in My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald was talking a lot about obedience. Yesterday he was talking about obedience being the process of hearing the command to God and DOING it. He says, “The golden rule for understanding spiritually is not intellect, but obedience…Intellectual darkness comes through ignorance; spiritual darkness comes because of something I do not intend to obey.”
This is pretty intense – Intense because I’m making life changes… intense because I work with people who are made up… intense because I don’t know what to do with any of it. Oswald says, “First Go – at the risk of being thought fanatical you must obey what God tells you.” But what if you legitimately aren’t sure of what he’s telling you? I guess you obey what you know and keep asking for what you don’t.
My quiet time tonight was Peter’s Vision and Cornelius’ Reply. So there is our friend Peter sitting on the roof of his buddy Simon, just chillin’. Peter falls into a trance – the bustle of the street below and the waves lapping against the shore fall faint as he’s fully enveloped by this vision of the Lord. A Sheet with animals floats down and angels bring down the corners of it to the Ground and God says to peter what I have made holy is not unholy.
This is obviously a gross oversimplification of the verses in question, but it’s enough to get the gist of what is happening. God is telling Peter a message in a super miraculous vision that he otherwise wasn’t going to figure out on his own. Before last night I thought that the vision’s purpose was to break down some of Peter’s barriers to sharing the faith with the Gentiles (Cornelius). Making him open up his palette a bit and eat the foods he would otherwise deem unclean. I think I missed the picture all this time. That wasn’t the purpose, the purpose had little to do with his mouth and his stomach and everything to do with his heart. The Gentiles were the animals on the sheet, the sheet was God’s love and acceptance, and peter was to take, kill and eat (metaphorically) – Go, talk and reap. Peter awoke from his trance and did just that. He was resolute. He said “I am who you came for, let’s Go.”
I’m not sure what that means for me yet, but I know it’s been like a burr in my shoe since I read it and there is something really important within that text that the Lord is trying get me to understand.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Monday, July 9, 2007
bearing burdens, bearing sins
Tonight I was reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer before bed. (Note to self: DB is not light reading before bedtime.) It’s gotten me thinking about my prayers. I’ve come to the conclusion that my attitude on prayer is a direct result of my perspective of prayer. Last night I learned that prayer is a believer’s communication with God. I’m sure the ipso facto of that entails the communication of other believer’s needs and so on, but tonight something very tenable came out of my reading. It’s more than just needs.
I’m being very roundabout and confusing so I’ll try and get right to the point tonight.
Previous perspective: Prayer is communicating needs of myself and others
Current perspective: MY prayer is the willful bearing up of the sin and corruption of my brothers and sisters, willingly choosing the suffering of corporate burdens over the contemplation of a life less occupied.
This quote is how arrive to my conclusion,
“Just as Christ bears our burdens, so also are we to bear the burdens of our brothers and sisters. The law of Christ which must be fulfilled is the bearing of the Cross. The burden of my brother and sister that I am to bear is not only that person’s external fate, that person’s character and personality, but is in a very real sense that person’s SIN.
Pretty wild. He’s suggesting that my prayers are the bearing of my brother’s sins and my sister’s sins. When I pray for my friend’s issues with sin, I’m not just announcing to god some point of contention that must be dealt with, I’m exacting his sins upon me. I’m taking his sin’s burden upon my own shoulders and helping him lift it up. I’m working and being strained dry for no other reason than the grand love I have for my brothers and sisters.
Tonight I found out prayer is not a matter of reporting the news, but breaking a sweat making the wrongs right again. there really is no better way to be a friend than to suffer upon yourself the cross that they bear -- to suffer their sins as your own, but not merely as your own, rather reckoning them your own! If this is a proper understanding of prayer is alive and it matters, it is moving and important. My best friends sins are at stake! what an amazing gift prayer is.
I’m being very roundabout and confusing so I’ll try and get right to the point tonight.
Previous perspective: Prayer is communicating needs of myself and others
Current perspective: MY prayer is the willful bearing up of the sin and corruption of my brothers and sisters, willingly choosing the suffering of corporate burdens over the contemplation of a life less occupied.
This quote is how arrive to my conclusion,
“Just as Christ bears our burdens, so also are we to bear the burdens of our brothers and sisters. The law of Christ which must be fulfilled is the bearing of the Cross. The burden of my brother and sister that I am to bear is not only that person’s external fate, that person’s character and personality, but is in a very real sense that person’s SIN.
