Being trained by God

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Christianity, Church, Discipline, God, holy spirit, Jesus, Listening to God, Obedience, prayer, Religion, Silence, Spiritual Growth, spirituality

I have been reading a book called 30 days to a more dynamic prayer life.  In my typical style I did all the exercises for days one and two in an afternoon while sitting in the shop waiting for my car to be repaired.  Then the book sat on the passenger seat for a week, and then a corner of my desk for a week.  

This morning, I looked at it, and looked at the theme for Day 3…. This is what is listed as the implications for prayer:

1. Prayer is about you listening to God more than Him listening to you.
2. It is important to practice what you are learning and sensing in your prayer time.
3. Seeking to understand God’s ways (how He works) needs to be a significant priority.
4. Prayer isn’t always warm and fuzzy but often requires a life response.
5. There will be a growing connection between your prayer time and your daily life.

                                                               John Franklin

If this is only day 3, things can only go deeper from here.  This list tells me that despite the work I have been doing on prayer I still have a long way to go.  And that’s okay with me, after all I am still this side of heaven, and I have time to keep developing my  relationship with God.

So how am I doing on this list……gulp

1. Listening to God.  That’s still difficult.  I am much better at talking to God than listening to him.  But I learned years ago that we can natter at God so often and so long about something that we can begin to believe that what we want is God’s will.  So I work at trying to be silent and listen, and trying to understand what Scripture is saying to me.  And if it is a really big issue I ask others to pray which helps me to listen better because my will is not blocking my ears.  
2. Practice what you are learning.  I am learning that I need to be more consistent.  (Given the opening paragraph of this day’s reflection, I really need to practice being more consistent.)  But being consistent to me isn’t about a book or a method, but about spending time with God and allowing God to direct how that time will be spent.  Will it be silence at the lake?  Will it be a time reserved for intercessory prayer?  Will it be a time of praise and thanksgiving?  Will it be time meditating on what I have read in Scripture or an inspirational book?  Whatever the shape prayer takes, it will be regular and consistent, as I set aside time daily….
3. Seeking to understand how God works.  This I think will be the work of a life time.  God never ceases to amaze me and surprise me…. and that’s a good thing because those moments of amazement are very faith-building.
4. Prayer isn’t always easy and always requires a response.  I have said that I believe that prayer is “conversation between me and God about what he and I are thinking and doing together.”  That definition alone demands that I get involved in what we discuss.  I  need to be prepared to work for the things that I pray about.  This means that I need to work on listening to the Holy Spirit so that I can be more faithful with the follow up to my prayers.
5. Prayer and life will be connected.  I think that will come more readily as I become more of a partner with God, but I also think that it happens when prayer happens spontaneously through the day as God brings things to mind.

All in all, I do think that I will be challenged as I work my way through this book.  I pray that the growth will be evident in me as I become all that God created me to be.  

 

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Powerless

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calling, Christianity, gifts and skills, God, holy spirit, Power, prayer, Religion, spirituality

Yesterday would have been my sister’s birthday.  I was thinking about her, which led to thinking about my brother-in-law, so I made a phone call.  He wasn’t home.  So I started to leave a message.  All I got out of my mouth were a few words when with a clap of lightning and a boom of thunder, the power went out.  There I was, phone in my hand, disconnected from the power to be able to speak the words on my heart.  I shrugged, put the phone down and went on with my day.

Later that evening my brother-in-law called demanding to know what I thought I was doing by leaving a two word message.  We talked and joked for a while about the power of God, spoke of what was on our heart and then engaged in a thrilling discussion about my grandsons, whom we had both visited recently.

This morning I found myself reflecting on the state of powerlessness.  When the power went out I really had no choice but to give up on the call, after all what was I going to do, open the door and shout, “HI, IT’S ENA, JUST THINKING ABOUT YOU TODAY.”  Like that would have been an effective way to communicate with someone from halfway across the country. (And I couldn’t use smoke signals it was pouring rain.)

Last night I was reading the book You’re already amazing, by Holly Gerth.  She was reflecting upon the ways in which we drain ourselves of energy, and cut ourselves off from the source of our power,  by doing too many things.  She writes:

I explore, tentatively, how I feel God is calling me to a new season–of living entirely differently than before.  … I question, “God, don’t you want me to be busy all the time?  Don’t you want me to push myself to the limit for you and others?… And isn’t that what it means to love?”  It seems my heart hears a whisper in response, “Daughter, I did not come to give you a full life.  I came to give you life to the full.”  And suddenly everything changes.

