Lengthen My Days

Reading the Experiences of Other Christians

2008-04-21T08:50:00.003-04:00

If in your morning devotions you open God’s word to the book of Judges and find that the strings of your inner instrument are not in tune, it is not blasphemy to excuse yourself for a few moments from the King’s library and turn to a paragraph from one of his unflinchingly faithful, broken-hearted, happy servants. Should we find it surprising that the King should appoint some of his closest friends to be especially good at tuning the strings of our soul so that we may play His music when he puts the bow of his Word on our soul?
excerpt from John Piper's Desiring God blog

I have to admit the above paragraph was a bit high-faluting for me. I had to read it twice just to figure out what it meant. But when I figured it out, it comforted me. What John Piper is saying is that sometimes we need to read something other than the Bible for a few minutes. Blasphemy? No. Just realistic. Sometimes it helps us in our human fraility to read the words of other followers of Christ--to hear what they are going through--how they weathered storms similar to ours. John Piper says Samuel Rutherford's letters from prison do that for him. I'm not sure 400-year-old letters would do that for me. But Back to the Bible's daily email with Elisabeth Eliot excerpts works. So does reading Dallas Willard in small doses.

Writing classes tell me to end now with a call to action. I don't really have a clarion call here--just a thought which might work for you. Find a writer or two whose Christian life you can admire. Subscribe to their blog and read a thought a day or buy one of their books and leave it on the coffee table, dipping into it now and then. A lot of pastors I know seem to find biographies of missionaries and preachers helpful. I have a much dog-earred book of C.S. Lewis quotes. Also a great book called They Found the Secret filled with the stories of Christians who experienced a deeper, more satisfying spiritual life than most of us seem to. John Piper may call this type of reading "tuning your heart strings." I just call it a reality check: lots of great thinkers and writers have lived life day in and day out--mowed the lawn, washed the dishes, buried loved ones--and found God true and all-sufficient. I can too.

Betrayed by Sleep

2008-03-19T09:31:00.004-04:00

There's more betrayal during the Passion Week than just that of Judas and Peter. How about the disciples in the garden of Gethsemane? Remember that one? Jesus took some of his disciples to a secluded spot in the garden. He was sorrowful and troubled and asked them to keep watch with Him. They fell asleep. He woke them up and asked them to pray, specifically telling them to be alert and pray so that they would not fall into temptation. Their response? They fell asleep again. They only woke up when Jesus called out, but by then it was too late to sit with Jesus in the garden. Judas and the soldiers had arrived. Jesus was on his way to the cross.

I suspect many of the times we betray Christ we are more like the group of disciples than we are like Judas or Peter. We don't usually sell Jesus out for money or outright deny that we even know Him. We just fall asleep. We fail to sit with Him. We fail to listen to His specific command to pray. We're just too tired, too distracted, or too lazy.

I've just finished reading Judges. It's so depressing. By the end of the book you read one bizarre story after another--God's people are just wallowing in depravity. But where did it all start? How did God's people go from fording the Jordan and marching on Jericho in the book of Joshua to anarchy, immorality, civil war and rampant idolatry just one book later?

I imagine that it started with laziness, failing to keep alert as the surrounding culture suggested various options for worship and sex, failing to listen to God's specific commands so that eventually doing things like making a silver object to help in your worship of God sounded like a good idea, taking various concubines sounded like an option, etc. From there it was just a short step to worshipping other gods and their silver idols, demanding that visitors to your city be brought out to the village square for gang rape, and advising your countrymen to steal wives for themselves by carrying off unsuspecting young girls from the fields.

There's an interesting story in Judges 17-18 about a man who apparently stole thousands of dollars worth of silver from his mother. When he hears her cursing about the theft he returns it to her and she consecrates a portion to God. This then somehow translates in her mind into making the silver into an idol for his family so they can better worship God. The son takes the idol and installs his own son as a priest in the house. Later he runs into a wandering Levite--actually a grandson of Moses--and makes him into the household priest. Not only is an idol now involved in their worship of God, but also a totally illegal priest since only Aaron's descendants were supposed to be priests and they were supposed to minister in the tabernacle not private houses. Finally, a wandering tribe of Israelites comes along looking for a place to settle since they have failed to claim the area God set out for them in the Promised Land. They ask the pseudo-priest if they should steal a particular piece of land although it is quite obviously not the land they have been given by God. They steal the idol, convince the priest to betray the man he works for and come along with them as a kind of good luck charm, and go off to kill a peaceful and unsuspecting group of people who happen to have some good land.

Now what does all this have to do with us? Well, when I look closely at the story I see a mother who failed to be alert to what God expects vs. what the surrounding culture suggested was appropriate, and thereby actually bought an idol for her son thinking it was a good thing. I see a man who didn't recognize idolatry when he saw it and in turn taught it to his own son. I see a grandson of Moses who should have known better and could have stopped the whole thing but who instead took advantage of it in order to secure himself a job and a place to live. And I see a whole tribe who failed to step up and take hold of the specific area that God had given to them and so found it necessary to steal other people's land and things. I see a lot of aimlessness and confusion in areas where there was complete clarity from God. God clearly said "No idols;" "Only Aaron's descendants as priests;" and "This is your particular piece of land." But the people were not alert. The downward slide had begun. They were, in fact, asleep.

During the Passion Week, I am trying to wake up. Where are the areas that I buy into the culture and give my children things that actually lead them into sin? What are the specific areas that God has given me (in terms of both responsibility and blessing) that I have failed to claim? Am I trying to worship in a way that is off-base or perhaps even a bit idolatrous? How do my actions measure up to the clear command to pray so as not to fall into temptation?

"So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be alert and self-controlled." 1 Thessalonians 5:6

Reminders of Betrayal

2008-03-17T07:33:00.007-04:00

I learned yesterday that in days gone by churches often put weather vanes with roosters on top of their steeples. My church still has one in fact. I thought it was just a quaint country look. But apparently, the rooster was deliberate, meant to remind the congregation to live publicly what they confessed privately. The allusion of course was to the rooster which crowed after Peter denied Christ on the night of His arrest.

Of all the disciples, Peter was the one who had confessed Jesus as the Messiah--at least when the group was alone. He "got it" when the others were just tagging along. Yet when the opportunity came to acknowledge Him publicly, Peter hesitated. Well, actually, he failed and outright denied that he even knew Him. The good news is that Jesus forgave Peter--as He is ready to forgive all of us--and within two months Peter was publicly proclaiming Jesus to thousands of people. He went on to write several books of the Bible. He was the rock upon which Christ built the church.

I imagine that for the rest of his life every time he heard a rooster crow--perhaps as often as every morning--Peter remembered his failure. At first it was probably with a sinking heart, but after awhile maybe the cock's crow became more of an inspiration. Almost a battle cry. Perhaps he thought, "One more day. I've been given one more day to live publicly what I believe privately. One more day to speak out."

Now, I see this reminder of potential betrayal all the time. In fact, I think I have about five roosters in my kitchen alone (not real of course--just decorative). When I see them each morning I'm going to let them remind me that today is an opportunity to live publicly what I have confessed privately.

Peter's betrayal and his dramatic turnaround are not bad things to think about as we head into this Passion Week. And how about on Easter morning--when we gag over all those brightly colored marshmallow chicks? They can serve as a reminder of the potential for betrayal just waiting to grow in all of us and a reminder that with His resurrection power we can actually live up to the opportunities presented to speak His name.

Still Wondering What to Give Up for Lent?

2008-02-14T11:58:00.003-05:00

In Christ’s second temptation, Satan took Jesus to the top of the temple telling Him that if He were the Son of God He should toss Himself down. Afterall, God would not let harm come to Him. Jesus refused, saying that Scripture says we should not put God to the test.

Here again, I see something I can give up for Lent. I can give up the habit of throwing myself headlong into plans of my own making and then asking God to help me, to keep me from crashing, to pick up the pieces of a mess I’ve created with my impetuous actions. How often do I do that--proceed happily along my way until I find myself in trouble? Then I suddenly remember to pray. I suddenly remember that I didn’t pray that God would guide me through the circumstance or the decision in the first place. The first time the option of prayer popped into my head was afterwards when I was freefalling.

During Lent, I’m going to ask God if I can follow Him, rather than asking Him to follow me.

Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. "If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down. For it is written: 'He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.'" Jesus answered him, "It is also written: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'" Matthew 4:5-7

Wondering What to Give Up for Lent?

2008-02-11T08:39:00.000-05:00

We’ve begun the forty days of Lent, traditionally a time Christians devote to contemplation and repentance. It’s a time to take stock of our lives and root out some problem areas.

Yesterday my pastor related the 40 days Christ spent in the desert at the beginning of his ministry to the days of Lent. If you remember, Christ was tempted or tested in three ways in the desert at the end of those 40 days. All three ways are ways that you and I are tempted and are worth thinking about during the 40 days before we celebrate Easter.

Here’s the first temptation. Christ was fasting and praying. Of course, after 40 days He was hungry. Satan appeared and suggested that Christ turn some stones into bread. Well, why not? What would be so bad about that? Christ created bread later in his ministry--and we know that He was going to eat bread many times in the future. And there’s nothing wrong with eating bread when you are hungry, right? But Christ rejected Satan’s suggestion and said, "Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God." We know He was emphasizing that it is more important to feed on the words of God.

The first temptation was an appeal to immediate gratification of a physical desire, and not necessarily an evil physical desire. Just an immediate gratification at a time that was set aside to pray and fast--to feed on God. Creating bread was a distraction from prayer and fasting, and it was all the more tempting because it appealed to a normal and natural human desire to eat.

What are the natural desires in my life that distract me and allow me to put off feeding on God? In my life, that natural desire tends to be for leisure. I want to open a novel and read the next chapter although I haven’t managed to find time to crack open the Bible today. I want to veg on the couch watching a rather stupid TV program rather than spending time doing something more constructive spiritually. For other people, I imagine the temptation might be to get a bowl of ice cream or chips, surf the internet, just quickly skim through that file for the meeting tomorrow, think about what to cook for dinner. All pretty normal, natural desires, but they can serve to distract and delay from feeding on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God if we just give in to them without thinking about if this is the right time or place to gratify them.

So that’s my challenge for Lent: to take notice of the natural impulses that distract me from feeding on Him and to “give them up” for Lent—or rather, to give them up to God and ask that He help me resist and instead to devote the appropriate time and attention to Himself.

Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'" Matthew 4:4

"Therefore...let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us." Hebrews 12:1

What Would Jesus Thank God For?

2007-11-23T11:59:00.000-05:00

A night or two before Thanksgiving, the Bible reading plan we follow with our kids at dinner put us in Luke 10. The heading above verse 21 said, “Jesus' Prayer of Thanksgiving.” Wow. What could be better? I thought to myself, "I can learn what Jesus was thankful for and be thankful for the same things on Thanksgiving."

Here’s the prayer: “O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, thank you for hiding the truth from those who think themselves so wise and clever, and for revealing it to the childlike….” Hmmm. I wasn’t sure I totally understood this because Jesus seemed to be thanking God for hiding truth as well as revealing it, but I decided I could heartily join in the second part, remembering to thank God on Thanksgiving for revealing His truths to me. A couple verses later, in Luke 10:23-24, Jesus says to the disciples, “How privileged you are to see what you have seen. I tell you the truth, many prophets and kings have longed to see and hear what you have seen and heard, but they could not.” I thought about this. Abraham, David, Elijah, Moses—they lived their lives never seeing what we have seen—the power and love of God revealed in what Jesus said and did. And in the context in Luke, seventy-two followers of Jesus had just been spreading the word about Him and witnessing His power worked through them. These are privileges I don’t recognize on a daily basis, much less remember to thank God for. I tried to remember these yesterday during all the eating and other distractions.

But something was drawing me back to the passage this morning—maybe the thought that I should write about Jesus’ Thanksgiving prayer here. But how could I write about it with that kind of seemingly weird stuff at the beginning? I was sitting at my desk and I laid my head down on my open Bible and prayed in frustration, “God I don’t really get this. And, in fact, lately it seems like there have been a couple things in your Word I can’t understand fully. I feel like my mind can only get so far and then a dullness sets in.”

It was almost as if the words—on which my forehead was resting--streamed off the page and into my brain. The truth is hidden from those who think themselves clever. It is revealed to the childlike. You goofball.

So now here is my post-Thanksgiving prayer: “Lord, thank you for what you have revealed to me so far. But don’t let me think myself too clever. Give me a childlike mind—ready to absorb more, ready to ask persistent questions, knowing that I don’t know much yet at all—so that more can be revealed to me.”

…Jesus said, "Everything is possible for him who believes." Immediately the boy's father exclaimed, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!" Mark 9:23-24.

Faith and Perseverance #2

2007-11-16T10:00:00.000-05:00

There’s another thing about the story of Rahab that’s encouraging to me. Rahab gathered her family, told them about the way of salvation and then somehow kept them all there in the safety of her home—or in the safety of the faith since being in her house with red cord displayed was the way they were going to be saved. She had to deal with feeding them and finding places for them to sleep. She had to deal with the inevitable squabbles of family cooped up together. She had to quell their doubts, especially when the Israeli army spent six days marching around outside the city walls only to go silently back to their camp.

How many times did she have to explain why it was important to stay in the house, to drill into their heads that it was dangerous to leave? How many times did she have to explain that God was with the Israeli army although they probably appeared totally ineffectual? Sure, hiding the spies was a courageous act of faith—but continuing to convey her faith to her family in close quarters, persevering day after day, now that was really something amazing.

Thinking about Rahab gives me heart to continue to tell the story of my faith to my kids, to explain to my teenager once again that “it’s dangerous out there,” that there is one way of salvation even though the actions of God’s people may look odd or ineffective right now.

Joshua said to the two men who had spied out the land, "Go into the prostitute's house and bring her out and all who belong to her, in accordance with your oath to her." So the young men who had done the spying went in and brought out Rahab, her father and mother and brothers and all who belonged to her. They brought out her entire family and put them in a place outside the camp of Israel. Then they burned the whole city and everything in it.... But Joshua spared Rahab the prostitute, with her family and all who belonged to her, because she hid the men Joshua had sent as spies to Jericho--and she lives among the Israelites to this day. Joshua 6:22-25

One Necessary Thing During the Holidays

2007-11-13T09:21:00.000-05:00

In the spirit of slimming down that to-do list and making time for the one necessary thing during the holidays, here are ideas from Mary DeMuth and Crosswalk.com for slowing down this season: Five Tips to Slow Down and Simplify the Holidays.

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work myself? Tell her to help me! " "Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her." Luke 10:38-42

2007-11-07T08:38:00.000-05:00

Just in time for the holidays I found this blog written by Sandy Coughlin: 4 Reluctant Entertainers , a Chrisian who loves blessing others by having them to her home. Since one of my goals in entertaining is to be a Mary--who has plenty of time to sit at the feet of Jesus--rather than a Martha--who is freaking out, I thought Sandy's tips would be helpful.

To read more about Mary and Martha and holiday entertaining: Mary and Martha's Holiday Survival Guide, six posts about my trying to remember the one necessary thing while entertaining during the holidays.

Faith and Perseverance

2007-11-05T11:17:00.000-05:00

I’m reading Joshua right now and I find myself wondering about Rahab’s family. Rahab was the woman who helped the Israelite spies when they came to check out Jericho. She hid them from the king and then helped them escape the city in exchange for a promise that Joshua would save her family when the Israelites came to destroy Jericho. The spies promised her salvation on the condition that she hang a scarlet cord from the window of her home so the army would know which one was hers. All who were waiting in her home would be saved. Anyone who went out into the street took his life in his own hands.

As soon as the spies left, Rahab tied the cord in her window. She probably also went out and told her parents, brothers and sisters about the coming destruction and the promised salvation. She urged them to seek refuge in her home.

And then what? And then they all sat around waiting I guess. It was at least a week and probably much more before the Israelites were even heard from again. (The spies hid for three days before returning to the camp and then the Israelites crossed the Jordon, camped in the vicinity for three days, circumcised themselves and waited to heal, all before marching on Jericho).

What did Rahab’s family think during this time? It probably went something like this: We’ve been duped. There is no danger. Or even if there is danger, what good will sitting in the house do? We’re missing so much going on out there in the town. What about my business? I’ve got to get back to it before it runs into the ground. I’ve got to plow, plant, harvest, winnow, store, etc or I won’t have anything to eat. I’ve got to spin and sew or I won’t have anything to wear. And what about my friends? What fun am I missing?

Finally the Israelites appeared, but they spent six days merely marching around the city once per day blowing trumpets. What did Rahab’s family think then? Now I KNOW we’ve been duped. Look at all the silly motions they’re going through. It’s all meaningless.

Did some of the family leave they house? Did they lose focus on why they were waiting (their ultimate salvation from death) and begin to fight with each other about trivial things? Did they doubt Rahab’s sanity, thinking she must have gotten the salvation plan wrong. I mean, afterall, how can this little cord save anyone? Did they begin to invent their own versions of how and where they could survive? Did they start thinking about ways they could save themselves?

Does any of this sound disturbingly familiar? We’re all waiting right now. At some point, we became convinced of hell and the ultimate destruction of this world. We learned there is a way of salvation. But now we wait and things like death and destruction seem far off and even a little crazy. What seems more real are concerns about what to eat and what to wear and how to spend our time and that annoying person sitting next to us as we wait.

Take heart. Keep focused on the unseen realities. Rahab’s family was eventually saved from destruction and so will we be if we remain faithful.

"Let us hold unswervingly to the faith we profess, for He who promised is faithful." Hebrews 10:23

The To-Do List in Perspective

2007-09-27T10:36:00.000-04:00

Here are some verses for those of us obsessed with “to-do” lists to think about:

Now, listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” James 4:13-15

Does this mean I should never plan? (I’ve always found the balance between planning and leaving things up to God a bit hard to strike.) I actually think the point here is not “no planning.” I think the point is “go ahead and plan but keep it in perspective.” And what is the proper perspective? That life on earth is just a mist and that God is ultimately the one in control. He is the creator and sustainer of the universe who works all things according to His will--and me, well after all is said and done, I am only me.

If I could manage to keep this perspective, a lot of seemingly problematic things that God commands me to do would begin to fall into line quite naturally. Like that order not to worry about food and clothes. Or the tendency to boast, thinking myself better than my neighbor. If I could keep this perspective in mind I might just catch a glimpse of what it would mean to love God with all my heart, soul, strength and mind.

The Wow of the Life of Faith

2007-09-14T10:48:00.000-04:00

This blog generally focuses on the "how" of living a life of faith, rather than the WOW! of what God has done for me. That's because it's the "how" that's the tough part for me. But every now and then it's good to focus on the wow for a few moments. Check out this devotional from the Purpose Driven Life people that says it all so well.

Perseverance Through Trials #2

2007-09-12T10:21:00.000-04:00

So I want to persevere through my little daily trials….But what does “persevering” really mean? I mean, I kind of get it if I happen to be thrown into a lion’s den or am told I must renounce my faith or go to prison. But what does it mean when all I am really dealing with is kids who got up on the wrong side of the bed, too much to do at the office, too much to do at home and a checkbook that won’t balance?

I think James gives us a clue in chapter 1 after he talks about the various kinds of trials we may face. James 1:21-22 says, “Therefore get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you….Do what it says.” James puts the same thought in even more practical terms a few verses later in James 1:27: look after widows and orphans and keep yourself from being polluted by the world.

This is essentially the way a dedicated athlete perseveres, right? He or she gets rid of lazy habits, accepts coaching and keeps on practicing. This is what dieters do too. They stop eating junk food, get on a diet plan and start eating right and exercising. In fact, we really do know what perseverance is all about and most of us have done it many times over in various contexts. As students we turned off the TV, listened to the teacher and hit the books in time for exams. When we became parents, we gave up certain freedoms, read childcare books, asked everyone and anyone for advice and started slogging through the days and nights with our kids. When I discovered I had inherited monstrously high cholesterol I read everything I could and then followed the advice I had read--which of course said to get rid of some old habits and start doing some other better things. I persevered and my cholesterol began to improve.

Perseverance is the same in our spiritual lives as well: to keep on getting rid of junk that we shouldn’t be doing, to absorb all the information we can about what we should be doing, and then to do it. And to keep on doing it no matter what the circumstances that arise that day: whether we feel uncertain about how to face a particular situation (James 1:5), whether we feel rich or poor (James 1:9-10); whether we feel tempted to sin (James 1:13-14), whether we feel angry or annoyed (James 1:19), or any of the other myriad feelings and situations that distract us from the goal of getting rid of the bad stuff in our lives and doing the good stuff.

