Tag Archives: Prayer

Maybe This Will Help

Sometimes life piles on. You get one bit of bad news after the other, you find yourself responding to yet another crisis, or you’re dealing with the fortieth difficult personality of the week. Before you know it, you feel like a random spark is going to set the whole pyre ablaze and take you with it.

And then you turn on the news.

Whose idea was this 24-hour news cycle anyway? It just means we keep hearing the same negative developments, the worst of the political rancor, and the most shocking accounts of human depravity … every 15-30 minutes. The mere repetition of the reports makes it feel like things are even worse than they are. And with few exceptions, there’s very little you or I can do about any of it by following it in the media except get agitated, outraged, and even fearful. If I’ve had too much coffee, it can get really exhausting.

Honestly, I could do with a little less of that. So here’s what I’m planning to do: Continue reading Maybe This Will Help

The surprising thing about “weakness”

IMG_9610.PNGWho among us hasn’t wondered about the role of prayer in the overall scheme of things? Almost no one turns down an offer of prayer in a crisis, but why do we pray when God already knows what He’s going to do? Can we change His mind? What’s different about prayers offered silently and in private, versus praying aloud with others?

For all these questions about prayer there are surely an equal number of deep theological responses (which I for sure don’t have). But I find there’s beauty in wrestling with our uncertainty and lovely things to discover about our God as we communicate with Him.

Here’s an example from just this week: Continue reading The surprising thing about “weakness”

The holiness of a four-way stop

It’s rush hour on my usually-quiet suburban street. Well, maybe not rush “hour”, exactly. It’s really only about 15 minutes.

From around 7:10 to 7:25 most every morning during the school year, the street in front of my house is bumper to bumper with high school students trying to get to classes on time.

IMG_3496bfree-largeSchool starts at 7:30 and they’re lined up at the four-way stop, struggling to properly yield the right of way to each other (as they oh-so-recently learned in driver’s ed). Now and then, I hear someone sound their horn over whatever perceived infraction just took place. That usually happens as it gets closer to 7:30 and the possibility of being late becomes more real.

Oh, and sympathies to you if you have to back out of your driveway during that time frame. Taking turns and being nice apparently only applied to kindergarten. I may have muttered about this from time to time over the years…

Interestingly, I’ve found that there’s something positive and even holy about this brief traffic jam in front of my house each morning. It gives me an opportunity to see the individual young faces in those cars and wonder if anyone has prayed for them yet today. Maybe not. (I’m thinking, most likely not.) So lately, I’ve started praying.

I start with the obvious prayers like,

Lord, please keep these young people safe at school today, encourage them to be responsible and make wise choices, protect them from peer pressure, help them learn and grow into good citizens.

Then it goes a little deeper:

Let them know that they have value, surprise them with encouragement today from an unexpected source, give them courage for whatever battle they face, make them sensitive to the pain of the marginalized around them.

Ultimately, and arguably most important, I arrive here:

Let them recognize Your hand on their lives, soften their hearts toward faith, welcome them into a relationship with You.

Even if you don’t live near a high school or have teenagers in your life currently, they’re out there–I see them every day from my living room window–and they could use your prayers. Adolescence is a tumultuous time, you may recall, and this rough world isn’t getting any better any time soon.

For sure, if you have a student at the high school in my town and they drive past my house in the morning, you can know they’re going to get prayed for. Maybe running late and getting stuck in traffic at the four-way stop isn’t the worst thing for them, after all.

And for me, it beats muttering.

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No need for a bucket

I was getting out of my car recently and happened to glance down at the hardy succulents lining my driveway. It was mid-March and they had already started pushing up through the hard ground. These guys come back early every spring, no matter what this harsh Midwest climate throws at them in the winter and regardless of how I ignore them in the heat of the summer.

I think one of the reasons they are so cold-tolerant and drought-resistant is the way they’re designed. Look closely:

IMG_9375The leaves open upward and overlap each other, forming a cup-like shape. Do you see the droplets of water that have been caught within them? From there the moisture  slowly seeps down into the heart of the plant where it will be stored until it’s needed in the dry season ahead.

I’m reminded that we, too, can catch water in cupped hands. We fit our palms and fingers together like this tiny succulent and hold them under a faucet or scoop them down into a creek. Most of us learned this as children,  when it was a form of play. Unlike the plant, for us it’s just a temporary measure, but in a pinch you can sure grab a little and maybe slurp it or splash it, just like when you were a kid.

Cupped hands, like cupped leaves, seem to me a metaphor for prayer.

I see in them a picture of emptiness that needs to be filled, a gesture of acknowledging the Source. As the plant reaches up to absorb the moisture it needs, we offer up our empty hands asking — maybe begging — for what sustains us, too.

God designed these humble plants perfectly to collect what they need to survive; He knows what the seasons will bring. And He does the same for us.

He invites us to come to Him any time — all the time — confessing our emptiness, acknowledging that He is the One who nourishes, anticipating an outpouring of His generosity.  We don’t need a bucket, just humble hands cupped in prayer.

And He delights to respond with a love that overflows, a love that is unending and always available for the asking .

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If you’d like to receive an email when I publish new posts, just click the “sign up” button in the right sidebar above (or if you’re on a mobile device, you’ll find it below under “visit full site”.)  I’ll send you a link to my free (really short) eBook, Harmony Is Hard: Humans Are Involved just for signing up.

