Our prayer meetings usually become lists of people in crisis. People who have lost loved ones, people in the hospital near death, or other crises. I was wondering how this fits with how Jesus told us to pray. What does he tell us to pray for? "Father, give us what we need today. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who've sinned against us."
I'm wondering, when I go to prayer meeting and say "Let's remember Joe in the hospital," and don't mention that I'm feeling grumpy about stuff at work; or don't admit I focus on entertaining myself much more than I do on being like Jesus in my world, am I missing the point? Am I thinking we only need God in the crises, not in the everyday messes? That I'm managing my life OK, it's only Joe that needs help?
Or am I thinking that God has only a limited ability or desire to answer prayers, and Joe's cancer is a higher priority than my messes? Scripture does tell us to bear one another's burdens, so putting Joe's burden ahead of mine is probably a good thing. But if I never mention my burden, maybe that isn't a good thing. Because prayer is not a lottery with only a few winners.
Compassion for others worse off than ourselves is a good thing. But the airline safety talk always says to put your own oxygen mask on before helping someone else. If you pass out trying to help someone else you haven't helped them. Is prayer like that? If we don't bring our own needs and life before God, we can't really help others? I think that could be the case. I think we need a balance of praying for ourselves and praying for others.
Pleading for the world
Abraham pleaded for Sodom, "Far be it from you to kill the righteous with the wicked. Will not the judge of all the earth do right?"
I think, in light of Jesus, one can cry "Shall not the Savior of the world show mercy?"
God, rescue the victims from this murderous world. Deliver the murderers from their desire to murder, from their twisted perception that murder is necessary and good.
I think, in light of Jesus, one can cry "Shall not the Savior of the world show mercy?"
God, rescue the victims from this murderous world. Deliver the murderers from their desire to murder, from their twisted perception that murder is necessary and good.
Truth like a river
I'm thinking of the old song "I've got a river of life flowing out of me. Makes the lame to walk and the blind to see. Opens prison doors sets the captives free." That is a pretty radical statement. It comes out of Scripture: the river of life flowing out is from John 7:38, and the healings and opening prison doors comes from Isaiah 61 .
But when I sing that song, it doesn't feel radical. Those words have become too familiar. The situations where I remember singing it were lighthearted in tone, a fun tune without thinking about the words. Like one might sing "I've been working on the railroad." You know you don't work on the railroad, you have no ambition to work on the railroad and no guilt for not wanting to work on the railroad, and perhaps don't even know anyone named Dinah, but the song is a fun song to sing.
I remember years ago a worship leader making the surprising statement that we shouldn't sing Christian songs if we just wanted to have fun singing and be a bit silly. We should sing songs like "I've been working on the railroad." When we sing songs about God, it should be because we really mean them. Now I might push back on that statement some today, because I think our relationships with God should involve all our lives, even the lighthearted silly moments (which are not sinful to have). But I think there is a danger in enjoying Christian songs or sayings because they're familiar, without thinking about what they mean.
John 7:38 and Isaiah 61:2 reveal a surprising, startling, awesome truth. Out of me, in me, comes the Spirit of God, who does bring healing and liberty. I'm thinking of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's riveting line: "Bless you prison for being in my life." I'm thinking of healings and resurrections, some which come here and now, some of which we wait for, and our here and now is transformed by the faith to wait, if we accept it.
The Bible in 40 days
In early Lent, I read about a challenge to read through the entire Bible in the 40 days of Lent. The notion intrigued me, so I took it on. My Bible has 1220 pages of text, so that meant just over 30 pages a day.
It often felt like I was going too fast. I read over many familiar and beloved passages without even noticing them. I may not do this again. But I did notice a few things doing this:
1) It reinforced the conclusion I'd come to that waiting is part of God's promises. Thinking about the centuries between Abraham and Moses, then between Moses and David, then from David and Solomon to the exile, then to the time of Christ, seems to suggest a pattern. God proceeds slowly to work out his plan. Wondering why the plan takes so long is a common concern. It certainly isn't that God needs to rest between major events, or needs a long time to prepare all the details. And it doesn't seem like progress is linear either. When "now is the time," God can act quite quickly. But I think, as unpopular as the idea is in our American culture, the default experience of faith is waiting -- knowing God has acted in the past, knowing he will act sometime in the future.
2) I got a new respect for the Books of Chronicles. I had an attitude in my heart that these two books were less complete and more biased than Samuel/Kings. One sign of bias I felt; Chronicles omits the whole scandal of David and Bathsheba (except for one hint in 1 Ch 20:1). But as I skimmed through Chronicles, I did notice the story of David's census bringing a plague on the people (1 Chr 21). That too was a scandal, David's disobedience bringing judgment on the nation, perhaps a greater scandal. And Samuel/Kings doesn't cover it. So these two accounts of David's life complement each other.
