Category: Prayer

Love given

 

I’m a people watcher. So it was no problem for me that I had over an hour to sit and wait at my gate before taking off to Arizona.

If you’ve flown lately you know that as the airline counter person is calling groups to board, one of the first groups invited to board is military personnel in uniform. As that call was made, a young man walked toward the counter from behind where I was sitting. He checked in and took a few steps toward the long tunnel that led to the plane. Then he stopped, turned around and gave a come here wave. Immediately three people moved towards him: a woman, a man, and a boy. The woman appeared to be his mother, the man (I then assumed) was dad or step-dad, and the boy, his little brother.

He first reached out to the boy. Initially there was some of that guy-like arm bumping, but it was quickly replaced by some hugging and words spoken directly into the boy’s ear. It wasn’t a long transaction, but it was so touching that I felt myself getting choked up and my eyes filled with tears.

The two separated and the woman stepped over. Their embrace was the most touching thing I’ve seen since I can remember. She held him tightly and then prayed out loud for him. As with the boy, he spoke softly right into her ear. Then they just stood there hugging, rocking back and forth, back and forth, both of them crying—and me right along with them.

When they finally separated, he shook the man’s hand, turned, and walked down the gangway. As he disappeared the three left behind stood there briefly, holding each other in a kind of group hug, and then they turned and walked away as well.

I’m not sure where the young soldier was going, but it was away, and given the tears, I’m thinking it was into battle and harm’s way. I wondered how someone could do that. I was immediately grateful for his service and prayed a prayer of protection for him and peace for his family.

As I prayed, I was reminded that God did just that: for God so loved that he gave his son, that while we were yet sinners (and unknowing of our need) his son died for us all, for we have all sinned and are in need of one to save us. And I was thank-full all over again.

But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.  Romans 5:8

Feeling Held

 

So yesterday I flew to my mom’s in Arizona. My journey, however, began in a car. A friend drove me to the airport. We arrived surprisingly early and it didn’t take too much effort to pry my fingernails from the seatbelt that I had been gripping to keep me secure. I am a horrible passenger, and that is putting it mildly. Weaving through the heavy morning traffic had my heart doing all kinds of flip flops.

Flying has not been too different an experience. I am only an occasional traveler, so I have never acquired that calm demeaner that seems to waft from those who saunter through airports with ease and confidence. I’m constantly checking for my ticket, watching the arrival departure screens, getting to the gate ridiculously early, and praying. The whole process is one long continuous prayer vigile. I try to go with the flow and fake outwardly that I know what I’m doing, but I’m well aware that my nervous giggle gives me away every time. It causes me to truly understand and engage in Paul’s adominition to pray without ceasing.

The serious praying for me really begins as the plane begins to taxi down the runway and occurs again when I feel the jolt of the landing gear emerging as we prepare for landing. At these critical junctures in the flight I realize I need to be keenly prepared to meet my God, so I pray. These prayers are foxhole prayers at there finest.

The first leg of my journey was a quick jaunt from Columbus to Chicago O’Haire. Approaching Chicago something happened that I have never experienced before. I looked out my window and saw that we were about to swing out over the lake to head the plane toward the airport and all of a sudden I had this sensation of floating, of weightlessness, but also of being gently bouyed. It reminded me of a time when as a young child my mother was trying to teach me to float in a swimming pool. Initially she had her hands under me, holding me up. Slowly she would pull her hand away, but I could still feel it near. She was trying to teach me to trust that the water could hold me, but also that she was there catch me if I became afraid and started to go under.

In that moment in the plane I felt such peace. Gone was the frantic praying that normally would have begun as descended to the ground. I knew I was being given a gift and I just reveled in it silently, and thankfully.

And then we landed. And then we sat. Why wasn’t the plane moving? Didn’t the pilot know I had very little time to make it to my connecting flight? Who cares if the plane at the gate we’re assigned to hasn’t left yet? It’s a big airport, pick another one.

I felt myself starting to fret and stew. I’m so unaccustomed to traveling that I didn’t know what I would do if I missed my connection. Would I be able to get to Tucson? Would they have to honor my ticket or was I just out of luck? What was I going to do?

And then that little spiritual lightbulb went off in my head. I had been on the mountain and experienced a precious moment in the presence of my God just like the disciples had in the story of the Mount of Transfiguration (see Mark 9). They wanted to tary in the specialness of the moment, but had to return to real life, and as soon as they did things started to press on them and cause them to question, fret, and fuss. Just like me.

Sitting in my seat, waiting, I entered a quiet internal place and sought forgiveness for allowing the uncertainty of the moment to crowd in and make me forget that God’s hand was just as present on the ground as it was in the air. God isn’t just about the taking offs and landings, the big scary moments of life. No, he cares about it all, because he cares about me. And there, in that moment, I felt the peace that comes from releasing myself and my insane want of control over to the One who has called me and upholds me.