She continues throughout that chapter to explore the way to have power in our lives and ministry.  We have that power when we do what it is that God has called us to do, and (this is big) only what God has called us to do.  She talks about the importance of discerning and using the strengths and skills that God has developed in us to minister with the people he has called us to serve.  

I  am at a point of transition in my life.  During this time, it is very important to me that I listen to God, and discern correctly what it is that he is calling me to next.  To be able to hear this correctly I need to be connected to the power of God.  I need to be immersed in God’s word.  I need to be consistent in prayer.  I need to spend enough time with God that I know when it is his voice that I hear whispering.

If I go off on my own strength, choosing a path because I think it is something that I will like, without giving any consideration to what God is calling me to, then I might as well be trying to communicate across the country without a telephone.  The only thing I’ll get from that is strained vocal chords, and a whole boatload of stress.  What matters in my life right now is

thinking and praying more intentionally about how God wants [me] to express love through [my] life.

This is not just a message about me, it is a truth for all of us.  Each one of us was gifted by the Holy Spirit, with gifts that are uniquely meant for us.  Then, each one of us is called to use those gifts to reach out in love through our lives.  When we relax and allow God to lead us then, we will be walking, loving, ministering, and living in the power of God.  We will be connected to the power of God.

Just contemplating that makes me sigh in contentment.  All I have to do is to give my life over to the power of God, and use  what he has given me to minister in what he has called me and my life will be filled with his power. May it be so.  Amen.

Blessed

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Blessed, Blessings, Christianity, God, grace, holy spirit, Jesus, Kindness, Obedience, prayer, Servant

I was reading a book last night on becoming the person God created you to be.  I think it will provide me with much wisdom and insight in the nights to come.

Last night what caught my attention was that the author wrote that 29% of North Americans don’t have even one person that they can confide in.  That statistic makes me very sad.  Imagine going through life, with everything that life throws at you, from human betrayals to serious illness and there is no one you trust that you can talk things over with.

What is even sadder is that if we don’t have those human relationships in which we can confidently place our trust, how then will we ever come to know God in such a way that we learn to trust him with our burdens.

As I pondered the loneliness of those 29% of  the people, I realized that God has blessed me and blessed me richly.  I started counting  the people whom I  trust.  People whose commitment to confidentiality is so strong that what I tell them will not go anywhere; and even more importantly people whose faith will compel them to pray for me.  Just off the top of my head, I named 12 people.  Imagine that, 12 people.  And each of those people are Godly people.

I not only trust them with my deepest fears, sins, problems and life issues, I trust them to pray.  This in turn increases my confidence in God who has blessed me so richly.

Last night as I drifted off to sleep the only thing that I could say to God  was thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.

As I reflect on that today, I wonder at how  very richly blessed I am and it renews in me the desire to be the person that others can trust with their burdens.  And it causes me to  wonder, do I know any of the 29% of  the people and if I do. how can I be open to God’s prompting to provide for them the safe place to share their pain.  I wonder that because I know how often I simply don’t hear the Holy Spirit speaking, and sadly how often I hear the Spirit and ignore the message.

There was one time in an airport, while waiting for a flight that I overheard a telephone conversation of a woman somewhere behind me.  She kept repeating no, no.   And then she burst into tears.  The Holy Spirit said to me, “Go  and talk to her.” and to my shame I said, “NO”  I reasoned that I was tired, I didn’t want to get involved.  I hauled out excuse after excuse, and the Holy Spirit kept saying, “Go and talk to her.”

Finally I fled the Spirit by going to the washroom.  It was empty.  Empty.  This was a big airport and the washroom was empty.  I should have known  something was up.

The woman from the phone call came running through the door sobbing.  When she saw me, she stopped short and apologized.  With a deep resentful sigh, I asked her, “Are you okay.”

Her sobs returned as she poured out her story.  She was travelling to see her grandmother and had just had a call that her grandmother had died.  She poured out her story, I listened, offered sympathy and then asked her if she would like me to pray for her.  We prayed, she hugged me and went on her way.

That event is one I reflect on often.  It reminds me to be humble.  It reminds me to be aware of what God is asking me to do.  And today I wonder about those 29% of the people with no one to talk to and I pray that they will find a compassionate soul who will listen to God’s urging and offer to talk with them.

If I am blessed with at least 12 people who will hear my concerns and pray for me, then I should be prepared to shoulder the burdens of others, even of those whom I do not know.