3) How short the New Testament is. I've known for years that the New Testament isn't really half of the Bible, much less than half. But going by the page count, it isn't even a quarter. (1220-950 = 270 pages, one quarter of 1220 pages is 305).
4) That the New Testament brings a major shift in emphasis. The Old Testament is predominately about the nation of Israel, about the patriarchs, then Moses, then the judges, kings and prophets. God does deal with individuals, but the central thrust is about the nation. Then in the Gospels, the focus is on Jesus reaching out to individuals, and forming disciples to reach out to other individuals. The individuals are supposed to form a community, so I wouldn't say it is individualistic. But I think there is a shift of emphasis.
5) There are many more miracles in the Gospels than there are in any part of the Old Testament.
One surprising difficulty. I had expected that 31 or 32 pages of Leviticus or Deuteronomy would feel like tough slogging. But the hardest book to go through 31 pages at a sitting was Proverbs.
Margaret Feinberg, who apparently launched the challenge, talks about what she learned here.
It often felt like I was going too fast. I read over many familiar and beloved passages without even noticing them. I may not do this again. But I did notice a few things doing this:
1) It reinforced the conclusion I'd come to that waiting is part of God's promises. Thinking about the centuries between Abraham and Moses, then between Moses and David, then from David and Solomon to the exile, then to the time of Christ, seems to suggest a pattern. God proceeds slowly to work out his plan. Wondering why the plan takes so long is a common concern. It certainly isn't that God needs to rest between major events, or needs a long time to prepare all the details. And it doesn't seem like progress is linear either. When "now is the time," God can act quite quickly. But I think, as unpopular as the idea is in our American culture, the default experience of faith is waiting -- knowing God has acted in the past, knowing he will act sometime in the future.
2) I got a new respect for the Books of Chronicles. I had an attitude in my heart that these two books were less complete and more biased than Samuel/Kings. One sign of bias I felt; Chronicles omits the whole scandal of David and Bathsheba (except for one hint in 1 Ch 20:1). But as I skimmed through Chronicles, I did notice the story of David's census bringing a plague on the people (1 Chr 21). That too was a scandal, David's disobedience bringing judgment on the nation, perhaps a greater scandal. And Samuel/Kings doesn't cover it. So these two accounts of David's life complement each other.
3) How short the New Testament is. I've known for years that the New Testament isn't really half of the Bible, much less than half. But going by the page count, it isn't even a quarter. (1220-950 = 270 pages, one quarter of 1220 pages is 305).
4) That the New Testament brings a major shift in emphasis. The Old Testament is predominately about the nation of Israel, about the patriarchs, then Moses, then the judges, kings and prophets. God does deal with individuals, but the central thrust is about the nation. Then in the Gospels, the focus is on Jesus reaching out to individuals, and forming disciples to reach out to other individuals. The individuals are supposed to form a community, so I wouldn't say it is individualistic. But I think there is a shift of emphasis.
5) There are many more miracles in the Gospels than there are in any part of the Old Testament.
One surprising difficulty. I had expected that 31 or 32 pages of Leviticus or Deuteronomy would feel like tough slogging. But the hardest book to go through 31 pages at a sitting was Proverbs.
Margaret Feinberg, who apparently launched the challenge, talks about what she learned here.
Short thoughts
God loves us and has a wonderful ability to bless our here and now.
Sometimes God blesses us by removing a difficulty. Sometimes he blesses us by giving us peace in difficulty.
Sometimes God blesses us by removing a difficulty. Sometimes he blesses us by giving us peace in difficulty.
God is about something bigger than us, but there is great goodness for us in it.
If left to ourselves, we will miss the blessings.
If left to ourselves, we will miss the blessings.
God can make more of me than I can make of myself.
I don't have to have the things I want to be happy.*
The things I want often won't make me happy.
Getting what we want may not be a blessing, it might be a trap.
Getting what we want may not be a blessing, it might be a trap.
If I can't be content with the things I have, will I be content with the things I want?
The secret to contentment is first to have faith in God and in his blessings, and second to give thanks.
The default life of faith is not to see God deliver you from all your problems, but to see God encourage and strengthen you to trust and bless you through your problems.
We often think we couldn't possibly be in the situation we're in if God's promises were true. But this situation is where God wants to demonstrate how he keeps his promises.
God really wants to bring peace and contentment and good character to our hearts. Any other objective we have misses the point.
God knows how messy our hearts really are. He still insists on bringing peace and contentment to them.
God does not want to act once to make us happy ever after. He wants to act again and again to bring us blessings each day.**
We need him to act again and again. When we aren't happy ever after, we haven't missed something.
When other Christians act like they are happy ever after, they're probably faking it.