I can actually move through a typical day in suburbia keeping these two goals in mind: getting rid of the bad stuff and doing the good stuff that I have learned I should do. And I have a feeling it will be good practice for the future and the “larger” trials that also strike typical suburban households: lay-offs and financial set backs, rebellious children, the almost inevitable crises that will come with aging, etc…..

Perseverance Through Trials

2007-09-06T10:37:00.000-04:00

This idea of “perseverance” through trials has always sounded sort of scary to me. It congers up images of Job or foreign missionaries or Christians in Buddhist and Muslim countries. Very far from my fairly comfortable life in suburbia where the big concerns are how to get two kids to two different activities on opposite sides of town on Saturday morning and whether or not my son will get placed in an accelerated math class.

But I’ve been reading the first part of James and learning a practical thing or two about perseverance. First of all, James says we will face trials of many kinds. (James 1:2). (Perhaps James had in mind that some of us would face prison and persecution while some of us would just deal with cranky neighbors and broken air conditioners.)

James then goes on to talk about several different sorts of trials and—surprise, surprise—I do deal with these sorts of things in my little life:

Lack of direction or wisdom (James 1:5-8)
Feeling poorer than my neighbors (James 1:9-11)
Temptation (James 1:13-15)
Things that make me angry (James 1:19-20)

This are the types of things that each day send us spiraling in a different direction than God has in mind for us and these are the things that He wants us to persevere through, promising that perseverance will result in spiritual lives that are mature and complete, not lacking in anything. (James 1:4)

Now that puts a whole new perspective on the little things that go wrong each day in my life. I can actually face them as challenges that will eventually lead to maturity in Christ.

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking in anything." James 1:2-4

When Your To-Do List is Too Long

2007-04-17T08:00:00.000-04:00

Elisabeth Elliot on our to-do lists:

One reason we are so harried and hurried is that we make yesterday and tomorrow our business, when all that legitimately concerns us is today. If we really have too much to do, there are some items on the agenda which God did not put there. Let us submit the list to Him and ask Him to indicate which items we must delete. There is always time to do the will of God. If we are too busy to do that, we are too busy.

Lord, help me to take your yoke on my shoulder, not a yoke of my own making. May I learn from You to be gentle and humblehearted. May I find that your load is light.

From A Lamp for My Feet by Elisabeth Elliot

What Really Happened on Easter Morning?

2007-04-04T09:45:00.000-04:00

Here's something to mull over as we try to get our heads around the events of Good Friday and Easter morning...

The great work which Jesus began on earth of reconciling God and man in His own body, He carries on in heaven. To accomplish this, He took the conflict between God's righteousness and our sin into His own person. On the cross, He ended the struggle once and for all in His own body. Then he ascended to heaven, where He carries out the deliverance He obtained and manifests His victory in each member of His body. This is why He lives to pray. In His unceasing intercession, He places Himself in living fellowship with the unceasing prayer of His redeemed ones....The redemption of human nature into fellowship with His resurrection power and His glory was intensely real. The taking up of our humanity through Christ into the life of the triune God was an event of inconceivable significance....

From Andrew Murray, With Christ in the School of Prayer

Creative Procrastination: Moving God up on your list by moving other stuff down

2007-03-27T09:01:00.000-04:00

Back to that time management program I was talking about last week…

Brian Tracey recommends a technique for getting important stuff done (in the context of work) that I think might help you and me move God up to a higher priority on our to-do lists.

Tracey recommends “creative procrastination” or “setting posteriorities.” In other words, take a look at everything on your to-do list today and decide what you can put off ‘til last. What is least important? What won’t matter if you don’t get to it today? After examing your to-do list, do this exercise again with your daily routine--you know, the stuff that doesn’t even make the to-do list--like folding the laundry, reading emails and watching American Idol. What can be put off until everything that is more important has been done?

I’ve been having fun with this. There are lots of things I would like to put off for a bit. It is kind of nice to say to myself, “I won’t fold that load of laundry now. I’ll take 20 minutes to read about the events of Easter week in my Bible.” Or “I don’t have to respond to that annoying email this second. I can take a few minutes to pray about my priorities for the day.” And you know what, the “oh-so-necessary” things like laundry and business emails still get done. They just take a slightly lower priority--more like where they should have been in the first place.

“...let us throw off everything that hinders...and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” Hebrews 12:1

P.S. If you are interested in time management techniques, setting priorities and goal accomplishment in the business context, check out Brian Tracey’s blog. I find many of his suggestions helpful toward running my spiritual race as well.

Creating Quiet for God #2

2007-03-15T09:29:00.000-04:00

Here is Gordon MacDonald in Ordering Your Private World on getting quiet with God:

Silence and solitude have not come easily to me at all. I once equated them with laziness, inaction, and unproductivity. The minute I was alone, my mind exploded with a list of things I should do: phone calls to make, papers I should be filing, books unread, sermons unprepared, and people I ought to see.

The slightest noise outside my study door was a massive intrusion to concentration. It seemed as if my hearing became supersensitive, and I could overhear conversations at the other end of our house….Because my study is near our laundry room, it never seemed to fail that the moment I got into spiritual activity the washing machine would decide the load inside was unbalanced, and its foghorn-like buzzer would go off, insisting that I…should come and readjust the wash.

But concentrating even when there was silence became desperately difficult. I learned that I had to warm up, to accept the fact that for about 15 minutes my mind would do everything it could to resist the solitude. So among the things I did was to start by reading or writing on the subject of my spiritual pursuits.

MacDonald goes on to explain how journaling has been incredibly helpful to him in many ways, one of which was to get over the “hump” and begin to focus.

So don't be discouraged if you're distracted as you try to get quiet with God. Just keep at it every day. Eventually your mind will become trained and will more easily set aside your extraneous and irrelevant thoughts. And, even more importantly, God will honor your attempts to seek Him out and put Him ahead of all your other pressing thoughts and responsibilities. I've mentioned Elisabeth Elliot’s thoughts on this subject before but they continue to help me so I'll mention them again. Elliot also frets about that “wasted” time when you can’t seem to pray or get your mind to stay focused on God. She says she has come to regard them as an offering to God, no matter how imperfect.

It is a good and necessary thing to set aside time for God in each day. The busier the day, the more indispensable is this quiet period for prayer, Bible reading, and silent listening. It often happens, however, that I find my mind so full of earthly matters that it seems I have gotten up early in vain and have wasted three-fourths of the time so dearly bought (I do love my sleep!). But I have come to believe that the act of will required to arrange time for God may be an offering to Him. As such He accepts it, and what would otherwise be "loss" to me I count as "gain" for Christ.

(From Elisabeth Elliot’s A Lamp for My Feet.)

Creating Quiet for God

2007-03-13T09:06:00.000-04:00

I was listening to a Brian Tracy audio program about time management this weekend. Tracy told about a conference he recently attended which included a formal dinner opened in prayer. Upon opening his eyes at the close of the prayer, Tracey was startled to see that four or five people seated at his table seemed strangely moved by the prayer. They remained with heads bowed, hands in their laps, well after the “amen.” In fact, they remained this way even as their food began to be delivered. Then Tracy realized that they had not been praying; they were using the opportunity to check messages on their blackberries.

Now you and I might not go quite that far—checking email during time devoted to public prayer—but I wonder how different I really am from these people when I repeatedly find myself thinking through the day’s to-do list when I actually mean to pray. Or how about when I leap up from Bible reading to answer the telephone, take the laundry out of the dryer as soon as the timer buzzes, etc.? I let things of far lower priority interrupt and distract me from the really important task of speaking with God.

Now Brian Tracy was not trying to emphasize the importance of prayer when he told this story. He was simply illustrating how absurdly attached we’ve become to our hi-tech communication devices. He recommends turning them all off for periods of time during the day—no cell phone, telephone, email, PDA, blackberry or anything else that can summon your attention and distract you from the project at hand—in order to achieve maximum efficiency in time management.

But Tracy’s idea is a good one for Christians seeking to achieve more in their daily relationship with God as well. We know we need to set aside some time when no one can reach us but God. We know we need to get quiet so we can hear His voice above all the others. But it seems impossible in this fast-paced crazy world, doesn’t it? One very practical way to make progress in this area is to deliberately turn off all communication devices for some period of the day. Let the calls go to voicemail. Check email later. While you're at it, make sure the radio, iPod and TV are off as well. Get quiet with God.

Waltzing into God's Office #2

2007-03-08T09:38:00.000-05:00

On the same day Nancy Perot waltzed into her dad’s office, Perot’s son Ross Jr. also stopped by to say hello to dad. Ross Jr. was older than Nancy and immediately caught a sense of what was going on in his dad’s office that day. He recognized Bull Simons, a retired army colonel famous for an attempted POW prison raid and realized that his father must be planning a rescue mission.

Perot knew his son had caught on and so began to talk with him about what he wanted Ross Jr. to do in the event something happened to his dad. In particular, he asked his son to leave college—although he knew it would be a sacrifice--to come home and raise his sisters properly. Ross Jr. immediately replied with tears in his eyes, “Dad, that’s what I would have done even if you’d never brought it up.” The father and son reached a new level of closeness that day.

There are two things that are interesting to think about in this story.

First, Nancy and Ross Jr., despite their differing levels of maturity and responsibility, had equal access to their father. Both were free to stop in at any time. Both shared equally in their father’s love and attention that day. This is what God’s relationship with His children is like. We all have equal access and we each enjoy all his love and attention. So if you have something on your mind that you want to talk about with God, don’t deprive yourself because you think there are other people He’s going to pay more attention to. Billy Graham is not at the front of the line monopolizing all of God’s attention. God wants to hear from you no matter whether you’re a brand new Christian, a long-time Christian who really hasn’t paid much attention to Him for awhile or a world class evangelist. We all can waltz into the office anytime.

Second, Ross Jr. accepted responsibility from his father because he was ready to do so. It was natural and not some big, awful turning point. Some of us are afraid to get closer to God because we think He may ask us to give up something or do something hard. (I had lunch with a friend awhile back who told me she was afraid to get closer to God because He might bring hard stuff in her life into force her to grow more—and she was afraid NOT to get closer to God because He might bring hard stuff into her life to force her to draw close!) Yet, in my experience, God generally asks us to take on harder stuff only when we become mature enough and aware enough that taking on responsibility seems pretty much the natural thing to do--like Ross Perot Jr.’s reaction to his father. We are ready and willing to accept it even if we’d rather take an easier path. Like Ross Jr., we’re ready to say, “Of course, that’s what I think is best. That’s what I would have done anyway.” And do you think Ross Jr. walked away from the office that day thinking, “Boy, I wish I did not stop by?” I’m sure he was instead thinking, “I hope everything goes OK but, if not, at least I’m glad I had that talk with my father. I’m glad I know what he wants me to do and he has confidence in me.”

So don’t hesitate to waltz into God’s presence and enjoy your parent/child relationship because God might be handing out tough chores today. If you are at the “Nancy” stage you will enjoy a wonderful time snuggling with your dad and you will not be handed responsibilities you can’t handle. If you are at the “Ross Jr.” stage you will also enjoy a wonderful time with your father and you will be at the point that you quite naturally and with little regret accept whatever He has in store for you.

Waltzing in to God's Office

2007-02-28T11:53:00.000-05:00

I’m reading Ken Follett’s On Wings of Eagles right now. (OK, so I’m reading it 20 years after everyone else did, but, hey, I’ve been busy for the past 20 years.) Anyway, there is a story in the book about the day Ross Perot and his employees began planning a commando-style raid to rescue two hostages from an Iranian jail on the eve of the revolution. Tensions were running high at Perot’s corporate headquarters as the men plotted the super-secret, super-dangerous mission. In the middle of all this, Ross Perot’s teenage daughter waltzed in to see her dad, calling out “Poops!” the pet name she used with him.

Apparently the Perot children were free to visit their dad at the office anytime and often did. Perot’s daughter had no idea what was going on at the office that day. She just wanted to say goodbye to her dad before she went back to school after the Christmas break. Did Perot shoo her away? Did he tell her not to bother him when he was obviously busy with more important things? No, of course not. He welcomed her with open arms, calling her “Little Nan,” and pulling her into his lap. He savored the opportunity to spend a few loving minutes with her.

What a great picture of the freedom we have to access our Father in His office in heaven. Yes, He is busy. Yes, He has important stuff going on. But we can just waltz in anytime calling Him by his pet name and He will welcome us with open arms. (Think I’m going too far with the pet name thing? Romans 8:15 says that we are God’s children and can cry, “Abba Father.” “Abba” is Aramaic for “Daddy,” pretty much a diminutive pet name.)

When you think about God, do you think of yourself as an entry level employee buried in a cubicle several floors below the CEO’s palatial office suite and and even farther beneath his notice? Or are you a mid-level manager tongue-tied in the presence of the boss, figuring he’ll think anything you say is wrong, unimportant or incredibly silly? You are NOT a lowly employee. You’re the CEO’s kid--the one who can ride up in a limo, walk past the secretary without an appointment and just stick you head in the door of the office. You can even sit on his lap. So, hey, start taking advantage of your access as often as possible.

“And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place....Let us go right into the presence of God, with true hearts fully trusting Him.” Hebrews 10:19-22

Lashing Out at God

2007-01-29T12:06:00.000-05:00

Over the weekend my son was invited to a friend’s for the afternoon. He asked to be picked up at 6:45 after eating dinner with his friend. At 6:40, just as I was stepping into the car to go get him, he called and asked if he could stay longer. He explained that they had just finishing building a fort and they hadn’t had a chance to enjoy using it yet. He added that he had no homework. OK. Reasonable request. I asked how much longer he wanted to stay and he said, “Pick me up at 7:15.” That was fine with me. I want my son to have fun with friends, build forts and get to enjoy them.

Unfortunately, when I picked Connor up at 7:15, he was furious that his visit was over. And when I say furious, I don’t mean disappointed or sad. I mean furious. He jumped in the car, slamming the door, almost breaking a toy he had with him. He neither said goodbye to his friend nor hello to me. When I asked him what his problem was, he said, “You made me leave too early.”

Now I hadn’t made him do anything. In fact, he himself had chosen the pick-up time. But in his desire to vent his anger on someone he didn’t seem to remember that fact or to realize how absurd his statement was. Naturally I said, “If you wanted to stay longer, why didn’t you just call me and ask?” He replied, “Because I thought you would yell at me.” Now, this was even more absurd since I had, just half an hour before, very willingly allowed him to stay longer and even asked him to name the time he wanted to be picked up. And, to the best of my knowledge, neither my husband nor I have ever yelled at our kids for wanting to stay at a friend’s house longer than originally planned (although occasionally we say “no” to our daughter who likes to begin the weekend with a Friday evening sleepover and continue non-stop socializing until nightfall on Sunday).

The truth is, my son didn’t like the fact that playtime was over and he took that anger out on me, the benefactor who had allowed him to have a play time in the first place and who had willingly extended it for no reason other than to give him pleasure. He chose to lash out at me rather than to call me and see whether it would fit in with my plans to allow him to stay longer.

I wonder how often I do the same thing with God. How often do I get frustrated with how things are turning out in my life and blame Him rather than recognize that my disappointment is a result of my own choices? How often do I miss out on something better because I failed to ask Him to intervene? And how often is my failure to ask actually the equivalent of accusing God of being a harsh and unreasonable parent?

"Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!" Matthew 7:9-11

New Year's Clean-Up

2007-01-25T08:43:00.000-05:00

For me, the first few weeks of January are all about cleaning up. As soon as New Year’s Day fades, the Christmas stuff must be cleared away. Each year, I notice that the Christmas stuff with which I deal falls roughly into three categories:

• There are things that will rot, spoil and become downright dangerous if left unattended. Things like that last piece of cheesecake I pushed to the back of the fridge or the dried up Christmas tree dangerously close to the fireplace.

• Then there are things that if not immediately tossed will lead me in the opposite direction of where I want to head. Half eaten boxes of nuts, candy canes and leftover Christmas cookies.

• And finally, there are things that, while appropriate for Christmas, begin to be somewhat inconvenient by mid-January. There’s nothing really wrong with them-- but maintaining them interferes with moving on to other things. The Christmas cards on the mantle keep me from dusting and distract me as I reread each one. The wreath on the front door drops needles that must be swept up every time I step out the door. And, of course, the outdoor lights are beginning to look a little silly.

I tackled all these things wholeheartedly the first couple weeks of January, determined to get my house in order. But it occurs to me that my life could use some determined post-Christmas New Year's clean-up too. Afterall, my life is post Christmas--Christ has entered my life just as He once entered the world--and it is now not just a new year but a whole new life. So what needs to be tossed out so I can move on?

• What is the truly dangerous stuff that must go immediately? Are there sins that I toy with? Certain daydreams? A tendency to lie? To gossip?

• And what are the things that, while not inherently sinful, always seem to head me off in the wrong direction and prevent me from growing? A particular set of friends? Some of the books and magazines I read?

• Finally, what are the things that still hang on from an old way of life? Things that slow me down and aren’t really becoming to a new blood-bought life? The amount of money I spend on clothes? The amount of time I spend obsessing about my body? A goal at work?

Got your list? I’ve got mine. Here’s to the New Year!

The Faith of Joseph

2006-12-21T09:54:00.001-05:00

I’ve been thinking a lot about Joseph this holiday season. Joseph, the forgotten figure in the Christmas story. Poor Joseph, whom the Bible describes as a good man, apparently cheated on by the woman he loved before they even were married. What did it take for Joseph to obey the words of God and assist in bringing Christ to the world that first Christmas?

First, he had to set aside his own plan. Joseph had already decided what to do—he would divorce Mary quietly--and apparently it was a reasonable and appropriate plan since it is in this connection that the Bible praises him as righteous. Second, he had to swallow his pride—public pride in front of a community who thought he was a fool to marry the woman who had made a fool of him, family pride in the sense that he would now raise a child who was not “bone of his bone” and “flesh of his flesh,” and probably his personal pride as a man before Mary. What had he said to her when he first heard she was pregnant? He obviously hadn’t believed her story of a virgin conception since he was planning to divorce her. I expect he owed her a big apology and had to go and humbly beg her forgiveness before he could marry her. Finally, he had to act despite his fears. Have you ever noticed that the angel said, “Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife?” Apparently Joseph was afraid to marry Mary. We don’t know exactly what Joseph feared but I can imagine: fear of marrying a promiscuous woman or a nutcase who thought she was bearing a god-child. Fear of raising another man’s child and bringing “bad blood” into his home. Fear of how his future children would be affected by their mother’s reputation and this illegitimate child living in their home. The only way he could obey was to trust fully and completely that what the angel had said was true (which would make his fears moot) or cast caution to the wind and say “OK, I’ll go for it. I think this is what God is telling me so I’ll proceed despite my fears” which of course is another form of faith.

There’s a lot of lessons we can learn from the attitudes of the characters in the Christmas story: the willing servant heart of Mary, the watchfulness of the Magi who traveled great distances to worship, and the shepherds who spread the word, but this year I think I’ll focus on Joseph who presents a perfect picture of "trust and obey." He quietly facilitated the introduction of Christ to the world at great cost to himself, his pride and his plans, despite his fears.

Power of Bible Reading

2006-12-06T18:33:00.000-05:00

Why make it a habit to read the Bible? Especially when there are lots of great Christian books to read, Bible studies to attend and sermons to download, all of which seem more readily digestible and practical than reading a bit of the Bible each day? Here's Dallas Willard's thoughts on the unique effectiveness of the Bible incorporated into your daily life....

The Prophets and the Gospels share with the Law this vital function of enabling human beings to know God--to know what God is doing and what we are to do. For in that knowledge lies our true well-being....

The law of the Lord gratefully received, studied, and internalized to the point of obedience is "perfect" as Psalm 19:7 says. There is nothing lacking in it for its intended purpose. It therefore converts and restores the souls of those who seek it and receive it. It is a living and powerful being, capable of distinguishing soul and spirit in man and dealing with them appropriately and redemptively (see Hebrews 4:12).

If we want to see real change in our lives we have to start with reading the Bible. Even when it seems tedious or difficult, it is at work restoring our souls and renewing our minds.

"The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul. The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple." Psalm 19:7

Quote from Revolution of Character by Dallas Willard with Don Simpson.

