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Blessed Are Those Who Wait

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“Therefore the LORD waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the LORD is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.”
-Isaiah 30:18

The Lord waits to answer our prayers for a reason! It’s not something on his to-do list he hasn’t gotten around to, but he stands purposefully waiting.

Why is he waiting? He waits to exalt himself. And when he exalts himself, we will see how great he is:

“When all the people of Israel saw the fire come down and the glory of the LORD on the temple, they bowed down with their faces to the ground on the pavement and worshiped and gave thanks to the LORD, saying, ‘For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.'”

Blessed are all those who wait for him because they will see his glory. Whether God exalts himself through healing Ian or not healing Ian, let this encourage us to keep praying, because God wants to show us himself through Ian!

-Ben

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Waiting for Mercy

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“When we plead with God and have not realized success, we become more earnest and more intent and our hunger increases. If we obtained the blessing when we first asked, we would not have a sense of mercy’s value.” -Charles Spurgeon, Beside Still Waters p.31

What comfort I have found in God’s word and books that help me meditate on His word.
My dear friend Gretchen Allen had been telling me that she often fell asleep with this book in her arms but I wasn’t motivated to read it until I myself became desperate for comfort. Life can be confusing, but God’s word is wonderfully simple and oh so sweet.

“If the ships of prayer do not speedily return, it is because they are heavily loaded with blessings. When prayer is not immediately answered, it will be all the sweeter when the answer arrives. Prayer, like fruit, is ripened by hanging longer on the tree.”

-Mary (Ian’s mother)

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Ian responding to familiar people

By admin,

Tomorrow Ian goes in for a skin graft on his knee. In a few days after he’s recuperated from that surgery, we’re expecting to have to make the decision about a transitional facility, unless there are more things that need to be done to him in the hospital. When he leaves the hospital, we’ll be pushing for an aggressive approach to physical therapy; we really don’t want him just to be in a nursing home. We want him to recover from this either by a miracle or by God’s provision of various therapies. It may mean he can’t stay locally, but we’d prefer to have him where they can really work with him.

He appears to be responding to familiar people! Larissa and David (Ian’s best friend since the day they were born) noticed him responding to very simple commands like, “move your arms,” “move your legs,” etc. Pray that he keeps it up. Pray that these small steps would be much more obvious. Pray that he would respond to commands from less familiar voices and even from the medical staff. Pray, most of all, that he would wake up.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for your prayers….

Steve Murphy

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Recount the Mercies of God

By admin,

I believe the time has come to recount the mercies God has already shown us in our prayers for Ian.

  • God spared Ian from death in the initial car wreck. He kept Ian alive amidst the mangled wreckage that we might lift prayers on his behalf.
  • God spared Ian when his brain was dying. Doctors gave him 2-4 hours to live. In his astonishing mercy, God again spared Ian’s life, allowing us to lift more prayers on his behalf.
  • God touched Ian’s knee. The doctors went in, expecting to repair a destroyed ligament. Instead they found a ligament that needed very little work at all. How kind of God!
  • Ian is breathing on his own, without the respirator. His heart is strong. His fever is down. God is preserving Ian!

Thank you Father for the mercies you have given Ian. Thank you for how you have already answered so many of our prayers!

Doesn’t this encourage you to pray all the more fervently that God would wake Ian’s sleeping brain! God is an astonishingly lavish God and I don’t believe that we have reached the end of his mercies. He has already poured out incredible mercy on Ian thus far. This encourages me that He desires to continue to pour out his mercy. Let’s pray that God would pour out more mercy on Ian by waking him up. For His glory alone…

-Stephen A

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Drowning Melville

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For those of you who may not know Ian, here’s a sampling of his humor. It’s an eight-part series he and his friend David created, inspired by Herman Melville’s Moby Dick…

http://www.savethewheel.com/melville

Just click “chapter 1,” sit back, watch the movie, and enjoy!

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The Power of Prayer

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“Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” James 5:16

Oh the power that is packed into these two verses! In these verses we are informed that the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. In and of ourselves, we are not righteous. We are filthy, wicked sinners who fully deserve the wrath of God. But God, because of His great love for us, has provided One who is righteous to stand in our place. Jesus Christ lived a life of perfect and absolute righteousness. Then He was hung upon a wooden cross where He endured the awful fury of God’s wrath towards sin. Now God credits the absolute, perfect righteousness of Christ to all who trust in Him. This is astonishing! God calls us ‘righteous’ in Christ.

