Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘prayer’

Still More About Prayer

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 20, 2011| 10 Comments »

Why are we (including me) still writing and reading about prayer? How much more can be said? What other discoveries do I expect? Christian book stores are full of essays, real life stories, and teachings. Blogs and websites even more so. What does it take to “get it?”

James 5:13-14a, 16b
Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them . . . The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

In one of my devotions while praying the hours, I encountered a writing that identified prayer as the most difficult task of a believer. Why is that true? What is it about our understanding of prayer over the ages that makes us disinclined to practice it without a lot of help. Help might come in the form of a prayer book, a rosary, a special “place” (a pew, a designated chair at home, or a particular position); help in prayer may seem to require other people or musical accompaniment.

I think the problem rests with physicalizing a spiritual or non-corporeal process.

I try to master my outer world in order to “make time” and space for prayer when in reality, the mastery is within. The real reason we may be encouraged to speak and sing prayers out loud us that it helps tame the incessant wandering of our minds. We practice corporate prayers in order to focus on a particular set of words and hopefully, join the inner self with the spoken word.

But truthfully, I can read a prayer and plan dinner at the same time. I can sing or pray out loud and review my most recent argument with my husband or children that morning. I can speak the Lord’s prayer and get lost in it much the same as famous singers lose their places singing the National Anthem at football stadiums. I’m not paying attention. My mind is elsewhere. I am not praying. I am going through the motions.

Prayer is about communing with the Holy Spirit. And although it may be easier to communicate within when it’s quiet or when I set aside my regular schedule to meditate or repeat prayers/mantras or execute a plan, the real “work” is in the heart and mind.

In the King James translations of verse 16 in James 5, it is the “fervent” prayer that is effective and powerful. Some people believe fervent to mean emotional or ongoing, long-winded or passionate; some even think of fervent prayer as fiery, vehement, or zealous. I used to think the same way.

Instead, I’m thinking no outward expression of a fervent prayer is going to have any more power or effectiveness than another kind without the interior self in full participation. It is not what I say or how I say it. Just now, I actually found a website blog that states, “Every time we pray, if we do so correctly, God’s mighty power is released . . . ” Is this what it’s come down to? We’re all trying to figure out how to “pray correctly?” That cannot be the solution.

The Holy Spirit is with me whether I am standing, sitting or walking. The Holy Spirit is present in the shower and at the computer. The Holy Spirit hears, sees, comprehends me in a way like no other. Unfortunately, my praxis is shutting out the Spirit from my conscious mind. I tend to relegate the Holy Spirit to role of observer only. That is not how prayer works.

“So too the [Holy] Spirit comes to our aid and bears us up in our weakness; for we do not know what prayer to offer nor how to offer it worthily as we ought, but the Spirit Himself goes to meet our supplication and pleads in our behalf with unspeakable yearnings and groanings too deep for utterance.” [Romans 8:26, Amplified]

Read Full Post »

Reflected Truth

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 20, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Photo by Kimberly Kinrade

If hearing the word is like looking in a mirror at oneself, then it must be familiar when it’s happening. I look at myself and I recognize who it is. In the same way, I must be able to recognize truth. But then . . .

James 1:23-24
Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.

The idea of turning around and forgetting my own image is disturbing. But isn’t it true? How often I see photographs of myself and I am shocked by the person reflected. When did that happen? The other day I did a video spot and found my neck was doing a great Katherine Hepburn impression. Maybe, what I see in a mirror is not the whole truth after all.

But that sends me off point. What I’m really trying to catch is the idea of recognizing truth in one moment and then forgetting it the next. This happens to me every day. Writing echoes to the scriptures, as I do here, is the same.

I have epiphanies and revelations as I contemplate the word, pray, and write. I hit on a crucial truth, a flowering, a rush; and then I grab my bags, get into the car, go to work and I am someone else. I am the habit woman. I have already forgotten what I saw, what I learned, what I felt.

For a season, I was quite faithful at praying the hours, but I have lost the steady practice in recent weeks. I understand why this ritual has value though, it makes me stop what I was doing, just for eight minutes, and regroup around the Holy Spirit. It was a time to remember, to reconnect, to look into the mirror of the word.

Oh Lord, forgive me. This verse is me. Teach me how to carry your reflected truth with me throughout the night . . . throughout the day.

Read Full Post »

Prayer Without Doubt

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , on July 18, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Here’s the little truth that came to me through this verse about doubt: no one forces us to pray, there is no mandate, we pray by choice. And if that is so, why pray if we don’t believe God hears, receives, responds?

James 1:6-7
But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.

We are living today, the result of our prayers of faith. Whoa! you say, but honestly, could it be any other way? Did you pray? Didn’t I? Or, am I living the life of a doubtful prayer?

I don’t think it’s a bad thing to question things we hear or read; it’s reasonable to challenge ideas that don’t line up with our understanding. Without questions, we cannot learn and grow. Without examination, we become dull and follow blindly, sometimes to our own detriment.

