Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Friday, January 13, 2012
What is fasting?
Sorry for the delay in getting this posted. I had a couple technical glitches to figure out. Clink on the box below to watch a video post on fasting. I hope you'll take the time to watch it and then perhaps share some of your ideas about how we can pursue God's gift of fasting in our lives.
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Day 30something ???
There is a sadly predictable absurdity in the fact that a cold experience of reality, such as the death of our dear "Gran" last week, could so completely unravel my posting consistently on the blog. I'm disappointed about that turn of events; obviously, for a number of reasons. However, I've also been somewhat surprised to discover that I'm okay with it as well. The grief, travel, family-time and general chaos of the last week have derail my writing about prayer and also prevented me from sharing my final lesson on the subject with the Springfield congregation last Sunday (Don't worry, we will fit it in after the first of the year at some point), but those things did NOT derail my praying. In fact, quite the contrary. Through a variety of experiences and circumstances over the last couple weeks, I've been conciously aware of my acute need for God's grace and sustaining provision. Wonder of all wonders this awareness of my own need and inadequacy has not led me to feel to busy to pray as I try to sort things out for myself, rather it has frequently and far more consistently led me to my knees. There, I've been asking for the help I need from the only one who holds the power to provide it. That's not a win on my part, but it is a victory God has provided that is worth celebrating.
I hope the last month have provided some moments of joyful celebration like that in your prayer life as well. I hope that you know the expiration of this thirty day emphasis on prayer is not the end of our commitment to prayer but a bit more like the fading of the last echo of the starter's gun. Our journey of prayer, individually and collectively has just begun. There is more, much more to be shared and discussed about prayer. I have so much more to learn and experience. I look forward to doing that with you in the weeks, months, years ahead. I also think this is probably not the last blog post I'll be writing. I'll be taking a short break (oh, who am I kidding, I'll be continuing the break I've already been taking for the last week and half), but then this blog will re-emerge in some form and fashion. It will be slightly different I expect. We'll discuss prayer there, but much more than that. Oh, and I won't be committing to posting every single day either. I'm not built for that, and truthfully I doubt any of you want to hear something from me every day any way. Not sure what will emerge, but I am excited about the possibilities, and I am already praying for the conversations we'll have together.
May God bless you all this Christmas season, and may He move mightly in our hearts and through our hands in the year to come!
I hope the last month have provided some moments of joyful celebration like that in your prayer life as well. I hope that you know the expiration of this thirty day emphasis on prayer is not the end of our commitment to prayer but a bit more like the fading of the last echo of the starter's gun. Our journey of prayer, individually and collectively has just begun. There is more, much more to be shared and discussed about prayer. I have so much more to learn and experience. I look forward to doing that with you in the weeks, months, years ahead. I also think this is probably not the last blog post I'll be writing. I'll be taking a short break (oh, who am I kidding, I'll be continuing the break I've already been taking for the last week and half), but then this blog will re-emerge in some form and fashion. It will be slightly different I expect. We'll discuss prayer there, but much more than that. Oh, and I won't be committing to posting every single day either. I'm not built for that, and truthfully I doubt any of you want to hear something from me every day any way. Not sure what will emerge, but I am excited about the possibilities, and I am already praying for the conversations we'll have together.
May God bless you all this Christmas season, and may He move mightly in our hearts and through our hands in the year to come!
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Day 23
It's been a while. I'm really sorry. I've been feeling a little overloaded and rather worn out. Probably one responsible for the other, though that's a "chicken or the egg" kind of dilemma. Regardless, as a result of those feelings/circumstances my prayer life has suffered over the last few days, which only frustrates me even more. Makes me feel like I'm still viewing prayer as a burden or an obligation rather than a blessing and source of strength, especially in times of weakness or strife.
