(Note:
The following message is a companion article to a message
which aired on Autism One Radio. To hear the broadcast
at any time, please go to:
http://autismone.org/radio/default.cfm?archive=829&bg=&FromA1
and click on the arrow above “Listen to Jack and
Rebecca Sytsema.”)
HOW
TO HAVE INFLUENCE WITH GOD
(with Scripture Guide)
Know
therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful
God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations
of those who love him and keep his commands. (Deuteronomy
7:9, NIV)
HAVE
YOU EVER WONDERED how you can have influence with God?
The fact is, if you are saved through the blood of Jesus,
you already do!
Of
course the kind of influence we are talking about is
not one of manipulation or control, but rather an influence
that flows out of an ongoing, mutual relationship with
the Lord. Just as in other significant relationships
in our lives, our relationship with the Lord produces
both mutual influence as well as mutual benefit. The
Lord created us to be relational, because He is relational.
He seeks relationship with us, and when we respond to
Him, it touches His heart. Because we are the objects
of His affection, when we are in a healthy relationship
with Him, we do have influence.
And
through that mutually influential and beneficial relationship,
the Lord restores many things to us. He also Lord directs
our path and helps us to both understand and work toward
our destiny.
A
beautiful story of restoration coming through relationship
comes in 2 Kings 4. In fact, this story tells of how,
through obedience and persistence, God restored the
same blessing twice. This is the story of the prophet
Elisha passing through Shunem. As he was there, he come
across a woman. Though the text does not give her name,
it does say that she was a notable, wealthy woman. While
Elisha was there the woman persuaded him to come eat
at her home. After a while she saw that Elisha was a
godly man and so, after talking with her husband, she
made a room for Elisha to stay whenever he passed through.
This apparently became a regular stopping spot for Elisha.
On
one of his regular visits, Elisha asked what he could
do for the woman in return for her kindness. When he
discovered that she had no son, he prophesied to her
that she would bear a son. Through the prophecy, God
revealed His personal covenant plan for her. Even though
she was reluctant to believe, she did bear a son one
year later. God had restored the inheritance of a child
to her.
Scripture
says the child grew. Then one day after suffering a
terrible headache, the child died suddenly in his mother’s
arms. How could it be that this child of promise, this
child of restoration was now dead? Many of us who have
children with autism feel as though the child that was
born to us has died in some way. We can relate to this
woman. Here are three lessons we can learn about God’s
covenant with us from this story:
LESSON
1: FIGHTING IN FAITH
Instead of burying her son, she sought out the prophet
Elisha and, with great passion, pled with him for her
son’s life. It’s interesting to note that
at this point, the woman had a choice. If this woman
would not have sought out the prophet and decided to
bury her son and begin her grieving, she would never
have seen him restored. Instead, she sought out the
prophet traveling what appeared to be a long and hard
journey from Shunem to Carmel where Elisha was holding
meetings. She reminding Elisha that this boy was a promise
of God. It didn’t seem right that God would promise
this child and cause her to conceive him, only to have
him die during childhood. There had to be something
more, and she was willing to fight for it, even in the
face of death.
There
are many in the body of Christ who have suffered loss
that may seem like a death to them. Often times the
grief they experience in those times will cause them
to lose their will to fight in faith. Let us be quick
to add that when a parent receives a diagnosis like
autism over their child, it is almost impossible not
to feel grief. It is a natural, often appropriate feeling,
and there’s nothing wrong with feeling the emotion.
Where the problem comes in is when we allow grief to
overtake us to the point that we stop fighting for what
we believe our child’s destiny should be. That
is where we have a choice to bury the promise of our
child’s future, or continue to fight in faith
and beseech God to do something for our child, our family,
our marriage, our other children.
LESSON 2: UNDERSTANDING STRATEGY
If we are to fight in faith, we need to take those things
that have seemingly died in our lives and ask the Lord
to give us specific understanding and strategy to see
them renewed.
In
this story, after praying Elisha knew that reviving
the boy would require laying on the child, mouth to
mouth, eye to eye, and hand to hand. That was the strategy.
So, that’s what Elisha did. Yet the first time
Elisha stretched out on the boy he was not fully restored.
