p>\n

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On one occasion when Brooks is learning the ropes, the dogs suddenly goes into high gear. Brooks is thrown in the deep Alaskan snow. He struggles to his feet, grumbling and brushing off the snow, suddenly a large shadow covers his own, and he realizes that he is not alone. <\/span><\/p>\n

A large grizzly bear is only a few yards away. When the bear roars, displaying a full set of sharp teeth, Brooks begins to run. Just as it appears the bear is going to win the race, Brooks falls off a cliff and lands on a precipice. As he shouts victoriously, “I\u2019m alive! I\u2019m alive!” the precipice gives way, dropping Brooks to a steep slope, where he rockets down the mountain like a bobsled, narrowly missing tree after tree. He screams all the way down, until he finally comes to a halt. <\/span><\/p>\n

He smiles, but his smile quickly fades when he realizes he is lying on a thin layer of ice covering a lake. As the ice begins to crack beneath him, he lunges forward, leaving a trail of ice water in his wake. He lands on what appears to be a solid piece of floating ice, and begins to sink.<\/span><\/p>\n

So what does anyone in this kind of predicament do? The beleaguered Brooks reaches for his cell phone! He dials the emergency number, only to hear the message, <\/span><\/p>\n

“You are outside your coverage area.\nShould you like to expand your service, please call back during business hours<\/span><\/strong><\/em>.”<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>
\n<\/span>
\n\"radio-tower-316372_640\"<\/a>Have you ever heard a message like that? Maybe you haven\u2019t been dumped by a dogsled team, chased by a bear, slid down a mountain, landed on thin ice, dove for something that appears to be solid and secure, only to find that this gets you into deeper trouble. However I\u2019m sure each of us can relate to times in our life when it seems that one disaster seems to follow after another. It seems that we no sooner are over one crisis, than another one arises. Just when we think that things couldn\u2019t possibly get any worse, they surprisingly do. These are times when you are at your wits end coping with the things that are happening in life.<\/p>\n

The goods news is that divine help is just a call away. And God will not tell you to call back during “business hours.” We read in Jeremiah 33:3<\/a>, (see also Isaiah 55:6<\/a>).:<\/p>\n

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“Call unto me and I will answer you <\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know<\/span><\/strong><\/em>“<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Prayer<\/a>Jesus just finished praying when His disciples came to Him and asked Him if He would teach them how to pray (Luke 11:1). Jesus knew that His disciples, like Brooks in the movie, would soon been thrown into turmoil. Luke 11 takes places just a short time before Jesus would be arrested, falsely accused, and tried. He would endure the beatings, the laughing and mockery, and finally the crucifixion. And just when the disciples thought things couldn\u2019t get any worse the first visitors to Jesus\u2019 grave report that the grave is open and Jesus\u2019 body is gone. Jesus knew that during this time His disciples will need to be fully aware of the help that is just a prayer away.<\/p>\n

God is waiting for us to call on His help \u2013 to call upon Him to release His power in our lives and in our churches. He is waiting to help us when we need it the most. Someone has written,<\/p>\n

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“God is ever more ready to hear than we are to pray.” <\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The founder of Methodism, John Wesley, is quoted as saying,<\/p>\n

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“God does nothing but by prayer.” <\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

How is our prayer life? Are we praying? Are we taking God serious at His word or do we think we can face all of the challenges of life on our own?<\/p>\n

Shalom,<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n
Pastor Jim<\/span><\/address>\n

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Click below to read more…<\/span><\/em><\/h5>\n

Pastors Ponderings:<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0 To read other Pastor’s Ponderings articles<\/p>\n

Prayer<\/a><\/strong><\/span>:\u00a0 To read other posts about prayer<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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\u00a0<\/address>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following devotional was submitted by Pastor Jim…   Greetings Friends: PLEASE READ: Luke 11:1 One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, \u201cLord, teach us to pray….,”   Some of you may have seen the Walt Disney movie “Snow Dogs.” It tells the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4219,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[131],"tags":[104,107],"class_list":["post-3928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pastors-ponderings","tag-help","tag-prayer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3928"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4225,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3928\/revisions\/4225"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}