This gospel truth should absolutely revolutionize our prayers for Ian. If we have trusted in Jesus, we are counted as righteous. We are His children and He is our Father. He delights in us and our prayers. Not only that, He tells us that our prayers have great power when they are working. Not some power. Not mediocre power. Great power! Meditate on that for a moment. Each and every prayer has great power. Why? Because we are praying to an infinitely powerful God who made us righteous in Christ and delights in our prayers. Each prayer you pray is jam packed with power from God. What a sweet promise!

Let this truth encourage you to pray in faith for Ian’s complete healing. Ask big things of our infinite God. Ask Him to do the absolutely impossible. Why? Because He already did the most difficult thing possible by saving us. Now He beckons us to lift our prayers to Him and tells us that these prayers are full of great power. What a wonderful God we serve. Keep praying!

-Stephen A

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Ian off the vent…

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I just checked this morning. Ian stayed off the vent all night. 24 hours off of the ventilator! And, he hasn’t had a fever for two days. Thank you, Lord.

Steve Murphy

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Definitely breathing easier

By admin,

At 11am today, the respiratory therapist removed the ventilator from Ian’s trach, and tonight’s report is that he’s doing really well with his breathing. Progress! They said he does get tired, so they’ll put him back on the ventilator at night until he’s stronger.

They’re going to do a skin graft next on his knee to close the wound.

It was three weeks ago today when the car wreck happened. I can’t tell how helpful it is to us to know that you’re praying…

Steve Murphy

P.S. When you visit Ian, make sure you ask permission from the nurses by calling them on the house phone in the waiting room before going through the ICU to his room. One of the nurses reminded me of this policy this morning.

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A New Prayer

By admin,

At Care Group tonight, I believe that God gave me a new prayer. I know that my sinful, selfish heart will often tell me that these things aren’t true. But as I learn to focus on truth, I pray that this will be a prayer of mine, and your, hearts.

Heavenly Father, Thank you that you’ve spared Ian’s life. Thank you that you have sustained him for the last two and a half weeks. Thank you that you met us in our darkest hour and brought Ian back to life. Thank you that his organs are working perfectly. Thank you for preserving his body. Thank you that you put him in the hospital that you did, so that his family could constantly be near him, praying for and talking to him.

God, thank you that you specifically chose Ian to be your instrument in our lives. Thank you that you allowed him to sacrifice this time of his life so that we, sinners, can be drawn nearer to you. Thank you that you are using the wounds on his body to teach us how to pray. Thank you that you are using his broken vertebrae and his injured knee prove to us that miracles are real. Thank you that you are using his bruised brain to turn hearts to you.

Thank you for the honor that our brother, friend, son and boyfriend was chosen to teach your children about the body of Christ and the power of prayer. Thank you that you created him to be such a memorable person, a gift that you have used to stir so many hearts to pray. Thank you that this accident was ordained by you, therefore making it no accident at all. Thank you that you chose Ian to remind us of your truths and your constant goodness.

Father, we come before you, each time we pray, with nothing to offer. But we believe that by your grace, you will once again meet us in our darkest hour and will restore Ian completely. We don’t know your will, but we believe that you want us to ask for the astonishing. Please wake Ian up in your time.

Above all, thank you that in life or in death, Ian’s life will glorify your name. Thank you that our prayers do not fall on deaf ears and that your name will be glorified. We will continue to knock and wait for your will to be done.

Larissa

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Keep asking

By admin,

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” Matthew 7:7-11

Andrew Murray says this about the above passage:

“It is as if he would tell us that we are not to rest without an answer, because it is the will of God, the rule in the Father’s family: every childlike believing petition is granted. If no answer comes, we are not to sit down in the sloth that calls itself resignation, and suppose that it is not God’s will to give an answer.”

God intends that every prayer have an answer! Let us continue to fervently pray and appeal to God until we receive His answer. Fight against the weariness and sluggishness that so often comes when our prayers are not immediately answered. We have a Father who loves to give good gifts. Let’s pray specifically that Jesus, the One who conquered death itself, would wake Ian. Thanks.

Stephen A

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