Spiritual Discipline Tuesday - Prayer

Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where
there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon;
where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where
there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where
there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be
consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to
be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is
in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we
are born to eternal life. Amen.

A prayer of St. Francis

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[Check out Joe Kennedy for a list of others posting today on the spiritual discipline of prayer.]

There is much that could be said about the discipline of prayer.  Countless books have been written on the subject and it is doubtful that I can add much to what has already been written or to what you already know.  In the past I have confessed to less-than-stellar prayer habits in my own life.  I can happily say that things have gotten better for me in that area and it can be attributed to several things.

First, about a year ago I began to follow the Daily Office.  As I mentioned in the post linked to above, sometimes my prayers can be unbalanced.  And simply selfish.  There are things for which I ought to pray  that I do not because my thoughts are on myself, my well-being, my needs, rather than on God and his glory and the many needs around me that are most often far greater than my own.  The daily office gets me out of my own personal cocoon and has given me direction in praying that focuses my heart and mind on the goodness of God.  Some resources for the daily office include prayers for missions, for the different countries of the world, various denominations and many other areas of life.  And, of course, you can follow the daily office in the Book of Common Prayer (if you’re not too afraid that you might either convert to Anglicanism or simply lose your sense of Clear Baptist Identity). 

It also got me in the habit of setting prayer times during my day.  The people of Israel had set prayer times during their day - usually around the hours of 9AM, noon and 3PM.  I set my schedule to pray during these times, not as a legalistic formula, but as a way to better discipline myself in prayer.  I’ve not always followed these times as many days there are interruptions to this schedule, but it has served as a useful guide for my praying.  Different prayers can be found for these different times in the above online resources.

The second thing that has helped in my praying is the use of prayer beads.  I do not pray a "Rosary" or anything, but I keep them in my pocket and throughout the day when I reach into that pocket and find those prayer beads they remind me to lift up a prayer, be it for our church, my family, a circumstance that is in my life or has been brought to my attention from someone else’s life.  It is simply a physical reminder throughout my day to say a short prayer.  Sometimes I do pray around the beads.  At times I recite a Celtic prayer that came with them.  At other times I simply mention individuals by name as I pass through each bead.  It has a cross attached that reminds me to be Trinitarian in my praying and I generally close with the Invitatory bead (the first bead above the cross) by reciting Jesus’ model prayer or a personalized version of it - that being the most balanced prayer I know of.

Richard Foster writes the prayer stands at the very center of a spiritually disciplined life.  It is the means by which we enter into God’s presence.  I have seen great things accomplished through prayer as have you.  However, I’ve discovered that the primary value of prayer in my life is not in seeing wondrous things occur around me, but in seeing God do wondrous things within me.  It has been said that prayer changes things.  I would say that prayer changes people.  The purpose of prayer is not primarily to change our circumstances but to change us.  To conform us to the mind and heart of God.  We should not be praying to change God’s mind about things, but to be changed by him, conformed to him.

Finally, I would say that prayer is more than the reciting of words - be they recited prayers of saints of old or extemporaneous prayer.  Prayer is an attitude that we have throughout our day.  Paul admonished us to pray without ceasing.  Certainly he did not mean for every Christian to spend all of his/her waking hours on their knees neglecting their families, their work or a lost world.  I believe he meant for us to go throughout our days with our minds directed to God in all that we do - at work, at home, at play.

I close with a poem about prayer by Sandra Goodwin:

Travel On Your Knees

Last night I took a journey
To a land far "cross the seas;
I didn’t go by boat or plane,
I trusted on my knees.

I saw so many people there
In deepest depths of sin,
And Jesus told me I should go
That there were souls to win.

But I said, "Jesus, I can’t go
And work with such as these.’
He answered quickly, "Yes, you can
By traveling on your knees.’

He said, "You pray; I’ll meet the need,
You call and I will hear;
Be concerned about lost souls,
Of those both far and near.’

And so I tried it, knelt in prayer,
Gave up some hours of ease;
I felt the Lord right by my side
While traveling on my knees.

As I prayed on and saw souls saved
And twisted bodies healed,
And saw God’s worker’s strength renewed
While laboring on the filed.

