A prayer for any situation

February 8, 2024

Maria 1 Corinthians 2, Exodus 33, God's Glory, Prayer, Psalm 20 , , , , , Leave a comment

Moses said, “Please show me your glory” Exodus 33:18 NIV

This morning with a cup of coffee at hand, I opened up to Psalm 20. I needed God’s word to shape my mind for this day.  I’m in the truck with Mike right now as we travel to Asheville to say goodbye to Mom who is dying.

The first part of Psalm 20 is a petition, asking God to grant his people several marvelous gifts of help and sustenance. Then comes verse 4 (NLT): May he grant your heart’s desires….

I paused and said to myself: Just what IS your desire, Maria, in this situation that involves Mom, her two sons, Mike and Steve and you?

I was about to form a response with details of her passing and the ‘boys’ grief, when what popped into my mind was Moses’ petition to witness God’s glory!

Not what I was expecting. But it thrilled me.  I saw it as evidence that bit, by bit, I am growing more like Christ.  I DO have ‘the mind of Christ’ (1 Corinthians 2:16).  Not completely, but each less-clingy, less-desperate detailed request is a way I can release control over my life and hand Jesus the reins. It’s a way of praying like Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane when he submitted to the Father’s will.

I don’t know what the weekend holds, but I do know that we have a Good Shepherd to lead us by the hand as we walk with Mom through the dark valley of death.  He will bring us to the other side.  May we see his glory!

Changing up how I pray

February 6, 2024

Maria 1 Corinthians 2, House of Prayer, Matthew 6, Prayer, Praying in the Spirit , , , , Leave a comment

And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Matthew 6:5 ESV

When you pray, don’t babble on and on…….. Matthew 6:7 NLT

Do you find it hard to pray?  Do you struggle to know if God will accept the words you use, that they will be pleasing to him, or   ‘enough’? Do you even know what to say?

Sometimes I wonder, ‘Do I have to pray earnestly with feeling or can I pray in an ordinary tone?’  Wes, who was our mischievous, manipulative, incorrigible son (although irresistibly cute!) used to implore me, begging with a long drawn-out , “PLEEEEEEEEZE, Mom. PLEEZE, PLEEZE, PLEEZE….” until I caved. 

Is that how I view God, the Father? 

Some books I’ve been reading have gently redirected my manner of praying as well as the content. And they have added a preliminary, ongoing preparation in order to pray.

Oswald Chambers, a British pastor at the turn of the 20th century, taught his students how to pray simply and if I can say so, matter of factly.  Not a ho-hum approach as though we don’t care about the outcome, but a matter-of-factness that comes from trusting God’s knowledge, wisdom and timing.  In all but one occasion, and that in the Garden of Gethsemane, knowing what awaited him, Jesus simply talked to his Father using normal words and without any begging. 

I wrote in my journal: Huh, I guess I DON’T have to convince God with earnest feelings, but pray with confidence as Jesus did. 

I’m not saying that heart-felt, emotion-laden praying is wrong. I’m just not someone who traffics in deep emotions on a daily basis. I process rationally, following my thoughts to figure out my heart motives.

In one of his short reflections from his book, If Ye Would Ask, Oswald explains what it means to pray in the Holy Spirit.  Since the Holy Spirit inhabits us, that makes our bodies a house of prayer. Our job is to clean our temple on a daily basis, taking care of our thoughts and practices.  Then we simply communicate to the Spirit what we personally need or intercessions on behalf of someone else.

Chambers models how we are to present with simple details, the person and the situation to the Spirit of God in us. That is praying ‘in the Spirit’ or in the place where the Spirit is. Afterwards, we leave the matter in his hands to intercede with inexpressible groans on behalf of our petitions.  He does the emoting.

I recently read a biography of Mrs. Oswald Chambers who, with the ability to use shorthand at the rate of 250 words a minute, transcribed all of Oswald’s talks and teachings.  The biographer Michelle Ule provides abundant examples of both Oswald and his wife’s (Biddy) prayers. For example:

Father, we lift up Steve who is caring for our mom. Give him the wisdom he needs today. Amen.

The Holy Spirit will do the rest, according to the GOOD will of the Father. And isn’t that what we want?

But then maybe we don’t.  Maybe we’re afraid of God’s will. Maybe what we REALLY want is OUR will to be done.

