This chapter is a beautiful recitation of Israel’s history, and summary of God’s relationship with her through time.  Stephen is attesting to the fact that God has always been there, providing through various forms of persecution, and opposing those who’d try to crush His plan.  In doing so, he demonstrates something I point out often, but which I also fail to consistently follow - and that is a specific prayer sequence.  I have said before that prayer is the weakest part of my ‘spiritual game’; it is the part which I must apply with discipline because my natural inclination is to do more of this - studying God’s word, pulling out application, leveraging and applying wisdom...but prayer is where the rubber meets the road in my life - when I am praying more, I am growing more.

Stephen provides a great model here, which is actually akin to the Lord’s Prayer, which starts, “Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be your name.  Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on Earth as in Heaven.”  Those words are saying what Stephen is saying here - “God, you have been and always will be in charge.  Looking back at the history of your relationship with your people, I can’t help but recognize that you’ve always been there, crafting your story, directing history in a way that executes on your will and your plan.”  And here is where I think this prayer can get personal.  “And God, I can see in my own life, that you’ve been working through various circumstances such as (insert my own list of events and answered prayers, as Stephen inserts Israel’s here in chapter 7).  You have been faithful to me...even when I haven’t been faithful to you.  You have been there consistently, even when I forget that fact.  And, just as you’ve been there for Israel for thousands of years, I trust that you’ll continue to be there or me.  This is really just an application of the Lord’s Prayer that Jesus gave us.  Stephen is doing the same thing here - he is just using it as a way to remind these Jewish leaders.

And then we see Stephen is stoned out on the city streets.  And, to say that this was part of God’s plan, that a man would be stoned to death, sounds terrible in one sense.  At the same time though, in this same event, we are introduced to the greatest evangelist that has ever lived.  The person in charge of this stoning is a person who was one of the staunchest, more devout Jews of the time.  He was a resolute persecutor of Christians, and leader in that regard - Saul.  And we all know, and we will read, that Saul becomes Paul.  And millions upon millions of people have been affected by Paul’s conversion.  And Paul carried this event in his mind forevermore, as a reminder of God’s forgiveness.  This event, the stoning of Stephen, is probably one of the most impactful and important events in Christian history, behind Jesus’ death, because it took the spread of the Christian faith to a whole new level by a twist of events that only God could write.

Chapter 7 reminds me - God has a plan, God is working that plan, and I can join in or sit on the sidelines...and Stephen gives us a remarkable example to follow in terms of how to think about God and pray to God.