I have called you back from the ends of the earth so that you can serve me. For I have chosen you and will not throw you away. Don’t be afraid, for I am with you. Be not dismayed, for I am you God. I will strengthen you. I will help you. I will uphold you with my victorious right hand. Isaiah 41:9-10, NLT

 

Continuing in Prayer

My theme or guiding principle for 2012 continues to develop.  I went to our public library and found a book while browsing the shelves entitled “Pray Big.”  It’s not a deep book, but it’s calling me deeper, challenging my thinking and my practice of prayer.

On Christmas Sunday I offered to help team teach our adult Sunday School class.  I’m going to use this material.  I’ll be sharing more specifics from the book later.  What I can tell you now is that it’s not the kind of book I can race through.  I’m reading it much more slowly than I normally read books and taking notes, and not just because I plan to teach from it.  I’m doing a lot of self-examination and a lot of praying…and weeping.  I’m quite excited for the growth.

Pray First: Fervent

When was the last time you used the word fervent in a sentence? I can’t remember either. So when I was looking for verses about prayer and rediscovered our verse in James, it should probably come as no surprise that I got stuck on that word. What does it mean? What does it mean to pray fervently?

As is my pattern, I went to dictionary.com to look up this unused and unfamiliar word. There I found that to be fervent is to mean imassioned, passionate, or ardent. That definition, of course, led me off to quickly find out what ardent means. Ardent is defined as intensely devoted, eager, or enthusiastic; zealous. Each word defined the other.

Initially I wondered if the intensity that was being described was to define the action of praying. As if something about the way I pray would bring about more positive results. I’ve heard stirring prayers in different worship settings that have left me feeling that perhaps my prayers weren’t “good enough.” Perhaps I just needed to get louder, pace around, and wave my arms at the heavens. Afterall, isn’t that a more accurate portrayal of Jesus’ intensity in the garden. He was so intent in his praying that he sweat drops of blood. That sounds pretty fervent to me.

All this thinking about fervent prayer reminded me of a very special thing that happened at a church I attended back in the 90’s. My primaray “assigned” ministry was chaplain at an agency that worked with out of home placed kids, but I was also a part of a pastoral team at my church. Our beloved pastor was going through a very rough time with the ravages of cancer. In our congregation there were three persons who had served as senior pastors, myself included, so we had been directed by the district leadership and the local board to divide up the pastoral duties to cover for our ailing pastor.

This was a very emotional time for our church, but it also turned into a very dynamic time of spiritual growth and maturity. No place was this more obvious than in our times of prayer. You want to talk about fervent? Our intense prayers for our pastor and his family spilled over into earnest prayers for our congregation. Then I happened to be covering in the office and I noticed that this experience didn’t stop at the walls of the church or its parking lot. Calls started coming in from individuals in the community who had heard that we were a “praying church” and they wanted add their concerns to our prayers. Members of the congregation were stopped at the grocery or Walmart by friends and acquaintances and asked to pray for needs and situations.

One Sunday worship as we were preparing for the congregational prayer time we stopped and reflected on this. The congregation had always wanted to make an impact in the community. Now they had. So what would they do with it? We chose to keep praying.

So where was the passion and intensity in our prayers? It wasn’t about noise or motion, it was about a deep desire to reach the heart of God with the things that mattered to our hearts. That’s what I’m hoping to find again. It’ll be exciting to see what else will be affected in my life because of this commitment to Pray First this year…but I will be ardently seeking to find out!

Getting the Word

1Timothy 2:1-3 The first thing I want you to do is pray. Pray every way you know how for everyone you know. Pray especially for rulers and their governments to rule well so we can be quietly about our business of living simply, in humble contemplation. This is the way our Savior God wants us to live. (The Message)

Each year I use the week between Christmas and New Years to intentionally seek the “theme” that God would use as a guide for me in the new year. One year it was the word contentment, another time surrender. Last year it seemed that God wanted to reinforce in me the thought from Psalm 23 that “I have all I need.”

I hadn’t really even begun to give thought to the process when God broke into my quiet time this morning with the scripture quoted above. Initially, I thought that the verse was merely there to set the tone for my search, but I quickly realized that the first part of verse one was the answer to the question I had yet to ask.

So it looks like it’s going to be a year of prayer. As I let this soak in some specific thoughts bubbled up:

-Pray first. My standard practice of allowing worry to drive me to prayer will no longer suffice. Before worry, before complaint, before anything: prayer.

-Pray for leaders. I must confess that I am quite tired with all the grumbling and negativity associated with our current governmental leadership as well as with those seeking to be considered for leadership. I really feel that I am being asked to be silent in the conversations that will be raging and instead be prayerful.

-Prayer is going to lead me into living simply, humbly, and contemplatively.

 My thought is to write about this journey. I intend to read about prayer, and about pray-ers. I want to be able to look back see what the terrain of this year-long journey has been. And I will be recording that here (interspersed with other reflections, especially during Lent). To that end, if there is something that I can be praying for you about, please leave me a note. If it’s a private matter, perhaps we can email about that.

I’m excited. I expect I’ll be stretched. I don’t anticipate that this will be easy. But growth rarely is, and I believe I will grow.