Job One: Prayer

 

Teaching elders (also called ministers of the Word and Sacrament) shall in all things be committed to teaching the faith and equipping the saints for the work of ministry (Eph.4:12).

–PC(USA) Book of Order G-2.0501

Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.

–Colossians 4:2

 

God is amazing.  He is fully worthy of all our hope and trust.  I have been a pastor now for two years.  I came into the job knowing that I didn’t know nearly enough, despite three years of seminary, four years of college, and many years of hard knocks life.  The only thing that was clear to me was the desperate need for prayer.  One of my seminary professors had suggested that we plan to pray for a minimum of five hours each day.  He wasn’t joking. I didn’t make it to five hours a day, but I did pray daily.  I think it was the clearest thing I talked about with the church, or at least I hope it was.  I worried that I was putting too much emphasis on prayer and not enough on broader or deeper theological issues.  I worried that I wasn’t pointing to action enough. Today I am renewed in my resolve and understanding that prayer is worth all the focus and all the reminders and as much of our time as we can put to it.  God in his infinite kindness has shown me just enough of the outcomes of prayer to strengthen my resolve that the most important thing we can do is prayer.  It is of the utmost importance and far more effective than we dare to imagine.

A few weeks ago there was another mass shooting, this time at a college in Rosenberg, Oregon.  The internet was full of political statements about mental illness and gun control.  This time people were also posting something more disturbing—posts against prayer.  When something traumatic happens, we often see posts about praying for the victims.  This time we also saw posts belittling the prayer response as being pointless and an excuse for inaction.

When the apostle Paul wrote to encourage the church in Ephesus, he warned them about this sort of thing:  “With the Lord’s authority I say this: Live no longer as the Gentiles do, for they are hopelessly confused.  Their minds are full of darkness; they wander far from the life God gives because they have closed their minds and hardened their hearts against him.” (Ephesians 4:17-18)  The world is full of wonderful, well-intentioned people who, like all the rest of us, are doing their best to make their way in the world, but they’re doing it without God.  Some of them just don’t know how amazing God is, or even who God is.  Some of them do know God, but have doubts about the need or effectiveness of prayer.

Sometimes praying is just hard to do.  I have days like this, too.  On these days, I write.  Somehow the action of putting pen to paper helps my brain get where it needs to be to accomplish prayer through words on paper, even when I can’t seem to form prayerful thoughts.  I know what the words need to be, so I just write them out.  “God, I’m stuck today.  Help.”

It was in this writing today that I realized that there is a resilient spirit of hope pervading our lives that continues to grow.  We could certainly find reasons to despair instead, but instead we are resonating with Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians:  “I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called--his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance.” (1:18)

Because of all this, I am now thoroughly convinced that there is no better way to equip the saints for the work of ministry (the core of my job description) than to encourage everyone to persevere in prayer.  And if they are anything like me, than they will need ongoing reminders of the value and importance of prayer . . . which changes our hearts and helps us to see God’s work in the hearts of those around us.

Yesterday’s Our Daily Bread devotional reading said, “When God looks at us, He is more interested in our hearts than our height, the state of our soul than the structure of our face. He doesn’t see us as too old, too young, too small, or too big. He zeroes in on the things that matter—our response to His love for us and our concern for other people (Matt. 22:37-39).”

Prayer floods our hearts with God’s light and enables us to respond to his love and reflect his love to others.  Prayer connects us with God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think! (Eph. 3:20)

Keep on praying!

 

Beloved

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. –Ephesians 5:1

If you could only put one word on your gravestone, what would it be?

One word that shows up on headstones a lot is “beloved.”  This is the word that God uses to describe Jesus when Jesus is being baptized in the Jordan River (Mark 1:4-11).  God’s voice comes from heaven as Jesus is being baptized and says, “This is my beloved son.” 

There is a book entitled Beloved by Toni Morrison which is set just after the Civil War ended.  Beloved is the only word on a headstone in that story, and also the name of a character who shows up about halfway through the book.  Morrison tells an intense story about the horrors of slavery that makes us consider what it really means to be beloved.

Words affect how we think of ourselves, just as much as they affect how we think of each other.  Words form our identities. 

We might not always act like people God loves, but we are. 

“The word beloved means 'dear, favorite, worthy of love.' It’s a word that implies an action on the part of the one doing the loving. The God of the universe, the same God who paints a sunset, shapes a mountain and plans the waves at the beach, has chosen to love us, not because of who we are, but because of who He is. Our role in this is to BE-LOVED.“[1]

So if we really were to need just one word to put on our gravestones, to sum up our lives, to tell the world and ourselves who we are, I think maybe the best word is “beloved.”

Last Sunday I gave the congregation a business card with that word on it.  Business cards are what we leave behind so people will remember who we are.  This card says who we are:  Beloved.

And I challenged them to make this their word for 2015…a word to ponder.  What does it mean to be beloved?  How does that word affect how you see yourself?  How you see the world?  How you see the people around you?  How you see God?  How you relate to God?

We are beloved.

We don’t have to earn that.  We don’t have to boast about it to make it real.  We just have to accept it...accept that Jesus died for us, for our forgiveness, even if we don't fully understand it. 

The reality is that words can be just words, or they can be words we take to heart….words we truly believe…words that affect how we live.

When life isn’t going well, we might think maybe God doesn’t love us, but remember that Jesus was God’s beloved son and yet he was beaten and crucified.

We are still beloved even if we do the wrong things.  We are still beloved even if someone treats us badly.  We are still beloved no matter what anyone else says.

We are beloved.  What will that word mean to you?

 

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[1] https://awakenedbride.wordpress.com/2012/11/27/its-about-unconditional-love-3-beloved3/

Amazed

Psalm 19

The heavens declare the glory of God;
    the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
    night after night they reveal knowledge.
They have no speech, they use no words;
    no sound is heard from them.
Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
    their words to the ends of the world.

