Flies stayed away

Matthew 21:22 (ESV)

And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.

In her biography Go Home and Tell, Bertha Smith tells of traveling by rickshaw to a primitive village in China to devote several days to evangelistic work. Her living conditions were squalid; she shared a stall with an ox and with swarms of flies.

Finally she prayed, "Lord, I am one of Your spoiled children. All my life I have been accustomed to screened houses and clean food. Now, I just can't eat with those flies all over my food. Down in Egypt You had flies come and go at Your word. You are the same today…. Now please do one of two things for me: either take the flies away, or enable me just to go ahead and eat and not mind them. You then take care of any disease germs which they may put into my body... Whichever You wish to do will be good enough for me!"

Which do you think God did?

"Not a fly flew into that ox stall the remaining five days that I was there witnessing and teaching!" Wrote Bertha. "You will agree that was a miracle."

Dear Lord, thank You for the miracles that happen around us each and every day. Help us to take the time to notice that they are a work of Your hand. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Lessons From Flies in a Jar

2 Corinthians 2:14 (NIV)

But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere.

I have read that if flies are placed in a jar with air holes in the lid, they will fly around frantically, banging into the lid, desperately trying to escape from their prison. If left there long enough, eventually they will stop hitting the lid. Later, if the lid is removed, they won't even try to escape. Somehow they have been conditioned "to feel and believe" that there is no escape. They just keep circling in the cramped jar.

In some ways, many people are like this. Some- where in their past, through a frightening and traumatic experience, such as being raped, sexually, physically, or emotionally abused or rejected as a child, they have been conditioned to believe at an unconscious feeling level that they, too, are trapped and that there is no way out of their dilemma. And they end up going in circles with their life and/or relationships.

To be freed from this endless cycle of defeat, those who have been abused need the healing touch of God. As a general rule God uses other people to bring us this healing and deliverance. For the Christian, deliverance begins with acknowledging our problem (often best detected by the symptoms we have), genuinely wanting to be healed with a willingness to face the agony of these painful damaged memories and doing what we need and can do to be healed. And most important of all, praying for God to be with us as we face the circumstance.   

Dear Lord, thank you that you care about our pain and where we have been hurt in our past. Give us the courage to face these painful memories, connect to them and bring them to the light for your healing and deliverance. In Jesus' name. Amen.