My Pharaoh

"But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you."
Matthew 5:44

When I think of the word pharaoh, I think of power. Control.  Something so big it is impossible to fight it.  Like a Goliath. 

Moses faced his pharaoh.  The one with the power to keep God's people in slavery.  If I were Moses, I would be very frightened to go up against someone so powerful.  And Moses was.  He absolutely thought God was making a mistake by choosing him.  Tried hard to get out of it.  But God was adamant...Moses was the one.  So Moses had to face his fears and face his pharaoh.

We all have pharaohs in our lives.  That person (or thing) that seems too powerful to go around.  It's big, it's mean, and it's in control.  For some of us it's that person in our lives who continues to "win" while deserving, in our eyes at least, to lose and lose big.  It may be a habit, something that seems too big to overpower...merciless in its control over us.  It can be a situation.....joblessness, marriage problems, a child who is going down the wrong path.  We all have at least one pharaoh in our lives, and most of the time we have many.

Still reading 'The Circle Maker'.  Today's section caused me to think about the pharaohs in my life.  It says:
      "Pray circles around your pharaoh."

Circling prayer....intentional, fervent, continuing, somewhat constant.  Wow.  So hard to do, when you feel like the mini version of David shooting pebbles at a Goliath times 20.....



I have a pharaoh or two in my life.  People who pull just as hard as I do, only in the OPPOSITE direction.  Someone who's on the other end of the tug of war rope..... with so much at stake if that line is crossed.  So far, I have not been pulled completely over the line.  But my big toe has touched it- and more than once.  The hard thing is letting God do HIS thing.  From the book:

       "The hard thing about praying hard is letting God do the heavy lifting.  You have to trust the favor of God to do for you what you cannot do for yourself.  You have to trust God to change hearts, even the heart of Pharaoh."
    
Trusting Him to change others.....to change the impossible.  Not easy, especially for this "I'll do it" girl.  To be totally honest, I don't want to pray for these pharaohs.  It's really hard to push through the pain to pray FOR someone, pray for something in their favor.  But if I don't do that, and in the process don't trust Him to do the rest, then that falls smack-dab in the center of disobedience.  I've been down that road before...... not good.

The truth is, there is no pharaoh who can pluck me out of His hand.  Not possible.  In the end, those of us who know Jesus.....well we win.  Simple as that.  Hard stuff in the middle?  Absolutely.  But if we are really striving to be LIKE Jesus, well, we don't want anyone to be lost.  Not even our pharaoh.  Hard as that is, circling that person in prayer is what Jesus would do.  'Nuf said.

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