I said, "Yes, Lord, I have a job
My desire Thy will to please;
I can go and heed Thy call
By traveling on my knees.’

The Christ In You

One of the books in my "Recommended Reads" category in the left sidebar is Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together.  The first time I read it that little book made a huge impact on my conceptions of the church and church life.  Well…let me correct that just a bit.  It didn’t simply make an impact on my conceptions of the church, but it made a rather significant impact on my attitudes about the church.

Being affiliated with the "Emergent crowd" it would be easy to plead guilty to a sort-of griping attitude about the church.  By and large I think the emergent conversations that are predominant these days have moved well beyond the whining or complaining stage and have become much more constructive.  But the appeal of the ongoing emergent movement has been a shared sense that the evangelical church has, by and large, let us down.  We see the lavish lifestyles of evangelical poster preachers and our guts tell us that there’s got to be more to our faith than that.  We see the plastic lives represented in the plastic stage sets on TBN and the plastic hairdos of their leader’s wives and we long for something of greater worth than synthetic polymers.  We watch as so many in our churches seem to simply be going through the motions and we long for something more enduring.

It was during a period of criticizing the church, even my local church, that I first read Life Together and was summarily beaten about the head and neck by Bonhoeffer’s words.  I remember phrases like, "God has not called you to constantly be taking the church’s temperature."  Bonhoeffer called me back to a love and appreciation for the bride of Christ even when she’s laying on the couch in sweats, not wearing any makeup, eating Bon Bons and watching Jerry Springer all day.  The perfect church is a myth, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t strive for something better than a church-going Peg Bundy.

Occasionally, even in the prevailing evangelical church or church-type setting we get glimpses of what we long for church to be like.  I got a few glimpses of that this past week.  Bonhoeffer wrote about experiencing the Christ in others, particularly when the Christ in us seems weak, remote or beyond our outstretched grasp.  Now, I’ve been around teenagers long enough to have a more-than-healthy cynicism when it comes to some of the expressions of faith that come out of youth camps.  Too many years of seeing too many of those commitments fall too flat in too short a time will do that to you.  But last week I saw the Christ in those kids shine through in some ways that pointed me to the potential that exists in the church of tomorrow.

I saw senior high students voluntarily partnering with middle school kids - even the really annoying ones - to talk about what the Scriptures are saying and how God is working in their lives.  I saw kids who are not an ongoing part of our church or youth group who were welcomed by the others as if they were longtime friends.  I heard as one after another shared about their brokenness and how they were beginning to experience healing through the presence of Christ and the presence of Christ they experience in their Christian friends.  I watched as they helped plan how they would share this work of God with their moms and dads, grandparents and church family and they didn’t come up with your typical, "We want to thank the cooks, ’cause the food was really great and I had a great time and thanks for letting us go," but instead led us in a deep calling out to a great God who had encountered them in the Arbuckle mountains of southern Oklahoma.

I will remember this camp experience.  Not for that infernal hill we had to climb several times a day making my knees sore.  Not for the new air conditioned tabernacle where we met to worship.  Not for the music or the preaching.  Not for the multitude of "decisions" that were made.  But for the Christ I witnessed in those kids which was unparalleled in all my years of summer youth camp.

They’re Really Coming Along Now

Our kids like to prank their pastor.  I don’t know why.  However, this year we have instituted a new discipleship program into our camp curriculum which is meant to instill a greater sense of honor and respect.  I think it is really beginning to take root.  Have a look-see:

Camp Discipline

Occasionally one of our wonderful miscreants youth decides to push the envelope and see what they can get away with while at camp.  Each year we have some pre-determined means of handing out discipline.  They may get extra KP, have to scrub the toilets, or in extreme cases, this:

Youth Camp

This week I’m off to Falls Creek, “The Largest Christian Youth
Encampment In The World™.”  While I’m out I hope you enjoy some video clips of what this week just might hold for our kids.

In today’s episode students get a preview of the core curriculum from the Southwestern degree in homemaking and proper gender roles.

Picture This

Here are a couple of pics from our vacation this week.  The first is of my dad fishing off the back of the boat we rented.  The second is one of many sunset pics.  I couldn’t decide which was the best, but I picked this one out.  Maybe I’ll post some others another time.

