Based on Luke 18:1-8
MEMORY TEXT: “And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you” (John 16:22).
Some people are able to catch monkeys without hurting them. They place a peanut inside a large stone jar, and then they wait. Before long a monkey will come along and smell the peanut. Then it will look inside the jar and see the peanut in the bottom of the jar. The monkey wants to eat that peanut, so he reaches his hand inside the jar and grabs the peanut in his fist. But his fist is too big to pull out of the neck of the bottle, and the monkey is too greedy to let go of the peanut. And so the monkey is caught, all because it won’t let go.
We can be free today of our sorrows and burdens if we will just let go and give them to Jesus. He will take our sorrow and turn it into joy that no man can take from us.
True prayer is often the result of a broken heart. The heart that seeks the Lord with all its strength is the broken heart, and a continued broken heart is a condition for true prayer. "The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and save as such as be of a contrite spirit" (Psalm 34:18). "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise" (Psalm 51:17). "For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones" (Isaiah 57:15).
I was once talking with a person whose walk with the Lord had grown cold. I asked him how his prayer life was. He replied that he didn't pray anymore because he knew that changes would come into his life if he did, and he was afraid of the changes.
True prayer will break the hardest heart. Therefore, the greatest sin that we commit is the sin of prayerlessness.
Today the Lord wants to exchange your sorrow for joy, if you will only let go.
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