Although they boy’s flesh warmed, he was still
lifeless. Elisha walked back and forth in the house,
and then went back to stretch out on the child once
again. It was then that God worked a miracle of resurrection.
But Elisha had to be willing to see the strategy through
even though it did not appear to be working at first.
It took both an understanding of the strategy and the
faith to persist in that strategy until the child was
fully alive once again.
Can
God do this for our children? Can God work a miracle
that is bigger than autism? We firmly believe that He
can. In fact, we are believing that he will for our
son, Nicholas. At every step of the way He has made
His strategy clear, and we have followed that path.
As we have, we have seen pieces of the mountain of autism
cast into the sea. Yet there is much more of the mountain
that still lays before us. It has been a long, hard
struggle, but our faith for Nicholas is in tact. From
the covenant position you have great influence with
God. We continually ask Him for a refining of our strategy,
and for the persistence to see it through even when
it does not seem to bear much fruit.
LESSON
3: RELEASING NEW VISION
Once the young boy sneezed seven times, he was restored
to life. Then he opened his eyes. He could see again—not
just the room in which he lay, but he could see that
life had been restored to him. Vision for his whole
future open before his eyes. It would not be a stretch
of the imagination to assume that neither the young
boy nor his mother would ever see his life in the same
way after this incident. The very hand of God had moved
on his behalf! Even though the Scriptures do not say
this as such, I would not doubt that both the mother
and the boy felt a certain sense of destiny for him
from that point on.
The
Lord wants us to look at those things in our lives that
seem dead and fruitless. Look at those things over which
you have no vision or have lost our vision. Ask Him
to bring resurrection life back into those dead places
and renew your vision for your own destiny and for the
destiny of your children.
If
we will remain in relationship with God, hearing Him,
praying to Him, interceding on behalf of our children
and our families, we truly do have influence! We can
expect Him to pour His blessings out on our lives, even
though we may not understand all of the circumstances.
Even if life isn’t quite the way we expected it
to be, we can be assured that God’s faithfulness
to us and our family will never end, and that our best
is yet ahead!
With
blessings,
Jack and Rebecca Sytsema
©2006,
Children of Destiny. All rights reserved.
__________________________________
HOW
TO HAVE INFLUENCE WITH GOD
SCRIPTURE GUIDE
I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant
between me and you and your descendants after you for
the generations to come, to be your God and the God
of your descendants after you.
(Genesis 17:7, NIV)
God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant
with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob.
(Exodus 2:24, NIV)
I will look on you with favor and make you fruitful
and increase your numbers, and I will keep my covenant
with you.
(Leviticus 26:9, NIV)
Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is
the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a
thousand generations of those who love him and keep
his commands.
(Deuteronomy 7:9, NIV)
But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives
you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his
covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it
is today.
(Deuteronomy 8:18, NIV)
He remembers his covenant forever, the word he commanded,
for a thousand generations,
(1 Chronicles 16:15, NIV)
All the ways of the LORD are loving and faithful for
those who keep the demands of his covenant.
(Psalm 25:10, NIV)
The LORD confides in those who fear him; he makes his
covenant known to them.
(Psalm 25:14, NIV)
I
will maintain my love to him forever, and my covenant
with him will never fail.
(Psalm 89:28, NIV)
“Though the mountains be shaken and the hills
be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be
shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,” says
the LORD, who has compassion on you.
(Isaiah 54:10, NIV)
For I, the LORD, love justice; I hate robbery and iniquity.
In my faithfulness I will reward them and make an everlasting
covenant with them.
(Isaiah 61:8, NIV)
I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will
never stop doing good to them, and I will inspire them
to fear me, so that they will never turn away from me.
(Jeremiah 32:40, NIV)
Because of this oath, Jesus has become the guarantee
of a better covenant.
(Hebrews 7:22, NIV)
For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant,
that those who are called may receive the promised eternal
inheritance
(Hebrews 9:15, NIV)
May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal
covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus,
that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything
good for doing his will, and may he work in us what
is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be
glory for ever and ever. Amen.
(Hebrews 13:20-21, NIV)
___________________________________
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