“For everyone to whom much is given, of him shall much be required.” — Luke 12:48

Back at the lake

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Burdens, Christianity, faith, God, grace, How great thou art, Jesus, Majesty, Power, praise, prayer, Trust

Yesterday afternoon I found myself back at the lake.  This time it was not because I needed the refreshment of enjoying God in the beauty of his creation, but because I needed to be reminded of the awesome, fearsome, and tremendous power and majesty of God.  If God has the power to create all that I can see, then God has the power to carry the burdens  that I needed to place before him.

A few days before I had volunteered to be a burden bearer for a friend.  I know the joy and blessing of having people do this  for me and it is a small thing that gives such big gifts of grace.  Therefore I am honored to be able to do that small thing for another person.

The truth about being a burden bearer is that it is a small thing.  In fact when you are a burden bearer you simply are a delivery person.  None of us are meant to carry burdens, at least not heavy ones.

Jesus says:  My yoke is easy and my burden is light.  (Matthew 11:30)

If what we are carrying is heavy we need to pass it off.  And God is the one to whom we pass our burdens.  After all that is why he gave us Jesus.  To bear our sins, yes; but also  to bear our worries, concerns, dilemmas, and burdens.

So I found myself back at the lake, to encounter the fearsome and powerful majesty of God and give him the burden my friend had trusted me with along with a few other burdens I had picked up along the way.  The concerns of other friends.  The painful issues we had prayed about at Presbytery.  The people I know going through health issues.  And I gave them to all to God.  Then, immeasurably lightened, and profoundly grateful I left  with praise on my lips.  

For me, one of the great blessings about engaging in prayer is that we learn that we can trust God to take care of those things that we give to him.  As I turned my feet toward home, I knew that those burdens were safely lodged with the only one who had the power to work on each of those issues, and to give each individual the gift of grace that they needed in each situation.   

God is awesome.  God is grand.  God is more than we can ask or imagine.  The hymn truly says it all.

O Lord my God! when I in awesome wonder
Consider all the works Thy hand hath made
I see the stars, I hear the mighty thunder
Thy power throughout the universe displayed

 Then sings my soul, my Saviour God to Thee
How great Thou art! How great Thou art!
Then sings my soul, my Saviour God, to Thee
How great Thou art! How great Thou art!

Praying together

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Christ, Christianity, Church, God, holy spirit, Jesus, love, prayer, Religion, spirituality

I am blessed.  Very blessed.  I have had the opportunity twice this week to pray together with other people, and in each incident the movement of God’s Spirit was profound, and even though in each case we prayed together about deep and serious matters at the end of the prayer sessions I felt refreshed and as if the burden had been lifted.

The first time was with my covenant group.  We meet together monthly to study scripture, discuss a book on ministry issues, to talk about our own journey in ministry and prayer and then we pray for each other and for the Presbytery.  The honest sharing, and the love filled prayers are surely a glimpse of the church as it can be.

Then last night at the Presbytery meeting, during announcements, people started asking for prayer about certain individuals and situations.  The level of trust was high, painful situations were shared, and as we paused to pray together and as each person lent their voice to the prayer it was as if Jesus himself was there.

I don’t know how to say it any better, the words seem inadequate, but it was as if Jesus himself was there.  So often we gather in meetings  and it is as one of my friends says, “We pray for Jesus to bless our meetings and then we ask him to wait in the hall until the meeting is over and we ask him back in to bless the decisions we have made.”  That wasn’t the experience last night.  Jesus was there, not just in the little moments when we acknowledge him, but truly there.  

When we come together in love, and treat one another with the respect each deserves as one of God’s children, and are open to the movement of the Holy Spirit, then Jesus is there.  Trust is extended.  Pain is spoken of.  Love is shared.  Real concerns are covered in prayer.  I am indeed blessed that I have known this in my life, and I am grateful to God for the ways in which he has blessed me through the community of prayer.

It is  my prayer, that in the church we will all be open to the Spirit and enjoy the presence of Jesus as we meet together for worship, study, prayer and all those inevitable meetings.  May we all be people through whom the love of God flows.  Surely this is  what God intends his church to be and those glimpses of when we get it right make me hopeful that we can do so more often.

Upstairs, Downstairs

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Christianity, Devotional reading, God, prayer, Religion, spirituality

Over the years I have evolved the habit of what my daughter calls upstairs reading and downstairs reading.  Never mind the fact that she can’t understand how I can read 2 or 3 books at a time (that’s only when I’m on vacation, at home its often  more than that, I have downstairs books, upstairs books, at my desk books), she is mostly amused that I don’t take a book  that I am really enjoying up to bed with me.  

For me it’s fairly straightforward, downstairs I read novels–sheer pleasure reading.  Upstairs I read devotional material, so that I end my day by reflecting on God and his goodness and then pray before I go to sleep.  