Spiritual Discipline Tuesday - Introduction

Each Tuesday, for several months, I will join a group of other missional-minded bloggers in a series of posts on spiritual disciplines.  I hope it’s Tuesdays or I’m going to be out of sync for at least a couple of weeks. [By the way, check out Joe Kennedy for the list and links to the others who are joining in.]  Today is for introductions - to spiritual disciplines, that is.

I went to high school with one of the greatest pure athletes I’ve ever personally known.  I’ll not use his name because not everything I have to say will be flattering.  He was a basketball phenomenon.  He was dunking with ease at sixteen.  Our junior year in high school we won the state 5A basketball championship, the largest class at the time (no doubt the fact that some guy from Tulsa named Wayman Tisdale being hurt greatly improved everyone else’s chances).  And he didn’t even have to try.  When we’d run wind sprints in practice he always came in second-to-last.  Not because he was slow.  Because he didn’t try, and second-to-last only because he didn’t want to be dead last.  And he didn’t have to try.

Every tournament we played in that year he was named the MVP.  College scouts were all over him.  He went on to play for a major Division I college.  And that’s where his effort - or sometimes lack thereof - began to show.

He was still a really good college player.  He would have moments of brilliance.  In fact, he scored over 2000 points in his college career.  But there were games where he simply didn’t show up.  Nevertheless, 2000 points will get you drafted in the NBA.  But he never made it in the big league.  Within a few years of being drafted he was playing in the minor league Continental Basketball Association (now defunct).  It wasn’t long before his basketball career was also defunct.  Turns out he wasn’t even a superstar in the CBA.

I don’t believe the thing that made the difference was talent.  He had the talent.  He did not have the discipline.  Effort who’s goal is second-to-last may work in high school but it will not get you in the game with the likes of Karl Malone or Charles Barkley - or even Carl English or Charles Smith.

One of the reasons great players are great is because they try to be great every day, not just when they’re in the game.  I’m a 5′9" white man who could be the poster boy for "White Men Can’t Jump."  But I love to play basketball.  If I want to be any good, though, I cannot simply run onto the court at game time and expect to play like Michael Jordan.  In fact, Michael Jordan didn’t simply run onto the court expecting to play great.  He worked every day to practice great so that when he got into the game he would play great.

Spiritual disciplines are our way of practicing great so that when we are thrust into the moment of challenge we will perform great.  As followers of Christ we have been called to do the things he did.  But he made those things look easy.  To us they seem very hard.  Yet Jesus promised that his yoke is easy ad his burden is light.  His commands are not burdensome.  How can that be?

It is not because we take on his characteristics through spiritual osmosis.  It is because we do the things he did.  That doesn’t simply mean that as he turned the other cheek, so do we; as he blessed those who cursed and persecuted him, so do we.  It means that as he went out to a solitary place to commune with the Father, so do we; as he fasted, so do we; as he prayed, so do we; as he meditated on the Scripture, so do we; as he lived a life of simplicity, so do we; as he gave generously to others, so do we. 

In other words, as he disciplined his life, so do we.  It was in the day-to-day activities of life that Jesus honed his spiritual muscles and perfected his shot.  It was there that his fullness of the Spirit and communion with God because so overwhelming that he could truly do the things he did both naturally and with ease.  We, too, can learn that easy way of life.  It is actually much easier than all of the alternatives.  Try living life apart from the strength of the Spirit and that close communion with the Father and you will discover just how difficult life can be, just how heavy that burden.  But learn a way of life - his way of life - where doing the things he did comes easy and the load is light because we are not carrying it under our own efforts, but are yoked to him.  This is where the spiritual disciplines will lead us.

Too many Christians live their lives simply wanting to make sure they don’t come in dead last.  Second-to-last?  That’s not so bad.  But that is choosing the difficult path.  As long as life presents no greater challenge than high school then you may be able to make it.  But as you grow up you enter a world where high school spirituality simply becomes too difficult to adequately address the things you will face in life.  Come.  Let us learn together how to take on this easy yoke, this light burden.

Out Of Office Reply

Posting this week will be very sporadic.  We are on vacation enjoying the company of Ozark hillbillies and working to stock the freezer for a big ol’ fish fry of rainbow trout this Friday night. [Mmmm mmmm!]

