7 Portraits in Prayer, Day 8: Evening

Day 8: Evening

Week 2, Radiant Prayer, Day 1: Repentance

(Read Exodus 34:43–54)

Repent means to rethink. In the New Testament, the Greek word for repentance is to change your mind. It is not only our affections and sorrow over our sins; it’s not only our actions and stopping our sins; it’s also our attitude and setting our mind on Christ.

This morning, we ended with the first rule of getting out of a pit. This evening, we need to see what more we can do than “stop digging.” We need God to come and lift us up. We need to claim Psalm 40:1-2, “I waited patiently for the LORD; and He inclined to me and heard my cry. He also brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my steps.”

Repent means to redirect. When we regret, relent, and rethink about our sins, we will redirect our steps in obedience to Christ. Moses wrote the commandments on tablets of stone, but for Christians, God writes His law upon our hearts (2 Corinthians 3:3, Jeremiah 31:33, Ezekiel 36:25ff).

When you think of the word “repent”, what comes to mind? A wild-haired, locust-eating John the Baptist? The pointy finger of a fundamentalist evangelist, glaring down from a tall pulpit? A sandwich board sign on the front and back of a street preacher?

Me? I think of Laredo.

Melissa and I were driving down to South Padre from Fort Worth by way of San Antonio. I kept seeing signs saying how far Laredo was, and I remember thinking that I didn’t remember Laredo being so close to South Padre. And it was getting closer!

Eventually, it dawned on me. I was not on I-37, but I-35, and never has one little number made so much difference! I had exited Loop 410 in San Antonio on the wrong highway, and suddenly our long ten-hour trip was going to be a lot longer.

“Honey, how much do you love me?” I asked my wife, looking sheepishly at her in the back seat of our Dodge Caravan, trying to keep our four kids from going crazy and more importantly driving us crazy. My face was not radiant, but probably ashen white!

“What did you do?” she asked, having already been a little suspicious of why we were still on the desolate road to Corpus. Instead we were on that most desolate road to Laredo. (Come to think of it, her face did begin to glow, but not exactly in a good way!)

Repentance is when you realize you are going the wrong direction, or in my case, being completely on the wrong road. If you have never been there, let me tell you: there is a HUGE difference between Laredo and South Padre Island!

Whether you are on the wrong road in Texas or the wrong road in life, repentance means change the direction. Someone has wisely said, “Sin will always take you farther than you ever thought you'd go; it will keep you there longer than you ever intended to stay, and it will cost you more than you ever expected to pay.”

 

Pray this prayer to God: “Oh God, hear incline your ear and hear my cry. Pull me up from the mire of my sins. Help me to show the radiance of your glory in my face, my actions, and my life. In Your Holy Name I pray, Amen.”

Click here for Day 9, Morning.