The Life of Faith

2006-11-29T11:33:00.000-05:00

A couple weeks ago my husband and I rented the movie, The Lake House, in which a man and a woman discover that somehow they are living two years apart in time but that they can communicate through the medium of a mailbox at the lake house. She is living in 2006. He is still back in 2004. OK, don't try to analyze it too much...it's just a movie. Anyway, at the climax of the movie, Sandra Bullock's character reaches out to Keanu Reeves' character and tells him that he will die on Valentine's Day 2004 if he continues on the course he is heading. (Remember, she knows his future because she is in the future.) She tells him what to do to avoid this premature death and that she loves him and will be waiting for him at the mailbox on Valentine's Day in 2006. And of course, the movie ends with their joyful meeting at the mailbox in 2006.

The final scene is shot pretty much from Sandra Bullock's perspective. She puts her warning message in the mailbox, hopes that the man she loves has acted upon it and then he drives up about 30 seconds later and all ends well. But you have to ask yourself, what was Keanu Reeves doing while Sanda Bullock waited those thirty seconds? For him the waiting lasted two years. Did he begin to doubt that he had ever really received messages from the future? Did his friends tell him he was nuts to be waiting for this unseen and pretty much unknowable woman? Did he get lonely and wish he could date women who he could actually see right now? Did he wonder whether she would really be at the assigned place in 2006 after he had given up two years of his life just waiting around?

Essentially Keanu Reeves had to live a life of faith for two years. He had escaped death only to feel like a stranger throughout 2004 and 2005, waiting for his real life to begin in 2006. How did he get through it? Well, presumably he reread her letters a lot. When he began to doubt, he replayed in his mind all the "coincidences" that had happened which could only be evidence that this woman who loved him was waiting for him in the future. He probably also made any major decisions through the filter of "I want to be in this particular place in 2006" and he probably avoided any entanglements that would hinder his relationship with Sandra Bullock reaching its fruition in 2006.

It's actually a pretty good illustration of the life you and I live waiting for unseen and pretty much indescribable realities to occur in the future. Sometimes people think we are crazy; sometimes we ourselves wonder if we are crazy. We sacrifice certain things today because we believe we have something much better waiting for us in the future. We hang on. Patience. Perseverance toward the unseen goal. Believing that what we will surely have later is better than anything we could possibly have now. The life of faith.

Small Steps to Spiritual Transformation

2006-11-27T11:21:00.000-05:00

I'm currently reading Revolution of Character by Dallas Willard and Don Simpson, so, as always when I'm reading Dallas Willard, expect a lot of quotes:

I believe one reason so many people fail to immerse themselves in the life described in the New Testament is that is so unlike their own experience. This is true even though they may be quite faithful to their church and really do have Jesus Christ as their only hope. But the New Testament presentation of the life they are offered in Christ only discourages them. Instead of inspiring them, it makes them feel hopeless.

Why is this? Surely the life God holds out to us in Jesus was not meant to be an unsolvable puzzle! I suggest that for all our good intentions and strenuous efforts, we don't approach and receive the life Jesus offers us in the right way.
....
Jesus invites us to leave our burdensome ways of heavy labor--especially our religious ones--and step into the yoke of training with him. His is a way of gentleness and lowliness, a way of soul rest. His is a way of inner transformation in which carrying our burden with him is easy and light (see Matthew 11:28-30). What we thought was so difficult about entering fully into divine life is entirely due to our failure to understand and take the small steps that quietly but surely lead to our transformation.

What are these small steps? In large part they are simply the habits we have been talking about in this blog. So don't get discouraged. Keep reading. Keep praying. Keep attempting to create oases of quiet in your life. These are the little things that will quietly but surely lead to your transformation into the image of Christ.

Holiday Crush

2006-11-20T11:17:00.000-05:00

You can see from the infrequency of my posting this month that I am already feeling the rush of the holidays. What I want to know is, how many years do you have to do the family's Thanksgiving dinner before it becomes routine?

If you are as busy as I am, you probably don't have time to read blogs anyway, but if you find yourself with time on your hands you might want to check out the November 2005 archives for Mary and Martha's Entertainment Survival Guide: 5 Ways to Stay Sane Through the Holidays. It's all about focusing on that one necessary thing that might not even have made your "to do" list yet.

Interruptions, Delays and Inconveniences

2006-11-02T08:11:00.000-05:00

Elisabeth Elliot's daily devotional from Back to the Bible today is entitled Interruptions, Delays and Inconveniences. Hmmm...sounds familiar. I think I was trying to write about that topic yesterday. Elliot quotes several missionaries:

--One who learned to regard trivial and annoying chores as daily practice that would eventually qualify her for bigger and better work

--One who trained himself to welcome interruptions as opportunities to present the gospel in true missionary spirit

--One who viewed an upset to her plans as an indication of God's guiding hand securing the accomplishment of His will (rather than her own will).

Check it out in Back to the Bible's Devotions archives and, while you're there, sign up for daily email excerpts from classic devotionals.

Keeping Priorities Straight When Life's Little Disasters Strike

2006-11-01T10:12:00.000-05:00

Last Thursday morning I was in the kitchen—the start of a normal day I thought—when I heard an ominous sound. It sounded like water dripping in the family room. Sure enough, water was dripping fast through the first floor family room ceiling from a shower on the floor above.

And so began a home repair odyssey that has not yet ended. I rushed upstairs only to discover that when the previous homeowners had installed shelving in the linen closet they had screwed it into the access panel to the shower. The entire shelving system had to come out of the closet—and ultimately a hole larger than the access panel had to be cut into the closet wall in order to get to the problem. That meant a lot of Thursday was chewed up getting ready for the plumber and triaging to save the family room ceiling. Then I spent five hours on Friday dealing with the plumber. Saturday and Sunday the wall had to be repaired and spackled. While we were at it, we figured we might as well spackle numerous holes in the closet apparently left by homeowners past. Monday I repainted the closet. Now some sort of shelving needs to be reinstalled and the linen closet contents, strewn about the spare bedroom, put away. Basically a week of disruption and unexpected chores, one thing leading to another as always seems to happen.

And the scary part is, this is just one example of how time dissolves. My life is filled with similar examples. A couple months ago the IRS told us we owed them more taxes. We spent two full days unearthing three-year-old papers to explain why we did not. When the IRS later wrote us a sunny letter telling us that, oh yes, we were right after all, I felt like asking for a refund of my two days.

I know your life is the same as mine. We all deal with these unexpected, time sucking problems and, if we are not careful, we move from crisis to crisis until we wake up one day and realize weeks and months have gone by and we haven’t done anything we really wanted or set out to do. It’s a sobering thought--especially today, November 1, when we realize the year is fast waning and the next two months will be especially busy with holiday preparations and celebrations.

Keeping our spiritual lives as a priority amidst busy days is not some new problem. The book of Haggai tells us God's people got side-tracked for 14 years by home improvement projects. God told them to carefully consider the way they were spending their days and get their priorities back in line. Hebrews tells us to deal with this problem aggressively by "throwing off" everything that hinders us and running the spiritual race with perseverance lest we kind of just drift off course.

Take some time today to think about how you can keep God at the top of your to-do list when life’s tiny crises hit and the busy-ness of the holidays begins. Personally, I’ve discovered that rock solid habits are the only way I can do it. I actually write a list every single day: “Read Bible. Pray. Exercise. Shower.” Then I add other things to the list like “repaint linen closet” or “look for tax papers.” And I do the reading and praying first so that, hopefully, it will already be done when the family room ceiling caves in. This, plus weaving little layers of God time in throughout the day (like listening to a sermon on tape while I repair the closet!) helps keep my priorities focused and, as the author of Hebrews would say, my eyes fixed on Jesus.

...Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus.... Hebrews 12:1-2

Praying Like a Kid #3 (Or Saying Thank You with a Clean Heart)

2006-10-27T15:21:00.000-04:00

Well, you will be relieved to hear that we finally purchased the pumpkin. The best part of the event for me of course was when Connor jumped into the car after picking his pumpkin and said happily, “Thanks, Mom.” Amazingly, as he said thanks he looked down at his feet and his pumpkin and realized they were covered with dirt. Unprompted by me, he got himself and the pumpkin out of the car and attempted to wipe them off. Then he got back in the car and said, “OK, that’s the best I can do. Sorry I'm not cleaner. Thanks for the pumpkin, Mom.”

All of this is good stuff to remember when I thank God for answering my persistent prayers.

Praying Like a Kid #2 (Or How God Answers Like a Parent)

2006-10-25T11:07:00.000-04:00

Back to Connor and his pumpkin…

There are several circumstances in which I will not get a pumpkin for my one-track mind son and it occurs to me that they can teach me something about God’s reactions to my prayers.

I will not take Connor to get a pumpkin:

--if he storms in and demands a pumpkin as his right.

--if he complains that I am unfair and never give him pumpkins.

--if the way he is handling the rest of his life (i.e., homework and chores) doesn’t line up with taking the afternoon to go pick pumpkins.

--if he asks for an entire truckload of pumpkins.

It’s not that Connor has to be perfect or ask perfectly in order to get a pumpkin (in which case we would never get any pumpkins). It’s just that because I am a parent I am going to provide pumpkins in a certain way--a way that will lead him to greater levels of maturity—knowing that he will lead a happier and healthier life in the long run.

There’s one other circumstance that will stop me from answering Connor’s requests for a pumpkin today. I won’t buy him a pumpkin if the timing is wrong. I won’t get Connor a pumpkin too early because it will rot before Halloween and I know he will be disappointed. I won’t get him a pumpkin when he asks at 7 am before church or 9 pm when he is in pajamas. I won’t get him a pumpkin when his sister is not available to go with us since I want both kids to enjoy pumpkin picking together. But rest assured, I will not wait too long since I know the best pumpkins will be gone soon. He needs to trust that I will take him for the pumpkin when the timing is right.

So when I bring my requests before God I’m going to try to remember to analyze them this way:

--Am I demanding something from God as a right? Or do I realize I am asking for a gift?

--Am I complaining that I never get anything from God? Or am I remembering all the good things He’s already given me?

--Am I expecting Him to do all the giving although I haven’t bothered to do the basics He expects from me?

--Am I being a greedy pig? Or am I trusting that whatever amount He gives me will be exactly the right amount?

-- And do I want my request answered right this second? Or do I trust that His timing is the best timing because He knows more than me about my future?

Praying Like a Kid

2006-10-23T12:25:00.000-04:00

There’s another characteristic of a child’s conversations with his parent that I think Christ wants us to understand when we pray: persistence. When a child asks Dad for something, he is a broken record. He has a one-track mind. He just keeps on asking day and night.

Right now my son is focused on getting a pumpkin. He began asking in early September back when any pumpkin we bought would have rotted before Halloween. He asked to be taken to get a pumpkin when I was in the middle of cooking dinner on Saturday night. He asked at 7 am on Sunday morning when we were trying to get ready for church. He asked again last night when he was already in pajamas. He asked me to bring the car to his bus stop after school today so we can immediately rush to the farm stand. And this persistence will continue until we get the pumpkin. Then it will switch to “When can we carve my pumpkin? Can we do it right now?”

We don’t usually use that kind of persistence when it comes to talking to God. At least I don’t. For one thing, it seems almost rude. For another, I get distracted and forget what I’m praying about and start making a grocery list or loading the dishwasher. But I think God wants us to be persistent. Right after Christ taught the disciples the Lord’s Prayer, He posed a hypothetical: Suppose you go to your friend at midnight and ask for some food. At first your friend may say, “It’s late, don’t bother me.” But because of your boldness he will get up and give you all that you need. Christ then explained: So what I’m saying is this, ask and keep on asking, knock and keep on knocking ( Luke 11:5-9.) His point really couldn’t be more obvious, could it? But just in case we missed it, Jesus made it again in Luke 18. He told the disciples a parable “to show them that they should always pray and not give up.” (Read the story in Luke 18:1-8.)

Think about Abraham, arguing with God about destroying Sodom. He bargained with God a full six rounds. And this did not anger God. Each time, God granted his request. (I think if I had been in God's shoes I might have said, “You know Abraham, not only am I going to destroy Sodom but I think I’m going to destroy you along with it!”) Think of Jacob wrestling with God: “I will not let you go until you bless me.” Think of Moses constantly going to God and saying, “I can’t deal with these people. You deal with them.” The examples we have in the “Bible greats” are of boldness in approaching God, boldness almost to the point of audacity.

Now this idea of persistence can get me down. It sounds too burdensome. I don’t have enough time to pray and keep on praying, right? But when I begin to feel this way, I’m going to think of Connor and his pumpkin. It is no burden to him to constantly ask me for a pumpkin. He is not sitting in school today thinking, “How can I work in enough time to ask Mom for a pumpkin today? I’ll set aside 20 minutes between play and homework. I’ll vow to do it every day. I’ll sit her down and get real serious. I’ll start a pumpkin journal. I’ll get on my hands and knees and beg for a pumpkin.” No. He’ll just blow in the door this afternoon, taking it for granted that I am glad to see him and ask for a pumpkin. He has every confidence that I will take him to get a pumpkin when I judge the time is right. And you know what? I will.

"Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most High Place...let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith...." Hebrews 10:19-22.

Prayer: A Quick Cell Phone Call Home

2006-10-19T08:32:00.000-04:00

While we’re talking about prayer, here’s something I learned recently…

My 10-year-old son did sleep-away camp for the first time this summer. Now sleep-away camps are a lot different today than they were when we were kids. At least his was. He was welcome—in fact, he was encouraged--to call us by cell phone at anytime. And I can’t tell you what a comfort it was when we dropped him off to know that he would be able to call me immediately if he had a problem.

What I discovered during the week he was away, however, was that I valued the cell phone for non-emergencies as well. I truly delighted in receiving any phone call from Connor, especially those in which he wasn’t relating a problem or asking for something. I loved hearing how he and his friends were negotiating this strange new world of camp, how they learned they could order a pizza and have the camp store split the bill four ways, how he enjoyed the big breakfasts, learned a new lacrosse move, won a game, etc. The very best calls were when he called just to say “hello.” It was great to hear in his voice that he was enjoying this opportunity his father and I had provided for him, that he was thinking of us and wanted us to know what was going on in his life.

I occurred to me that God loves to get the same kind of calls from us. “Hey, I’m doing OK today. I love the food (or fun or work or whatever) you provide. I’m learning some new stuff.” Afterall, He’s the one who said we now have the status of sons in His eyes, so much so that we can call Him “Abba, Father,” an affectionate term that means Daddy. He must long to hear the same stuff we as parents long to hear from our kids.

Remembering how I loved getting those calls from Connor that said pretty much nothing--remembering God as an interested and involved parent just waiting for a call-- has encouraged me to pray more throughout the day. Quick little prayers in which I don’t really say much except, “Hey Father. I’m thinking of you. Thanks for being here with me.” We don’t always need long, formal prayer times with detailed prayer lists and open Bibles at our sides. We just need to reach out to a Father who is waiting to hear any small tidbit from kids He loves.

Continuing to Cast My Cares on Him

2006-10-13T10:28:00.000-04:00

Last March I wrote about that ever-nerve-wracking subject of my son’s teacher placement. (See March 16 in the March archives). For me, class placement has always been scary. I have virtually no control over it. And, even if I could influence the teacher selection, I have no idea which teacher is best for son. In short, I am completely unable to manage this very big and influential area of Connor’s life—and I don’t like being unable to manage stuff. There is nothing to do in this situation but hand it over to God, which I did many times between March and August this year.

So, after all my prayers, my son ended up with the fluky, odd ball teaching situation. For two classes, he is with a teacher who has agreed to experiment with mixing borderline gifted, average and significantly challenged kids in one classroom. Consequently there is a lot of independent study going on. For two more classes he is with a teacher he had last year who he really didn’t want to have again. And for all classes there is also another experienced teacher present who is possibly the polar opposite of my son. Connor is a would-be class clown and he describes this man as having no sense of humor whatsoever.

And it is working out beautifully! Connor loves the classroom with the mix of kids, along with the independence and the leadership opportunities that are inherent in the situation. He loves the teacher he did not want to have again and somehow even the teacher with no sense of humor is adding value. Connor came in the door the other day and said, “You know, I actually like school these days.” Wow. I couldn’t have engineered that type of school year if I tried!

Oddly enough, I hesitated a bit before posting this. I found myself thinking, “It may be too good to be true.” “Maybe it won’t last.” “Who knows how these teachers will really turn out to be come June.” I realized that while I was thanking God for answering my prayers with one half of my brain, with the other half I was doubting His continued answer!

Why in the world I do not trust God to continue keeping Connor under his care in the matter of schooling, I have no idea. So, I'm back to where I was last March. I find I need to place all this back in the hands of God, and ask for His continued grace and love. And then I need to walk away, assuming that He will take care of it. Of course, knowing that He has already answered this prayer helps me to leave it in His hands again--and I guess that's a bit of what growing in faith means.

Layering Prayer Into Your Day #3

2006-10-10T09:34:00.000-04:00

Another way that I have layered more prayer into my life is by training myself to pray anytime I wake up in the night. I am a person who falls back asleep pretty quickly but I can usually manage to pray a thought or two, something like--“Thank you God that the alarm is not going to go off for another two hours. Thank you God for this warm bed!”--and then back to snoozing. It may seem insignificant, but it has become an automatic habit no matter how groggy I am and I think it helps me feel the presence of God more continually. I also feel a sort of kinship with David and the other psalmists who wrote about praying on their beds through the night.

For lots of people, wakeful times during the night are the times they are most prone to worry or to fear. What a perfect response—to replace the habit of worrying through the night with deliberately handing over those worries to God, to replace the fearful hours with time spent asking God for safety and thanking Him for the protection He has provided so far.

Of course, if you really suffer from insomnia, you could try the old practice of counting your blessings instead of counting sheep. I personally have never been able to try this since I conk out so fast but I would imagine that if you are accustomed to tossing and turning for hours, it could be very helpful to focus your mind on remembering and repeating all the good things He has done for you, thanking Him that He has so constantly kept His eye out for you.

Praying throughout the night is a habit that took a few months for me to build since I am pretty dazed and confused at night (and I must admit I’ve found myself praying some rather odd prayers—like this morning when I woke up 15 minutes before the alarm and prayed “Oh God, please make these 15 minutes seem really long!”) but it has been worthwhile. I now immediately sense His welcoming presence and protection in the darkness. Not only do I pray more, but I also pray more continually.

Layering Prayer Into Your Day #2

2006-10-04T09:19:00.000-04:00

Here are some other ideas for “layering” prayer into your day:

--Pick a task you do repeatedly throughout the day and use that as a trigger to pray briefly. For example, whenever you save a document or wash your hands, you can pause for a moment, thanking God for His presence and asking for His direction. This is pretty much the same idea as praying before meals—it just adds more triggers throughout your day.

--Pray as you clean the house. As you enter each new room, whisper a sentence or two about the things associated with that room. For example, pray for each for your children as you tidy their rooms or make their beds. Thank God for His constant provision as you clean the kitchen. Ask God to help you to follow His command not to worry about what to wear as you fold the laundry. You get the idea. Take it from me, it’s not easy to keep praying continuously as I clean, but it’s a lot better than grumbling and complaining my way through the chores.

--Pray when you need to spend money. About two years ago I started to pray every time I walked into the grocery store. Just a few words: Lord, help me to spend responsibly; don’t let me buy more than we need; thank you for providing for us. The first time I prayed this way a really odd thing happened. I went to pick up the first item on my list and a coupon for that item was sitting on top, like someone had decided not to use it and left it there for me. Second item, same thing happened. It happened four or five times throughout the store that day! Other odd things have happened in the two years I’ve been praying about groceries. Most frequently, the store will be out of something I am sure I need and I will get home to find that I already have that item hiding in the back of a cabinet. I’ve been extending that prayer to other types of shopping trips now, especially clothes shopping with my teenage daughter!

--Pray every time you pay a bill. For most of us, paying bills is synonymous with worry. We look at the checkbook or online banking statement and we begin to worry. When you sit down to pay the bills or balance the checkbook, thank God for providing for you, ask Him to direct your spending, pray about any specific financial concerns or just ask Him to help you break the habit of worrying about money. It can be just a 10 second prayer, but if you make it a habit to pray with every bill you pay, you’ll be praying a lot!

Layering Prayer Into Your Day

2006-09-27T09:22:00.000-04:00

Back to this idea of layering-—consciously adding prayer, Bible reading and time spent with God in small bits and pieces throughout the day until these times become ingrained habits, until they are part of the normal pattern of our days.

When I first began my layering experiment, I decided to use various things I do every day as “prayer reminders,” things that would prompt me to pray here and there for a minute or two. I thought this was a rather feeble attempt to pray without ceasing but I actually heard Charles Zimmerman, a professor at Biblical Seminary, make this very same suggestion during a sermon recently. Now that I have heard a seminary professor recommend it, I feel pretty good about it! Zimmerman called these things “prayer prompts.” They add no “extra” time to your daily schedule, but they get you praying. The following are some of his suggestions and some of mine.