But prayer is different because it’s personal. If I choose to pray, to engage with the Holy Spirit, to enter into the realm outside of time and space, then I should do this with the force of conviction that prayer is real, meaningful, and effective.

I think I have been expecting the Christ to cherry-pick through my requests: this one is valid, this one makes sense, this one isn’t a good idea, this one is beyond reason and so forth.

The important factor here is giving up my interpretation of the results as well as my time table. This is essential reasoning behind the classic phrase, “give thanks for all things” [I Thessalonians 5:18] because whatever is happening in the now is part of the answer of a prayer. I’m speaking in broad strokes now. I understand how devastating that would be in the face of a horrible illness, loss of life, or unexpected tragedy. How could these things be part of an answered prayer? I don’t know. It simply could be that one thing had to happen before something else could.

But let me go back to the start of this idea, the moment of prayer and the decision to ask. I saw it so clearly in my quiet time. (And yet I don’t pretend to know all the ins and outs of the meaning.) Yesterday, I had an epiphany about wisdom being part of a daily dose, through prayer. This is a given. I ask, God gives: wisdom for the day. As a result, I can choose better, understand better, and answer better.

But wisdom is not alone in this package, as a brother articulated, much of these requests lie within a prayer we say all the time: the Lord’s prayer. We have simply lost its depth of power and meaning through familiarity.

And what about those people we have held up in the light of prayer? Isn’t God moving and working there? Is God waiting for a finite number of prayers before moving? I don’t think so. We just can’t see the results so we doubt. It’s a human soul with free will. God will not run hilter skilter over that person’s own choices and desires. As my pastor said in services, “God is working both ends of every situation.” And I would add, God is working the middle too.

For me, the point of this discovery is to pray with care, with consciousness, with confidence [Hebrews 10:19-23], with intention. If I doubt God’s ability to move in a situation, then I should save those prayers for another day.

Read Full Post »

Generous with Wisdom

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , on July 16, 2011| 4 Comments »

Photo by P Dorowski

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m pretty clear that my wisdom quotient (WQ) is way below my IQ. Doesn’t everyone need more wisdom? Is there such a thing as too wise? Don’t think so.

James 1:5
If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.

So, why don’t I ask for wisdom every day? There are so many things I put before my God: guidance, help, protection, transformation, and so on. But I don’t specifically ask for wisdom. Wouldn’t that particular answered prayer help with all the other ones? Doh!

Based on James, God doesn’t find fault or hold back wisdom in the face of our mistakes. God doesn’t say, “No wisdom for you today, you’ve made too many mistakes.” There’s a lot of grace, then, in the gift of wisdom. It’s a helper, just like Eve was intended to be in the first story about men and women.

I’ve often wondered if Solomon was disappointed with his gift of wisdom and simply stopped using it? I mean, how else does a person go from doing everything right to accumulating so many women (700 wives & 300 concubines) and so much stuff that he finally tears the kingdom in two by the time of his death. Clearly, his WQ hit rock bottom by then.

I’m wondering today, is wisdom a like Manna? Does it have to be refreshed each day, given each day anew, or it becomes corrupt if someone tries to hold on to it beyond the time, the moment, the day?

I could really use some wisdom just to get through this night. And tomorrow, I think I’ll check in on the wisdom handout again. Thank you God.

Read Full Post »

All Will Be Well

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , , on June 17, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Julian of Norwich

I had a personal epiphany this evening about Julian of Norwich’s famous line, “All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.”

Hebrews 11:1
Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

It’s faith, simple faith, as written here in Hebrews 11, the famous “faith” chapter. But before the long list of examples begin, there is the basic definition of faith as this confidence in what we hope for coming to pass, no matter what or how things may appear now.

It’s a trajectory that I can begin each morning, before anything has happened in my day, I can speak this Norwich phrase with a deep sense of understanding that I do have this faith, I can have it today, I can enter my day with confidence . . . if I choose.

It’s when I head off the path of faith/wellness, that other prayers are needed. When I stumble be cause the way is hard, I can ask for help and when I err and hurt others because I’m trying to “make things well” on my own, I can ask forgiveness. When my confidence diminishes throughout a day, I can ask for assurance. When I am afraid of what is in my path, I can ask for revelation and wisdom. When I am angry or resentful about my relationships or my situation, I can ask for renewal and Spirit companionship.

This way of faith, this way of confidence in what I hope and believe in, the ever present God who promises that all things in my life will come out well in the end, this is “the” Way.

And for this reason, He can say, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.” [Revelation 22:13] and I can say, I believe.

Read Full Post »

Loud Cries and Tears

Posted in Eastertide, Time Up to Pentecost, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 20, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Artwork by Gretchen Smith

Most of us know the short verse, “Jesus wept” [John 11:35]. We might even get a warm and fuzzy feeling at the picture of a sympathetic Christ, weeping for his friend. But how often does anyone quote this verse in Hebrews, where Jesus cries out loud and sheds tears before God?

Hebrews 5:7
During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.