This time when I came back from vacation, I wasn’t finished my downstairs book and when I unpacked I threw it on  my bed.  The last week I have been reading that book at night, and I have discovered that I really need that inspirational reading to feed my prayer life.  When I read something that causes me to reflect on God, then when I pray the thanksgiving and praise flows much more freely, and then it is also easier to pray for the concerns that are on my heart.  This last week I have started prayer time with immersed in the problems of the protagonist in the novel and it has been difficult to connect with God.  I think that it is time to go through my bookshelves or the bookstore and find a new upstairs  book…after all that which nourishes my soul, also  nourishes my relationship with God.

Ways to experience God

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Acrostic, Christ, Christianity, God, prayer, Religion, spirituality

Today I read through a list titled, “25 ways to experience God”.  There were a lot of suggestions that  look like they could be very enlightening and joyous.  Today the one that jumped out at me was #10

10 Praise God by writing an acrostic around one of His names.  In an acrostic, the first letter of a word starts the sentence, the second letter the second sentence, and so on.  For example,

Great and wonderful You are.

O,how my heart praises You.

Dear Savior, you are worthy of my love.

I had never done this before, I have written Psalm prayers and Celtic Prayers, but never an acrostic prayer.  Like any exercise in trying to write a prayer in a particular style, there is a lot of thought that has to go into the process.  Choosing words becomes a deliberate and intentional act, rather than just letting the words flow.  It took me a little bit of time to write a prayer God’s title of Creator, but this is what I came up with.

Christ who came to renew life;

Redeemer, whom I praise,

Earth reflects your goodness

And I marvel at the overflowing of your grace.

Today may I praise you as you deserve;

Oh my God, may my love for you be  seen in all that I do.

Renew me with your gifts of faith, hope  and love.  Amen.

I liked the way this exercise made me think.  It drew out of me words other than the words I usually use in prayer.  I will definitely try this again, and a few of  the other 25 suggestions as well, and see where it leads.

Distractions

Tags

Christ, Christianity, God, Mary and Martha, Peace, prayer, Religion, Restoration, spirituality

Those of you who have ever encountered personality inventories will understand what I mean when I say that on the Myers-Briggs Inventory I am an ENFP.  One of the things that I really enjoyed was when I discovered the personality type prayers and my prayer was:

Dear Lord, help me to concentrate on one thing…..

                            oh look a bird……….

at a time.  Amen.

I am very easily distracted, by all sorts of things.  I look out the window while I am pondering a thought for a sermon, and it is easily 10 to 15 minutes later and I am still looking out the window.  I look for something on my desk and get  distracted by a note that I made to myself days, weeks, months ago and wonder if I ever followed up.

This tendency to be distracted can be particularly troubling when I am praying.  The other day I was out at one of my favorite spots  at the lake, praying.  Every thing went well, as long as I was praising God for the beauty of nature.  Everything that distracted me was something else for which to praise God.  The warmth of the sun.  The freshness of the breeze.  The wind whipped waves.  The amazing blue and emerald of the water.

Those very distractions proved to be a problem when I started praying about some of the deeper issues and concerns in my life.   I kept getting drawn back to the beauty of creation and lost the thread of what I was praying about.  Eventually I just quit and sat back and enjoyed what God had done.

As I reflected upon that event over the last few days I began  to wonder about the lesson in what happened.  Over the years I have learned techniques for stopping distractions.  We were taught in the class on centering prayer that when a thought took us away from the prayer phrase we were focusing on to just reach up and grab it and put in your pocket for later and then refocus on your prayer phrase.

Would that technique have worked while at the lake.  It wasn’t a long list of nagging thoughts like, I need to remember to get milk, or I  should do some laundry when I get home.  I was being distracted by the wonder and  beauty of God’s creation.

The conclusion that I am embracing regarding this incident is that there are distractions that can pull you to the greater blessing.  There is that Martha side of our personalities that can at times make prayer a chore.  I think that was what was happening that day.  I stopped praising God to focus on important matters that I needed/wanted to pray about.  But I was at the lake–the sun was warm, the wind was whipping the waves into white caps as far as I could see, the breeze was rustling the trees.  I was in the presence of God and what I needed to do at that point was to embrace the Mary side of my personality and simply enjoy being in the presence of God.  This was my little oasis away from the pressures of my life and work, a time that was meant for me as a source of refreshment.  