Sometimes Angels Have Whiskers

FullSizeRender-1I couldn’t help but notice the ancient rat terrier sitting next to the wheelchair-bound man in the parkway. Both were fixated on the tree service workers trimming the gangly branches of a giant maple in the front yard just across the street. The terrier quickly shifted its attention to me as I approached.

Dogs. They’re such icebreakers.

I asked the gentleman if I could pet his dog and he said of course. A half-hour later, Bill and TK were my new friends.

TK, I learned, was short for “Tiny King”. Clearly, he was quite something in his day but he’s 16 now and well, not the ball of energy he once was. (I understand, TK.) Gray face, cloudy eyes, but still sporting an “I’ve got this” attitude; he was a typical terrier, oblivious to his limitations. He reminded me of my funny Jack Russell, Smudge, who died this year at 18. We used to call her a “little thug in a clown suit”.

TK had stopped me in my tracks, but it was Bill’s story that broke my heart. Continue reading Sometimes Angels Have Whiskers

I Think I Know This Guy

He is always wrestling in prayer for-2He’s a preacher named Epaphras who is said to have helped establish the  first-century church at Colossae. And he’s such a close friend of the apostle Paul that he visits him in a Roman prison and decides to stay awhile.

But this one verse makes me wish we knew a whole lot more about him than just that. Here’s Paul, writing to the Colossians:

“Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings. He is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured.” Colossians 4: 12

That phrase, “always wrestling in prayer for you”, resonates with me. In my mind’s eye, I see our friend Epaphras on his face before God. He’s not “wrestling” in the sense that he’s begging God to do something God doesn’t want to do, but he’s striving to represent the Colossians well, and seeking God’s will for them.

Epaphras really wants to get it right.

It is apparent that as he prays, Epaphras hits on exactly what it is that God wants for the Colossians: that they would stand firm in His will, and that they would be mature and confident in their faith. That’s a request God will certainly say “yes” to.

How does Epaphras know to pray this?

One of the coolest things I know about prayer, I read in Romans 8:26-27:

“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” Romans 8:26-27

As we Christians pray, our words are edited by God’s Spirit so that what we ask is in line with God’s will for us. Even when we don’t know what to pray and perhaps all we can do is sigh (or cry), the Holy Spirit puts words to it and implores God in our stead.

That is just amazing.

As a young Christian, I used to wonder what the point was in praying, if God was going to do what God was going to do, regardless. But I think I see the answer in Epaphras. Continue reading I Think I Know This Guy

When This Is the First Prayer of the Day

metal_anchorchain_chain_665878_hSome days are just hard. Then another one comes along just like it. Then another. And before you know it, they’re stringing together like the links of a heavy chain and you’re dragging the weight around, exhausted and discouraged and maybe a little (or a lot) angry at the unfairness of it all.

When I start to feel that heaviness,  I find myself waking up well before daybreak and whispering, “God, please let today be better”. It isn’t a plea grounded in hope, as in I know God is with me and will make all things work together for good if only I will believe. No, usually it’s more of a desperate, I give up, I’m drowning here. I’m at Your mercy.

It’s not a time I need a sermon or a theological explanation about God’s grand designs for humanity and what a small part of it all my tiny life is. It’s true the big picture of human history is infinitely vast and knowable only to an all-powerful God. And it’s true I can trust Him to take care of me in the larger context of eternity.

But when I’m in pain or exhausted from too much drama and the frustrations of life, you know what I need? Continue reading When This Is the First Prayer of the Day

The Tiny Pink Suitcase I Can’t Put Down

picket-148325-mThe truth is, I don’t really know what was going on. I witnessed a small drama and, as we are all inclined to do, I overlaid it with my own narrative, which may or may not have been accurate.

Here are the facts, no interpretation or assumptions. Just what I saw. You can decide what you think was going on: Continue reading The Tiny Pink Suitcase I Can’t Put Down

Are You Fashioned for Joy?

I came across a Gaelic prayer this week that began:  “As the hand is made for holding and the eye for seeing, you have fashioned me for joy.” Have you ever considered that? That you are “fashioned for joy”? Is it really possible God intentionally designed and crafted us for joy?

Sometimes it sure doesn’t seem like it.

If the prayer were true, joy would be as foundational to our daily experience as our hand holding a morning cup of coffee or our eyes seeing the hour on the clock. Joy would be natural … and obvious … and so automatic as to barely require thought.

And yet.

There are people in my life – not just acquaintances but friends – who are battling fear-inducing, seemingly insurmountable challenges: treatment for a life threatening disease, a child’s mental illness spiraling out of control, deep betrayal, job loss, marital breakdown, incarceration. These dear people are experiencing life’s lowest blows and I wonder, how are they to find or exude this joy for which they were created? Continue reading Are You Fashioned for Joy?

A Gift Within A Gift

For much of my Christian life, I believed I needed to “pray the answers”. My prayers, I thought, should include suggestions for God, ways He could answer my requests. I’d begin with, “If it could be your will, God, would you please ___________,” and then I’d fill in the blank with ideas for how God might respond.

I don’t think I fell into that pattern because I really thought God needed my input; I think it was a way of giving myself a kind of metric so I could know my prayers had been answered.

If things resolved the way I had prayed they would, then God had met my expectations and I was assured once more that yes, God answers prayer.

Some things were pretty clear as to what the ideal outcome would be: Continue reading A Gift Within A Gift