Moving Mountains by John Eldredge

Author:John Eldredge
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2015-12-01T05:00:00+00:00

Eleven

“LET THERE BE LIGHT”—PRAYER FOR GUIDANCE, UNDERSTANDING, AND REVELATION

All that I have done today has gone amiss. What is to be done now?” These words of Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings trilogy struck me deeply the first time I read them, and they have resonated with me in many re-readings since. The man was charged with leading the “fellowship of the ring,” and at this point everything has fallen apart—Frodo and Sam have gone on alone; Boromir was slain by the Uruk-hai; the Orcs have taken the two other hobbits captive and fled for Isengard. Aragorn is now left with a very difficult set of decisions—does he follow the ring-bearer, to whom he pledged his life? Or does he hunt the Uruk-hai in hopes of sparing their little friends unspeakable torment? “Before he died Boromir told me that the Orcs had bound them; he did not think that they were dead. I sent him to follow Merry and Pippin; but I did not ask him if Frodo or Sam were with him: not until it was too late. All that I have done today has gone amiss. What is to be done now?”1

What is to be done now? Of all the prayers that rise from human lips on this troubled planet, the vast majority must be some version of, “Help!” That’s why we began with the Cry of the Heart. But second place of “most often prayed” has to be in the genre of, “God—what am I supposed to do?” Guidance, clarity, direction—doesn’t that seem to be one of the main reasons we pray at all? What do we do about our son? Should I take this job? Where should I go to school? What am I supposed to do with my life?

I am currently seeking God’s will on a matter very important to me and to our ministry; it feels weighty, and the implications feel almost ominous. Thus, I am getting stressed out—which then hurts my ability to discern what God is saying to me. Which only increases my desperation to hear, and the whole thing is spinning into a tight, little Gordian knot. I have to pause, back up, and consecrate myself and the matter at hand. I’ve got to settle things down inside and go about the process not like the trombone player playing his own little tune. So I turn to a story from Daniel’s life.

Daniel is serving in the court of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, who has set himself up as “king of kings” and is going to reveal himself time and again as a dangerously impulsive man (the monarch who orders Daniel’s friends thrown into a furnace to be burned alive, among other things). He is as self-absorbed as King Lear and as dangerous as Hitler. And at the moment, the tyrant is haunted in the night:

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.