That is what provides me anxiety in my life.  I know what I think is best. But what if God’s will doesn’t line up with my desires? I don’t know God’s thoughts, his plans. But scripture says otherwise.

I am finding that the only and actually the most liberating answer to that dilemma of my will vs God’s will is the fact that, as Christians, we actually have been given the ‘mind of Christ’.  Yes, it’s true.

“Who can know the LORD’s thoughts? Who knows enough to teach him?” But we understand these things, for we have the mind of Christ. 1 Corinthians 2:16 NLT

So….is it that simple…whatever I think, that’s what Jesus thinks?  Yes and no.  This is my take, but it’s what scripture teaches us. The more we soak in God’s word and let his supernatural holy, ‘ex’-pired or God-breathed words shape our thoughts, the more we develop a mind that thinks like Jesus and is receptive to the Father’s communications as was the Son when he walked among us. That’s what growing in holiness is. Growing like God. Learning to think like God.

My job is to keep directing my thoughts back to God. You and I DO have that power, that ability to think about what we choose.  Dallas Willard refers to that freedom as the only liberty we truly have, to focus and aim our thoughts toward a particular end.

For you and me to be able to say without fear, “Your will be done,” we have to trust God. And to trust him, we have to KNOW him. If I’m focusing on problems, circumstances, or suffering, I’m not thinking ‘in the Spirit’.  But the more I think biblically, the more I will know and recognize Christ’s thoughts and they become mine.  Not totally but more and more.

This is my daily goal.

Curtain Call

January 19, 2023

Maria 1 Corinthians 2, Kingdom of God, Uncategorized , , , Leave a comment

“All the world’s a stage.”

 William Shakespeare in As You Like It

No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him. 1 Corinthians 2:9 NLT

My friend Deb works as a dedicated teacher’s aide to a little autistic girl in a K-4 class. Serving this child is her sole assignment. She guides her in paying attention to the classroom teacher in order to catch all the instructions and follow the articulated sequential steps for each learning assignment. Deb knows just what her charge needs having spent every school day morning with her over the past 5 months.

Similarly, our Friend, God’s Holy Spirit, knows us intimately, having lived IN us since we were transferred into the Kingdom of Jesus to live forever with the Triune God. In this realm, we have been assigned to a new life-giving theater or stage. No longer are we held captive by the evil scriptwriter, director and prison guard.

Recently, this metaphor of our Kingdom lives being played out daily on God’s stage has captivated my imagination. As I imagine the Kingdom of God as a theater, I picture myself showing up for another day’s drama.  The point at which I lay my head on my pillow is the close of that day’s drama. Slowly I am realizing that how today’s business ended is not at all an accurate basis for predicting tomorrow’s scenes.  If I try to forecast what will be expected of me and prep for it, I only rob myself of the restorative rest and energy I’ll need for tomorrows’ drama.

But, in God’s theater where I now live, I sometimes forget my new home, where I live. I can quickly fall into old habits of worry and anxiety. These are nothing but long-practiced reactions that created a groove in my brain. I spend little energy in being sucked back into these routines. I knew my lines well for nothing new ever happened in my former prescribed role as a pawn in Satan’s drama.

But each day in God’s drama, new, fresh and creative describe the dimensions in which I live and work. As Jamie Winship, my favorite author from last year, has written, our minds only deal in what has worked up to now. The mind has no fresh, new ideas. It only knows the past.

But here’s the good news about our infinite God who is always doing something new. He is the Creator and it is his nature to generate the novel, imaginative, and freshly beautiful. Stunning us brings him joy.  Sure, our daily scripts include the hard and painful, but we trust him, for he is good, wise, holy, righteous and wise. And he has eternal kingdom goals in mind

This kind of thinking is transforming me. I picture God the Father as the Holy Screenwriter.  Jesus is his Director, to whom each of us as Jesus’ student report morning by morning. Reassuringly, his Divine Spirit, aka our Acting Coach is ever present. 

The Spirit greets us with eager anticipation as soon as we awake, just as my friend Deb welcomes her small student with a smile.

Jesus hands us no script.  He and the Spirit alone have the Father’s playbook. But no worries, all has been prepped and planned. Our Coach supplies what we need at the right Kairos moment.

