I started this post yesterday, but just wasn't feeling up for delving into a discussion.
Day 45: Generations Of Answered Prayers:
"He will listen to the prayers of the destitute. He will not reject their pleas. Let this be recorded for future generations, so that a people not yet born will praise the Lord." —Psalm 102:17-18
I was expecting today's lesson to be focused on love or marriage or something relating more specifically to Valentine's Day. Instead Anderson shares a story about his grandfather who was born on Valentine's Day in 1908. "He was the first boy, with six older sisters," born into a [southern] Alabama dirt farmer's family." When he was 7 years old he had to quit school and help his father on the farm. "There was no time to waste learning skills that didn't directly apply to crop production."
Like any parent would, once Anderson's grandfather had children, he wanted more for his kids than the life of a poor dirt farmer. So he "prayed that God would show him a way to break the cycle of poverty that had cursed the family for generations." God answered by providing opportunities for education and the eldest boy (Anderson's father) "finished high school and college and became a teacher. In the next generation [Anderson], of course, went all the way to medical school." Anderson attributes his success to his grandfather's prayers.
He ends by suggesting that we write down the prayers that we have for our children and grandchildren so that eventually "they will see the fruit of our faith."
February 15, 2017
Yesterday Anderson talked about writing down the prayers we have so that those who come after us will see the fruit of our faith. I don't remember when exactly it was, but I found a prayer that my mother used to pray for each of us kids. It was tucked inside her Bible. It was not personal but more of a general prayer for our well-being and safety. I remember that it made me feel loved and protected. I could see how God had answered her prayer, thus it was also faith building.
Day 46: Jesus Show Us How To Have Confident Courage:
"The lord is my light and my salvation—so why should I be afraid? The Lord is my fortress, protecting me from danger, so why should I tremble? When evil people come to devour me, when my enemies and foes attack me, they will stumble and fall. Though a mighty army surrounds me, my heart will not be afraid. Even if I am attacked, I will remain confident." —Psalm 27:1-3
Anderson's lesson today focuses on the courage of martyrs and that of Jesus himself. He begins with an example of a group of martyrs that I had not heard of before—twenty-one Egyptian Coptic Christian men who were beheaded in 2015 on a beach along the southern Mediterranean coast. He says that "these followers of Jesus met their maker as silently as lambs." (I looked up information about the incident—disturbing images). It made me think of other martyrs, like the Christian teens from Columbine who died because they refused to renounce their faith and other martyrs like them all over the world. I would like to think that I would have the same courage.
Anderson continues by reminding us of Christ's character, his sacrifice, and his courage to remain silent while he was "mocked, beaten, and left hanging on the cross." Did Jesus want to die on the cross? No! Who would? In the Garden of Gethsemane he prayed for God to take "this cup of suffering from him," but he knew what must be done to fulfill his Father's will, and in the end he was willing to do it. As a man, he had the same fears that we have. He knows our pain firsthand. We cannot claim that he does not understand what it is like to be human. When we are persecuted, threatened and unjustly judged, will our response reflect courage and hope? "Will we acknowledge that God is in control, regardless of the circumstances or the enemies that surround us?"
Will we be like Jesus and the martyrs—confident in the protection of God and courageous in our confrontation with man?
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