Everyday Prayers

I continue to be challenged by the book, With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray. He has obviously thought much more deeply about prayer than I ever have. He has also studied the life and teaching of Jesus about prayer.

I have come to the point that I no longer jump right in to pray for a given situation. I don’t know what to pray. I have to come before God and ask him about the need, the situation. “What do you want to happen, Lord?” Sometimes I still don’t know. Sometimes he leads me to a new understanding, and from that perspective, I can pray effectively.

But one of the most challenging statements from Murray is that we should be seeing answers to prayer every day. He doesn’t mean praying for general good health or for the sun to rise. He means specific answers to specific prayers every day.

It often strains my thinking to remember the last time I had a specific prayer answered. Yes, God provides for my family, he helps people mature in their faith. He helps our children mature and learn.

Then, too, Jesus has worked significant work in the lives of friends. Several people have been healed of cancer, one healed of kidney stones. God used our prayers to help two little children from Uganda come home to live with their adoptive parents in Winston-Salem, NC. God has always provided meeting space for our church, and we have regularly prayed about that.

But I can’t say that I see God answering specific prayers every day. I’m not there yet. That could be because I’m not praying about enough things. No doubt. It is also because I don’t yet know the mind of Christ well enough to know what to pray. As he shapes my thinking and understanding, my prayers are bound to become more effective.

Murray makes the point that most Christians believe that the fellowship found in prayer makes the effort worthwhile. But Jesus teaches that prayer is more than a sweet time of intimacy with God – as important as that is. But prayer is a means for accomplishing the work of God. The answers do matter.

Last night I prayed with my daughter that she would be relieved of her cold symptoms. This morning she is feeling good. Thank you, Lord. I’m willing to start small, so that God can build my faith. Maybe some day I will see daily answers to prayer. When we are so in touch with God and his work, he can use us to change the world.

Advice of Friends

I read that that the governor of New York has admitted soliciting the services of a call girl. That’s not good news. Apparently he has always given the impression that he lives morally.

His wife sounds like a wonderful woman. She is very intelligent, well educated and a devoted wife and mother. Her husband should be ashamed of himself, and he apparently is.

That is all tragic enough. But the press is also reporting that the wife’s friends are urging her to take her three children and leave the governor. Several things about this seem strange to me. First, what business do these friends have telling the press how they advise their friend? That should be a private matter between friends, not a headline on a news Web site.

Second, shouldn’t these friends encourage the wife to stay with her husband? If there had been a pattern of abusive, irresponsible behavior, that would be another matter. From the little I have read, this act of unfaithfulness doesn’t appear to be a pattern.

Third, shouldn’t the friends let the betrayed wife work through her own emotions, rather than dumping on her suggestions that she may not want to consider? A friend is someone who encourages you to do the right thing. A friend is someone who offers emotional support, helping you work through your own decisions.

Obviously I don’t know enough about the whole situation to condemn anything but the governor’s adulterous actions. It just surprised me to see how quickly the friends responded to the press to offer their opinions. And of course the press is eating it up. And, yes, I read the article…

Parents' Night Out

Talk about win-win. Last Saturday night, our youth group hosted a “parents’ night out” at the Long House. From 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. our youth group provided a fun place for kids to play, so that their parents could have a free evening. It was done as a fundraiser for the youth mission trip this summer, but it was a big time for all.

Most of the adults went out to eat together at a Brazilian steakhouse. This was a blast. We had about 28 adults in the party, so the restaurant gave us their special cellar room. Most of the people were not attenders at Crossroads, and only a few people knew everyone there. We just had a fun time laughing and dining together. I met several new people.

The restaurant has a great salad bar, from which one could easily make a meal. But the star attraction is the selection of meats. “Gauchos,” roam through the dining room with huge skewers bearing chunks of roast meat. They had various cuts of beef, plus pork, lamb, etc. They had about 16 different types of meat. The gauchos walk from person to person, offering to carve you off a slab of meat. It is an Atkins diet frenzy. All the protein you can consume.

This was especially fun for me because I had been to a similar restaurant in 1982 when I went on a mission trip to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. There, of course, the gauchos did not speak English, so we Americans had to guess what kind of meat was being served. The meal was a highlight of the trip. I did not even know until last week that we had a Brazilian steakhouse in Greensboro. We’ll certainly be going back.

When we picked up our children from the parents’ night out, they were all excited. Our teenager loves to play with kids, and so this was heaven to her. Our younger daughter also had a blast, probably doing more giving than receiving of babysitting services. “When are we going to do this again?” they wondered.

The evening was also a win for the youth group mission trip. They watched about 3 dozen kids and received $530 in donations for their trip to Indianapolis this summer.

I hope we do this again, not as a fundraiser, but simply as a ministry. Someone mentioned today that there is obviously a pent-up need for the service. This is a great way to share the love of Jesus with whole families. The kids have a blast and the parents get a break.