Granted I've done a LOT of reading, talking and writing about prayer the last few weeks. I am sure that the overall effort involved in all of that could contribute to feeling a little "burdened" about my own prayer life. Nevertheless, I find it troubling that in a time of difficulty and frustration I run away from prayer rather than lean on it. Why do I do that? Why would I neglect prayer at a time when I'm facing something where additional interaction with and help from God would be so helpful? Then again, don't we all do things like that in different areas of our life. Go left when we know we should go right, or intentionally avoid those things that would help us most...especially when we can use the excuse of busyness.
That isn't to say that I've completely ignored prayer completely (...even if I've ignored blogging about it for a few days) or stopped communicating with God. Yes, my excitement and expectation about prayer; the depth and richness I've experienced in my recent prayers, has wained quite a bit recently. Despite that, I've continued making efforts to spend time in prayer. Though I long for a return to greener pastures of prayer, I am trying to take some solace in the fact that regardless of the pitch, strength or volume of my prayer voice, God is still listening as long as I will still speak with him. Thought I'd share a couple things I've done to try and put up a fight so to speak over the last few days:
Granted I've done a LOT of reading, talking and writing about prayer the last few weeks. I am sure that the overall effort involved in all of that could contribute to feeling a little "burdened" about my own prayer life. Nevertheless, I find it troubling that in a time of difficulty and frustration I run away from prayer rather than lean on it. Why do I do that? Why would I neglect prayer at a time when I'm facing something where additional interaction with and help from God would be so helpful? Then again, don't we all do things like that in different areas of our life. Go left when we know we should go right, or intentionally avoid those things that would help us most...especially when we can use the excuse of busyness.
That isn't to say that I've completely ignored prayer completely (...even if I've ignored blogging about it for a few days) or stopped communicating with God. Yes, my excitement and expectation about prayer; the depth and richness I've experienced in my recent prayers, has wained quite a bit recently. Despite that, I've continued making efforts to spend time in prayer. Though I long for a return to greener pastures of prayer, I am trying to take some solace in the fact that regardless of the pitch, strength or volume of my prayer voice, God is still listening as long as I will still speak with him. Thought I'd share a couple things I've done to try and put up a fight so to speak over the last few days:
- Rote Prayer - I have a couple prayer books and some books on prayer that include a section of collected prayers from other christians and early believers. When I don't have words of my own in a given moment, I've been able to lean on the words of others. I often find these prayers penned by others are a source of far more of a blessing than I was initially prepared to receive.
- Praying from Scripture - Along the same lines, I've prayed a fair amount from Scripture lately. In particular, I turn to the various prayers recorded in the Bible and to the Psalms. If you haven't prayed a Psalm before, I highly recommend you do that every once in a while...powerful voices crying out to God! Obviously, I spent a lot of time praying through and sometimes just praying word-for-word the Lord's Prayer from Matthew 6.
- Praying with Others - Some of you may not feel comfortable with this, but it's been quite helpful. I've tried to take advantage of several opportunities lately to pray in a group. Some of them were easy opportunities, like volunteering to pray before a meal with my family or offering to do evening prayers with Sophie before bed. Other times, I've simply followed the impulse to pray with someone in the midst of a conversation or interaction with a group. Someone needs to lead a prayer during your LifeGroup meeting, raise your hand. You're in a conversation with some people where a concern or hurt is being discussed, suggest you all stop and pray about it. There is strength in praying with others. More than that, if I feel like God and I are a little distant at the moment, including others in a prayer narrows that gap a bit in my mind a little. Obviously, nothing really changes in that moment, but psychologically I'm pulled into the moment of prayer a little more fully because of the tangible presence of others who are there praying beside me.
I'm sure there are other things to do when you feel like you're in a valley in your prayer life or stuck in a rut with your prayers. Maybe some of you would like to share some other things that you've found are helpful practices or tools for this??? We'd love to have you share them in a reply below. I hope your prayers are full and frequent right now. If they're not, I hope you're still seeking God's presence even in the midst of a difficult day (...or week). Maybe some of the ideas above will be helpful.
Til next time...keep praying!!!
Friday, December 9, 2011
Day 18-19
I shared in my last post an insight that emerged from some prayer time with my daughter, Sophia. As I said then, there was another part of that experience that prompted some helpful thoughts about prayer. After I prayed that evening, it was Sophie's turn. She was a very willing prayer that night. She jumped right in with her standard "Dear God" and flowed right into several specific things that she wanted to share with God. Much of what she prayed in my presence that night was predictable. Sophie has several things she is very consistent about including in her prayers. What struck me that night, was not the specifics of what she prayed, but rather the overwhelming theme of all that she prayed for. Almost everything thing she spoke that night began with the phrase "Thank you for..." and then filled in with the usual cast of characters: her grandparents and their pets (she really loves to pray for those dogs), her sisters, her mom and dad, her teacher and school, our church, her dolls (a few even meriting specific mention by name), etc. As I listened to her and thought about it afterwards, I was glad that Sophie is learning to be so comfortable with expressing gratitude to God. However, it also raised a challenging thought over the concept of "balance" in our prayers. Obviously this applied more to my own prayers rather than the budding prayer life of a 4 year old, by a concern sprang up over how often I find myself in a rut in my prayer life. I realize now that these ruts are also an important factor in my past struggles with prayer. I began to wonder, how often do I find myself stuck in the "requesting" mode or "thanksgiving" mode or some other aspect of prayer in a way that is detrimental to the other key components of communication with God?
Many of you may remember some rote prayer you were taught as a child as a place to begin the journey of prayer. Or perhaps some shared with you one of the many formulas or models out there for helping people organize and go through their prayers. The most common and personally memorable one for me was an acronym: ACTS, which stood for:
Many of you will recognize that model I'm sure. While none of these are ever perfect or completely adequate on their own, they can be good aids in learning to pray. More importantly almost all of them share a common implication, prayer isn't just about communicating one specific thing or in one specific way. If it was, why would we need any kind of model or aid. Consider the prayer Jesus gave us in the "Sermon on the Mount." If prayer was just about asking for things, wouldn't he have just said "And when you pray, just ask for whatever you need," and then moved on to the next part of his lesson? He doesn't do that, though. Nor does Jesus just give us a singularly themed mantra to chant. Despite its brevity, this prayer (commonly called "The Lord's Prayer") is amazingly robust and leads us to communicate about a variety of different things from a variety of internal postures. Wonder, obedience, gratitude, humble need, confidence, broken confession, etc., more than most of us really know how to unpack yet.
I guess the summary thought for me is this: balance in our prayer life is important, because God is important in so many different ways than any of us will ever really comprehend. To get into stale patterns or ruts of only communicating with God in a few specific, limited ways...no matter how good or right it is communicate in those ways...leaves us vulnerable to minimizing the greatness and significance of God in our life and all of creation. I must admit, there is a small alarm going off in the back of mind as I write this, because I believe there is an easy way to misinterpret or misapply this idea and create equally unhealthy prayers that can be overindulgent or too self-serving. Perhaps I need to share some about that in a future post. However, while caution is always appropriate, it should never be used as excuse for failing to say or do what we ought to. So, the challenge for our prayers today is to examine them a little and see if there are some important ways or things we're not opening up about because we're only praying over things or in ways that we've already grown comfortable. I believe balance is a critical component to a healthy, robust prayer life.
Many of you may remember some rote prayer you were taught as a child as a place to begin the journey of prayer. Or perhaps some shared with you one of the many formulas or models out there for helping people organize and go through their prayers. The most common and personally memorable one for me was an acronym: ACTS, which stood for:
Adoration
Confession
Thanksgiving
Supplication
Many of you will recognize that model I'm sure. While none of these are ever perfect or completely adequate on their own, they can be good aids in learning to pray. More importantly almost all of them share a common implication, prayer isn't just about communicating one specific thing or in one specific way. If it was, why would we need any kind of model or aid. Consider the prayer Jesus gave us in the "Sermon on the Mount." If prayer was just about asking for things, wouldn't he have just said "And when you pray, just ask for whatever you need," and then moved on to the next part of his lesson? He doesn't do that, though. Nor does Jesus just give us a singularly themed mantra to chant. Despite its brevity, this prayer (commonly called "The Lord's Prayer") is amazingly robust and leads us to communicate about a variety of different things from a variety of internal postures. Wonder, obedience, gratitude, humble need, confidence, broken confession, etc., more than most of us really know how to unpack yet.
I guess the summary thought for me is this: balance in our prayer life is important, because God is important in so many different ways than any of us will ever really comprehend. To get into stale patterns or ruts of only communicating with God in a few specific, limited ways...no matter how good or right it is communicate in those ways...leaves us vulnerable to minimizing the greatness and significance of God in our life and all of creation. I must admit, there is a small alarm going off in the back of mind as I write this, because I believe there is an easy way to misinterpret or misapply this idea and create equally unhealthy prayers that can be overindulgent or too self-serving. Perhaps I need to share some about that in a future post. However, while caution is always appropriate, it should never be used as excuse for failing to say or do what we ought to. So, the challenge for our prayers today is to examine them a little and see if there are some important ways or things we're not opening up about because we're only praying over things or in ways that we've already grown comfortable. I believe balance is a critical component to a healthy, robust prayer life.
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Day 17
***Editorial Note: No joke. I fell asleep iPad in hand last night mid-post. So this is technically Day 17's post, but not actually posted...or completed until the next morning. I've left the original conclusion of the post intact simply for the entertainment it will provide to some of you.***
Brooke had a business meeting a few towns over this evening, so I was flying solo for the evening. I helped M&M with their homework and studying, got dinner ready (translated: called Papa John's), had everyone out the door to Bible study and then got to do the bedtime routine with Sophie. We read Annie and the Wild Animals and then the story of Jonah out of The Jesus Storybook Bible, which by the way is pretty great! I'm not typically a fan of those books that make up the children's story bible genre (for a couple different reasons I'll not get into here, though feel free to ask sometime if you're curious), but I really appreciate this particular book. Plus, Sophie loves to read her bible story each night. What parents who are believers wouldn't be thrilled with that? I'm tangent-ing right off the cliff here. Sorry, back on track. The other part of bedtime routine with Sophie is prayer time. There are different variations of how we do this, but in some order, form or fashion parent and child both pray. Occasionally, it's difficult. Sophie might try to get only the adult to pray, or negotiate before starting the number of specific things she has to say before she can say "in Jesus name. Amen!" Sometimes, she gets little distracted (okay a LOT) and just drifts off into another conversation entirely or starts singing a random song. My favorite experience is when she get's stuck in a loop and starts repeating the same prayer items, especially when she says at some point "Oops, I already said that" mid prayer and then just keeps right on going. Most of the time however, it's the most precious part of my day.
Tonight while Sophie and I were praying, I noticed a couple of interesting things. First, while I was praying Sophie stopped me several times to ask questions about what I was saying. At first, I felt myself wanting to be frustrated by that, like she was trying to be disruptive of or disrespectful toward our prayer time together, but after the second or third time I realized that wasn't it at all. She wasn't being intentionally rude or trying to keep me from praying. She was listening and there were things that I prayed about that she wasn't sure about or didn't understand and wanted to make sure she knew what I was praying for. She was participating in my prayer. It wasn't just my conversation with God, this was our conversation. She was involved and felt just fine speaking up when she felt like she needed to clarify something to stay involved. Obviously, this mian akl (uhoh! I think someone fell asleep about here) Sorry, as I was trying to say...obviously, this kind of interaction might not work out so well in a public prayer, or in prayer gathering among adults probably would be a little rude or obnoxious. However, the spirit of this experience still applies to any prayer time, alone or in a group. When we pray we're sharing a conversation that requires thoughtful, active engagement. Just mindlessly speaking or repeating the same patterns or words without actively considering their meaning or your intent in speaking them really misses the point.