--Hit alarm button. Ask God to direct you throughout the day. Specifically mention anything you are worried about that you (or someone you love) will face during the day.

--Take shower. Ask God to cleanse you from the inside out. Thank Him for your health and pray about any specific health concerns.

--Eat breakfast. Thank God for His daily provision. Ask Him to continue meeting your physical needs throughout the day.

--Read newspaper. Ask God to work His will on earth. Pray quickly about things that are worrying you in the news—the fear of e. coli, your kids getting too involved in My Space, an election, whatever.

--Get kids out the door to school. Pray for their spiritual and physical safety and any specific concerns you have.

--Arrive at work. Ask God to bless your work, direct your ways and help your attitude.

You get the idea. Modify these suggestions to fit your daily routine and remember, these are just quick shots of prayer raised to God. They don’t require a big block of time which you can’t find or maintain on a regular basis. The whole point is that you already do all the rest of this stuff on a regular basis so if you weave prayer into them you have a chance of praying more regularly. After awhile, you’ll find that prayer is becoming an automatic response. In other words, you'll find you are becoming a person of prayer.

A Layered Approach to Spiritual Growth

2006-09-22T11:16:00.000-04:00

What is my obsession with habits anyway? I’ll tell you how it came about. A few years ago I resolved for about the two hundredth time to make God and my spiritual growth a priority. I had failed miserably at this in the past, and I knew it was because my ideas were always too “big,” too unrealistic and didn’t fit well with the other things going on in my life. I would think ambitious things like, “I’m going to get up an hour early and study the Bible,” but at the time I was a working mom with toddlers and totally exhausted in the mornings. On top of that, because they were toddlers, my kids would hear me when I got up and immediately want to get up themselves…needless to say, no more quiet time at my house! I could go on and on about failed attempts at starting prayer journals, unread Christian books collecting dust on my night table, etc.

I decided that I needed to apply what I thought of as a “layering” approach: a couple Bible verses here, a quick prayer there, a sermon on tape during my commute, etc. I thought I’d add a bit more each month and that eventually these efforts might build on one another and amount to something—and, believe it or not, they did! Bible reading times got a little longer and I felt myself more eager to read as time went by. I found myself praying more frequently throughout the day, able to understand what Paul meant about praying without ceasing (not actually going that far myself, but at least understanding that such a feat might be possible and not thinking that Paul was totally insane and obviously didn't have kids or a normal job!) The point is, it all started with tiny steps that I could do here and there despite my busy schedule--little layers I could build into my existing day.

As I layered on more learning and more times with God, I realized that it helped when I turned certain layers into habits. I know the word “habits” sounds like the big, overly ambitious ideas that didn’t work for me in the first place, but I’m talking about really small habits, like “I pray for three minutes as I drive to pick up my son from sports practice. I do not turn on the radio,” or “I subscribe to an email devotional and make sure I read it before I start any other work on my computer.” When I did this I discovered that times with God or thinking about God were happening naturally and on “auto-pilot” throughout the day. They no longer took tremendous effort. They no longer had to be written on a “to-do” list in order for me to remember to do them. And of course, God was doing His work during this time period, meeting me more than halfway and growing my efforts. My baby steps and habits were really just acts of opening up more channels to Him, allowing Him more times to speak to me.

If you think this approach would work for you, think about a few little things you can do within your existing schedule—a few little habits you can establish—that will help you turn your thoughts more frequently toward God throughout the day. Over the next week or so, I’ll offer some more ideas that worked for me. And feel free to post comments on anything that has worked for you.

Time to Check Our Habits!

2006-09-21T08:46:00.000-04:00

Well, I guess I am finally forced to admit that summer is over. Things are settling down into a Fall routine. The back-to-school clothes and supplies have been bought, the kids’ bus schedule has begun to normalize, and we’ve gotten used to the alarm going off at the outrageously early hour now necessary since my daughter started high school. (Why is it that high schools start earlier than elementary schools?? The elementary-age kids have been up for hours trying to find something to do while the high schoolers straggle out to the bus half-dead.)

Even if you don’t have school age kids, Fall usually means a change in routine—whether you’re beginning to put on the push toward the end of the fiscal year, taking on that home improvement project that didn't get done last Spring, or dealing with the boss who has come back from vacation all charged up with new ideas for you to implement. Or maybe you're in school or taking a night course. Whatever the change in routine—even a subtle one--it is an important time to review our habits towards God. If we don’t take time to readjust our spiritual habits to the new schedules forced upon us, it’s amazingly easy to let spiritual priorities slide. We’re liable to wake up around New Year’s thinking, “I wonder why I never seem to follow through on my New Year’s resolutions to grow spiritually? Guess I’ll just resolve for the tenth year in a row to start having a Quiet Time.”

I think this constant review as circumstances change around us is in some sense what God means in the New Testament when He tells us to be alert or what He meant in the Old Testament when He frequently told His people to “Consider your ways.” He is saying, “Hey, stay awake to what’s going on in your life. Don’t let My things slide.”

Look at the September habits in the sidebar. For those of you who read by email, the habits are:
--Praying for three minutes three times a day
--Reading the New Testament for 7-8 minutes a day
--Reading the Old Testament for 2 minutes a day
--Turning off as much extraneous noise as possible throughout the day

How are you doing with these? Are your times with God getting squeezed out by the busy-ness of Fall? Did some of your habits (like mine) slip during the lazy days of summer and you need to reestablish them? Just take a couple minutes to think about your new schedule, commitments, and pressures and figure out how to keep your times with God a priority.

Our Habits as Sacrifices to God--Never a Waste!

2006-08-09T09:20:00.000-04:00

We have some new readers in the past couple weeks so I thought it might be helpful to say a word or two on what this blog is generally about. It's about developing some decent spiritual habits--praying, reading the Bible, giving God quiet moments during the day--so that we can make space in our lives to hear His voice and begin to know Him better. In daily lives that are already crowded, that's not always easy and doesn't always seem immediately successful. Here's a thought from Elisabeth Elliot that I find encouraging at times when it seems my efforts fall flat:

It is a good and necessary thing to set aside time for God in each day. The busier the day, the more indispensable is this quiet period for prayer, Bible reading, and silent listening. It often happens, however, that I find my mind so full of earthly matters that it seems I have gotten up early in vain and have wasted three-fourths of the time so dearly bought (I do love my sleep!). But I have come to believe that the act of will required to arrange time for God may be an offering to Him. As such He accepts it, and what would otherwise be "loss" to me I count as "gain" for Christ.

Let us not be "weary in well-doing," or discouraged in the pursuit of holiness. Let us, like Moses, go to the Rock of Horeb--and God says to us what He said to him, "You will find me waiting for you there" (Ex 17:6 NEB).

From Elisabeth Elliot's A Lamp For My Feet

Showing Up to Learn

2006-06-15T11:44:00.000-04:00

Several of my blogs lately have reflected something that I have been learning: that we grow not through our own self-effort but through the Holy Spirit’s effort in our lives. Yet as soon as I think I have grasped that truth, I am bombarded with teaching about how we need to work at our spiritual growth. Elisabeth Elliot’s devotional and Keswick’s Victory Call today both hammered home the work-at-it idea. Even the book I am reading, Mike Flynn’s How To Be Good Without Really Trying, despite its title, starts out with a longish discussion about how Christian faith is about doing and not just hearing!

So what am I to think? I come back to the idea that spiritual growth is about putting forth the effort necessary to put ourselves in the place that God can do the work in us (i.e., making sure we remain attached to the vine so the sap can flow and walking through the door into the room where God is working). I looked around for a way to explain this more fully to myself and God brought the following example to mind.

This time last year the school district told us that our daughter could start Algebra I in the fall if we were willing. Saying yes took a scary leap of faith since it would mean Callie would skip a year of math instruction—the Pre-Algebra year—that her soon-to-be classmates had already had. Although she had been a decent math student, she is clearly not a natural whiz at the subject. She could fail miserably. But we went ahead and in the fall I spoke to the Algebra teacher about our concerns that Callie did not have the necessary background to keep up with the class. The teacher told me to relax. “If she comes to class and does the homework, I will fill in any gaps. I am aware of her current level of understanding and I will keep an eye on her. If she has any problems, she can come to me during recess or after school. I am always available to her. I will make sure she gets through this class if she wants to.” At the time I remember feeling surprised that the teacher took on so much of the responsibility for Callie's learning the subject--and that she was so confident Callie would succeed--so long as Callie demonstrated a willing attitude.

And so began a year in which Callie demonstrated her willingness. She did the homework everyday. If she didn’t understand something, she went in during recess. I would estimate that she monopolized the teacher’s lunch hour at least twice a week all year long. She spent many hours over the course of the year alone with the teacher.

Callie not only passed the class, she got an A. Did she teach herself Algebra this year through the strength of her own efforts? No, there is no way she could have learned this material on her own or by natural instinct—she just doesn’t have that level of ability. But she deliberately put herself in the position that the teacher could teach her Algebra. Slowly, she was transformed from a person who didn’t even know Pre-Algebra to a competent Algebra problem solver--all she had to do was put herself into the hands of that teacher.

You get the point right? What God wants for us is to become Christ-like, but we don’t have the ability to achieve this transformation on our own. Our inability is not a problem because He is the one who is going to transform us--but He can only do so if we put ourselves in a position where He can do it. We have to make ourselves available to be taught.

This month, evaluate how fully you are putting yourself in a position to be transformed. Are you showing up to class everyday? Are you doing the assignments? Are you referring to the textbook frequently? Are you asking the teacher for individual help? How often? Use the Algebra example as a guide to asses whether the level of your efforts truly demonstrates a willingness to learn. I can't tell you how much effort is "enough" for you--it really is more a matter of how willing you are and how you translate that willingness into determined action that overcomes natural laziness and your desire to do other stuff like watch TV, etc. If Callie had shown up to class only half the time and opened her book only once or twice a week, what would the teacher have thought of her efforts? Would the teacher have made herself so available to help a student who skipped homework assignments because she was too busy IMing or watching American Idol? Callie probably would have ended the year knowing more about Algebra than when she started but I doubt she would have developed the cooperative and dynamic relationship with the teacher that enabled her to really triumph in the class.

We’ve got an incredibly competent and available teacher, but we have to show up in order to learn.

Walking through the Door

2006-06-07T12:11:00.000-04:00

I’ve been chatting via email with my aunt for several days on the difficulty of writing about spiritual habits. It can sound like I'm saying we have a check list of things we must do each day in order to be “good” Christians. Encouraging people to pray and read their Bibles daily can be misinterpreted as pretty legalistic. Worse, it can set up those of us with performance mentalities for discouragement when we fail or--conversely--for feelings of pride and self-righteousness when we “succeed.”

My aunt described the spiritual disciplines in a way that was helpful to me and so I thought I would share it. She said that we need to think of spiritual disciplines (like prayer and Bible study) as a simple choice to walk through a door. “Through that simple choice we enter a 'room' where we shift our focus from daily stuff to God, from earth to eternal--our choice did not DO anything but open us up to what God is doing all the time.”

This month, try to approach your daily prayer and Bible reading as a choice through which you are going to open yourself up to all God is doing and all He wants to let you in on. When you feel like quitting, just tell yourself, “I can make this choice one more day.”

If you are the guilty type, try to drop nagging feelings about whether you are doing “enough” or whether you are doing it “right,” and just picture yourself making a simple choice to walk through a door to the place where God is. If, on the other hand, you have been patting yourself on the back for your progress in developing good spiritual habits, back up and put them in perspective. You are not earning your way into heaven or making yourself into a good Christian or really doing anything at all except putting yourself in the place that God can get to work.

"I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture....I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." John 10:9-10.

Letting the Sap Flow from the Vine

2006-06-02T12:36:00.001-04:00

I’ve been reading a book by V. Raymond Edman (President of Wheaton College from 1940-1965) about Christians who “found the secret” of abundant life in Christ. In the very varied experiences of each person profiled there seems to be one common theme. Early on they tried hard to follow Christ and become more Christ-like only to become dissatisfied and discouraged, sometimes bitterly so, by their lack of progress and a feeling of fruitlessness. Ultimately, however, each came to a deep understanding that Christ was literally living inside them and they began to rely on Him to live out His life through them. Then they found peace, joy, fruitfulness and all the promises we read about in the New Testament. J. Hudson Taylor wrote of this experience, “But how to get faith strengthened? Not by striving after faith, but by resting on the Faithful One.”

Expressing a similar thought, Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote:

“How does the branch bear fruit? Not by incessant effort for sunshine and air; not by vain struggles for those vivifying influences which give beauty to the blossom, and verdure to the leaf: it simply abides in the vine, in silent undisturbed union, and blossoms and fruit appear as of spontaneous growth.

How, then, shall a Christian bear fruit? By efforts and struggles to obtain that which is freely given; by meditations on watchfulness, on prayer, on action, on temptation, and on dangers? No.”

But how does all this thought of letting Jesus do the work fit in with developing good spiritual habits, making sure we set aside time for prayer and Bible reading? Aren’t these examples of the kind of self-effort that ultimately discouraged people like Hudson Taylor as they fell short of their own ideals? How does this idea fit in with Paul’s teaching that we should be alert, train ourselves spiritually, pray diligently and study to show ourselves approved unto God?

I think there is a clue in a comment of Hudson Taylor’s, “How great seemed my mistake in having wished to get the sap, the fullness out of Him.” If we go about prayer, reading our Bibles, and filling ourselves with good teaching with an attitude that we are collecting resources with which we will construct a Christ-like character in ourselves, we will fail. Our spiritual disciplines will seem like drudgery and begin to feel completely pointless as we see only a little change in ourselves. However, if our attitude is that prayer, Bible reading and time with God are not sap sucking but rather the ways we can make sure that the branch is still attached to the vine so that the sap can flow freely, we will be relying on Him to do His work in us. Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote about Christians who have learned this truth: “Their hope and trust rest solely on what He is willing and able to do for them; on nothing that they suppose themselves able and willing to do for Him.”

This month, as you pursue your daily habits of prayer, Bible reading and stretches of quiet time in which you can think and hear God speak, try to do it with a sense of openness, a sense that you are opening up an airwave through which God will communicate with you and change you--rather than a sense that you are checking off items on a builder's punch list that will result in a new and better you. Take the pressure off yourself to do all these things "the right way." Just show up and start to do them, asking God to take control of the results.

Developing Habits Leads to Success

2006-05-26T11:37:00.000-04:00

If you are at all interested in blogging, you’re probably aware of Problogger.net and the advice of professional blogger Darren Rowse. Even if you’re not interested in blogging, you'll want to read his post on Wednesday about habits:

I was speaking via email this week with a professional tennis player about blogging and they asked me the question: ‘how do I become a more successful blogger?’ I like to answer questions with question and shot back one of my own: ‘how do I become a more successful tennis player?’

The conversation that ensued was quite insightful. Not only did I learn how to improve my tennis but I learned a thing or two about blogging.

One of the things that I noticed about how this tennis player spoke was that he used the word ‘habits’ quite a bit. His philosophy was that one of the keys to his success was that he’d taught himself a series of habits that had become a part of his ‘tennis life’. He practised these habits consistently over time (most of them did not come naturally to him at first) until they became automatic reflexes. Over time as the habits became second nature he found they combined together in ways that began to lead to increased success.

We unpacked some of the habits he’d learnt over the next half an hour and I was interested to find that some of them were ‘skills‘ based habits (ie hitting a top spin serve) and some were ‘attitude’ based habits (ie always looking for opportunities no matter how desperate or hopeless the situation).

As I listened to my tennis playing friend I found myself reflecting upon the similarities of my experience of blogging. Good bloggers don’t just happen. Most emerge over time as they develop skills and attitudes that combine in ways that improve their blogging. Some of these habits seem to come pretty naturally but many need to be practised and intentionally worked upon.

So how do you become “successful” in your relationship with God? You develop, through practice, a series of habits that combine to improve your ability to speak to God, to hear Him and to understand Him. In one sense the effort you put in is not that different than the effort an athlete or a blogger puts in. (Remember the Apostle Paul compared his efforts with those of an athlete.) It takes some self-discipline, persistence and continuity. However, I think as you practice you will realize that your rewards are much greater than those of a tennis player or a blogger. You will begin to sense the Holy Spirit assisting you in your efforts and to realize you are in a dynamic and growing relationship with God.

"Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to gat a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly...." 1 Corinthians 9:24-26.

Nurturing the Life Within #4

2006-05-23T12:03:00.000-04:00

I know a woman who went to great lengths to ensure the healthy birth of her baby. She ate tons of vegetables, insisted on natural childbirth, even stopped cooking with aluminum pots because she read that aluminum coming off the pots could be dangerous to her fetus. Oddly, however, she continued to drink White Russians—a combination of milk, Kahlua and vodka--throughout her pregnancy. She explained to me that she had drunk so many during her lifetime that they were just like milk to her.

She had a blind spot when it came to White Russians. She didn’t seem to realize that a big glass of milk with two shots of alcohol in it is not the same thing as a big glass of milk—especially not when it comes to the healthy development of a baby.

The truth is, we all have blind spots. There are lots of things in our lives that we think are just like milk—and, in fact, they may be mostly milk—but they are dangerous to our spiritual lives nonetheless. That’s why daily habits of Bible reading, prayer and quiet time to think about God are so important. These are the ways that God reveals to us our blind spots so that the new life within us came begin to thrive and to grow to maturity.

Nurturing the Life Within #3

2006-05-22T09:44:00.000-04:00

When you compare nurturing an unborn child through pregnancy and nurturing your spiritual life, you immediately think of the changes you make to diet during pregnancy. You start eating and drinking the right things—things that will make the baby grow—and you stop eating and drinking things that will harm the baby. Similarly, when you want to nurture your new spiritual life, you begin to consume the things that will make your faith grow and stop consuming those things that drag your mind away from God.

Unfortunately, the change in diet during pregnancy doesn’t always happen, does it? We all know stories of children born with developmental disorders because they were malnourished during pregnancy, or worse, affected by cigarettes, drugs or alcohol consumed by the mother. Sometimes this happens because the mother is uneducated. More often it happens because the mother is lazy or unable to set aside her own desires for immediate gratification during pregnancy. She just keeps eating, drinking or taking whatever she wants to. Even mothers who start out with good intentions slip back into old habits occasionally as the pregnancy wears on.

Are there any parallels to nurturing the spiritual life here? You bet. When we don’t grow as Christians—when we fail to nourish the new life within adequately—it is almost always because we are lazy, bored or unable to deny ourselves some short term gratification. We skip reading the Bible because we watched too much TV in the evening and now we are falling asleep. We forget to pray because we are running around planning some festivity or family event, finishing a great book, exercising, browsing the Internet, flipping through catalogs, or whatever it is that we like to do. And because of that, we wreak havoc on the life that should be growing inside us.

When I have trouble turning off the TV and spending a couple minutes with God tonight, I’m going to think of those pathetic two-pound crack-addicted babies born gasping for breath. Surely I can find the will and determination to nurture the life of Christ within me a little better than that.

Nurturing the Life Within #2

2006-05-16T13:19:00.001-04:00

I was reading The Treasure Principle by Randy Alcorn today and I realized Jesus made the same point I was struggling to make yesterday about perspective and priority. He made it in a single verse. "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy, went and sold all he had and bought that field." (Matthew 13:44)

Here's what Alcorn writes about the parable:

From the moment of his discovery, the traveler’s life changes. The treasure captures his imagination, becomes the stuff of his dreams. It’s his reference point. His new center of gravity. The traveler takes every new step with this treasure in mind. He experiences a radical paradigm shift....

The traveler made short-term sacrifices to obtain a long-term reward. “It cost him everything he owned,” you might lament. Yes, but it gained him everything that mattered.

If we miss the phrase “in his joy” we miss everything. The man wasn’t exchanging lesser treasures for greater treasures out of dutiful drudgery but out of joyful exhilaration. He would have been a fool not to do exactly what he did.

The man in the parable and the pregnant woman go "all in" so to speak. They begin to organize their lives around achieving a new goal. This is the attitude that you and I can have when we realize that Christ's life within us is as important to secure as treasure in field of otherwise worthless dirt and as important to nurture as an unborn baby. With joy we can begin to take steps that will make that treasure our own and which will cause that new life to thrive.