Sometimes I forget that it’s possible to be speechless. Amazed.  Astonished. Astounded.  Awestruck. Overwhelmed.  I get busy, distracted, focused, and when life is swirling around it’s hard to stop and be amazed.  But this morning looking back over the past several days I’m taking some time to be amazed. 

--Amazed at the beauty of the sunset after all the crazy storms on Monday.  “Pour forth speech” (See Psalm 19 above) seems like an understatement sometimes.  That night, after the incredible deluge of water from the sky had moved on and all the remained were the bright pink clouds, the heavens seemed to me to be screaming about the glory of God.

--Amazed at the way God works out circumstances to put people in front of us to say things that we need to hear.  Things didn't go the way I expected this weekend, and thank God that they didn't or I wouldn't have been able to hear from these people.

--Amazed at the perfection of the moment when the worship leader at the church we went to on Sunday started singing the chorus to this song (play youtube below) which is still ringing in my thoughts today.  Lord, I’m amazed by you.  Yes, I am amazed.  And I’m thankful to be reminded to be amazed.

Look at the nations and watch— and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told. (Habakkuk 1:5)

Be utterly amazed.  We can count on God to be amazing. He’s always amazing.  We’re just too busy to notice and be amazed.  And that’s one of the reasons I love this song.  It reminds us to stop and be amazed and humbled by God.

The people were amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled made well, the lame walking and the blind seeing. And they praised the God of Israel.  (Matthew 15:31)

When people saw what Jesus was doing, they were amazed.  They’d never seen anything like this before.  And they recognized that God was doing something that was beyond belief.  They were seeing it with their own eyes, and so they praised God.   But some couldn’t see it because it was too far outside their understanding or expectation of God.  It wasn’t what they’d expected, and instead of being amazed they were dismayed and disgruntled.  How sad that they didn’t get to enjoy what God was doing.  Being amazed by God is a wonderful thing!

What is God doing right now?  Probably way more than I can comprehend or understand.  But I’ve gotten to see a bit of the evidence over the last few days, and this morning I’m thankful for some moments of amazement that’ve prompted me to praise God.  And I hope you are being amazed by God, too.

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:16-19)

 

 

 

 

 

Feeling Memories

People may not remember what you say, but they will remember how you made them feel.[1]

This morning my quiet time reading included this passage from Deuteronomy: “For seven days the bread you eat must be made without yeast, as when you escaped from Egypt in such a hurry” (16:15).  As I read this, I flashed back on a scene from years ago when I helped arrange a “tech talk” and lunch for the doctors at a children’s hospital.  I think we probably brought sandwiches, but I know for sure we also brought salad, because the image that hovers in my memory is the featureless face of the doctor who said to me with disdain in her voice, “There are even croutons in the salad, so we can’t eat any of it.”  I had no idea it was Passover.  I had no idea that Passover meant eating no bread.  “You could have asked,” she added. 

I remember that moment vividly because I felt horrible for having brought what I thought was a wonderful lunch and it felt like she had thrown it on the floor or in my face.  I remember the moment because it was an emotional moment.  And I DO remember what was said, although I only remember the specific words that had the most impact on me.

I wonder if this is why I also remember some verses of the Bible with similar clarity?  I remember the verses that had the most impact on me.

When I was struggling to persevere through a difficult situation, Galatians 6:9 gave me courage:

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

When I felt like I was being overwhelmed, Isaiah 43:1-2 brought me tremendous comfort:

Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
   I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
 When you pass through the waters,
   I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
   they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
   you will not be burned;
   the flames will not set you ablaze.

When I felt like I might never find the joy in life again, Zechariah 3:17 gave me hope: 

The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save.

                He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love,
                     he will rejoice over you with singing.

I also found great hope in this passage from Jeremiah 29:11:

“For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you

and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

So it makes me sad when people say about this verse from Jeremiah, “You’re taking it out of context.”  When we read through the Bible and a verse jumps out because something about the words suddenly speaks vividly to our present situation, it doesn’t matter so much what the context was in the book of Jeremiah.  The context was the struggle my heart was having at that moment.  The context was that I was pleading with God to give me perspective in the midst of chaos, and to help me have peace and comfort and hope.  I remember those words from Jeremiah because in that moment they were the manna from God that I so desperately needed.

Yes, I know that taking words out of context can be problematic.  And that some have used words out of context like a sword or a club, or as ammunition to win a fight.  When the context is our need to win then context is definitely a problem.

One of the most important things I learned in my brief time as a hospital chaplain[2] is that hope is essential.  It was wonderful when I could help reinforce someone’s hope in Jesus Christ, as that is also the basis for my hope.  But regardless of their beliefs, I had to be careful not to steal their hope.  When someone was in the midst of crisis, this wasn’t the time to knock the supports out from under them by telling them their faith was wrong.  I might silently pray for them to find Jesus, but for the moment I needed to encourage them in their existing belief system.

And if someone were to ask me, “What gives you hope?” Then I could be grateful for the opportunity to tell about my hope, and maybe in hearing about why I follow Jesus, then they would decide to follow him, too.

Words do have impact.  Words can trigger all sorts of emotions.  And we can’t always know what impact we’re going to have.  But we can pray that God would guide us so that our words might be encouraging and build others up, and that we might say only what is useful and good and graceful (Ephesians 4:29).

May your life and your words be filled with grace.

 

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[1] Source unknown and under debate here: http://forum.quoteland.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/99191541/m/2791905924

[2] As part of the preparation for becoming a pastor, my denomination requires candidates to take a semester of CPE or clinical pastoral education, which is on-the-job training for being pastoral to people in the midst of crisis.