One night at bedtime, our youngest girl, Karis, wanted a few more minutes to finish playing. My default reaction would usually be to say, ‘No – you should have been in bed already,’ but I gave in this time and said, ‘OK, but only for a couple of minutes.’ She ran into the other room to her sister Ellie and loudly proclaimed, ‘Daddy said we could play a little longer. I put on my “please” face.‘
Fooled by my six year old ! That cute little “please” face always gets me !
We all have different “faces” that we put on for different occasions. For many it is an “Everything is OK” smiley face, when everything is most certainly not OK. Sometimes it is the “Church” face even though we don’t feel particularly close to God at the time. Or how about the “Stiff-upper-lip” face when we are filled with fear?
No matter what “face” we come to God with, yet we are reminded in the Bible that:
Man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.
1st Samuel 16:7
God knows when your heart is breaking, even though everyone else sees an outward smile. And so, we don’t have to come to God with a pretence that all is well when it isn’t – but we come just as we are. We come with our burdens; we come with our heartaches; we come with our questions; we come with our pain; we come with our desperation. We even come with our sin, and we give it all to Him.
Casting all your care upon him; for He cares for you.
1st Peter 5:7
Hebrews 4:15 reminds us that we have a High Priest (Jesus) Who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities (or as another translation puts it that He sympathises with our weaknesses). The verse goes on to remind us that Jesus walked on this earth, and He knows what it is like, and therefore He is able to sympathise with us. As our High Priest and as our Saviour and God, He is big enough and strong enough to take our burdens off our shoulders and carry them for us.
Next time you come to God in prayer, just be honest with Him. He knows your heart anyway! Come as you are, with no additional “faces” and just pour out your heart to Him. He is interested in even the things that we think would be unimportant to Him, but important to us. He cares for the fall of the sparrow. He feeds the lilies of the field. He cares for you.
You can find more devotionals like this in the book, “Just A Moment.” Just click this link
Very apped at what is going on in my head at the moment, it has gave me great help and couragment to keep on talking to the Lord and telling him my problems thank you Pastor I’m ready your book at the moment 🙏 it gives you couragment to start tou day ..
That’s great Geraldine. So glad to hear that. It’s great that we can come to the Lord and just tell Him how we feel, knowing that He cares for us deeply. Glad you are also enjoying the book. God bless