Nurturing the Life Within #1

2006-05-15T13:19:00.000-04:00

Mother’s Day has made me think of lessons I learned during pregnancy about nurturing the life within. (I need to thank my aunt who sent me a tape during my pregnancy days of a Mother's Day talk she gave at her church. Some of these insights are definitely hers. Thanks Marnie!)

The thing about pregnancy is this: as soon as you find out you are pregnant, your perspective about everything changes. And I mean everything. Food. Drink. Books. Money. Free time. Home décor. Certain types of recreation. Rest. Suddenly your entire focus is on protecting and nurturing the new life inside yourself. I know this is true for prospective dads as well. You immediately become super motivated to do whatever it takes to prepare a home and a future for your child.

There are great lessons here to be applied to nurturing our spiritual lives which I thought I would blog about for a few days:

The first, of course, is priority and persistence. Most pregnant women and soon-to-be dads make preparing for the new life an immediate priority. They get as much information as possible as soon as possible and they begin to act on that information right away. Even when they don’t yet know everything about what to expect, they begin to act on what they do know. For example, during the first few weeks of that first pregnancy you didn’t know much about delivery and you didn’t yet know how to breastfeed. But you probably knew you needed to drink milk and you did it, right? When sometimes the thought of eventually giving birth or raising a child overwhelmed you, you turned your focus back to what little things you could do today to prepare for the baby and you did them.

Try that approach with your spiritual life. We all tend to overwhelm ourselves sometimes with thoughts of “What if God wants me to face this or give up that…” Or, “I am such bad Christian. God can never use me.” This is pretty similar to thinking during the early days of pregnancy, “I can’t possibly endure labor and delivery” or “I am too irresponsible to be a good parent.” Don’t focus on scary future unknowns. Focus on what you know you need to do now. Read your Bible a little everyday. Talk to God everyday. Making these small, easy things a priority and persistently sticking to them—rather than wringing your hands and procrastinating—will result a healthy new life.

Where Should I Focus My Time?

2006-05-10T09:14:00.000-04:00

I don’t know about you, but I often wonder where I should focus my time. There are so many things vying for my attention and they all seem like they should be given a high priority. I feel like if I could focus on just one thing, I could make some headway—but what should that one thing be? I ask God for direction and I wonder what His answer will be.

Yesterday I happened to catch a couple minutes of Christian radio as I drove between the grocery store (priority of feeding the kids) and the post office (priority mail to my mom for Mother’s Day). The sermon was on Colossians 4:2: “Devote yourselves to prayer.” I was struck by the simplicity of the verse. God said devote yourselves to prayer. Focus on prayer. That's pretty straightforward language. It was as if God were saying to me, “You keep wondering what to devote your time and attention to. I’ve already told you. Devote yourself to prayer.”

I don't want to spoil the simplicity of what God is saying by blog, blog, blogging on about it. Just take some time today to think about what it means in your life. I'll be thinking about what it means in mine.

“Devote yourselves to prayer, being alert and thankful.” Colossians 4:2

Getting What You Need to Grow from the Bible

2006-05-08T08:44:00.000-04:00

Here’s something to try this month as you read the Old and New Testaments. Take a minute to jot down the theme of each chapter you have just read. I do this right in my Bible at the beginning of the chapter. (I have The Inductive Study Bible that has blanks at the beginning of each chapter, as well as wide margins, for writing notes.) If you don’t like to write in your Bible you could use a 3x5 card or folded piece of notebook paper as a bookmark and write down chapter themes on it.

I have been jotting down the theme of each Psalm I read this month. It is amazing to me how the simple act of having to write down a few words—not even a full sentence in most cases—forces me to really think through what I have been reading. It makes me think about what the words meant to the original writer and what they mean for my own Christian life today.

If you are having trouble figuring out the theme of the chapter you are reading, ask yourself some of the following: Does this chapter tell me something about what God is like? Does this chapter tell me something about God’s promises or His Word? Does this chapter tell me something I should do if I want to live a life that pleases God? Does this chapter tell me something I should not do? If I were placed in the situation described by this chapter, how would God want me to act?

To go back to the azalea analogy I used a couple days ago, taking time to distill what you are reading down to a theme is a way of making sure you are digging your roots deep into the soil and drawing up the nutrients you need rather than slowly starving while everything you need to grow is right there within reach.

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Spiritual Habits and High Cholesterol

2006-05-05T09:22:00.000-04:00

I have high cholesterol. You wouldn’t know it to look at me. I look relatively healthy. And I haven’t done anything all that “bad” in terms of lifestyle to warrant such disastrous cholesterol numbers. The thing is, I inherited a tendency to high cholesterol. Bummer. So to combat the natural tendency inherent in my body, I exercise every day. I eat things like oat bran and psyllium fiber and plant sterols. I try to avoid saturated fat. It’s not really very fun but the hard work has paid off. My cholesterol numbers are getting lower.

It occurred to me while I was on the elliptical machine today that the discipline I apply to my life in order to avoid clogged arteries is a lot like the spiritual habits you and I need to develop. We all inherited a human nature that, left alone, will clog our hearts and minds and block the flow of Christ’s life through us. In order to counteract our natural tendencies, we need to do things that will rid our hearts and minds of the “bad stuff” and open our mental and emotional pathways to Him. We need to get active spiritually: to pray, to read the Bible, and to make space to hear Him in our lives so we can begin to act on what He says. It may not be all that much fun at first to turn off the TV and open the Bible or get out of bed a few minutes early to pray, but it will pay off.

“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Romans 12:2

Spiritual Habits--Taking Advantage of the Nutrients God Offers

2006-05-02T08:47:00.000-04:00

Last fall my husband and I rescued six azalea bushes that were "trapped" underneath an overgrown evergreen tree in our front yard. The azaleas were being choked by the tree's roots and received virtually no sun. They were slowly headed toward certain death. We transplanted them to the backyard, enriched the soil around them, added fertilizer and plenty of water. This spring five of them are thriving, bursting with hundreds of blossoms. One, however, is looking pretty scrawny--just two blooms and several completely dry, dead branches.

What is the difference between the bushes? They are all offered good soil, appropriate light, fertilizer and water. The difference is that five are taking advantage of what is offered in their new surroundings and one is not. For whatever reason, the sixth azalea's roots are not reaching down into the soil and drawing up the nutrients available.

Developing strong spiritual habits is like thrusting your roots down deep into the soil and drawing up the available resources. God has offered us a rich and rewarding relationship with Him. It's there for the taking--but we have to reach out and grab the raw materials which the relationship needs in order to thrive. We do that by talking to God, listening to Him talk to us through the words He has written and allowing Him space in our lives to get us growing.

Don't get discouraged if you are having trouble keeping up with the habits we have been developing over the past several months. Just jump in and start again today. Pray for 3 focused minutes 3 times a day. Spend 7 or 8 minutes reading the New Testament. Spend another 2 or 3 minutes reading a Psalm or other portion of the Old Testament. Turn off any noise that dulls your mind and keeps it from turning toward God (like repetitive cycles of the news while you commute or background TV while you work around the house).

May (at least where I live) is a perfect time to look around at everything blooming and remember that you can experience the same new, vibrant growth in your spiritual life. You just have to grab the nutrients God offers you.

Spiritual Habits: Obligations or Opportunities?

2006-04-30T21:03:00.000-04:00

Sometimes talking about developing steady spiritual habits of daily prayer and Bible reading can sound pretty legalistic. I worry that I sound like a broken record-- repeating a list of arduous and boring tasks that everyone has already heard hundreds of times—when I am actually trying to help others walk through an open door to a deeper, more exciting relationship with God. I particularly worry that when I explain basic spiritual disciplines to my kids I am only adding in their minds to a list of difficult things they “should” do, like chores, homework and musical instrument practice. How can they understand that I’m just trying to hand them the keys to a fabulous life of peace and joy?

This morning I heard some helpful words from Dr. Andrew Purves of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. He spoke on Philippians 3:12: “…I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.” Christ has already grabbed hold of us and offered us eternal life as well as an abundant, peace-filled life on earth. When we strive to live the way He lived and do the things He did what we are doing is trying to take hold more fully of that life He has given us. Prayer and Bible reading/study then are not obligations that must be fulfilled daily in order to avoid ending up in God’s dog house. Instead, they are opportunities that allow us to live more fully and enjoyably in His presence everyday.

That’s why developing daily spiritual habits is so important. They are your way to grab hold of that for which Christ took hold of you. Without them, you miss out on what He’s hoping to give you. So take a few minutes to look back at April. How are you doing with prayer, reading and creating some quiet oases for Him in the day? What practical things can you do during May to cement these habits into your day?

"Unanswered" Prayer

2006-04-27T09:21:00.000-04:00

My daily email from Back to the Bible today contained an excerpt from Elisabeth Elliot which is exactly what I had been planning to blog about. Since Elisabeth Elliot undoubtedly writes better and with more experience and authority than I do, I'll let her say it:

News came one day which indicated that a matter I had been praying about had deteriorated rather than improved. "What good are my prayers, anyway?" I was tempted to ask. "Why bother? It's becoming a mere charade." But the words of Jesus occurred in my Bible reading that very morning (and wasn't it a good thing I'd taken time to hear Him?): "If you, bad as you are, know how to give your children what is good for them, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him?" (Matthew 7:11, NEB).

Are you as often tempted as I am to doubt the effectiveness of prayer? But Jesus prayed. He told us to pray. We can be sure that the answer will come, and it will be good. If it is not exactly what we expected, chances are we were not asking for quite the right thing. Our heavenly Father hears the prayer, but wants to give us bread rather than stones.

I know from other of Elisabeth Elliot's writings that what she is referring to in that last sentence are those verses in the gospels that say "If your son asks for bread will you give him a stone?" and "If your son asks for an egg will you give him a serpent?" No, we know that God would not do that. But what if what we ask for is a stone or a serpent and we are just too ignorant or short-sighted to realize it?

In that case, God will give us the bread or the egg and we will be disappointed. But we will not be unanswered. Faith is accepting what is put in our hands and accepting that it is good, and in fact, better than anything we could have asked for.

(The excerpt is from Elisabeth Elliot's Keep a Quiet Heart. To sign up for daily email excerpts from Elisabeth Elliot or other devotional writers, go to Back to the Bible. They'll also email daily Bible reading guides.)

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Praying with Faith in God's Answer

2006-04-25T14:17:00.000-04:00

Elisabeth Elliot writes in A Lamp For My Feet:

Sometimes when I was a child my mother or father would say, "Shut your eyes and hold out your hand." That was the promise of some lovely surprise. I trusted them, so I shut my eyes instantly and held out my hand. Whatever they were going to give me I was ready to take. So it should be in our trust of our heavenly Father. Faith is the willingness to receive whatever He wants to give…

I don't know about you, but sometimes I find it hard to know what to ask for when I pray. Should I ask God to help me pursue this goal or that new direction? I torture myself with questions like “What if this thing I’m praying about is not in ‘His will?’” What if my requests are merely reflections of my own selfish desires? I feel very much like the double-minded man James talks about, who asks God for wisdom but doubts God even while he is asking, and is therefore unstable in all he does (James 1:5-8).

When I want to cut through these thoughts and get to the heart of what prayer really is, it helps me to take a deep breath, shut my eyes and picture myself as a very young child holding out her hand to her father. I think, “Whatever You have in store, I know it is good.” I open my mind to gratefully accepting whatever it is God puts in my hand that day. Praying this way takes the burden off me and puts it on God, where it is supposed to be anyway. It is a simple way to pray, “Thy will be done.”

I prayed this way just yesterday with surprising and reassuring results. I was busy preparing for a meeting about a new business opportunity. I really did not know how to pray. Should I ask God to bless the meeting and help me maximize this new opportunity? What if God really did not want me to pursue it? What if pursuing it would take time and attention away from other things He wanted me to do? On the other hand, what if my praying that God would eliminate the opportunity if it was not His will was just some spiritualized form of laziness or reluctance to work hard? What if the hours involved would impact my kids? What if? What if? (See, I told you I can torture myself.)

I stopped, closed my eyes and pictured myself as a child holding out her hand for a gift. I said, “God, I am happy to take whatever it is You have planned for this meeting and this opportunity.” I relaxed. Within 15 minutes, one of the parties involved called and removed what had threatened to be a fairly significant obstacle to me. This morning, the other party involved took the meeting in the direction I would have most wanted it to go if I was calling the shots. I could just lean back and thank God for His good gifts.

“Which of you fathers, if your son asks for an egg, will give him a snake instead?” Luke 11:11

Praying Without Ceasing

2006-04-20T08:15:00.000-04:00

A year or so ago I caught the flu. Now I have often thought that being confined to bed for a couple days with nothing to do would be like heaven on earth--but of course it wasn’t. It was awful. And it happened at a time in my life that I was longing to have more time to pray. Yet when I was handed that time on a silver platter, I couldn’t pray--I was just too sick. My mind was mush. All I could say was, “God please help me feel better.”

Now I have no doubt God heard my simple get well prayer (see the previous two posts on Praying Simple Prayers) but I was somewhat sobered by this inability to get my mind in gear when there were lots of things I wanted to pray about and time on my hands to do it. When I was back on my feet I decided to create a simple outline of things I knew I always wanted to pray about whenever I had the opportunity. I took one of those packs of 3x5 cards that are spiral bound together and began to write short sentences or phrases—one per card—that would help guide my prayers. The first card says, “God, thank you for loving me, a sinner.” The second says, “Please make the periphery and all the day’s distractions drop away. Let me see only you.” Some cards are deliberately open-ended—“Lord, thank you for the situation I find myself in today”—so they will launch me into praying specifically about what’s going on right now. Some cards just have one word—just enough to remind me of the issue so that I can remember to pray about it.

These cards have helped me to pray many times. I am not sure they are the best way to pray when you have a few minutes to be alone with God in undistracted peace and quiet, but they have been a great way to expand my prayer life into times that I would never have been able to pray before. Now I can actually pray while killing time in the orthodontist’s waiting room or sitting in traffic. I just grab my little deck of cards and it reminds me of the things I most want to talk to God about. They focus me on the task (or, rather, privilege) of praying when I used to be worrying about what to cook for dinner, fretting about the time I was wasting, getting irritated about the doctor overbooking appointments, etc. For me, they have been another step toward “praying without ceasing.”

The 3x5 cards only cost a couple bucks. It’s probably worth the investment to see if this is a trick that will work for you.

"...be clear minded and self-controlled so that you can pray." 1 Peter 4:7

Praying Simple Prayers #2

2006-04-17T08:53:00.000-04:00

Henri Nouwen expands on the idea of simple prayers in his book, The Way of the Heart:

When we simply try to sit silently and wait for God to speak to us, we find ourselves bombarded with endless conflicting thoughts and ideas. But when we use a very simple sentence such as “O God, come to my assistance,”…it is easier to let the many distractions pass by without being misled by them. Such a simple easily repeated prayer can slowly empty out our crowded interior life and create the quiet space where we can dwell with God….Our choice of words depends on our needs and circumstances of the moment, but it is best to use words from Scripture.

Some days when I reach the time I have set aside to pray, I find myself distracted and unable to focus on prayer. No matter how hard I try, I just feel I can’t “get through.” It helps me to let out a deep breath and say simply, “Lord, thank you for loving me, a sinner.” Somehow, saying that simple phrase, thinking over all that it means in terms of God’s greatness, my insufficiency, and His love for me, has the power to settle me. It focuses my mind on God, gives me a greater desire to talk to Him, and prepares my heart to continue praying.

How about picking phrase from the Psalms you have been reading this month and praying it as a prayer? Pick something that resonates with you, your needs and what you want to say to God right now. Here are some ideas:

“God, help me to follow you the way a sheep follows a shepherd." Psalm 23
"God, please lead me beside still waters. Please restore my soul.” Psalm 23
“O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the earth.” Psalm 8
“O Lord, by Your hand, please save me.” Psalm 17
“God, please make me like a strong tree planted by streams of water.” Psalm 1
“Father, don’t let me trust in my own power. Help me trust in You.” Psalm 20

Praying Simple Prayers

2006-04-07T08:49:00.000-04:00

Do you wonder how to pray? Do you think to yourself, “What good is it to set aside time to pray each day if I don’t even know what I should say?”

Here is helpful advice from John Climacus, a 7th century Christian monk:

When you pray, do not try to express yourself in fancy words, for often it is the simple, repetitious phrases of a little child that our Father in heaven finds most irresistible. Do not strive for verbosity lest your mind be distracted from devotion by a search for words. One phrase on the lips of the tax collector was enough to win God’s mercy; one humble request made with faith was enough to save the good thief. Wordiness in prayer often subjects the mind to fantasy and dissipation; single words by their very nature tend to concentrate the mind.

When you stop to remember that God is our Father and specifically took time to reassure us in the Bible numerous times that we are adopted as His children and heirs, it becomes wonderfully obvious that He will appreciate even our simplest, stupidest prayers. Parents want sincerity from their children--not long, rehearsed, word perfect speeches. In fact, if my kids start speaking in a way that sounds overly rehearsed, I start wondering what they are hiding!

So if you are having difficulty articulating prayers, try the simple phrases a little child would use, "Help!" "I'm afraid." "I'm tired." "I'm worried about this meeting today." "Thanks for dinner." "Can you sit beside me for awhile?" "Can you sleep in my room tonight?"

Resurrection Power for Your Habits

2006-04-05T09:45:00.000-04:00

When we try to establish good habits that increase our time with God and our capacity to hear His voice, we begin to realize how very often we fail. We get busy; we get tired; we forget. We become conscious of “the body of death” that we are lugging around. (In Romans 7, Paul wrote about how, on the inside, he loved God and longed to do what was right yet constantly discovered that his outward actions failed in many ways. He said he was trapped inside a “body of death.”) It can be overwhelmingly discouraging.

Yet the good news of Easter is, of course, the resurrection—victory over death. You and I know that Christ’s resurrection on Easter meant victory over the ultimate death that is the penalty for sin. But do you realize what the resurrection means for the body of death and the sinful, half-hearted tendencies we deal with everyday? It means the same thing--victory. Because the resurrected Christ lives, that power is available to you every day.

This is what Paul was talking about when he said, “just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives. Since we have been united with Him in His death, we will also be raised as He was. Our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin.” (Romans 6:4-6). Later in the discussion Paul says, “The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, He will give life to your mortal body by this same Spirit living within you. So, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation whatsoever to do what your sinful nature urges you to do.” (Romans 8:11-12). He goes on to say there is no need to live like powerless, defeated, fearful slaves (v.15). As an example of the power at work in us, Paul says the Holy Spirit helps us, “for we don’t even know what we should pray for, nor how we should pray. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying….”(v.26-27).

I know this is hard to get your head around. It’s especially hard for those of us who have been believers a long time and have gotten a little too familiar with the factual story of the resurrection to think much about its practical ramifications today. The truth is, Christ seeks to live His life through you and that life is not just a regular life—it is a resurrected life. And the truth is that the Holy Spirit, who possesses the kind of power that can bring a dead man back from the grave, lives in you and is actually there helping you do things like pray. No need to get discouraged or act like a powerless slave to sin or sleep or the TV. You do have the power to do what pleases God.

Think about these truths as we head into Easter. Think about them during your daily prayer minutes. Let’s ask God to help us understand them more fully and to live in their reality.

Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord, equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. Hebrews 13:20-21.

April Habits

2006-04-03T13:58:00.000-04:00

It’s the beginning of April and time to stretch ourselves a bit and add another new habit.

This month, while you keep up with the habits we've already established, try to add two minutes of Old Testament reading to each day. The easiest way to do this, I think, is to read one psalm a day. You can do this at the same time as you do your New Testament reading if that time is working well for you—or you can pick another time, say immediately after you get up or before you turn out the light at night. It might work to keep a Bible open to the Psalms beside your bed so you can avoid the distraction of hunting for your Bible first thing in the morning! Just two more minutes. Simple, right? You can do it! (As always, if you already have far better habits than the ones we’re talking about in these posts, great. Use the principles we are using—picking small achievable goals and sticking to them to form solid habits—to work on something you think God wants you to do in your life.)

I’m going to use the rest of the posts this month to focus on our prayer times. Remember, we are trying for several minutes three times a day. Do you worry about how to pray during these times? Do you get distracted easily? Wonder if God is really listening to what feels like half-hearted rambling to you? Me too sometimes. Join me as try to get a better handle on prayer.

Growing Your Soul This Weekend

2006-03-31T16:31:00.000-05:00

Take a few minutes this weekend to check out the articles in this month's The Better Life E-Newsletter from the Purpose Driven Life folks. The theme is Growing Your Own Soul.