When God builds his kingdom, everybody wins. Only he can do that.

Harmony in the Spirit

Yesterday I was driving to a ministry situation, praying for God to use me to share his love. I had already been praying for the need there, and was continuing to ask God to do a supernatural work. Driving along, I was listening to some worship music.

It was a familiar CD, and I know the tunes very well. But somehow I had not quite caught all the lyrics. It was an interesting experience as I could feel the music and let the Holy Spirit speak to me in the moment. He could guide my thinking through the lyrics, but my heart was in tune with him as with the tune of the music.

This seems to me what prayer is. As we mature, we know God more and more intimately, and our hearts are in tune with him. As we spend time in the Lord’s presence, we are connected with him in spirit. It’s like knowing the tune, as we enjoy fellowship together.

But then, in the context of sharing the “tune” through prayer, Jesus can reveal himself to me in a new way. He can guide me to new thoughts. He can speak to my soul. He can call my mind to his Word. He can reveal the truth of the situation.

I long to have more prayer times when I sense that kind of intimacy. And I want to extend those times throughout the day. It will be such a blessing to be able to live that way, moment by moment. I want to sing the song of the Spirit in my heart all day. Then he can show me constantly how he is working and how he can use me. That’s the worship of living. That’s abundant life.

Ouch

I’ve encountered lots of distractions while preaching. Sometimes a baby cries, someone coughs, people move about. I’ve seen people jump up because a drink spilled. While we were meeting in a garage on wildlife preserve, we had geese walk through our worship gathering.

But a couple of Sundays ago, I experienced a new one. I was talking about kindness, as part of the fruit of the Holy Spirit. In the middle of my message, people suddenly tried to tell me something. “There’s a bee!” OK. I brushed my hands through my hair, thinking that the critter must be around my head. “No, it’s on your hand!” I looked down and saw the wasp on my right hand. About that time I felt the sting. I brushed him off and he landed nearby on the floor.

Naturally I stepped over to the bug, planning to squash him. But then I remembered that I was preaching on kindness. Hmm. Not a good object lesson.

So, I allowed the wasp to live, although it already looked nearly dead. I continued with my message, trying not to miss a beat.

But God moved some people to action. They seized upon the occasion to show kindness. Someone gave me a sterile wipe for my wound. Another produced a cold pack. I finished speaking while holding the dressing on my hand.

After our worship time, I learned that someone had put the wasp out of his misery. Didn’t make me sad.

Now, everyone watches carefully for all the flying creatures. You never know when they might get you. Just when you thought we had enough distractions…

A Long Time to Learn

After reading my Bible a couple of weeks ago, I began my prayer time. But I was at a loss. How do I pray? What do I do, now that it’s time to pray? For the first time, I felt what the disciples must have felt when they said, “Lord, teach us to pray.”

That experience led me to pull out a book I have had since 1985, With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray. I must have begun reading it in about 1989, but I only read about 20 pages of it. I figured that out when I pulled it off the shelf and found my bookmark – my business card from the church where I first served as pastor.

I remember people telling me how great this book was, but it must have been over my head. I had never even finished it. As I read it today, I see how empty many of my prayers have been.

I had been telling God what I wanted to happen, and never really expecting much to change. Now I am beginning to understand prayer as conversation flowing out of relationship with God. When I am close to him, I know better what he wants in a given situation. I know what to pray, and I can expect real, specific answers.

I feel like such a beginner. I can really expect Jesus to act when I pray. He said he would. I’m eager to see this unfold!

Thank Yous

I’m one of those traditionalists who still believes in writing thank you notes for gifts. That means that near the end of January I am feeling guilty if I have not yet written notes of thanks for my Christmas presents. So, that’s where I find myself today.

As I was running errands tonight, I decided to pick up some thank you cards. I happened to be in Office Depot, knowing that they would have stationery of some sort. Seems that the only stationery I could find was designed to be run through a printer. There was nothing smaller than letter-size paper. I did not find any thank you cards. Hmm.

I had to go to Wal-Mart as well, so I checked out their stationery selection. I could hardly find it. Again, they only seemed to have the kind of paper you use to print out party invitations or family newsletters. Surely they would have thank you cards. Finally I found them. They were all marked at clearance prices. Cool. I picked up four 10-packs at 75 cents each.

But will they restock their thank you cards? With email being so simple and easy, we can quickly acknowledge gifts with very little effort. But there’s just something about a “hard copy” note.

Going through old files a few days ago, I found some old letters my parents had written to me in the 1980s. It touched my heart to see what they had said to me then. I had forgotten the depth of their love for me and my new wife. Then I thought about how I would miss having those notes, if email had been available in those days. I doubt we would have exchanged letters much at all.

I don’t hate technology, but there is still something very special about a good old-fashioned letter.