As I think back, I probably have a pretty developed pattern for my "prayer's with Sophie." Those patterns probably come from a noble intent, wanting to teach Sophie the right Spirit for and important aspects of prayer. Unfortunately, I think I've unconsciously created a pattern that seemed "age and corresponding attention span appropriate" to do that teaching for me, rather than actively modeling healthy prayer for her when we pray. Truthfully, a lot of that probably connects to the fact that I wasn't particularly capable of consistently modeling healthy prayer without that pattern because as I've shared before, prayer has been an area of great struggle for me lately. You know what??? I'm taking a little encouragement from this encounter. I think as a result of the intentional focus and work we've devoted together to prayer, Sophie heard something different in my prayer last night. I think part of the reason Sophie's interruptions occurred is because I was praying out loud with her about more specific, immediate concerns and thoughts than I usually do in those times. I prayed for people in particular whose names aren't on my standard list of "must-mentions" during prayer times with the family. Remembering it this morning, it seems I was (unbeknownst to me at the time) mixing it up a little in my prayer. I believe God is making some changes inside me through this season concentrating on prayer. I'm grateful for that. However incrementally minor these changes may be, I think its going to produce positive results. For me and those, like Sophie, whom I am blessed to pray with.
I'll post later today about another interesting thought that arose during my prayer time with Sophie last night. This ended up longer than I expected. So, I'll include that in my official "Day 18" post later on. Have a great day everyone.
Pray continually. Pray for each other.
Brooke had a business meeting a few towns over this evening, so I was flying solo for the evening. I helped M&M with their homework and studying, got dinner ready (translated: called Papa John's), had everyone out the door to Bible study and then got to do the bedtime routine with Sophie. We read Annie and the Wild Animals and then the story of Jonah out of The Jesus Storybook Bible, which by the way is pretty great! I'm not typically a fan of those books that make up the children's story bible genre (for a couple different reasons I'll not get into here, though feel free to ask sometime if you're curious), but I really appreciate this particular book. Plus, Sophie loves to read her bible story each night. What parents who are believers wouldn't be thrilled with that? I'm tangent-ing right off the cliff here. Sorry, back on track. The other part of bedtime routine with Sophie is prayer time. There are different variations of how we do this, but in some order, form or fashion parent and child both pray. Occasionally, it's difficult. Sophie might try to get only the adult to pray, or negotiate before starting the number of specific things she has to say before she can say "in Jesus name. Amen!" Sometimes, she gets little distracted (okay a LOT) and just drifts off into another conversation entirely or starts singing a random song. My favorite experience is when she get's stuck in a loop and starts repeating the same prayer items, especially when she says at some point "Oops, I already said that" mid prayer and then just keeps right on going. Most of the time however, it's the most precious part of my day.
Tonight while Sophie and I were praying, I noticed a couple of interesting things. First, while I was praying Sophie stopped me several times to ask questions about what I was saying. At first, I felt myself wanting to be frustrated by that, like she was trying to be disruptive of or disrespectful toward our prayer time together, but after the second or third time I realized that wasn't it at all. She wasn't being intentionally rude or trying to keep me from praying. She was listening and there were things that I prayed about that she wasn't sure about or didn't understand and wanted to make sure she knew what I was praying for. She was participating in my prayer. It wasn't just my conversation with God, this was our conversation. She was involved and felt just fine speaking up when she felt like she needed to clarify something to stay involved. Obviously, this mian akl (uhoh! I think someone fell asleep about here) Sorry, as I was trying to say...obviously, this kind of interaction might not work out so well in a public prayer, or in prayer gathering among adults probably would be a little rude or obnoxious. However, the spirit of this experience still applies to any prayer time, alone or in a group. When we pray we're sharing a conversation that requires thoughtful, active engagement. Just mindlessly speaking or repeating the same patterns or words without actively considering their meaning or your intent in speaking them really misses the point.
