prayer

Krishnan and Hurnard on prayer

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A friend who lives in Indonesia sent me a link after my last blog post: http://vimeo.com/8467883. It’s a video of Sunder Krishnan, pastor of Rexdale Alliance Church in Toronto, Ontario, speaking on prayer at the Urbana Conference in 2009. It’s titled “Pray Big and Pray Bold,” it’s about praying for our everyday requests in the same power that was exercised by the early church in Acts 4, and it is AWESOME! I listened to it today as I ate my lunch. It would not load the last four minutes of the video, and I’m hoping that’s not a permanent problem as I’m planning to watch it again later (maybe while I fold laundry 🙂  ). Here’s the link to the Youtube posting just in case: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZRT5q1DuMg.

I also have a quote to share from one of my favorite authors, Hannah Hurnard. If you have not read Hind’s Feet on High Places, I recommend it. That’s her best-known book, though she has also written other excellent ones. As I read and re-read Hinds’ Feet, I find myself thinking–and sometimes saying aloud–“Yes! That’s exactly how it is. That’s what my soul WANTS to say–without knowing how to say it.”

Anyway, here’s the quote by Hurnard that I wanted to share: “It is not that prayer changes God, or awakens in Him purposes of love and compassion that He has not already felt. No, it changes us, and therein lies its glory and its purpose.”

In our lives, Lord, be glorified

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Last week I posted about prayer, about praying BIG, or at least praying for God’s BIG. That doesn’t come naturally for me. My “self” generally takes over and my focus is on the here, the now, the pressing. If I could see, as Elisha’s servant was enabled to, the great spiritual forces and battles taking place, I know my prayers would be different (2 Kings 6). So I pray for increased sight, for enabled vision, but in the meantime of this life’s limitations, I practice praying BIG solely on faith. I pray in the  belief that the glory of God is the best thing for all of us, and when His glory is accomplished, then ALL will be right and well.

The other morning, as I was busy with the “small” of picking out clothes and putting on makeup, I began singing an old praise chorus. “In my life, Lord, be glorified, be glorified. In my life, Lord, be glorified, today.” (Here’s a link to a performance of it on Youtube if you’re not familiar with it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4gquuJRoYI). I sang the verses, which substitute the words “my home” and then “Your church” for “my life,” but then I got specific, putting in my husband’s name, my children’s names, Water’s Edge church, Wheaton Academy, then specific countries: the U.S., China, Japan, Africa, starting with the ones with which I’ve had personal connection. It was such a small exercise, but it focused my prayer time and as I sang I imagined what it might look like for God to be glorified in Dave’s life that day, through Wheaton Academy that day, through the house church movement in China that day. Specific AND Big.

I continued the verses in open moments, chopping veggies for the crockpot, driving home from carpooling, folding laundry. At some point it turned to a different song:“ We exalt thee.” I sang this years and years ago in Argentina, as I washed dishes in some incredibly hot water with the Argentine woman who cooked dinners for the church family. I taught her the English words to the song; she taught me the Spanish, and we sang together while we scrubbed chicken bits off plates and scoured out the giant pots she had used for soup that night. At some point in our singing the image of humanity gathered around the throne of God, singing all together, came to my mind and it became more real to me than it ever had before. And somehow, after a day of singing now, off and on, for God to be glorified through as many people and groups as I could think of, I was pulled back to the that image and to that song. I got a glimpse of my–of our–biggest purpose.

In our lives, Lord, be glorified.

Pessimistic praying

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I grew up spiritually fatalistic, in a family and in churches that firmly believed we were in the end times, and things were only going to get worse in our world until Christ’s return.

I still believe that Scripture bears witness to this, but lately the Holy Spirit has been convicting me about the pessimism that I’ve carried along with this belief. It is true that as a world, we are marching steadily further and further away from God, but I can’t find any place in Scripture that tells me to give up hope for God’s work in the middle of this.

I’ve begun to see that my “pessimism” has led me to pray limited prayers. I haven’t really prayed for great revival—in our nation or our world. I don’t remember ever asking for a widespread heart transformation of our political leaders—at least not with any real passion.

And this pessimism hasn’t just affected my “big” prayers. When I pray for someone seriously sick or injured in an accident, I hold back from boldly asking for healing. Instead I say, “if it be Your will, Lord” or I ask Him to “work things out for good.” Even when the longing in my heart is so great it throbs, I often hold back from praying in hope.

I think I began praying those words because Jesus prayed for the Father’s will to be done. It seemed right to follow His example, and I still think that is a valid way to pray. But I’ve been realizing that, though my WORDS may be the same as Christ’s, my attitude is entirely different. When I pray those words, they come out of doubt and not hope. When I pray them, I’m tamping down hope. I’m subconsciously thinking, “Well, if I don’t let my hopes get too high, then it won’t hurt when God doesn’t answer this prayer the way I want Him to.” This attitude seems pretty contrary to Scripture. In the Lord’s Prayer, the phrase “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” is incredibly hopeful! It’s asking for earth to be more like heaven, where a loving God—rather than a cruel Satan—reigns. When Christ prayed “Your will be done,” He did so KNOWING that His Father’s will was and is completely good. He KNEW that on the other side of suffering was unspeakable joy for him. I imagine there was great freedom when He cried that. I imagine He was thinking, I WILL triumph over the pain and loneliness. I WILL cling to the joy that is ahead.

I don’t pray for the Lord’s will in that way. My sight is incredibly limited, so there is no triumph, there is no ability to see what is on the other side. So when I pretend with my words to be able to do that, am I lying? What’s more important: the words that come out of my mouth or the stifled hope that is in my heart? If I think my words are going to hide a very different heart attitude from an all-knowing God, then I’m mistaken.

How silly to try to hide my longings from God. How silly to pretend to have the same wisdom and knowledge as Jesus. I am human, not divine. I can follow Paul’s very human example when he cried out for his “thorn in the flesh” to be removed. Again and again he “begged” for this. He didn’t try to pretend that it was okay. He didn’t try to be “spiritual” from the beginning. He didn’t act like he had God’s purpose in that thorn all figured out. No. He cried out. He let God know how he felt. He “begged”! His words honestly portrayed what was in his heart. THEN God began teaching him that “(His) grace is enough.” Paul, being human, didn’t start with that. He shared what was in his heart and then let God transform him.

Lately, God has given our family a rare rest time: No one is sick; all six kids are doing well at school and with each other; Dave’s enjoying his work; I’m not so incredibly busy that I’m barely clinging to sanity.

This is good, yes, but it’s also dangerous because it’s during these kinds of times that my prayer life often suffers. I don’t actively depend on God in rest times the ways I do when things are hard. I don’t pray with the same intensity. But God’s been reminding me that things are hard in others’ lives and—on a bigger scope—in the world and in the church. I can use this space of personal rest to pray with passion—and with HOPE!—for others.

I know that authentic prayer for others hurts. When I pray specifically for the persecuted church, my heart will have to stretch to care more about those brothers and sisters. When I pray for women and girls and boys who are being abused through sex trafficking, my sleep will at times be interrupted with urgings to pray in the middle of the night. When I pray for this nation’s political leaders, I will have to pay greater attention to what is going on in the government. When I pray for the members of our church, I will have to invest more of my time in their lives.

But HOPE requires that I pray. And faith requires that I pray in HOPE.

“For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!

Amen.” Galatians 3:14-21

I took this shot in Montana this summer and am posting it today because I find a lot of amazing lessons in the metamorphosis of butterflies and in their fragile, short lives following their transformation. I see them as very hopeful creatures.