🙌 Father, You know me... I waited over two decades being choosey in search of a godly wife, passed up ones that loved me and married one who hated me -- I confess that in this regard the stinging rebuke of Joab to David when he mourned for Absalom applies to acutely to me, 2 Sam 19:6, so I repent of loving someone that hates me, at least emotionally, but I love and marry for life, so it's very hard and against my natural disposition. But "Here I stand," Luther said -- I cannot change myself... Thus the prayer...
🙇🏻 Father, Paul's heart's desire and prayer to You for Israel was that they'd be saved, Rom 10:1. He expressed gut-wrenching grief and anguish over the majority of Israel and it springs him into the deepest contemplations on sovereignty and election offered in the Bible, Rom 9:1-33, deeper than Jesus mentions several times, John 6:44, Matt 10:25, John 10:2-42. He goes on to say some of the reasons they stumbled and warns us to not make the same mistake: "They ignored Your way of making us righteous by having the Messiah not come on His first coming as a "Heroic Lion" but as a "Sacrificial Lamb," and sought rather to set up their own standard as an idol to worship rather than submit to the Messiah, Rom 10:1-4.
🤷🏻♂️ Such topics are beyond my pay grade, as Augustine says, "I can see the well, and know it is deep, but cannot fathom the depths of these things for they are unfathomable." But I can ask, Paul still did (even though You told him they would not receive his testimony, Acts 22:8), though they knew him as the most zealous Christian-hater that had ever walked the earth up to His encounter with the Risen Lord Jesus (who he was actually persecuting). We're thankful You saved him, Jesus, btw...
So here we shift from remorse and bewilderment to what we can do since we are quite powerless -- We can ask GOD, El Shaddai, ALMIGHTY -- for whom nothing is impossible, nothing You can't do -- omnipotent, Παντοκράτωρ (All Powerful, Almighty), Rev 19:6, For Salvation of Family, Effective Witness to Friends, Lost, Edification of Former Things, Rom 10:1, Rom 11:1, 2 Tim 3:15, Focus on God, Ourselves, Our Teaching, 1 Tim 4:16, Grace for Duties, Tit 3:14, and Especially Grace to Shift Main Focus to New Things Isa 42:9, Care for The Flock Among Us, Acts 20:28, Grace to Do Both Ecc 7:18, Open Doors for Gospel, Rev 3:7-8, Favor as a Shield, Ps 5:12, Wisdom and Full Knowledge of Your Will, Col 1:9-12, Love to Abound with Insight, Phil 1:9-11...
🙏 We ask for grace to take hold of one thing without letting go of the other, Ecclesiastes 7:18, to continue to intercede for her full, authentic repentance to life and full trust in Christ and be regenerated, and youngster be saved and graciously filled with the Holy Spirit, Jer 1:5, Lk 1:15, and protected and directed into the love and character of Jesus Christ, nourished on Your Word, 2 Tim 3:15, brought up in the admonition of Yahweh, Eph 6:1-4, respect godly authority, 1 Tim 5:17... Yet ability to shift some FOCUS on THE NEW and meet pressing needs must needs be at present, Isa 42:9, Isa 43:19, Isa 48:6. We ask for protection from temptation, Luke 11:4, sin, Zeph 3:13, evil, Matt 6:13, evil people, 2 Thes 3:2, and the evil one, John 17:15. Thank You in Jesus' Name...