Tomorrow I will post an introduction to a series on spiritual disciplines that will become a Tuesday regular for several months.  Beyond that, the only place that may have wireless internet access is the local McDonalds - and in a town of about 1700 or so I’m not counting on that.  Enjoy your week.  I certainly plan to enjoy mine.

Prayer Request Update

Our family is going on vacation today, but I didn’t want to leave you hanging regarding this week’s prayer request.  Let me begin by saying how we have valued your commitment to pray for us.  It’s actually pretty amazing how things have developed just since Tuesday.

There are some things I probably can’t say about Victor’s situation and other things that would simply be unwise to say.  I certainly don’t want to undermine the generous heart of the woman who wants to adopt Victor and his siblings.  Anyone who is willing to welcome the orphan and give them a new home and love them is to be commended.  Would that more of us who claim the name of Christ would do so. 

As an aside, let me just tell you that the foster care system is in terrible shape across America.  There are far more kids who need homes than there are beds to put them in.  Those who aren’t fortunate enough to be placed with a family are either sent to a shelter, a group home or are institutionalized, usually in a psychiatric hospital.  These kids have been chewed up and spit out by their own families.  Many have been sexually abused, taught to steal, taken out drinking with relatives, neglected, cussed at their whole lives, beaten and more.  Let me challenge you to consider opening your home to these children.  They need a safe home and lots of love.  It’s amazing how resilient they are, especially when they receive these things.  This is pure religion which is undefiled.

Back to Victor.  He simply does not want to be adopted by the lady who wants to adopt he and his siblings.  He’s told his case worker this multiple times.  He’s told the adoption specialist.  He’s told his attorney.  He’s told all of his friends.  There are a combination of reasons, some of which have nothing specifically to do with the potential adoptive mother and a lot to do with the stability that has come to his life over the last fifteen months.  He feels safe with us.  He likes his school.  He loves his church.  He has many friends and makes friends easily.  He could probably have much of that were he to move, but he cannot see that.  He also loves our family and we have certainly grown to love him.

On July 23rd Victor and his siblings were to go to his adoptive mother’s for a week-long stay.  The plan was to place the kids in the home, probably the next week or so.  But on Wednesday he found out that the adoptive mother said that if he didn’t want to be there she didn’t want him.  Who could blame her.  It looked to be a situation that was getting off to a very bad start with no reason to believe it would get better any time soon.

Before we had learned that on Wednesday we told the adoption specialist that we were interested in adopting Victor.  It was really amazing to watch how things unfolded throughout the day.  There is no guarantee that we will, in fact, adopt him, though things look very positive at this point.  We must still qualify.  The courts must grant him a separation from his siblings (they have wanted to keep them together).  We suspect that his case worker may be in court this coming Monday to ask for the sibling separation.  It will take a while for the process to run its course for our approval.  But so far things are looking positive.

We would ask you to continue to pray for this situation, but we would ask for a new direction in your prayers.  We feel a peace that we should pursue adoption.  Now we ask you to pray that the potential obstacles that still exist might be resolved so that the adoption might take place.  They are certainly not insurmountable obstacles as everyone we have talked to so far has been very positive.  But we must still get a recommendation from the adoption specialist and approval from the courts.  We must also qualify.

We feel a little like fish out of water because we don’t know what all is involved and we have made no financial preparations for the expense that will be involved.  We know someone who owns the cattle on a thousand hills and we will ask him for a few of those cows knowing that he is generous and believing that he will provide.  He has always done so in the past and we have no reason to believe he will not do so now as well.  We also know that children who are in state custody are often eligible for assistance and we will pursue whatever is available.

Thanks again for your prayers.  It has been amazing to see how God has worked thus far and we look forward to his continued work in the days ahead.

Sorry.  No picture today.  No time.

Quotes Of The Day

"The men the American public admire most extravagantly are the most
daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to
tell them the truth."  H. L. Mencken

"Typos are very important to all written form. It gives the reader
something to look for so they aren’t distracted by the total lack of
content in your writing."  Randy K. Milholland

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us
with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."  Galileo Galilei

"The most perfidious way of harming a cause consists of defending it deliberately with faulty arguments."  Fredrich Nietzsche

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