Pretty wild. He’s suggesting that my prayers are the bearing of my brother’s sins and my sister’s sins. When I pray for my friend’s issues with sin, I’m not just announcing to god some point of contention that must be dealt with, I’m exacting his sins upon me. I’m taking his sin’s burden upon my own shoulders and helping him lift it up. I’m working and being strained dry for no other reason than the grand love I have for my brothers and sisters.
Tonight I found out prayer is not a matter of reporting the news, but breaking a sweat making the wrongs right again. there really is no better way to be a friend than to suffer upon yourself the cross that they bear -- to suffer their sins as your own, but not merely as your own, rather reckoning them your own! If this is a proper understanding of prayer is alive and it matters, it is moving and important. My best friends sins are at stake! what an amazing gift prayer is.
Sunday, July 8, 2007
I know you exist... but do you care?
07-08-07
Prayer is one of those disciplines that has never come easy to me. There are times when I have felt my prayers have been more effective at reaching the throne room of God and beseeching the king of kings to partake some sort of action at the behest of my prayers. At no time have I ever considered my own eloquence or manner of speech to be the catalyst for the Lord’s movement – I hope I never do. As much as I have always wanted prayer to be one of my gifts it never has been so.
Like many disciplines, no one person is blessed with all of them all at the same time (Jesus excluded). We all have our own strengths and foibles, though my failings are many my strengths, though much less are great still. Unfortunately, one of those strengths is not prayer. I know I’m not alone. I know I’m not the only one who prays at night before bed as an effective means of disengaging my insomniac tendencies. I know also I’m not the only one who can be praying with some degree of focused intensity only to be distracted by an itch or by some vapor of a thought quickly passing from my left ear to my right. I may be the only one distracted by my own prayers, praying for a situation and only to find myself playing out the resultant conversations, effects, and expected desires of my prayers. Apart from the last of my examples I know I am not alone.
Well, I am not going to sit any longer without exercising my prayer muscles. I want to be one of God’s mighty men – a true prayer warrior in its greatest sense. I want to be an effective prayer, consistent, persistent, and ever vigilant for situations where I can praise, honor and glorify the Lord in my prayer life. I want my life to speak of a heart devoted to prayer, and I want that life to point not to my own determination, but the Lord’s effective ministry in my own heart, despite my own feelings to the contrary. I believe this is something the Lord is wanting to teach me, and I believe I am ready to learn.
My text book apart from the bible is Pray with your eyes open by Dr. Richard Pratt, and I am taking it slowly so I can absorb, use, and reuse over and again the principles to an effective prayer life. Tonight I read the opening chapter and will meditate over the next week during my morning prayers over what he defines prayer as: the communication a believer has with God. He says the essentials of this communication are
1. God
2. The believer
3. Communication
Without any of these three main essenitials prayer can not work. Unessential but important are the ways and methods I use to communicate to God. These frameworks are simply frameworks, structures to start with but malleable enough to change and evolve with my own current circumstances. After reading the first chapter, I came across this point that Dr. Pratt makes, which I found especially important, “The same words, said in the same way, at the same time, over and over will drain all the life out of communication with God. Yet, if we learn from the Psalmists and other biblical figures and begin to imitate the freedom and creativity of their prayers, then we can expect our communication with God to grow richer and more inspiring by the day.”
For this week my goal will be praying prayers according to the different facets of God’s character, being thankful for the great blessings he’s given, and staying steadfast in praying for my friends and loved ones, asking for my prayer requests as I go on through this week. I also endeavor to complete the list of prayer exercises listed at the end of this chapter. By keeping a consistent journal of my success or failings at achieving my aforementioned goals I will be able to see my progress through the week and the various disciplines I still need to focus on in the next week.
There is a second reason that I think I’ve been desiring to take God up in prayer and that is to see him closely. To see how our relationship really is. Here’s the scary part for me, and the part that has tripped me time and again in these prayer pushes – the what if’s. What if God doesn’t show up? What if he never answers a single one of my prayers? What if he leaves me be? What if the situations I pray for just get worse and worse instead of better? What if he’s not really listening? What if I never was a believer to begin with? What if there is no God at all?
