Visualize what God has for us

Our last meditation led us to meditate a little bit on the expressive "Oh" of Jabez that evokes so much about the life of prayer. We said that it is so important in the life of prayer and in the life of faith to reach that red-hot point, that point of focus, of passion, of urgency, of extreme need, to come and throw ourselves at the feet of the King and ask justice, and ask for grace for a powerful need we have.

I used to say that God often waits until our life, our prayer, our requests reach that point of focus because many times we are asking and we do not understand everything that our request implies.

Sometimes we are not even prepared to process what we are asking of the Lord. Sometimes we have not purified our requests so that those elements of selfishness and carnality that are included in our requests have become detached and that our prayer has that quality of purity and alignment with the Will of God and with the principles of the Kingdom of God. God, and God spends time waiting to let us just process these things and then respond to our requests.

Many times even God waits for us to be emotionally prepared and mature enough to be able to process the response we are asking the Lord and retain it instead of wasting it through an immature character that would waste God's blessing if He gave it to us in the right moment.

All these are reasons why God waits for our prayer to reach that level of purity and urgency that expresses that "Oh" so evocative of Jabes.

Another thing that Jabes's exclamatory expression suggests to me is this idea that sometimes you have to daydream, you have to visualize the things you want in your mind and Spirit, you have to see them as in three dimensions, and all this helps to give power and effectiveness to the requests that we submit to the Lord.

Jabes said, "Oh if you would give me a blessing." It is as if he was visualizing that other life that he desired, that alternative to the gloomy and sad life, and to some extent unsuccessful that he was living. I imagine that at some point he was walking along some lonely road or looking out of a window and he dared to daydream, he dared to visualize the things he wanted to receive from God, he dared to visualize what his life would be like if God granted certain requests.

I think that when he said to him: "Oh if you would give me a blessing" he was unconsciously thinking about what his life would be like, what would his social profile be, what would his economic situation be, what would be the influence, the reputation he would have, all these things being visualized in that "Oh" that he expresses, right? we have to visualize.

The Bible speaks of that in Hebrews chapter 11 the heroes of the faith, including Moses, say that they were looking at that city built by God that was not made by human hands and they saluted it, you do not salute something that you have not seen in your mind, and they lived within the blessing they were seeing. That is why Moses left the privileges of Egypt, because he was visualizing something different that God had for him.

I have learned in my life that visualizing, daydreaming, imagining the things that we are asking the Lord and seeing them on the screen of our mind, as well as for many other things in life, daydreaming, visualizing things, developing the ability to see things in three dimensions in our mind, in my professional, ministerial life has been a tremendous resource for many things that I have wanted to do and I believe that Christians do not daydream enough because I think we do not We have been told that we can do this, and as children, our parents did not help us develop that imagination, that ability to see things.

I have learned that this is a great resource for the life of faith and that we have to visualize things as if we are savoring them, as if we are seeing them there in three dimensions and that is part of the act of prayer itself as well. Many times the Holy Spirit himself will direct us to visualize things.

That is why God gives us visions. That is why I see, for example, José seeing his parents and his brothers bowing down in front of him, because it was like a vision of the future and I think that José fed on that vision for a long time when he was in jail, when he was being accused by others and it seemed like there was no possibility for him, it is possible that those dreams were there feeding him, and so the dreams of what God has told us are very important and keep the Word of God alive in us, that's why it is that is so important right?

Jabes dares to think of an alternative for his life. That "Oh" suggests that he was unhappy with his life, that he needed a change and that he was rebelling against his situation, which is why that "Oh" was so important. God bless you and we will continue our meditation later.