Pam Padgett ... teacher
Mark 10:46 And they came to Jericho: and as he (Jesus)
went out of Jericho with his disciples and a great number of people,
blind Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, sat by the highway side begging.
47 And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out,
and say, Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me.
48 And many charged him that he should hold his peace: but he cried the more a great deal, Thou Son of David, have mercy on me.
49 And Jesus stood still, and commanded him to be called. And they call
the blind man, saying unto him, Be of good comfort, rise; he calleth
thee. 50 And he, casting away his garment, rose, and came to Jesus. 51
And Jesus answered and said unto him, What wilt thou that I should do
unto thee? The blind man said unto him, Lord, that I might receive my
sight. 52 And Jesus said unto him, Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee
whole. And immediately he received his sight, and followed Jesus in the
way.
Many tried to silence Bartimaeus, but he continued to cry out, for he
believed that Jesus was able to help him. And Bartimaeus obeyed what Jesus said, going to Jesus when Jesus called for him.
When we have a problem or are troubled or concerned about something,
thoughts may come trying to keep us from crying out to God. The devil
tries to keep us from turning to God, and our own flesh tries to rise up
to show it can handle the matter.
But the way of God is to turn to HIM and depend on HIM to help us,
setting our faith and hope in God not in ourselves, and to obey what God
speaks to us.
1 Peter 5:6 Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty
hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: 7 Casting all your care
upon him; for he careth for you.
An example of a thought that sometimes comes to us is "There's not time to pray about this" ....
One day I noticed that my young dog had an ink pen in her mouth, playing
with it and chewing on it. This caused me to panic, not wanting her to
swallow ink or pieces of the pen and also not wanting ink to get on the
carpet. I jumped into action to get the pen, but the dog started
running from me with the pen still in her mouth. The way she was
holding the pen in her mouth also concerned me that she might be injured
if she ran into something. It was urgent to get the pen away from the
dog and thoughts came that there was time for nothing other than chasing the dog.
But as I chased the dog I was reminded to pray. When I called out to God, a thought (from the Holy Spirit) immediately came that I should stop chasing the dog and get a treat for the dog. I quickly went to the cabinet where the treats are kept, and the dog
immediately dropped the pen and came to me to get the treat, allowing me to
get the pen before she was injured or chewed through the part of the pen
holding the ink.
Another thought that sometimes comes to stop us from turning to God is "There's no way God can show me how to deal with this".
A couple year ago I had an older large dog (weighed about 90 pounds).
His hips and back legs had become quite weak, so I used a gate to keep
him from going up or down a staircase in my house. But one day I failed
to secure the gate and before I knew it the dog had come up the
stairs. Just as he reached the top stair, however, he started slipping down
the stairs with his back legs tangled up. I was able to get behind him
very quickly and stop him from tumbling down the stairs by bracing him
with my body. But now what? He was so heavy that I was unable to pick
him up. And if I moved to go try to find help, he would surely fall
uncontrollably down the staircase. There seemed no way to be helped in this situation.
But when I called out to God, I could "see" how to untangle the
dog's back legs while still bracing him, and then how to gently ease him
down the staircase one stair at a time. Doing this allowed the dog to get to the bottom stairs uninjured.
Another thought that sometimes comes: "I've already dealt with something like this before, so there's no need to pray about it".
A few months ago I was having severe headaches and prayed asking for help. I was led to go to an eye doctor who found that the prescription of my eye glasses needed to be changed. While waiting for new eye glasses to be made, however, the headaches continued. At first I thought I'd just need to endure these headaches until the new eye glasses were ready. But then I was reminded (by the Holy Spirit) to pray about these headaches as well.
Each time a headache started, I prayed about what to do.
Sometimes I was led to take an aspirin, other times I was led to
lay down and rest, sometimes I was led to eat something. The way I was led after praying
always relieved the headache.