Comments (post-study Eph. 1)

I want to take this opportunity, while in the stream of reading Ephesians, to take note of the prayers I've made.

I prayed for power, and to be aware of the experience of grace.

They say that reading the bible is spiritual. This must be another example why that is the case. After praying those things, what took place? I remembered something significant that I honestly hadn't thought of in many years. I saw the impact being clearly both (especially) a dispensor of power, and, greater awareness of grace.

And while it is true that the Word is living and active the action in which I really made progress, was prayer. In the book of James it says "You do not have because you do not ask." I have been so reluctant for a long, long time to pray because I was afraid that in anything His answer would be "no." I couldn't stand the thought of it. Or I was disgusted to think I might have to give up something I didn't really want to. Both of those issues of course are ones of lacking trust. The LORD showed the power of His Word to me not in reading it like when I first believed it, but this time instead by the new task of praying on what I believed. I had no choice, but to ask. Since belief was completed so long ago, He knew that was the only way left for me to grow. He wanted to show me what He could do when I thought He should be listening. Those worries of hearing the answer "no" were issues of trust that had kept prayers to a minimum, but trust is a lot better since I remember where my alabaster box has gone.

Once that box has been broken, I'm not sure it must be re-broken again even if the power of it had been long-forsaken. What do I do now with newly made precious items that once I would have placed carefully inside the box? I have a new system set up in memorial of the meaning of the box. My mind has been transformed in function; it is more like a post office rather than a holding-tank. Whenever worries are refreshed, or new worries arise, I have a stack of pre-made address labels on the counter from which I take one and slap it on. Those labels read:

Jesus Christ
c/o God the Father
Right Hand, HEAVEN (zip code) Trinity

So they don't stay with me very long. The shipping costs are high... they are always high. It would be much easier to hold on to them rather than go through the fuss and emotional expense of surrendering and sending them off. However there are a lot of benefits of having them cleared up & out, and, just like a post office, life brings shipments of His response care-packages, rain, sleet, hail or snow.

So the most interesting question left to ask before I read on in Ephesians, is, if that's chapter one then what's the rest of the book going to do to me?

Ha ha.