First of all, I know that some of these questions push pretty far past faith, but I’m sure even the greatest believers question a God they’ve never seen. ie. I don’t question Richard’s existence for example, nor do I question my own, as far as I’m concerned we are both mutually attested to and both exist. But if someone came up to me and told me dragons exist and they live in Moose Jaw, Canada my doubts would tend to rise since I’ve never seen a dragon much less a dragon residing in Moose Jaw, Canada. My faith is what tells me God exists and I see the effects of his work in my life. I see the effects of his work in my own heart and I see the difference in my own life from before I had Christ and when I accepted Jesus as my savior.
When rubber hits the road I know God exists – the question is does he care?
Prayer is one of those disciplines that has never come easy to me. There are times when I have felt my prayers have been more effective at reaching the throne room of God and beseeching the king of kings to partake some sort of action at the behest of my prayers. At no time have I ever considered my own eloquence or manner of speech to be the catalyst for the Lord’s movement – I hope I never do. As much as I have always wanted prayer to be one of my gifts it never has been so.
Like many disciplines, no one person is blessed with all of them all at the same time (Jesus excluded). We all have our own strengths and foibles, though my failings are many my strengths, though much less are great still. Unfortunately, one of those strengths is not prayer. I know I’m not alone. I know I’m not the only one who prays at night before bed as an effective means of disengaging my insomniac tendencies. I know also I’m not the only one who can be praying with some degree of focused intensity only to be distracted by an itch or by some vapor of a thought quickly passing from my left ear to my right. I may be the only one distracted by my own prayers, praying for a situation and only to find myself playing out the resultant conversations, effects, and expected desires of my prayers. Apart from the last of my examples I know I am not alone.
Well, I am not going to sit any longer without exercising my prayer muscles. I want to be one of God’s mighty men – a true prayer warrior in its greatest sense. I want to be an effective prayer, consistent, persistent, and ever vigilant for situations where I can praise, honor and glorify the Lord in my prayer life. I want my life to speak of a heart devoted to prayer, and I want that life to point not to my own determination, but the Lord’s effective ministry in my own heart, despite my own feelings to the contrary. I believe this is something the Lord is wanting to teach me, and I believe I am ready to learn.
My text book apart from the bible is Pray with your eyes open by Dr. Richard Pratt, and I am taking it slowly so I can absorb, use, and reuse over and again the principles to an effective prayer life. Tonight I read the opening chapter and will meditate over the next week during my morning prayers over what he defines prayer as: the communication a believer has with God. He says the essentials of this communication are
1. God
2. The believer
3. Communication
Without any of these three main essenitials prayer can not work. Unessential but important are the ways and methods I use to communicate to God. These frameworks are simply frameworks, structures to start with but malleable enough to change and evolve with my own current circumstances. After reading the first chapter, I came across this point that Dr. Pratt makes, which I found especially important, “The same words, said in the same way, at the same time, over and over will drain all the life out of communication with God. Yet, if we learn from the Psalmists and other biblical figures and begin to imitate the freedom and creativity of their prayers, then we can expect our communication with God to grow richer and more inspiring by the day.”
For this week my goal will be praying prayers according to the different facets of God’s character, being thankful for the great blessings he’s given, and staying steadfast in praying for my friends and loved ones, asking for my prayer requests as I go on through this week. I also endeavor to complete the list of prayer exercises listed at the end of this chapter. By keeping a consistent journal of my success or failings at achieving my aforementioned goals I will be able to see my progress through the week and the various disciplines I still need to focus on in the next week.
There is a second reason that I think I’ve been desiring to take God up in prayer and that is to see him closely. To see how our relationship really is. Here’s the scary part for me, and the part that has tripped me time and again in these prayer pushes – the what if’s. What if God doesn’t show up? What if he never answers a single one of my prayers? What if he leaves me be? What if the situations I pray for just get worse and worse instead of better? What if he’s not really listening? What if I never was a believer to begin with? What if there is no God at all?
First of all, I know that some of these questions push pretty far past faith, but I’m sure even the greatest believers question a God they’ve never seen. ie. I don’t question Richard’s existence for example, nor do I question my own, as far as I’m concerned we are both mutually attested to and both exist. But if someone came up to me and told me dragons exist and they live in Moose Jaw, Canada my doubts would tend to rise since I’ve never seen a dragon much less a dragon residing in Moose Jaw, Canada. My faith is what tells me God exists and I see the effects of his work in my life. I see the effects of his work in my own heart and I see the difference in my own life from before I had Christ and when I accepted Jesus as my savior.
When rubber hits the road I know God exists – the question is does he care?
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