Someone Needs This Prayer

There are several prayers offered on behalf of the saints throughout the New Testament. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am learning to adopt these prayers as my own in praying for myself as well as for others.

Lately I've felt burdened to pray for certain people that they would be filled with a deeper understanding of the depth of God's love. I'll admit that I at times struggle with that myself, and I suppose that I won't fully totally grasp the extent of God's love for me until I'm with Him face to face. Still, I pray for myself and others that God puts on my heart that we will all experience His lavish love in new ways.

The following is one of Paul's prayers, offered on behalf of the church at Ephesus, but no doubt applicable to us today. I have a feeling that someone needs this prayer right now. Perhaps it's you--if so, lift your voice to God and cry out for a touch of His love and power. If it's not you, but God has put someone else on your heart to pray for, take the time to pray for them today.

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole 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 saints, 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. (Ephesians 3:14-21)

"Anyway"

One of my current favorite songs, love the message in this song:

"Anyway", sung by Martina McBride

You can spend your whole life building
something from nothing
One storm can come and blow it all away
Build it anyway
You can chase a dream that seems
so out of reach
and you know it might not ever come your way
Dream it anyway

Chorus:
God is great,
but sometimes life ain't good
And when I pray
it doesn't always turn out like I think it should
But I do it anyway,
I do it anyway.

This world's gone crazy
and it's hard to believe
that tomorrow will be better than today
Believe it anyway
You can love someone with all your heart,
for all the right reasons,
and in a moment they can choose to walk away
Love em anyway.

God is great,
but sometimes life ain't good
And when I pray
it doesn't always turn out like I think it should
But I do it anyway,
I do it anyway.

You can pour your soul out singing
a song you believe in
that tomorrow they'll forget you ever sang
Sing it anyway, sing it anyway

I sing,
I dream,
I love,
anyway.

You can hear the song and see the video here.

Pressure? What Pressure?

More than 92,000 fans turned out for this past Saturday's Alabama football game. It wasn't for the Iron Bowl or the Tennessee game or any other SEC match-up, not even for playing some Division II school.

It was for a scrimmage.

I know that we Bama fans have the (admittedly deserved) reputation for being fanatical about our coaches, and I'm excited that Saban's here. But scenes like this--and the accompanying pressure-cooker atmosphere--make me just a teensy bit nervous. I'm all for being an enthusiastic, optimistic fan, but the hype that has already been built up makes me think we're setting ourselves up for disappointment pretty quick. Wouldn't be the first time though!

The good news is that Saban is no stranger to crazy fans and seems to be handling the pressure fairly well so far. We'll see how it goes when the season starts.

Might as well start the countdown:

Me, Me, Me

This morning I was feeling tired and cranky, the byproduct of staying up past my bedtime last night and feeling the full effects of an allergy pill that is supposed to be non-drowsy but was making me feel like I was in a fog today. By the time the worship service and Sunday school were over, I just wanted to get out of there and go home and take a nap. I found myself being less than my usual friendly self with people who were talking to me because I was focused on how tired I was.

On the drive home, I realized that my tiredness probably came across more like rudeness to the people I encountered. I saw that I was so wrapped up in how I was feeling and what I wanted to do that I basically ignored other people's needs.

I wish I could say that that was a rare occurrence, but sadly, it's not. I don't mean that I act tired and cranky all the time, but I do tend to focus many times on myself and ignore those around me.

When I'm focused on myself, I can become critical of other people, of the worship service, of my co-workers, you name it. When I'm focused on myself, I become easily discouraged if my perceived needs aren't being met on my timetable. When I'm focused on myself, nothing satisfies me--not material things, not relationships or friendships, not success at work.

By contrast, I am a much more joyful and contented person when I am looking to meet the needs of others rather than getting my own needs met. I suppose that's why selfishness is one of Satan's most oft-used and effective tools. He knows that if he can get our focus off of God and others and onto ourselves, our attitudes and actions will be anything but Christlike.

If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. (Philippians 2:1-4)

How thankful I am for those who see me when I'm cranky, self-centered or just downright rude, and still love me and forgive me anyway. And how extremely thankful I am for God's mercy and grace in forgiving and loving me!

O God, You know that I need so much help in keeping my focus on You and on those who You have put into my life. Teach me to trust You completely and to put others' needs ahead of my own. Let Your Spirit work in me to make me a humble servant, willing and ready to serve You--even when I'm feeling tired. Even when it's been a long week and everyone seems to want something from me. Even when I feel like I can't do it--remind me that with You, ALL things are possible! In Jesus' name, Amen.

Pruning

When God prunes away something in our lives, He causes us to experience or to receive something far more valuable or beneficial. Even more important, spiritual fruit is produced in us. We gain more of the nature of Christ, more of the power of the Holy Spirit, more of the qualities of character that are eternal. Nothing is more valuable to us than our obedience to God, and our trust in Him. When we yield ourselves fully to Him, He pours Himself fully into us.