Of course I need to be discerning about this.  I could easily say, it’s okay to be distracted in prayer, this is a space of refreshment.  I need to be honest, with myself and with God.  Am I called to stop and be refreshed in God’s presence, or is this the time to pray for the deep concerns of my heart and are those distractions interfering with the source of my strength and inspiration as I seek my purpose and calling?

really praying

Tags

Christianity, God, prayer, Relgion, Spiritual Growth, spirituality

really praying

Bob Hostetler writes:

Abba, save me from “saying” prayers. 
Help me to pray. 
Teach me to pray. 
Prompt my praying. 
Guide my praying. 
Be the author of my prayers, 
from beginning to end, 
in Jesus’ name, amen.

This prayer makes me think of how often I just say prayers, without really paying attention, just going through the motions.  How often in the evening do I repeat the grown up version of “Now I lay me down to sleep” without really stopping to remember that prayer is meant to be a conversation between me and God about what He and are  thinking and doing together.  

When we ask God to teach us how to pray and guide our prayers then we are really praying, really having that deep and intimate conversation with God that we need and desire.

This is about passion and about calling and about purpose.  

Questions I hope that I ask when I am praying…..

What am I feeling passionate about today?  Does God have the same passion and concern?  What is God asking me to do about this event/person/situation?

Is my prayer furthering my calling to serve God or is it serving my wants/needs/desires?

As I pray is God revealing to me a purpose for my labor in his kingdom?

Does my prayer ask God to bless what I am doing, or does it lead me down the pathway that God has already blessed?

Sometimes I feel as if it could be so easy to take God for granted.  He is always there and he rescues me when I mess up, guides me when I am open to his leading, blesses me bountifully…Do I give as much in this relationship as God gives?  Sadly no; but I pray that with God’s guidance and leadership I can grow and fulfill my part of this relationship.

Fear

Tags

calling, faith, fear, God, prayer, spirituality, walking on water

I was reading a friend’s blog about fear holding us back yesterday.  It made me think of what John Ortberg writes in, “If you want to walk on water, you’ve got to get out of the boat”.  He points out that the most repeated command in Scripture is regarding fear.  Fear not.  Do not be afraid.  Don’t be afraid, only believe.

Fear holds us back and keeps us from having the full life that God wants us to have.  I think it does more than that, it can cause us to make some poor choices.  I remember a time when I was paralyzed with fear, and I made choices designed to address that fear.  In the process I alienated people because they simply did not understand how I could do what I was doing.  The turning point for me happened when I surrendered that fear to God and asked him to guide me in the way of his will.

Ironically I find myself currently facing some of those same factors that caused such fear years ago, and people are questioning me because I am not showing any fear or anxiety about the pathway that I am facing.  I am facing this path with confidence, knowing that God will care for me, because I have learned to trust him.  I am facing this path with confidence because I am seeking to walk the pathway that God is blessing and not the pathway that I choose and then ask God to bless.  Is this easy?  No.  Is this crucial?  Yes.  Choosing the pathway that God is blessing is a crucial aspect of getting out of the boat and walking on water.

In his book Ortberg writes about being a boat potato:

If I had to name, in a single word, the price you pay for being a boat potato, I think the word written on the price tag would read growth. 

He continues by saying that staying in the boat

leads to stagnation–unrealized potential, unfilled longings.  It leads to a sense that I’m not living my life; the one that I was supposed to live.

If I believe that God created me to be a unique person who is fulfilled in relationship with him (and I do) then it makes sense that I would be willing to trust him, even as I take the risky pathway of blessing.  That pathway is risky simply because it requires me to step out in faith, to get out of the boat, even if there is a storm raging, even if I can’t swim, and especially if I am afraid.  When we allow fear, or comfort to hold us back from walking with God then we suffer from what Gregg Levoy calls, the common cold of the soul.

The common cold of the soul

To  sinful patterns of behavior that never get confronted and changed.

Abilities and gifts that never get cultivated and deployed–

Until weeks become months

And months turn into years,

And one day you look back on a life of

Deep intimate gut-wrenchingly honest conversations you never had;

Great bold prayers you never prayed.

Exhilarating risks you never took,

Sacrificial gifts you never offered

Lives you never touched,

And you’re sitting in a recliner with a shriveled soul,

And forgotten dreams,

And you realize there was a world of desperate need,

And a great God calling you to be a part of something bigger than yourself–

You see the person you could have become but did not;

You never followed your calling.

You never got out of the boat.

One of the things that I preach about is walking with God and becoming the person you were created to be.  It is what I pray I am faithful in as I walk through this life God has given me.  I hope that when I look back I see the person that I did become because I trusted God and followed my calling.  I hope that I am one of the people that gets out of the boat.