To me, it feels like I’m an improv actor, since I don’t know the day’s plans. This metaphor keeps me concentrating on the present moment.  I watch Jesus for cues.  I pay close attention to what my brother and sister actors are doing around me. I have my ear tuned and open to the Spirit, with whom I engage in ongoing dialogue.

I’m learning not to even think (or predict) what I will need for the day. How could I possibly imagine the day’s events, my interactions with people who cross my path, since I’m not privy to future plans.  My responsibility is to rely on Jesus and his Spirit.  My Coach is prepped.  He has at the ready all props and and costume changes I’ll require for the day.

Since there is no need to be anxious, I can relax and look forward to all that is new, beautiful and challenging the Father has in store.

So far, this seems to be a far less stressful to approach each day.  And I am growing quicker at catching myself ‘planning and worrying’ in the middle of the night. I remind myself of the futility and waste of God-ordained restorative time for one of his beloved family cast members.

Good News for Christmas Blahs

December 16, 2019

Maria 1 Corinthians 2, Joy, Psalm 16, Romans 8, Uncategorized , , Leave a comment

When did Christmas last feel magical to you? I can’t put a picture to that feeling.  I don’t know where I was living or how old I was, but I KNOW the feeling. The awe, the bigger-than-life impending, wonder-filled reality.  Grownups have a word for that – transcendence.

Sadly, my transcendent experience had nothing to do with the sublime Creator God.  My mom wasn’t a believer then.  She was a single parent raising me with the help of her mother. We three lived together in ‘old-lady’ apartments. (poor me!)  She worked a part-time job and Mimi had some money; I think.

But I remember the pleasure of anticipation, at least one year.  Something mysteriously big was imminent.  And my desire for it mounted.

That vivid memory-moment returns annually this time of year, not to cheer me, but as a sobering reminder.  Seasons leading up to Christmas have never come close to matching that intense joy-filled awareness.

I thought about this last week. It was a Wednesday.  Returning home from sharing a lunch out with a Columbian friend, I walked into the house feeling blah. Nothing to look forward to, was how I felt.  Nothing interested me at that moment. I had no real plans.  Oh, I did have some work I wanted to complete. Another video for my English without Fear channel. But nothing new or exciting waiting for me around the corner.

It was then that a cheerful thought showed up.  A premise of C.S. Lewis. Lewis wrote that if we have a longing (Sehnsucht in German) or a craving that nothing in this life seems to satisfy, it’s because we were made for a different world. A place where there IS a matching fulfillment for each and every yearning.

That God-sent truth rejuvenated me with fresh energy.  King Solomon wrote an entire book about unmet longings. Read all of Ecclesiastes in one setting. It’s short.  This wealthiest and wisest monarch at the time tried EVERY experience under the sun.  And was bored by all.

Nothing at all thrilled him?  Nope! That’s because our hearts are made to be satisfied ALONE by God. Only God is big enough to enrapture us forever. Psalm 16:11 …in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Once God reminded me of how He fashioned me, my blahs disappeared. New energy arrived.  I bargained with myself to work for an hour on my video and then I would sit down and read the newspaper.

Since that change in mood, I’ve been able to apply the same truth to Christmas.  Especially in the realm of gift giving.

We all want to give a brief transcendent moment to those we love. Parents delight in doing this for their young children.  But have you looked at the ideas presented in the TV and newspaper ads?  Can a piece of jewelry do that for a woman?  Or a new wallet for a man?

My hairdresser recounted a recent errand she ran with her husband to Lowe’s.  Walking down one aisle, he stopped by one of those metal-finding tools people use at the beach to hunt for ‘treasure’.  He mentioned that he had always wanted one.  So, they bought it right then and there. She’s going to wrap it up for him and put it under the tree!  How’s that for transcendence!

The point is, NO thing here on earth can or should satisfy.  My early magical feeling of excitement is simply proof that I was made for something BIG, LASTING and not fully comprehensible – in other words something BOREDOM-PROOF.

For Christians, we have a guarantee of just such a world.  Waiting for us.  As Paul says, nothing here on earth is, (Romans 8:18)  …..worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

Why? How?  (1 Cor 2:9) But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, …..God has prepared for those who love him.

Comfort yourself, friend.  It’s okay that the traditions and rituals of the season no longer move you.  They are but shadows of the real thing. Immerse yourself in the facts. The real Christmas is coming. Christ with us and we with Christ. A forever joy, excitement and über-satisfaction that will grow in its power to thrill us.