After a quick look at some of the commentaries, it’s interesting to me that most writers place all this “weeping and wailing” right before his death in the Garden of Gethsemane, as though this is the one time Jesus encountered his destiny and travailed before the Father. But I propose that the prayers and supplications of Jesus were ongoing. Think about it: how many times did Jesus miraculously escape the authorities? How many times did he suspect danger in his life, anticipate a shortened ministry, protect himself and his work by discouraging loose talk or gossip among his followers?

Jesus knew his life was forfeit but I can imagine him praying regularly, “Not yet . . . not yet. Give me a little more time.”

Jesus needed help and protection from God continually, not just in the garden, but throughout his ministry life. And in the same way that he emptied his heart and soul before God at Gethsemane, I believe he did this regularly and undoubtedly during many of those solitary prayers he sought out on the mountainsides, away from the disciples.

Lastly, I am intrigued by the idea of a noisy Christ. I mean, I don’t know about you, but a mental picture of Jesus roaring or wailing before God is difficult to wrap my mind around. And yet, why not? Isn’t it culturally appropriate? Would Jesus be “above” such behavior, such expression of need, desire, or supplication? Not at all.

I have experienced deep crying out to God and weeping but only at those times of deepest despair, betrayal, or fear. When I cried out to God at such times, I confess, it wasn’t that I put all my trust in God, I was merely bereft of hope, overwhelmed, and felt as if there was nowhere else to turn, I was “poor in spirit.” It was my last chance.

I wonder, were there circumstances and situations that Jesus did not expect to happen? Was he ever surprised (or surprised all the time)? Did he expect/hope his follower-disciples would “get it” sooner than they did (or did they get it while he was still alive at all?); was he troubled by the masses of people who easily followed him day after day for “bread and fish” but could not grasp the food of the Spirit; was he frustrated by his own inability to break through thousand-year-old traditions and beliefs? Did he cry out to God the day he called himself the “bread of life” and taught them about eating his flesh and drinking his blood–so many deserted him that day. I can imagine him saying, “Father, how do I reach them?”

And yet, each day, he submitted again and again and again to the role he was given to endure (in the order of Melchizedek); he pressed on. He woke up, he prayed, he taught, he ate, he miracled. And finally, he reached that God-ordained last day, that last supper, and that last prayer. My spirit tells me now: his garden prayers were not the first time he bled in sweat nor flooded the ground with his tears. His life in the Father was full of prayers and supplications every day.

Holy tears for me. Thanks be to God.

Read Full Post »

Prepare a Room for Me

Posted in Eastertide, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 27, 2011| 1 Comment »

Empty Room by Tom Burke

Believing in a future is part of the faith package. We can’t know what that future will actually hold for us, but that does not preclude us from embracing all the possibilities. So much of tomorrow hinges on today.

Philemon 20
And one thing more: Prepare a guest room for me, because I hope to be restored to you in answer to your prayers.

Paul believed he would be cut loose from prison. He asked his friends and his followers to believe the same thing, despite the circumstances.

I can function fairly well in this part of the equation, but I’m not so good when that future I had prayed about, asked for and even envisioned, doesn’t happen. I am disappointed. This is a trap for me.

Intellectually, I understand what it should be. I can preach about it and I can teach about. I can offer all kinds of advice, quotations, and scripture references. Honest, I get it. But the reality of living the other answer is not always my best day.

Instead of disappointment, when the alternate future presents itself, I need to joyfully envelop it and give thanks because God, all sovereign, heard my prayer and took my future onto a different way. When I don’t get “out of prison,” when I don’t get the job, when my kid doesn’t go to college, when my project is not accepted, when . . . when . . . when, it’s no less intentional from the God perspective.

I’m reading a book by Steven Furtick called Sun Stand Still. He’s a young, exuberant pastor from Charlotte, North Carolina, who planted a church that grew into the thousands in a very short time. He’s all about audacious prayers and expecting God to do impossible things. He has seen such prayers answered every day. His faith is infectious. He challenges his church to do the same, like Paul, he says, “do as I do, believe as I believe, trust as I trust.”

Have a I become too jaded in my walk to drum up this kind of enthusiasm? I don’t know. It’s not that I don’t believe God can do great and wondrous acts. God can and does. But I want to be able to walk on through despite the outcomes. I want to have a faith that isn’t wrapped around the answers. Because, quite honestly, my requests are not always in the best interests of the whole picture; I know that instinctively. I can only dream my dream and put my desires out there. But I could be way off.

When I was younger and went through those terrible years of barrenness, I came to a peace when I accepted the reality of my body. It was no less God’s plan and, in the end, we built a family through adoption, three kids who didn’t know that God had prepared a room for them here.

Everything is connected, every dream, every future, every room. Keep me mindful Lord, when I step into the room prepared for me today, that I don’t forsake it just because it’s not painted the color I had imagined or it’s not furnished with the expected furniture or populated by certain people.

Help me dream and even dream big still, but help me engage in today fully as well. Today is part of yesterday’s dream.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »