Have ever you prayed and prayed and prayed about something important and nothing seems to be changing?  It’s tempting during those seasons to give up, but going to God about a difficult situation doesn’t always change the situation as much as it changes the way we look at it.
Oswald Chambers writes, “One of the great needs of the Christian life is to have a place where we deliberately attend to realities. That is the real meaning of prayer.”

Did you ever wonder why Jesus personally spent so much time in prayer?  He certainly didn’t need to tell God what was on his mind; yet Jesus described himself as always doing what his Father told him to. Perhaps in prayer, Jesus did more listening than talking.  He listened for his Father’s voice as well as asked for his Father’s perspective on what was happening around him.

As humans, we live on the temporal plane. We see what’s happening in our own back yard and often feel angry, scared or even envious of people who don’t follow God but seemingly have it all.

The psalmist described his own battle with this in Psalm 73 where he saw the prosperity of the wicked. People were getting away with horrible sin, living the good life, free from any pangs of conscious.  Those who tried to live according to God’s plan were suffering, and Asaph was tempted to believe that walking in God’s way didn’t pay off…until he entered the sanctuary of God. It was in that sacred space that God gave him a pair of new glasses to see things in a completely different way.

I encourage you to read the entire Psalm for yourself to see all of what Asaph discovered.  But for me, the best part was that he didn’t just see the situation as well as himself more clearly, he also came to see God differently.  He said,

Then I realized that my heart was bitter,
and I was all torn up inside.
I was so foolish and ignorant—
I must have seemed like a senseless animal to you.
Yet I still belong to you;
you hold my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel,
leading me to a glorious destiny.
Whom have I in heaven but you?
I desire you more than anything on earth.
 My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak,
but God remains the strength of my heart;
he is mine forever.
Psalm 73: 21-26

I love that about God, don’t you?  Even when we’re a mess, we still belong to him.  He holds our right hand and wants to give us a pair of God-sized glasses, not only to see our situation differently, but to also come to know how much he loves us in spite of the way we are.

So friends, have you visited the sanctuary lately?  Take time out today to be still and know that He is God (Psalm 46:10).