Rick Warren has written an article about intentionally planning for your spiritual growth, Katie Brazelton offers tips about what to do once you set aside time to meet with God and Lance Witt uses Psalm 143 as a practical guide to enjoying God's presence in solitude.

Giving God Time

2006-03-30T09:52:00.000-05:00

Andrew Murray wrote in The Secret of Adoration:

Take time. Give God time to reveal Himself to you. Give yourself time to be silent and quiet before Him, waiting to receive, through the Spirit, the assurance of His presence with you, His power working in you. Take time to read His Word as in His presence, that from it you may know what He asks of you and what He promises you.

Giving God time to reveal Himself to us is really what we are doing as we establish our daily habits of prayer, Bible reading, and periods of quietness. Over the next couple days, think about how you did carving out space for these new habits this month. Is the time of day you have chosen to pray or read working or do you need to find something that will work better with your schedule? Is there another activity you are going to have to decide to eliminate to make some time? How are you doing with creating some peaceful silence? Are there any more sources of noise in your life you can just turn off?

Andrew Murray concludes that doing these things will “create around you, create within you, a holy atmosphere, a holy heavenly light, in which your soul will be refreshed and strengthened for the work of daily life.”

Praying about the Small Stuff

2006-03-28T11:09:00.000-05:00

A few days ago a reader asked me who G. Campbell Morgan was. George Campbell Morgan was a well-known British preacher in the early 1900s. His main focus was Bible exposition—in other words, explaining the Bible—and teaching people to study the Bible on their own. The best G. Campbell Morgan story I know is this:

A woman came to Morgan and asked if it was O.K. to pray for the small things in her life along with the big things. Morgan is said to have replied, "Madam, can you think of anything in your life that could be considered as BIG to the God of the universe?"

This is a great story to remember as I go through the day worrying about this or that but failing to pray because my little problem seems just too trivial. God has told us to pray about everything—and the arbitrary lines we draw about what is too small to pray about (or what ought to be within our own control or discretion) are just silly. If it is big enough to cause you any concern at all, it’s big enough to pray about.

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything…present your requests to God.” Philippians 4:6

How are you doing with our newly developed habits? Take time to pray three times a day: before you get out of bed, as you fall asleep and at one other scheduled time that works for you. Read the New Testament 7-8 minutes per day. And try to eliminate excess noise, like the radio during your commute, the iPod as you walk, the TV news as you cook dinner or clean up, etc.

Hearing God's Voice This Weekend

2006-03-24T14:03:00.000-05:00

Pascal wrote, "I have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber."

As we head into the weekend—which for many of us is even busier than our busy workweek—try to carve out a little time to be quiet and alone with God. Even if you can’t find time to take a walk in a quiet place or soak in the tub, drench whatever you are doing in quiet. For example, if you are traveling, use the time trapped in the car or plane to get quiet. Don’t turn on the radio or iPod or open your book. Don’t do anything. Or, as you do the yardwork or clean out the garage, don’t focus on how awful the chore is or on making mental lists of all the other things you need to accomplish. Instead, think about what God has done for you this week or what you have learned from your Bible reading his week. Try to keep your mind peacefully focused on the God who is bigger than all your little (and big) worries.

"Only silence will allow us life-transforming concentration upon God. It allows us to hear the gentle God whose only Son ‘shall not strive, nor cry; neither shall any man hear his voice above the street noise.’ (Matthew. 12:19) It is this God who tells us that ‘in quietness and trust is your strength.’" (Isaiah 30:15). (Quote from Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines).

Your Email Subscription

2006-03-23T11:06:00.000-05:00

Important note to those of you wh subscribe to Lengthen My Days via email: Since March 15 I have been having trouble with the Bloglet subscription service. I have now switched to FeedBlitz and those of you who subscribe by email will automatically begin receiving email updates from FeedBlitz. You do not need to do anything if you wish to continue receiving Lengthen My Days posts via email. And of course, you can unsubscribe at any time. I hope you are enjoying the posts and that you begin to receive them smoothly once again.

Praying About Everything

2006-03-22T09:12:00.000-05:00

We all have a tendency to forget to pray about everyday issues we feel are well within our control. We pray about the big scary things, but the routine stuff? We can handle it on our own. The truth is, however, that God doesn’t want us to believe that it is our own strength and skill, the latest technology or another person's expertise, that solves all our problems. He wants us to put our trust in His power over even the smallest circumstances and to pray about everything.

Glynnis Whitwer of Proverbs 31 Ministries writes about learning this lesson when she recently spent the day caring for a child home from school with the stomach flu:

It wasn't until evening that I realized I hadn't prayed once for my little boy. His fever was high and as I held his hot little body, I placed my hand on his head and asked in the name of Jesus for Robbie's fever to go down and for it to stay down during the night. I gave him another dose of medicine, soothed his feverish skin with a cool cloth and held him on my lap. Thirty minutes later his fever dropped from 103.6 to normal and Robbie slept peacefully and fever free through the night. He woke the next morning with a tender tummy, but feeling much better. As most moms know, a fever that high doesn't drop that fast on medicine alone. God definitely intervened.

As I reflect on that incident I wonder how many other times I have relied on something other than God's power to solve a problem....Relying on God is a habit, actually a discipline, which brings joy and peace as we develop it in greater measure in our lives. As I learn to depend on God in the small and big areas of my life, I find I have more stories to tell about how good, powerful and wonderful He is. Like the night He brought my son's fever down to normal in 30 minutes.

I really like the following suggestion from Glynnis: Identify one decision you have to make today that normally you would make on your own. In prayer, ask God for His help with it.

You can read more of Glynnis’ thoughts in today’s Encouragement for Today daily devotional.

"Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who rely on horses, who trust in the multitude of their chariots and in the great strength of their horsemen, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel, or seek help from the Lord." Isaiah 31:1

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." Philippians 4:6

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight." Proverbs 3:5-6

A Day of Mindfulness

2006-03-21T09:17:00.000-05:00

This past weekend some Buddhists held a “Day of Mindfulness” in my town. I read in the newspaper announcement that they would be training people on indoor sitting meditation (bring your own mat if possible) and, weather permitting, outdoor walking meditation. Interestingly, the conference was held at the local Friends Meeting House—another group that emphasizes silence and meditation.

There are a lot of Friends, or Quakers, in this area. My daughter said to me just yesterday, “You know my friend Annie has to go like once a week and sit for two hours with her eyes shut and no one says anything. I mean, like, nothing at all. I would totally freak out after 10 minutes.” Such is the mind of an eighth-grader. Of course, unfortunately, I might freak out too after awhile. My daughter and I agreed that perhaps we could handle it if we worked up to it slowly, starting with 5 minutes a day. We also agreed that we’d have more of an incentive than some other people since there actually is a real God out there who might communicate with us if we could just be quiet for long enough to hear Him.

I wish my church would run an all-day session on how to be quiet before God while walking or sitting. I also wish they had trained me since childhood to sit in silence for at least two hours a week. I could use the help.

How are you doing on shutting down some on the noise in your life this month? Take a minute to think about what difference this new habit is making in your day and to your frame of mind. And don’t forget our January and February habits: praying 3 times a day for a few minutes and reading the New Testament 7-8 minutes a day.

Whatever Prayers

2006-03-19T14:34:00.000-05:00

Recently author and speaker Cindi Wood was stranded for a day by a missed flight connection on the way home from a speaking engagement. Faced with an incredibly frustrating interruption to her plans she says, "I prayed one of the most spiritual prayers I know: 'Whatever!'"

How does Cindi's WHATEVER prayer go? “Lord I don’t understand why this is happening, but I know You do. So whatever you want to do with me right now, I’m willing for You to do. Help me to see Your Hand in this situation."

It's really a version of the prayer Jesus taught the disciples to pray: "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." So what are the situations that cause you anxiety? Traffic jams? Seeing the bills in the mailbox? Bad news at the office? Try breathing the whatever prayer a couple times before reacting. OK God. Whatever. I know you know the situation better than I do. I know you are in control.

You can read more of Cindi's insights at www.FrazzledFemale.com.

The Frazzled Female: Finding God's Peace in Your Daily Chaos
By Cindi Wood
Based on one of today's most popular Bible studies for women, this book reaches out to busy ladies everywhere, guiding them to sanity, peace, and a deeper, more vibrant relationship with the Lord. Cindi Wood's approach isn't "no-nonsense," because she's as hilarious as she is helpful. But in the end, her readers will clearly learn how to become "victoriously frazzled."

Casting Your Cares On Him

2006-03-16T10:16:00.000-05:00

A couple days ago my son brought home from school that ominous paper that comes home each spring. It says, and I am paraphrasing, “If you put teacher requests for next year in writing we might consider them but don’t count on it. We get to stick your child in whatever classroom we want.” Now begins a scramble across town as all the moms compare notes and begin to jockey for “the best” teacher. There is always one teacher everyone wants and at least one about whom you hear horrifying stories and think you may just die (or have to move out of town) if your child is assigned to that classroom.

Why am I telling you this? Am I trying to write one of those mommy blogs that are so incredibly popular right now? No. I’m telling you because this anxiety about next year’s classroom placement is, for me, a perfect example of a recurring worry I can turn over to God. Think about it. I actually have no idea which teacher is best for my kid. I have no idea what life circumstances Connor will face next year. I also have to admit that I know surprisingly little about how his mind works and how it will develop over the next 6 months. I don’t really know the teachers either—I only know what other mothers think they might know or heard from their neighbor’s neighbor awhile back. On top of that, I have very little power to affect the school’s placement decision anyway. On the other hand, God knows exactly who the right teacher is. He knows what Connor will need next year. He even knows what college he will eventually attend and what kind of career he will need to be prepared for. He knows how Connor’s mind works inside and out. And, best of all, He has power over the school administration. He can put Connor with the perfect teacher and the school administrators will think it was their own idea!

So, between now and August, I will pray many times about this issue. Sometimes it will be with confidence and peace of mind, thanking God that He is in control. Sometimes, after I have heard a particularly scary tidbit about a teacher, I will pray nervously, “God, what about Mr. So-and-so? What if Connor is in his class?” But the point is, I will repeatedly put the issue in the lap of the qualified decision maker and try to leave it there.

So what is the equivalent of teacher placement in your life? What are the things that make you anxious--but over which you have little control? Do you feel that way when you check stock prices or look at your 401(k) statement? How about each time you schedule a medical appointment? Think about next year's tuition? Drop someone you love at the airport? Or when the rumors of lay offs sweep through your workplace once again? Try practicing turning these issues over to God each time that little anxious or unsettled feeling begins to form in the pit of your stomach. It can be just a quick general prayer: God I know you know the future. Do what is best. Prepare me for whatever it is. Help me to relax knowing that You are in control. Or it can be more specific, laying out in detail what you are worried about and what you think would be the best result, while asking Him to guide the situation according to what He knows will be best for your future.

Setting God Always Before You

2006-03-14T10:42:00.000-05:00

I have set the LORD always before me.
Because he is at my right hand,
I will not be shaken.

Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
my body also will rest secure, because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay.

You have made known to me the path of life;
you will fill me with joy in your presence,
with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

Psalm 16:8-11
David wrote in Psalm 16, “I have set the Lord always before me.” What did he mean? He meant that he made God his top priority, he looked to God throughout the day, and he did it deliberately. “I have set the Lord always before me” does not sound like “I usually remember to pray before I eat” or “I think about the Bible when I happen to catch Charles Stanley on the radio a couple mornings a week” or “Sometimes I have free time at lunch and I open my Bible.” It sounds much more premeditated and purposeful doesn’t it? David took deliberate, planned steps to make sure God was always at the forefront of his mind.

This is what this blog is all about—purposefully developing habits that keep God as high as possible on the jumbled “to do” list running through our minds all day. Scheduling several times to pray, reading the Bible, and leaving some quiet spaces during the day are all ways to continually "set Him before us" and allow Him bit by bit to take over our thoughts, emotions and wills. If we stick with this, ultimately we can say along with David in Psalm 16: no circumstance shakes me up for long; my heart is no longer heavy; I don’t fear death or the aging of my body; I know the path to travel through life; I am full of joy.

What God Can Do With Quiet #2

2006-03-10T08:31:00.000-05:00

Are you worried that seeking silent, private times alone seems the opposite of “Christian?” Aren’t we supposed to love and serve other people? How can we do that when we are always trying to steal away by ourselves? Aren’t we being selfish? Henri Nouwen has something to say about this issue: these times actually enable us to be truly compassionate towards others.

In solitude we realize that nothing human is alien to us, that the roots of all conflict, war, injustice, cruelty, hatred, jealousy, and envy are deeply anchored in our heart. In solitude our heart of stone can be turned into a heart of flesh, a rebellious heart into a contrite heart, and a closed heart into a heart that can open itself to all suffering people in a gesture of solidarity…. Solitude molds self-righteous people into gentle, caring, forgiving persons who are so deeply convinced of their own great sinfulness and so fully aware of God’s even greater mercy that their life itself becomes ministry.

In other words, when you commute in total silence for 35 minutes your mind has time to mull over things that bother you and to understand them more fully. You begin to realize that your spouse’s faults are no greater than your own. You begin to understand that the things that drive you crazy about your kids are things they learned from you. You begin to catch a glimpse of how miserable your constantly complaining co-worker’s life must be. You are more prepared to respond with compassion to your co-worker and with a less self-righteous attitude toward your spouse and kids.

Now, admittedly, transformation is a long, slow process—-but we must make a start somewhere and a good place to start is carving out some silent times in our days which we turn over to God. Just turn off the radio (iPod, TV, whatever) and, as you begin to worry, feel angry, imagine yourself as king of the world, etc, turn your thoughts to God. Compare them to what you have been reading in the New Testament. Begin to laugh at yourself and talk your craziness over with God. If no one is within earshot you can do it out loud.

The quote is from Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Way of the Heart: Connecting with God through Prayer, Wisdom and Silence.

What God Can Do With Quiet

2006-03-09T14:33:00.000-05:00

Henri Nouwen, who wrote many books on spirituality, says that times of solitude and silence are the furnaces of transformation God uses in our lives. Without them, “we remain victims of our society and continue to be entangled in illusions” of ourselves. Here is how Nouwen says they work.

First, periods of quiet time alone remove our usual props—no friends to talk to on the phone, no music to entertain, no advertising to make us believe we are worth something—just us. Then, inevitably, our ugliness begins to make itself known, usually in the form of anger or greed. We find ourselves imagining scenes in which we deliver the perfect comeback to an unreasonable co-worker or annoying customer. Or we daydream about wealth, influence or looking incredibly hip in a new pair of jeans. We come face to face with our selfishness and realize that only Jesus can change us. We begin to pray and allow Him to work on us. Thus, Nouwen says times of solitude and silence are places “where Christ remodels us in His own image and frees us from the victimizing compulsions of the world.”

Having trouble finding ways to eliminate the noise in your life? Take a look at your day and identify all the times you are alone. For many of us, this may only be during our commutes, workouts or when doing some undesirable chore that makes the rest of the family run for cover. Turn off anything you usually do to distract yourself during these times. No radio, iPod, TV, cell phone, etc. Still having trouble finding a quiet time alone? Can your spouse watch the kids while you take a walk around the block after dinner? Can you take a walk during your lunch break at work? Can you plunk down the kids at the public library story hour and then go sit in a quiet part of the library by yourself? Get creative. You can actually pray that God will give you some periods of quiet during your day.

If you are interested in reading more of what Nouwen has to say, try The Way of the Heart: Connecting with God through Prayer, Wisdom and Silence. The quotes in this post are taken from the chapter entitled, "The Furnace of Transformation."

Why Get Quiet?

2006-03-07T14:04:00.000-05:00

Why get quiet? Is there something wrong with DJs, music and TV news? No. Not usually. It’s just that they conspire to keep us from things that are so much better. Like prolonged thought. Like remembering the person who you volunteered to pray for and then forgot all about. Like realizing that the situation that’s troubling you at work is exactly the same as something you heard in last Sunday’s sermon.

It’s no secret that Jesus sought times of solitude and silence and encouraged his disciples to draw away from the crowds for awhile too. And many of the Christians we think of as "great" down through the centuries (like Brother Lawrence and Mother Theresa) have advocated getting quiet and alone as a primary way to focus more intently on God. But how in the world are we to do that when we are so busy with our jobs, our kids, volunteer activities, the house, etc., etc.? One way to begin is to create little oases of quiet where possible in our days.

So how are you doing with getting rid of the gratuitous, extraneous noise in your life? Can you commute in silence? Can you give up listening to the news repetitively while getting ready for work or cooking dinner? Just try it. And don’t forget to keep up with the habits we developed in January and February—-praying for a few minutes three times a day and reading the New Testament for 7-8 minutes each day.

Got Quiet?

2006-03-02T15:42:00.000-05:00

This post is dedicated to the blog reader who--in response to my suggesting a book yesterday for those of you who thought we might be moving too slowly—-asked if there was a book for those who think we are moving too fast. The challenge for March will not take any extra time out of your schedule. You can definitely accomplish this one.

The challenge this month is to turn off the extra noise in your life. One of the reasons we have such a hard time hearing God’s “still, small voice” is that we are in the habit of drowning it out. It’s also one of the reasons we don’t find our thoughts turning more often to God during the day and we offer so few spontaneous prayers. We are distracted by the noise all around us.

I know you can’t turn off your kids, your boss or your spouse, but there is probably a lot of other noise you can eliminate. Do you listen to the radio while commuting? OK, just listen to the traffic report and then shut it off. Do you have news shows constantly humming in the background while you cook dinner and clean the kitchen? Feel naked if you leave the house without your iPod? And how much are you talking on the cell phone just to keep yourself entertained? Try to carve out some quiet during your day. God will use this time to renew your mind.

Now, there is one catch. Often we have turned on all this distracting noise for the very reason that we want to be distracted. We are uncomfortable with our own thoughts or we have a tendency to worry or feel afraid if not forced to think about something else. I noticed that when I stopped listening to the radio while commuting I began to worry about work more. This becomes the perfect opportunity to take God at His word and pray about the anxious thoughts that begin to crowd into your mind. That takes some self-discipline but the end result is more peace.

Try it for March. What’s the worst that could happen? You can always turn the noise back on in April. (And don’t forget to keep up with the habits you developed in January and February—-praying 3 times a day and reading the New Testament for 7-8 minutes a day.)

How Did You Do?

2006-03-01T09:45:00.000-05:00

Wow! It’s March already! How did you do with our February goals? If you were able to establish some new habits, take a minute to thank God for the strength and determination He gave you. Thank Him for the results you are already seeing in your life, like answered prayers, an increased ability to understand what you are reading in the New Testament or a greater sense of God’s presence with you throughout the day.

If you had difficulty sticking with our new habits, take a few minutes to analyze why and brainstorm ways to overcome your particular difficulties. Did you have a tendency to fall asleep when praying at the beginning or end of the day? Would it help to sit up? If you couldn’t think of anything to pray about maybe a short list on a Post-It note on the bedside table would help. How about reading the New Testament? If you couldn’t find time, maybe it would help to list virtually everything you do in a usual day, cross the least important thing out and replace it with reading. Maybe you can substitute some of your newspaper or web browsing time. If you got discouraged because you couldn’t understand what you were reading, switch to a more modern translation or a Bible with notes (like the Life Application Bible). Or perhaps you could plan to read the same chapter over and over again for several days in a row until the words become more familiar. Is it that you just hate reading? Maybe you need to listen to the Bible on CD while you drive or download an MP3 audio Bible for free at www.allaboutgod.com/mp3-bible.htm. You get the idea: Take a serious look at what held you back from establishing prayer and Bible reading habits, pinpoint your weaknesses and plan a work-around.

Tomorrow we’ll talk about an additional habit for March. Don’t worry, it’s not hard. Just another small step. (By the way, if you like the ideas we are talking about on this blog but think we are moving way too slowly, consider reading Ordering Your Private World, by Gordon MacDonald. MacDonald talks about issues like motivation, use of time, and developing spiritual strengths. While the book is serious, it is very readable and practical.)

Underhill on Planning the Spiritual Life

2006-02-24T08:31:00.000-05:00

A few more thoughts from Evelyn Underhill's The Spiritual Life:

Many people seem to think that the spiritual life necessarily requires a definite and exacting plan of study. It does not. But it does require a definite plan of life, and courage in sticking to the plan....New mental and emotional habits must be formed, all our interests re-arranged in new proportion round a new centre. This is something which cannot be hurried; but, unless, we take it seriously, can be infinitely delayed.