If you think admitting your imperfections gives God a bad name, think again. His specialty is helping imperfect people.
If you think that the Gospel of grace is for people outside, and once you come inside you need to learn to do the right things, reread Galatians. You're believing in an altered Gospel.
If you think admitting your imperfections gives God a bad name, think again. His specialty is helping imperfect people.
If you think that the Gospel of grace is for people outside, and once you come inside you need to learn to do the right things, reread Galatians. You're believing in an altered Gospel.
Lamenting our circumstances is not lacking faith. It is the life of faith.
God's great plans involve using us. He is not concerned how much more efficiently he could do things by himself without us.
What he most had to do on his own, because we couldn't help at all, he did by becoming one of us.
God's great plans involve using us. He is not concerned how much more efficiently he could do things by himself without us.
What he most had to do on his own, because we couldn't help at all, he did by becoming one of us.
*Not original with me. I read this on Facebook.
**I know Christ's death and resurrection was a one time event that changed everything. I'm talking about how we discover and live out what that event means. We don't experience it as a one time discovery that changes everything in our hearts and circumstances, but as a progression of learning to hope, trust and confide more and more from day to day.
**I know Christ's death and resurrection was a one time event that changed everything. I'm talking about how we discover and live out what that event means. We don't experience it as a one time discovery that changes everything in our hearts and circumstances, but as a progression of learning to hope, trust and confide more and more from day to day.
Grace as a process: why is it hard to understand
Why is the evangelical church so fond of quick fix theology, the "before and after hoax?" I'm sure there are many reasons. Here's one big reason, I think we're already hard-wired from our culture to believe it.
In my childhood, the book I loved best was Great American Fighter Pilots of World War II. And my favorite chapter in the book was about the Marianas Turkey Shoot. In the first couple of years of the war, American fighter pilots had great difficulty because American planes were slower and less maneuverable than the Japanese Zero. They had to figure out tactics (like starting above the Japanese Zeroes and diving down on them) to overcome this. Then in 1944 the American pilots got a new plane, the F6F Hellcat. It was faster, more maneuverable than the Zero, but it was also more heavily armored. So in this battle air combat for the Americans became easy -- they could catch the Japanese planes before the Japanese could catch them, and if a Japanese pilot got lucky and hit a Hellcat, the armor absorbed the damage. That's why I loved that chapter, after all the dangers of the earlier chapters, the Good Guys now had it easy, thanks to technology.
This is the basic Gospel of our time. Technology will make life easy. It has in many ways: microwaves, washers and dryers, computers and Internet. But technology doesn't make life effortless, and it never will.
And God's power, much greater than technology, doesn't make our life effortless either.
And God's power, much greater than technology, doesn't make our life effortless either.
Grace for the process
I've known this for years, and yet its still a new concept: The Christian life is a process, not a one-time event.
I was thinking about Addie Zierman's phrase, the "Before and After hoax" and how the evangelical church is too prone to talk about the Christian life as conversion then happy ever after. Before, I was lost, totally miserable. Then I came to Christ and my problems went away.
Scripture does say we were dead and now we are alive in Christ. We are new creations. But I think that the newness, the aliveness is something we have to work out, something we experience step by step. Scripture also talks about faith in something we don't see, and about not giving up when we encounter fiery trials to refine and deepen our faith. Romans 6 talks about us being dead to sin. But Paul says in verse 11 to count ourselves dead to sin. Being dead to sin isn't something that just happens. We have to count on it, exercise our faith that this promise is true despite what our hearts say about it, and ask God for help.
That's what I tried to say in Covenant of Hope. There wasn't a single prayer event that in a single stroke healed the division and brought Stonegate church back together as it used to be. But the promises of God invited prayer, invited Ralph and Jim to cry out to God that this isn't how the church should be, and over time, sanity did return.
I was thinking about Addie Zierman's phrase, the "Before and After hoax" and how the evangelical church is too prone to talk about the Christian life as conversion then happy ever after. Before, I was lost, totally miserable. Then I came to Christ and my problems went away.
Scripture does say we were dead and now we are alive in Christ. We are new creations. But I think that the newness, the aliveness is something we have to work out, something we experience step by step. Scripture also talks about faith in something we don't see, and about not giving up when we encounter fiery trials to refine and deepen our faith. Romans 6 talks about us being dead to sin. But Paul says in verse 11 to count ourselves dead to sin. Being dead to sin isn't something that just happens. We have to count on it, exercise our faith that this promise is true despite what our hearts say about it, and ask God for help.
That's what I tried to say in Covenant of Hope. There wasn't a single prayer event that in a single stroke healed the division and brought Stonegate church back together as it used to be. But the promises of God invited prayer, invited Ralph and Jim to cry out to God that this isn't how the church should be, and over time, sanity did return.
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