There is a safe place in God that is remarkable and wonderful. David speaks of it in Psalm 31, and he does so in the painful context of certain people who took counsel together against him and were scheming to take away his life.

What do you do when life comes against you this way? Interestingly, David turned to the One person he could trust. He turned to His God. “As for me, I trust in You, O Lord, I say ‘You are my God.’ My times are in Your hand.”

The schemers still schemed, the adversaries still plotted, the enemies still sought to persecute him, but David sensed that he was safe in the arms of God. Hidden in the secret place of God’s presence where “shelter” takes on a new meaning, David lived awed by God’s marvelous lovingkindness. The enemies of his soul had their opinions but David had his God.

David’s times were not in the hands of his enemies; his times were in the hand of God. Truth is that we can’t do much about the agendas of those who strive against God and His people but we can draw near to God because He has invited us to do so, and in His presence we see His heart and find ourselves saying things like, “How great is Your goodness,” “Blessed be the Lord,” “You are my God.”

When the enemy would seek your demise, come into the secret place of God’s presence. Call upon your God. Trust Him. He is your God. Do you love Him? Then your times are in His hand. The enemy cannot enter into the secret place of God’s presence, so come and pray and seek God’s face, and call upon His name, and live in that one, true, safe place, the presence of God.

Beloved, in these days I’ve had a lot of time to pray and reflect upon Scripture and I wanted to tell you that time after time the Spirit of the Lord has moved on my life over the past month and has ministered to my questioning and processing soul. There have been some dark moments where I have had to cling to Jesus and there have been some moments when I was too perplexed and tired to cling, only to discover that He was already clinging to me, inviting me to let go and to fall into his embrace.

Today I want to testify to the faithfulness of God. This cancer has shaken me up a bit, but you know what, I’m still here, I’m alive and I have hope. A hundred times over the past month I have borrowed David’s prayer and made it mine, “But as for me, I trust in you, O Lord. I say, ‘You are my God.’ My times are in Your hand” (Psalm 31:14-15).

And, I want to testify to the Father in your behalf telling Him how faithful you have been, how committed to pray, and how driven to stay the course. I want Him to know that you all have touched my life. Your prayers, your cards, your words of encouragement have been a dynamic part of God entering my story and building hope in me. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

So, with all my heart my word to you today is “Nothing to the left; Nothing to the right; Jesus only.” May God bless you and keep you, and may His grace shine down upon you.

The words in this article come from
the old Prayer Warrior, E. M. Bounds,

in his book, Power Through Prayer.

May they wet an appetite in our spirits

to be men and women of prayer.

People of Prayer

We are constantly on a stretch, if not on a strain, to devise new methods, new plans, new organizations to advance the Church and secure enlargement and efficiency for the gospel. This trend of the day has a tendency to lose sight of the person or sink the person in the plan or organization. God's plan is to make much of the person, far more of the person than of anything else. People are God's method. The Church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better people.

"There was a man sent from God whose name was John." The dispensation that heralded and prepared the way for Christ was bound up in that person, John. "Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given." The world's salvation comes out of that cradled Son. When Paul appeals to the personal character of the men who rooted the gospel in the world, he solves the mystery of their success. The glory and efficiency of the gospel is staked on the people who proclaim it.

When God declares that "the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him," he declares the necessity of a person and of His dependence on that person as a channel through which to exert His power upon the world. This vital, urgent truth is one that this age of machinery is apt to forget. The forgetting of it is as baneful on the work of God as would be the striking of the sun from his sphere. Darkness, confusion, and death would ensue.

What the Church needs today is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but people whom the Holy Spirit can use -- People of prayer, people mighty in prayer. The Holy Spirit does not flow through methods, but through people. He does not come on machinery, but on people. He does not anoint plans, but people -- people of prayer.

I have been thinking about the place of prayer in the life of a follower of Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul declared, “With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints” (Eph. 6:18). In Romans 8:26 Paul indicated that there are times when “we do not know how to pray as we should,” and that in those time “The Spirit intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” In Romans 8:34 Paul declares that “Christ Jesus…who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God….also intercedes for us.” And, bless his heart, Augustine says, "Man is a beggar before God.”

It was John Bunyon who said, “You can do more than pray, after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed.” In other words, for those of us who believe in Jesus, prayer is the heart of who we are as a people. Getting before the Father and calling upon His name in prayer is a fundamental issue with those who have trusted in Christ for salvation.

To pray is to come alongside Jesus, responding to the fact that God’s will is “Good, acceptable and perfect” (Rom. 12;2). In Christ we are able to pray, “Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:1). We are free to pray like this because we know that always and forever God’s will is good, acceptable and perfect. It can’t be improved on.

I’ve been prayed for a lot recently, and, quite frankly, I have found great peace and comfort in knowing that God’s people are praying for me. Ironically, what I haven’t needed to know is the specifics as to what God’s answers to those prayers might be. I have the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, I am a part of the eternal Church of God, and I know that God’s will is good, acceptable and perfect. Here I stand. I choose to stand at no other place. God has spoken into our world and HE is enough.

May we draw near to God and pour out our hearts before Him in intercessory prayer.