Notice what Underhill advocates as steps toward the spiritual life you long for: (1) a definite plan; (2) sticking to it; and (3) taking it seriously to avoid delay. Why? Because there are two natures at war within us. We are trying to cultivate one and kill of the other. We have to pay continued attention to the care and feeding of the one that we want to thrive.

Evelyn Underhill on Habits

2006-02-21T15:06:00.000-05:00

Evelyn Underhill wrote prolifically during the 1920s and 30s about the spiritual life and what it means to be holy. Many people would describe her as a mystic, so deep and contemplative was her spiritual walk. Yet the thrust of her life’s work was to make a deeper spiritual walk accessible to “normal” people living normal, busy lives. As she said, “...it is those who have a deep and real inner life who are best able to deal with the irritating details of outer life.”

In her classic book, The Spiritual Life, Underhill wrote that the path to a deeper spiritual life includes

…some time, even though this may be a very short time, given, and given definitely, to communion with Him; and perseverance in this practice, even though at first we seem to get nothing from it. There are few lives in which there is no pause through the day. We must use even the few minutes that we have in this way, and let the spirit of these few minutes spread though the busy hours.

Underhill was describing what we have been talking about for the past several weeks—starting small, but starting definitely, to set aside moments throughout the day in which we seek to communicate with God. This is the beginning of the deeper spiritual life we long for.

How are you doing with our habits for February? We are praying for a few minutes three times a day: immediately upon waking up, before falling asleep at night and at one other set time during the day. We are also reading the New Testament for 7-8 minutes each day. See the January 31 post for more details.

Trying vs. Training

2006-02-16T09:52:00.000-05:00

Last night as I was shuttling my kids back and forth across town, I happened to catch John Ortberg on the radio talking about his book, The Life You’ve Always Wanted. I’ve read the book at least three times and would definitely recommend it.

Last night Ortberg stressed the difference between trying and training--the single most helpful principle he knows in developing your spiritual life. Think of it this way: most of us could not go out and run a marathon this weekend just by trying. No matter how motivated and no matter how hard we try, most of us simply don’t have the capacity right now to run the 26+ miles of a marathon. However, the great majority of us could develop the capacity to run a marathon if we began to train, starting with short jogs and building up our stamina bit by bit.

For Ortberg, understanding the difference between trying and training turned the notion of becoming more like Jesus from a pretty much unattainable goal to a concrete, tangible possibility. He realized he needed to take small steps. Faithfully practiced, these small steps would help him ultimately achieve what he could not yet do by his own direct efforts.

Training is what we are doing when we practice our February habits. These habits are not rules written out in the Bible that we must follow. Nor are they the end goal or the finish line of the Christian faith. They are just helpful devices to increase our capacity to speak to and hear from God. Most of us say we want to feel closer to God or to be more Christ-like, just like we say we want to run a marathon (or at least have enough energy to get off the couch and run around the block). The catch is, most of us need to go into training to achieve these goals.

Ironically, as I was listening to Ortberg talk about training last night I was picking up my daughter from play practice and running my son over to lacrosse practice. Wednesday nights are easy—on Thursdays I pick my daughter up from play practice, take her directly to basketball practice and then race home to take my son to hockey practice. (And in between all these activities we sandwich another kind of practice—homework.) Why do parents make themselves crazy with practices? We do it to help our kids develop the capacity to excel at—or at least enjoy--particular sports and arts. Think about the dangers of a bunch of 10-year-old boys running around with hockey or lacrosse sticks and no training whatsoever. Even worse, think about the agony of watching a bunch of preteens put on a play for which they have not practiced!

Without the frequent training in small doses that these practices represent, kids are directionless on the field and on the stage. They have little chance of scoring a goal, defending against opponents or giving a star performance. Similarly, without establishing some sort of practice or training routine, you and I have little chance of developing further our capacities for a richer and more abundant spiritual life, for defending against the enemy or shining like stars in the universe as Philippians 2:15 claims we can do.

Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. 1 Corinthians 9:25

What Did Daniel Accomplish?

2006-02-14T15:00:00.000-05:00

What was the result of Daniel’s determination to stick with his prayer habits no matter what the outcome? Daniel was sentenced to death and thrown into a den of lions. He remained there unharmed all night and was pulled out alive and unscathed the next morning. The king was overjoyed, acknowledging the existence and the power of the living God. Those who had plotted to take Daniel’s life were themselves put to death and the king sent out a proclamation in multiple languages declaring the glory and power of God and decreeing that everyone in the kingdom must reverence and honor Daniel’s God.

So when sticking with your prayer habit seems boring, a waste of time, or downright dangerous, remember what Daniel’s diligence in praying three times a day accomplished: the complete reversal of an unjust law and a nationwide declaration of God’s greatness and call to worship by the head of state. (Not to mention a spectacular miracle in Daniel’s personal life and his vindication in front of his enemies.)

How are you doing with our February habits? We are praying three times a day—just like Daniel. Remember to pray for a minute or two as soon as you wake up and before you drift off to sleep. Find a third time during the day when you can devote a few more minutes to prayer--preferably the same time every day. And read your New Testament for 7-8 minutes a day. See the January 31 for more info.

What Would Daniel Do? #3

2006-02-10T14:18:00.000-05:00

Lesson #3 from Daniel’s Prayer Book: Don’t vary from your prayer routine lightly. Why do you think that after the anti-prayer law was passed Daniel kept on praying in a way that his enemies could observe and report on? Wouldn’t he have been smarter to pray while taking a walk or at his desk pretending to read or something? Couldn’t he have found a hiding place? Why did he just go right back to his usual prayer spot and pray at his usual times?

Well, to be honest, there may be a number of reasons. He may have done it to set an example for the other Jews in Babylon who were wondering what to do about the law. He may have done it knowing his civil disobedience would bring the matter to a rapid resolution. But he also may have done it because he knew it is not all that easy for human beings to stay on course once they deviate from their habits.

It’s like my current distress over the broken elliptical machine. Sure there are a number of other ways to get some exercise. But if they involve varying where and when I exercise—and in turn forcing me to juggle other commitments, rearrange the kids’ schedules, spend extra money or drive extra distance—the chances that I can find the determination to overcome my natural lethargy and get some exercise become slim at best.

The point is that if the thing we are trying to accomplish is of any priority, it is better to stick as closely as possible to our routines no matter what else happens. It is one of the best ways to make sure that thing gets done even as everything else falls apart. Yes of course there will be crisis times—like when the government passes a law that threatens our lives—but even then our prayer routines should not go out the window. In fact, especially then they should not go out the window. They should become the thing we cling to keep us sane in a world gone crazy, the bare minimum of time we seek God’s guidance and comfort. If you and I vary our prayer habits for anything from a busy day at work to feeling a little overtired, we will be in sad shape when the real crisis comes.

How are you doing on our February habits? Don't forget to pray for a few minutes when you wake up, before you fall asleep and for 3 minutes one other time during the day. Read your New Testament for 7 minutes.

What Would Daniel Do? #2

2006-02-08T12:03:00.000-05:00

A second lesson from Daniel's Prayer Book: Don’t take breaks--even temporary ones--from your prayer habit.

It is interesting to me that the anti-prayer law which Daniel defied was only temporary: don’t pray for the next 30 days. I think in his shoes I might have been tempted to skip prayer for a month, figuring God would understand and would still be there when I got back. And afterall, Daniel was an experienced prophet with many years of praying under his belt. Surely he could have assumed that a month without praying wouldn’t result in much harm, couldn't he? Apparently, he thought it would and he kept right on praying.

I am so quick to take breaks from prayer. In fact, I struggle to find time to pray every weekend--and the reason is that on the weekends my routines fall apart. Things get so busy with the kids and you never know who's where or doing what. And a family vacation? Forget about good prayer habits for that week! Everything is up for grabs! Yet we see Daniel persevering in his habits even though it might have meant the death penalty. Maybe that's because he had learned from a long life walking with God that it is just not worth breaking the routine--prayer was just too high a priority to risk falling off the wagon.

My elliptical machine cracked the other day. I can't use it until it is repaired. This is a real problem for me since I know from past experience that if I stop exercising for even a day I may never start again. I lose motivation. To make myself start again is a full-fledged battle. Prayer is like that too. We need good habits and we need to keep going. No breaks.

"...Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance...." Hebrews 12:1

What Would Daniel Do?

2006-02-06T14:18:00.000-05:00

Is the idea of habits just a crutch that we weak 21st century Christians need? No, some of the Bible “greats” used them too. Think about Daniel. Daniel made it a habit to pray three times a day (sound familiar?) and he was so consistent in following through that his enemies were able to base a lot to kill him on it.

You know the story. Daniel’s rivals influenced the king to enact a law prohibiting prayer to anyone other than the king for 30 days knowing full well that Daniel would ignore the law. In fact, when Daniel heard about the law, he went right home and continued to pray three times a day as usual. Daniel’s enemies ran to the king crying, “Look! Daniel is still praying.”

Now I know we vaguely think that daily times of prayer were easy for characters in Bible times. Somehow daily prayer seems appropriate for them but impractical for us with our busy careers, families, church activities, home improvement projects, etc., etc. But try for a minute to think about whether it was easy from Daniel’s perspective. Daniel was not a full-time minister or monk. He was a busy government official rising rapidly through the ranks. At the time the new law was enacted, he was in the middle of a change in administrations on the verge of a huge promotion. I doubt it was any easier for Daniel to fit prayer into his schedule than it is for you and me to find time to pray during a busy day. Actually, given that Daniel was very much in the minority, a Jew far from home, with no Wednesday night prayer meeting or small group to keep him going, it was probably very much harder.

How did Daniel manage it? You know as well as I do that you don’t wake up one day in the middle of a demanding career and say, “Hmm. Well, would you look at that. I somehow manage to pray three times a day.” Unfortunately it just doesn’t happen that way. No, Daniel needed to purposefully and deliberately cultivate prayer as a habit. I am pretty sure he acted the same way he acted in Daniel chapter 1 where we read that Daniel “resolved” that he would not defile himself with the king’s food. My pastor says this word means “pulled together ideas.” In other words, Daniel brainstormed and put together a game plan. I imagine he did the same thing with prayer. He did not leave it to chance and hope he might have a spare moment at the end of the day. Instead, he said “Let me see. How often can I work a prayer break into my day? And where shall I pray? I think I can break away three times a day and I’ll set aside a place upstairs.”

And so Daniel set some goals about prayer and followed through. As a result he had the strength to live out his life in Babylon, God’s messenger in a secular world, unafraid of unjust laws, kings, and lions.

New habit for February: We are praying three times a day—just like Daniel. Remember to pray for a minute or two as soon as you wake up and before you drift off to sleep. Find a third time during the day when you can devote a few more minutes to prayer. And read your New Testament for 7-8 minutes a day. See the January 31 for more info.

"Three times a day [Daniel] got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to God, just as he had done before." Daniel 6:10

Jim Elliot's Habits

2006-02-03T12:05:00.000-05:00

Elisabeth Elliot writes about Jim Elliot's habits:

Jim started his journal as a means of self-discipline. He began to get up early in the morning during his junior year in college to read the Bible and pray before classes. He was realistic enough to recognize the slim chances of fitting in any serious study and prayer later in the day. If it had priority on his list of things that mattered, it had to have chronological priority. To see that he did not waste the dearly-bought time, he began to note down on paper specific things he learned from the Word and specific things he asked for in prayer.

Jim Elliot's early morning habits may seem a little daunting to those of us who are not morning people--or who have babies who keep us up at night or toddlers who already wake us up far too early--but I wanted to include them here because they illustrate the point we have been taking about. If we are to get God to the top of our "to do" lists we need to figure out how to fit Bible reading and prayer into our lives in a way that they don't get pushed out by other things. We have to really think about what will work for us and then take steps to cement it as a habit in our lives. For Jim Elliot, getting up early was a way to make sure Bible reading and prayer actually happened. The journal writing was a way to discipline himself--to keep his mind from wandering, to keep him on task and to help him remember what he had learned. That is what worked for him.

We usually think of Jim Elliot as the brave missionary he was 7 years later, willing to live a totally dedicated life and die a martyr's death. We imagine a state of spirituality well beyond anything we could ever attain. Try for a moment to think of him as the college student, struggling to fit a little Bible reading and prayer into the day, having to force himself to journal so his thoughts wouldn't stray. That sounds a little more like where you and I live, doesn't it? It was interesting to me to read that Jim recorded in his journal that many of his prayers were unanswered during that time. Yet he slogged on and so can we.

(You can see Jim Elliot's story in "The End of the Spear" out in theaters now.)

Why Habits?

2006-02-02T11:13:00.000-05:00

Does God mandate praying three times a day or reading the New Testament for a specific number of minutes per day? No. Definitely not. And you may well think I am being trivial or overly rigid to suggest that we mandate a structure like this for ourselves.

The thing is, most of us need to set up some sort of parameters for Bible reading and praying if we are ever going to get around to doing them. We have so many other things to do and we are not really all that good at making constructive use of the time we have left over. But once we have followed the admittedly man-made and artificial structure we have imposed on ourselves for awhile, Bible reading and prayer become a habit and much easier to make a part of every day. We begin to see changes in our way of life and in our thinking that are exciting and keep us going. Eventually we look back and say, “Wow! I had to force myself to pray for two minutes three times a day. I wonder why I thought it was so hard back then? Now I can’t imagine getting through the day without praying.”

Think about it this way. If your 5-year-old came to you and said, “I want to be a concert pianist when I grow up,” and this was a goal you thought worth achieving, what would you do? Would you say, “Hey, good luck with that. When you can play Beethoven’s Fifth let me know.” No. You would say, “OK. You know it’s going to take years of practice. Let’s start with a half hour a day.” Since your kid is only 5, you’d probably soon find out that he’d do much better with two or three practice sessions a day, each limited to 5 minutes. And many days even those short sessions would be a struggle. But eventually, if the child is destined to be a pianist, the practice sessions would expand, your child would fall in love with the piano and piano playing would become a major part of his life. Looking back you would both laugh to think that his brilliant piano career began with struggling to find the time and self-discipline to practice for 5 minutes a couple times a day.

The point, of course, is that a child does not become a concert pianist overnight. Nor do you and I become avid prayer warriors or Bible scholars overnight. But you have to start somewhere and, although they may appear ridiculously small or overly rigid, developing daily habits is a good way to get to where you want to go.

Habits for February: Pray for a couple minutes as soon as you wake up and before you fall asleep each night. Pick one additional time during the day when you can pray for 3 minutes undisturbed and do it every day. Read the New Testament for 7 or 8 minutes each day.

February Habits

2006-01-31T09:40:00.000-05:00

As January draws to a close, let’s all take a look back at how we did establishing new habits in January. Our goals were to make it a habit to pray for a couple minutes as soon as we wake up and before we fall asleep and to read the New Testament for 5 minutes a day. Take a minute now to think about how you did. Don’t beat yourself up if you didn’t do all of these every single day. Just thank God that you prayed and read more than you did in December and ask Him to help you in February.

Speaking of February, it’s time to stretch ourselves and add to our habits. For February, pick a third time of the day that you can pray. This time should be a time that you are a little more awake and alert than when you are lying in bed at the beginning and end of the day. Take a look at your schedule and figure out a time that can be carved out as relatively uninterrupted and undistracted. How about a few minutes after the kids leave for school and before you start whatever chores or errands you have for the day? What about sitting in the car for a few undisturbed minutes before you walk into the office each morning? (Turn you cell phone off—I know from experience that people will look out the office window, see your car and call you!) Maybe your lunch hour will work—or your child’s nap time? Just find 3 minutes that you can pray and make those minutes a habit this month. (Not sure what to say to God during this time? Check out some practical ideas in Learning to Pray).

Also in February, expand your Bible reading from the 5 minutes a day you tried in January to 7-8 minutes each day. As in January, don’t make this a big project or set too lofty a goal. Just read. Drink the New Testament in. (I bought a little New Testament for $3.95 at Barnes & Noble. It fits in my purse so I can easily pull it out and read 5-8 minutes a day when sitting in the car waiting for the kids to come out of school or their various practices. Think about what will work for you so that getting out the Bible and starting to read becomes an almost seamless part of your day.)

Of course, if you are reading these paragraphs and you already have much better habits than the ones we are aspiring to in February, lucky you. You can take the principles of starting small and turning your goals into habits and apply them to some other areas in which you believe God would like to see you grow. Do you feel you should be praying for people beyond your immediate family and friends? Pick 2 minutes of the day and each day spend those 2 minutes praying for government leaders or a missionary your church supports. Are you a little intimidated by the Old Testament? Start reading it in small chunks—5 minutes a day. You get the idea. The point is to stop vaguely thinking that there are areas in which you should be doing better. Instead, pick something that is actually doable and then actually do it--every day.

OK. Ready for February? Let's go.

Face to Face with God

2006-01-27T12:25:00.000-05:00

I was challenged this morning by the words of Richard Foster in his classic book, Celebration of Discipline:

At Sinai the people cried out to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will hear; but let not God speak to us lest we die” (Ex. 20:19). One of the fatal mistakes of Israel was their insistence upon having a human king…. The history of religion is the story of an almost desperate scramble to have a king, a mediator, a priest, a go-between.

Every day that you and I fail to make time to get alone with God, we make the same mistake as the Israelites. We fail to seek God face to face. Instead, we often opt for a go-between—a Sunday morning sermon, a Christian magazine article (or blog!), even chatting with a friend about what’s going on at church. We may choose to avoid meeting God out of fear (as it seems the Israelites did). Or we may feel inadequate to approach God face to face. We may be unsure of just how to go about it. In my case, it is generally just lethargy and an inability to use my time appropriately.

Whatever the reason, it is the fatal mistake made down through the centuries. The results today are the same as they were for the religious in Israel. We take on all the burdens of the faith without experiencing the benefits of a first-hand relationship which would make those burdens easy and light. Like the religious in Israel, we fail to recognize Christ’s voice and work when He appears.

As much as I would like to write something innovative—to come up with a novel solution to an age old problem—I am convinced there is only one solution and that is one that we’ve been told about since we were kids. We must make time to pray and read the words God left for us every day. We must attempt to rely less on the go-betweens in our lives and get face to face with Him on our own. This is the big “secret” that some Christians seem to be able to get hold of, the reason they seem to hear God when most of the rest of us can’t.

(By the way, I'm laughing at myself right now because I realize I am dragging my feet a little about Bible study today. My excuse is that I am waiting for a particular commentary to arrive from Amazon. Why do I feel the need to wait for UPS to deliver a book written by someone other than God when I already have His book and His Spirit to help my understand it? I am sure the commentary will be a big help when it arrives, but it is no excuse to delay getting face to face with the God in the Bible today, right?)

Leaving People Who Need You in the Boat

2006-01-24T08:48:00.000-05:00

On Friday (January 20), we talked about how guilty some of us feel when we try to “steal” a few minutes with God—guilty that we are disappointing family, friends and co-workers who have come to expect our undivided attention. This is especially true when we think we are neglecting someone who needs us. And you know as well as I do, as a parent, a spouse, an employee, a boss, and whatever other roles you play, someone ALWAYS thinks they need you. If you just run from one need to another, you will never, ever find time to spend alone with God.

Does it help to realize that Peter left his friends with work on their hands when he jumped out of the boat in John 21? Remember the group had just made a large catch when Peter left his pals (and possibly his brother) in the boat and hurried to shore to meet with Christ. He left them with work that he was well qualified to do. In fact, he may have been the most qualified in the group to do it since he was probably the most experienced. And actually, his friends were only out fishing because Peter had suggested fishing in the first place. Now they were facing a crisis, the nets were at the bursting point, and he just left them to drag the nets in to shore as best they could.

Was Peter wrong to do this? Was he too impetuous? I mean, couldn’t he have just met with Christ 15 minutes later? Who knows. Maybe. And yet 15 minutes later I’m sure there would have been another task with which his friends could have used his help—sorting and cleaning the fish, stowing the nets, swabbing the deck, transporting the fish to wherever they had to go, etc., etc.

And you know it is the same for you and me. Your day is a succession of tasks, interruptions and people who need you. At some point you need to stop and walk away and not feel guilty about it. Spend a little time on shore with Christ--talking to Him and listening to what He has to say--and then go back to the people who think they need you. They will still be there and now you will be better equipped to serve them.

Habit for January: How are you doing on our new habits for 2006? Remember to pray for two minutes before getting out of bed each morning and before you drift off to sleep each night. And read the New Testament for five minutes today--maybe during your commute, your exercise routine or before you turn on the TV tonight. For more info, see the January 3 post.