As I think back, I probably have a pretty developed pattern for my "prayer's with Sophie." Those patterns probably come from a noble intent, wanting to teach Sophie the right Spirit for and important aspects of prayer. Unfortunately, I think I've unconsciously created a pattern that seemed "age and corresponding attention span appropriate" to do that teaching for me, rather than actively modeling healthy prayer for her when we pray. Truthfully, a lot of that probably connects to the fact that I wasn't particularly capable of consistently modeling healthy prayer without that pattern because as I've shared before, prayer has been an area of great struggle for me lately. You know what??? I'm taking a little encouragement from this encounter. I think as a result of the intentional focus and work we've devoted together to prayer, Sophie heard something different in my prayer last night. I think part of the reason Sophie's interruptions occurred is because I was praying out loud with her about more specific, immediate concerns and thoughts than I usually do in those times. I prayed for people in particular whose names aren't on my standard list of "must-mentions" during prayer times with the family. Remembering it this morning, it seems I was (unbeknownst to me at the time) mixing it up a little in my prayer. I believe God is making some changes inside me through this season concentrating on prayer. I'm grateful for that. However incrementally minor these changes may be, I think its going to produce positive results. For me and those, like Sophie, whom I am blessed to pray with.
I'll post later today about another interesting thought that arose during my prayer time with Sophie last night. This ended up longer than I expected. So, I'll include that in my official "Day 18" post later on. Have a great day everyone.
Pray continually. Pray for each other.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Day 16
Sorry about not posting yesterday. Rough day. Just completely blanked on my "blog commitment." I'll try not to let that happen again.
I'm thinking of Maria today, one of sisters from the Spanish speaking service. Tonight our building will house the wake for her son, Ariel. He died last week in a tragic accident. Though Ariel was an adult, it is still terribly tragic to me when a parent has to bury their child. In my mind, it's one of those things that clearly and painfully evidences the reality that our world is broken. I find my body literally shudders at the thought of experiencing the grief Maria has encountered.
I hope that many of us in the DC area will take the time to stop by this evening and join Maria and her family in their mourning. There are no perfect answers or healing words any of us could offer in the midst of this kind of grief, but we can offer the small comfort of compassionate presence. The other resource we have to offer our grieving sister is prayer. This afternoon, I'd like to plead with each of you to be in prayer continuously for Maria and her family. I'll close with the prayer
I'm thinking of Maria today, one of sisters from the Spanish speaking service. Tonight our building will house the wake for her son, Ariel. He died last week in a tragic accident. Though Ariel was an adult, it is still terribly tragic to me when a parent has to bury their child. In my mind, it's one of those things that clearly and painfully evidences the reality that our world is broken. I find my body literally shudders at the thought of experiencing the grief Maria has encountered.
I hope that many of us in the DC area will take the time to stop by this evening and join Maria and her family in their mourning. There are no perfect answers or healing words any of us could offer in the midst of this kind of grief, but we can offer the small comfort of compassionate presence. The other resource we have to offer our grieving sister is prayer. This afternoon, I'd like to plead with each of you to be in prayer continuously for Maria and her family. I'll close with the prayer
Father,
There is no one greater than you. Your power, wisdom, holiness and love are beyond comprehension to us. In your greatness, we beg you to see our brokenness and be merciful with us.
For our sister Maria and her family, Father we beg for your grace to flow freely in their lives. Hold them close while they grieve. Fill their hearts with loving, hopeful memories of Ariel. Father, you know all too well how painful the death of a son is for a parent. I pray that you will surround Maria with your children as she mourns the loss of her own. May their presence and your Holy Spirit give her strength to endure the pain of this difficult day, and those that will follow. In time, please lift Maria up into the marvelous, heartwarming rays of your glory, and fill her heart with hope and peace in the assurance she has of the future life after death you have promised to those who put their trust in you. Thank you for hearing my prayer, which is offered in the name of your son, Jesus. Amen.
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