 

 

 

Spiritual lesson from a botched colonoscopy

April 27, 2018

Maria 1 Corinthians 2, Matthew 6, Psalm 46, Sovereignty of God, Trust, Trusting God, Worry 2 Comments

Our Father has a sense of humor.  Even with colonoscopies.

It was the dreaded 10-year purge by puke-worthy prep liquid ritual of aging.

D Day – 2:  give up my beloved fruits and vegetables.  I started to feel ‘OTHER’ when I dined with my colleagues at school.

D Day – 1: no food after 11:59 am.  I stayed in my classroom during ‘lunch’ so I wouldn’t have to WATCH my colleagues enjoy their food.  Pity party continued all afternoon.  Got home and endured my Purge Cocktail. Happily chugged 32 ounces of water right afterward as directed.  Looked forward to warming some vegetable broth (I’m vegan for 18 out of 21 meals a week) to nurse AFTER that my ordeal.  Only to find out that the reason they restrict one to chicken broth is that it’s LIGHT colored and my veg broth is DARK.  And dark colors are ‘verboten’. Nothing but peppermint tea for me rest of evening.  Meanwhile, Mike enjoyed his dinner.  And wine.

D Day – my only consolation for the double horror of round 2 of the prep liquid is that ‘At least I won’t have to do this for another 10 years!’.  Famous last words.

Matthew 6:25-27  Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?  Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

Once my morning beverage was behind me, the ‘what ifs’ taunted me.  I listened for a while:

  • The doctor who was to do the procedure had told me that he lived in Asheville and commuted the 45-50 minutes to my local hospital.  ‘What if he is sick?  or has car trouble?  or there is traffic? If he can’t make it in, they’d have to RESCHEDULE me!  And I’ll have to drink that stuff all over again!’

I fought that fear with facts about God’s providence and control over every single molecule in the universe.

The worry gremlins probed again:

  • ‘What if there is a tree that has fallen down in the middle of the night, after all that rain?.  It might block our egress off of the mountain onto the 4-lane to the hospital?’

Again, by faith I reminded myself of who God was, meditating on His command:  Be still and know that I am God. (Psalm 46:10)   Whew! Once down the hill, I thanked our good God.

We arrived at the hospital on time at 7:15.  All went well.  The staff was friendly and competent.  The doctor poked his head into the prep room to greet both of us.  The procedure went well from my point of view.  Quicker than both Mike and I expected I was wheeled back into the prep room.

Then the ‘bombshell’.   “You weren’t cleaned out enough.  I could not complete the scope.  I’m afraid we’ll have to reschedule you. Soon.”

Rats and double rats!  That’s putting it mildly.  I responded to the gastrointestinal expert with something a little more reflective of how I actually felt.  I had not anticipated this possibility.  In fact, I had not even WORRIED through this scenario.

As Mike and I were driving back up the mountain lane to our house, I contemplated yet another round of this ‘hardship’. Suddenly I saw the absolute futility of worrying about possible negative outcomes.  A chuckle escaped.  Mike looked over at me in the passenger seat, eyebrows raised.  I explained:

“Michael, you and I worry about different things.  But worry is worry, no matter what flavor.  I suddenly see that I wasted energy angsting over what might occur to cause me to have to go through that awful prep, all over again.  I think God is showing me that I cannot predict anything, so why should I bother mucking around in possible negative futures?  He’s sovereign, one way or another.  Better just to relax and trust Him.  Usually what I worry about never even comes to pass.  And if He has an event planned for me, then He will provide the grace to enable me to live through it.  Today, apparently, was more TRAINING that I needed.  He’s trying to teach me NOT to worry, but to rely on Him.”

Mike nodded in agreement.  He recognizes that each day contains these kinds of lesson plans. Part of God’s daily spiritual ‘workouts’ to make us more like our Big Brother, Jesus.

But do you know what?  There’s a happy corollary to this pattern of God’s, His unpredictability in some things.  He has unimaginably good and joyful plans for us, too:

1 Cor 2:9 (NLT) That is what the Scriptures mean when they say, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.”

So….what did I learn from this to-be-repeated unpleasantness?  Simply that there is absolutely NO good reason to worry.  May God help me remember that!