Leaving Your Loved Ones in the Boat

2006-01-20T10:40:00.000-05:00

There's another lesson we can learn from Peter about breaking out of our old habits and finding time to converse with Jesus--it often means leaving behind the people we care about, at least for a little while. Peter was out fishing with friends that morning we read about in John 21. In order to get to the shore where Jesus was standing, he jumped out of the boat and left his friends behind.

I think it was Dallas Willard who said in his book, The Divine Conspiracy: DIscovering Our Hidden Life in God, that spending time alone with Christ is almost always a repudiation of someone else. For some of us, it is this that makes the setting aside of time for God in our daily lives very difficult. We feel badly about disappointing a spouse if we walk away from the TV show we usually watch together. We hate to set the alarm early and disturb his or her sleep. We feel guilty if we tell the kids we need time alone without interruption for even a few minutes. We find it hard to tell the usual lunch gang at the office that we now have something else to do during lunch hour. Sometime the hardest thing about dropping an old habit and starting a new routine is inflicting change on people we love.

I doubt there is an easy answer to this dilemma if it is one that you are facing. Perhaps just knowing that others have faced this same decision point in their own spiritual lives may help. I have read that Charles Wesley's mother used to throw her apron up over her head in the middle of her kitchen with her numerous children crowded round. Her kids knew she needed time alone with God and they did not disturb her. I have heard that while she was raising five children, Billy Graham's wife kept her Bible and study books open in a prominent place where she could pause and read threm throughout the day. I am sure during those stolen moments at least one of her children missed her and wished for her undivided attention. Your situation is not unique. But in order to get to the place where you can meet with Jesus, you need to deprive some people of your presence for awhile.

It may help you to realize that Peter's absence from his friends was temporary. The friends just followed behind in the boat and joined him on shore for breakfast a little later. No great damage was done to the friends. Actually, Peter's actions were probably helpful to the friends in the long run. They saw a great example of what it takes to get into a place where you can spend a little time with Christ.

Getting Out of the Boat

2006-01-18T12:30:00.000-05:00

Back to Peter that morning at the Sea of Galilee. It seems that Peter had slipped back into fishing although Jesus, post-resurrection, had given him a new calling. I think Peter’s reaction is pretty understandable. He was used to fishing. He felt competent at it and comfortable doing it. He probably also felt like he should be doing something “productive” with his time. On the other hand, this going out and making disciples was unknown territory. It probably didn’t yield quick results and it definitely didn’t yield a paycheck.

Yet after that morning when Peter talked with Christ on the Galilean shore, we never read about Peter fishing again. Instead we read about him preaching, performing miracles and drafting books of the Bible. How in the world did he make the transition? And how do we get out of our own familiar ruts and start living the Christ-like life we long for?

I think the story in John 21 gives us a couple clues on how we can begin to transition. First, get out of the boat and get to where you can converse with Jesus. We read that as soon as Peter realized Jesus was standing on shore he jumped out of the boat and waded in to shore. If you can picture the scene, Jesus is standing on the beach shouting to the fishermen who are about 100 yards off shore. It’s not really the ideal set-up for an intimate conversation with someone you love or with someone whose direction and advice you desperately need. So Peter fixed that. He just walked away from the fishing boat and towards the place he knew Jesus was standing. Then he was in a position to hear what Jesus has to say about what he should be doing with his life. It was the first step toward a whole new life.

So what is my fishing boat and what is yours? Do we need to turn off the TV, close the magazine, get away from the office or the laundry or the instant messaging for a few minutes? There are fishing boats in all of our lives. They are things we are so used to that we don’t notice how much time we are spending in them or realize what other things they are keeping us from doing. Just walk away from them for a few minutes today and get to the place you know Jesus is standing. And what if you don’t know where He is? Well, your New Testament is a good start. You know you can read His words there, right? Walk away from your boat, open the New Testament and start reading. Even for just a couple minutes.

Habit for January: How are you doing on our new habits for 2006? Remember to pray for two minutes before getting out of bed each morning and before you drift off to sleep each night. And read the New Testament for five minutes today--maybe during your commute, your exercise routine or before you turn on the TV tonight. For more info, see the January 3 post.

Old Habits Die Hard

2006-01-11T10:13:00.000-05:00

OK. It’s now the second week of January and I’ll wager a bet that, for most of us, enthusiasm for the New Year’s Resolutions we committed to at the beginning of last week is beginning to fade. Our new habits haven’t become habits at all—-they are now just a few more items on an already too long “to do” list. And our old habits, say, watching all our favorite TV shows and then realizing on Sunday morning that we haven’t opened our Bibles all week because we were just so busy—-die hard.

Fortunately, Jesus understands that good intentions sometimes fade before we put them into action. And He stands ready to challenge our priorities and redirect us. Remember when Peter saw Jesus at the Sea of Galilee after the Resurrection? Peter had been out fishing and, looking up from his nets, he saw Jesus standing on the shore. Peter leaped overboard and waded in to the beach. That morning Jesus reminded Peter three times that what he was supposed to be doing was feeding Christ’s flock. (You can read the whole story in John 21.)

Did you ever wonder why Peter was fishing that day? It’s not like he didn’t know that Jesus had been resurrected. He had seen Christ and spoken with him. And it’s not like he didn’t know that the disciples now had a mission: Jesus, in his resurrected body, had specifically told them that as the Father had sent Him, now He was sending them. Jesus had told them of the tremendous power they had in Him. In fact, He had gone so far as to tell them that if they forgave anyone’s sins, those sins would be forgiven. Yet Peter was fishing. Why? I imagine it was because fishing was what he knew how to do. It was his old way of life. He was comfortable with the routine tasks. But when it came to being sent out into the world by Christ and forgiving sins, he was floundering. What exactly was he supposed to be doing each day?

God is a God with the power to pull us out of our old routines and transform us. Peter left old habits behind that day. He became the rock on which Christ built His Church. Christ can do the same with us if we are willing to stop fishing and try the new life.

Habit for January: How are you doing on our new habits for 2006? Remember to pray for two minutes before getting out of bed each morning and before you drift off to sleep each night. And read the New Testament for five minutes today--maybe during your commute, your exercise routine or before you turn on the TV tonight. For more info, see the January 3 post.

2006 and Beyond

2006-01-04T10:55:00.000-05:00

The news shows and entertainment mags have pretty much finished their year-in-reviews and have begun their wild predictions for 2006. Here are some interesting words from Kim Wier about the qualities of God that transcend time and will impact our future in 2006 and beyond.

As 2005 melts into 2006, consider not just God's past faithfulness; consider His qualities that transcend time. Ponder the trustworthiness of God's Word (Joshua 1:8). Take note of His work (Psalm 119:15). Meditate on His greatness and His goodness (Psalm 77:1). Examine the depths of His wisdom (Psalm 119:18) and the glory of His salvation (Isaiah 51:6). Regardless of the age, the year or the generation, the qualities of God are timeless.

For that reason, we can look forward with anticipation to all that God has in store. He will not simply repeat his former blessings; He will shower His own with good things beyond our imaginings.

"Do not call to mind (only) the former things, or ponder things of the past. Behold, I will do something new, now it will spring forth; will you not be aware of it? I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, rivers in the desert." Isaiah 43:18-19

You can read more of Kim's thoughts on her website at www.engaging women.com.

Habit for January: And how are you doing on our new habits for 2006? Remember to pray for two minutes before getting out of bed each morning and before you drift off to sleep each night. And read the New Testament for five minutes today--maybe during your commute, your exercise routine or before you turn on the TV tonight. For more info, see the January 3 post.

New Year’s Resolutions

2006-01-03T11:52:00.000-05:00

I love New Year’s Resolutions. For me, they are a blank slate, a chance to dream about all life could be and to leave behind any failures or disappointments of the previous year. For many years the same two resolutions topped my list: Pray more and read my Bible more. I was sincere and, really, what better goals could I have? Yet every December, when reflecting on the year, I had to recognize that I really hadn’t lived up to my good intentions as much as I had hoped. So back those two items went on the top of the list of resolutions for the coming year—along with eating better, exercising more and spending less!

A year or so ago I finally realized that hazy good intentions each new year will get me nowhere. Of course I already knew that from countless project management seminars at work and I am sure you know it too. But life is not the same as a project at work. There aren’t the same clearly-stated deliverables and deadlines. There is no visible boss appearing in your doorway to monitor progress. And there aren’t 8 hours a day scheduled for accomplishing the necessary tasks. Life—and what we do with it in a spiritual sense—is so much less structured.

That’s why I think we need to take a different approach to our spiritual development—something between project management and hazy good intentions. Here it is: develop simple routines and start very small. Throw away any expectations of spending hours weeping on your knees or studying the original Greek. Pick really small, simple things you can do a couple times a day and then stick with your little routines. Soon they will develop into habits. Your prayer life and love for the Bible will blossom and then it will begin feeding on itself. You’ll find your routines and the amount of time you want to devote to prayer and study expanding. By next New Year’s Day you won’t need to draft big resolutions about more prayer and Bible reading. They will be a natural and welcome part of every day.

So give some thought to some simple, sustainable things you could do to work prayer and Bible reading into each day of 2006. How about something like this:

--When the alarm goes off, lie in bed and pray for two minutes about concerns for the day.

--Start reading through New Testament, 5 minutes per day while on train or exercise machine.

--While falling asleep at night thank God for answers to prayer that day and ask for safety through the night.

When these three things have become habits—probably in about a month—add three more. Don’t dismiss these things as too small. Just really do them every day and see what happens.

Antidote to the Christmas Treadmill #4

2005-12-22T11:24:00.000-05:00

Here are some thoughts from John Fischer in response to repeated cries all around us to put Christ back into Christmas:

Here's how you put Christ back into Christmas: you celebrate Him as Lord of your life and ruler of your heart, and you love even those who want to take Christmas out of the Holiday equation. Jesus didn't come to condemn the world, but to save it (John 3:17).... It's never been us against them; it's us for them. We mustn't forget that Jesus came to die for the very people who are trying to secularize our country....

People are more likely to be set on the road to salvation by loving, caring believers who are secure in the hope of the real Christ living in their lives, and whose faith is brighter than any Christmas tree....

Let's not get so taken up with fighting to save a name that we forget to live out the reality of the hope of Christ to the world. If people end up encountering the real Christ of Christmas, it will matter little what we end up calling the holiday itself.

You can read John's full devotional at PurposeDrivenLife.com.

Antidote to the Christmas Treadmill #3

2005-12-21T11:22:00.000-05:00

Here are some words from Dr. Charles Stanley's In Touch devotional that brought my treadmill to a screeching stop for a few minutes today:

"We cannot allow ourselves to drift into a materialistic view of Christmas along with the rest of the world. In a month of colored lights and glowing candles, we should be burning brighter than ever as His lights to the world."

Hmmm...What can I do to shine as His light during this season already overcrowded with distracting, blinking little lights? There are a couple verses in Philippians that come immediately to mind--verses that show us how to shine like stars this Christmas. They're not what you would expect; they're not specifically about turkey drives, shoeboxes, caroling at nursing homes or sending out Christmas cards with manger scenes. They're not about shopping, cooking a feast or running to the post office for the 15th time in two weeks. Instead these verses tell us how we should go about doing all those Christmas things we need to do. I suspect, if we did as these verses suggest, our lights would shine very bright, dimming all the other lights of the season by comparison. Actually, all these verses tell us to do this Christmas is to do everything without complaining and arguing.

Did you ever notice that Christmas is a season of complaining and arguing? It is--perhaps more than any other time of the year. We complain that lines are too long, parking lots are too full, prices too high and we have too many obligations. We may argue with our spouses about spending and with extended family members about who is visiting whom and when they will be arriving. What if we made a decision not to complain this Christmas and not to argue about anything it became our responsibility to do? I have a feeling that the Christmas treadmill would become a lot more fun. It might disappear altogether. And we would certainly shine like stars among our fellow shoppers at the mall. As you feel the treadmill ramp up over the next few days, think about these verses:

"Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life." Philippians 2:14-16.

Antidote to the Christmas Treadmill #2

2005-12-16T09:37:00.000-05:00

I’ve been mulling over Rick Warren’s words about all of us wanting to get off the Christmas treadmill but not quite knowing how. Here’s one thing to try during the coming week: listen to the Christmas story being told all around you. “What?” you say. “This is 2005. We’re not even allowed to say ‘Merry Christmas’ in public. The Christmas story has been buried this year.”

I don’t think so. I think God is speaking in the still, small voice same as He ever was. For example, this season millions of Americans will see a story of freedom from bondage accomplished through sacrifice (in fact the good news of Christmas) when they rush to catch “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”—and they will happily pay to do it, thinking it is great holiday outing for the family! Another striking example: my daughter’s “Winter Concert” last night. In the public school’s effort at political correctness, the kids sang songs from around the globe. Thus, my daughter sung Alleluia to the birth of Christ in the language of Ghana, but praise is praise and God is apparently still using the mouths of babes where adults won’t speak about Him. My daughter’s group then sang “Hatikva” in Hebrew which a student translated for us, telling us that we will find our ultimate home and comfort in Zion. Amen. Best of all, another choir sang a “traditional Israeli text” in Hebrew which the conductor read in English for us before the song began: “How lovely on the mountains are the feet of them that bring good news—the news of salvation.” What could be more appropriate for Christmas? And who would have suspected that a public school teacher would read to us about the real meaning of Christmas—the good news of a Savior?

It strikes me that this quiet telling of the story is not really all that different from the way the news was broken on the first Christmas. The original message was not a government-sanctioned announcement. In fact, the government, in the form of King Herod, did would it could to silence the news. Luke 2 had not yet been written and no one erected manger scenes in the public square. (Well, acually, they probably did but only for animals to eat out of.) Yet the news was there for seekers—-in the miraculous star for the intellectuals of the day and in the words of the angels to a small group of working class people.

Listening to that “Winter Concert” got me off the holiday treadmill as I reflected on the way God gets His message out and His obvious presence despite the public school’s efforts not to acknowledge it. I did not know whether to laugh or to shed tears of thankfulness. So try to listen for the still, small voice steadily making the real Christmas message available to anyone who wants to listen this week. It’s sure to get you off the treadmill for a few minutes at least.

Antidote to the Christmas Treadmill #1

2005-12-14T09:20:00.000-05:00

Words to think about this Christmas from Rick Warren:

Most of us know that the key to the "best Christmas ever" is not buying more or doing more, the problem is--we just don't know how to get off the treadmill. How do you stay focused on the things that are important and get un-focused from the things of little significance?

I believe you answer that question by applying a purpose-driven approach to Christmas - balancing your holiday around the five biblical purposes of fellowship, character growth, service, missions and worship. God created you to live with this balance and that's why, when you're out of balance, you begin to feel stress.

Let me put it this way: To maintain your physical health, you need regular check-ups with a doctor who can assess your vital signs - blood pressure, temperature, weight, and so on. For your spiritual health, particularly during the hectic holiday season, you need to check the five vital signs of fellowship, character, service, missions and worship. The ancient writer, Jeremiah, once advised, "Let's take a good look at the way we're living and reorder our lives under God." (Lamentations 3:40, The Message)

You can read Rick's full article, which tells us how to check each of the vital signs, at PurposeDrivenLife.com

More God Reminders

2005-12-08T09:33:00.000-05:00

John Fischer, songwriter and author, writes a daily devotional for the Purpose Driven Life ministries. He recently recalled being inspired during his senior year at Wheaton by the late Dr. Francis Schaeffer to "keep on" with the faith. His roommate and he were so moved by Dr. Schaeffer's words that they stenciled "KEEP ON" repeatedly all over their room. I'm not sure how Wheaton College felt about this act of creativity and faith on the dorm room walls but years later John Fischer still writes about the importance of reminding ourselves to keep God first. He writes:

These visual reminders are important. The children of Israel were admonished to surround themselves with the word of God, not just figuratively, but by actually writing it on their doorposts and on their gates. God knows how easy it is for us to forget.

Whatever it takes to keep your mind focused on God's purposes -- whether it's a certain CD playing, a tape of scripture reading in your car for your daily commute, or a laminated sign over your computer -- we are forgetful people and we need to constantly see and hear reminders of what we have committed to doing and being.

What has God been saying to you lately? What does He want you to remember? Put it on your computer screen. Laminate it to your wall. Write it on your “doorposts and on your gates.” Whatever it takes. We aren't expected to follow without a struggle. We need reminders.

You can sign up for John Fischer's daily devotional and read his archives at the Purpose Driven Life site.

Our Spiritual Ideals vs. Our Reality

2005-12-07T08:38:00.000-05:00

Here are some encouraging thoughts from Elisabeth Elliot's Keep a Quiet Heart about the often ridiculously huge difference between the spiritual life we long for and the life we actually find ourselves living as we try to get through each day:

Sunday mornings can be a real test of a mother's sanctification, especially if her husband happens to be a pastor who leaves the house much earlier than the rest of the family. Here's how it went recently in one house....

"The fifteen-year-old couldn't tuck his shirt in because of `something to do with the pockets,' and his belt was too small.

"The thirteen-year-old was having trouble curling her hair.

"The ten-year-old couldn't find her Sunday School lesson.

"The eight-year-old hadn't done his Bible readings because he didn't know which they were.

"The six-year-old's room and closet were unacceptably messy, and the socks she had on were muddy.

"The three-year-old couldn't find her Bible. Although not yet a reader, she couldn't think of going to church without the Bible.

"The baby's carrying blanket had disappeared."

Somehow the mother was to be nicely groomed, calm, and able to get this whole package into a van, seated and belted as law requires, and drive them to church on time.

But everything in this scene is the King's Business, which He looks on in loving sympathy and understanding, for, as Baron Von Hugel said, "The chain of cause and effect which makes up human life, is bisected at every point by a vertical line relating us and all we do to God." This is what He has given us to do, this task here on this earth, not the task we aspired to do, but this one. The absurdities involved cut us down to size. The great discrepancy between what we envisioned and what we've got force us to be real. And God is our great Reality, more real than the realest of earthly conditions, an unchanging Reality. It is His providence that has put us where we are. It's where we belong. It is for us to receive it--all of it--humbly, quietly, thankfully.

Sunday morning, the Lord's Day, can be the very time when everything seems so utterly unrelated to the world of the spirit that it is simply ridiculous. Yet to the Lord's lovers it is only a seeming. Everything is an affair of the spirit. Everything, to one who loves God and longs with a sometimes desperate longing for a draught of Living Water, a single touch of His hand, a quiet word--everything, I say, can be seen in His perspective.

Does He watch? Yes, "Thou God seest me" (Genesis 16:3, KJV). Is His love surrounding us? "I have loved thee with an everlasting love" (Jeremiah 31:3, KJV). "I will never leave thee or forsake thee" (Hebrews 13:5, KJV). May I offer to Him my feeling of the dislocation between reality and my ideals, that great chasm which separates the person I long to be, the work I long to do for Him, the family I struggle to perfect for His glory--from the actuality? I may indeed, for it is God Himself who stirs my heart to desire, and He can easily see across the chasm. He enfolds all of it, He is at work in me and in those I pray for, "to will and to do of his good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13, KJV). I may take heart, send up an instant look of gratitude, and--well, get that beloved flock into the van and head down the freeway singing!

What Are You Praying About?

2005-12-02T09:55:00.000-05:00

This morning I read the following in Skip Hertzig's book, When God Prays: "Our true priorities--the things that are really important to us--will show themselves in our prayer life."

This gets me thinking that if we want to do a self-diagnostic about what's at the top of our personal "to do" lists we might ask the following:

--First, do I actually even have a prayer life? Do I make prayer a priority? Do I think I spend adequate time praying? How can I carve out a larger space for prayer in my busy day? Could I ever get to the point where I pray without stopping like God, through Paul, urges us to do?

--Second, how do I feel about my prayer life? Am I comfortable praying? Do I look forward to it? Do I dread it? (Last night I suggested to my 13-year-old that she pray about something that worries her. I said that praying about things helped me feel calmer about them. She replied, "That's because you are a good pray-er." I think that response says less about the way I pray than it says about the way she feels when she prays--awkward, ineffective, less good at it than others--in fact, the way we all feel sometimes.)

--Third, when I pray, what do I pray about? Do my prayers reflect an appropriate mix of the issues and concerns as we see, for example, reflected in the prayer Jesus taught His disciples to pray? My daily physical needs, my need to be forgiven by God, my need to forgive others, my need for His constant protection from temptation and evil, my desire to see His will accomplished on earth, and my recognition of His holiness, authority, power and glory?

"Ask and it will be given to you: seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened." Matthew 7:7