(Discover Your Destiny by Charles Stanley, pg. 239)

Life Is Fleeting

This week's tragic scene at Virginia Tech has reminded me that life is fleeting. That's certainly not a new revelation, but one that I need to be reminded of from time to time. It's easy for me to get caught up in the flotsam and jetsam of life, to let a barrage of projects and commitments overwhelm me and fool me into thinking that surely I'll live for decades to come because that's how long it will take for me to accomplish all my work.

Then something like Monday's shootings happens. September 11 happens. A family member is stricken with a stroke. A church member's child is killed in a car accident. And I am reminded once again that life is indeed short, much shorter than I think it is, and that I waste too much time doing things that don't amount to a hill of beans.

I think that there is a careful balance that we must strike in taking life seriously but not too seriously. There is nothing wrong with making plans for the future--indeed, we'd be foolish to not plan ahead in many instances. But we must remember that although we can make all the plans we want, ultimately the results are not up to us.

Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails. (Proverbs 19:21)

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)

Despite all our planning, despite wearing seatbelts and sunscreen and getting regular check-ups, despite burgeoning bank accounts and prepaid tuition and early retirement plans, we really don't know if there will be a tomorrow for us. We don't know when or how God will call us home. But when tragedy strikes, it should serve as a reminder that our lives are in God's hands.

I believe that tragedies such as this should also spur us on to doing things that we've put off doing. Life is too short to put off doing something really imporant that will help my family (like making out my will). It's too short to let my past dictate my future. It's too short to let friendships fall to the wayside out of stubbornness or selfishness. It's too short to fixate on the things that I can't change. It's too short to waste opportunities to encourage the people I love. It's too short to worry about tomorrow.

I find that the more aware I am of how brief life really is, the more valuable it becomes to me, and the more I enjoy life. I am not guaranteed tomorrow. I want to live each day to the full (John 10:10), without regrets, without worrying about mistakes made or opportunities missed. Even if I die at a "young" age, I want people to see that I had a full life in Christ.

Some questions to ask yourself:
-What important thing have I put off doing that I need to take care of?
-What relationship(s) do I need to work toward healing or restoring?
-What is one thing that I can do to celebrate today as a gift from God?

The Importance of Meditation on the Word of God

The primary business I must attend to every day is to fellowship with the Lord. The first concern is not how much I might serve the Lord, but how my inner man might be nourished. I may share the truth with the unconverted; I may try to encourage believers; I may relieve the distressed; or I may, in other ways, seek to behave as a child of God; yet, not being happy in the Lord and not being nourished and strengthened in my inner man day by day, may result in this work being done in a wrong spirit.

The most important thing I had to do was to read the Word of God and meditate on it. Thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, and instructed.

Formerly, when I rose, I began to pray as soon as possible. But I often spent a quarter of an hour to an hour on my knees struggling to pray while my mind wandered. Now I rarely have this problem. As my heart is nourished by the truth of the Word, I am brought into true fellowship with God. I speak to my Father and my Friend (although I am unworthy) about the things that He has brought before me in His precious Word.

It often astonishes me that I did not see the importance of meditation upon Scripture earlier in my Christian life. As the outward man is not fit for work for any length of time unless he eats, so it is with the inner man. What is the food for the inner man? Not prayer, but the Word of God--not the simple reading of the Word of God, so that it only passes through our minds, just as water runs through a pipe. No, we must consider what we read, ponder over it, and apply it to our hearts.

When we pray, we speak to God. This exercise of the soul can be best performed after the inner man has been nourished by meditation on the Word of God. Through His Word, our Father speaks to us, encourages us, comforts us, instructs us, humbles us, and reproves us. We may profitably meditate, with God's blessing, although we are spiritually weak. The weaker we are, the more meditation we need to strengthen our inner man. Meditation on God's Word has given me the help and strength to pass peacefully through deep trials. What a difference there is when the soul is refreshed in fellowship with God early in the morning! Without spiritual preparation, the service, the trials, and the temptations of the day can be overwhelming.

(The Autobiography of George Muller, pps. 138-140)

Evidence

About a month after I moved into my house, I decided that I needed a roommate. One who would defend my house from intruders, greet me cheerfully when I came home from work, and not give me any attitude or eat my food out of the refrigerator. So off to the humane society I went to adopt Bailey, and she's been my roommate for the past 7 years.

Bailey is a shepherd/terrier/who knows what else mix. It's amazing how similar our personalities are--I think God knew what He was doing when He brought us together. We both can be very social, amiable creatures, but sometimes we both just want to be left alone. Our barks are most definitely worse than our bite.

I love my dog dearly, but there is one trait in particular that, if I had the choice, I would change: She sheds like crazy. I could probably make four or five other dogs out of the fur that she leaves behind on an annual basis.

No matter how thoroughly I use the lint roller on my clothes, inevitably I find at least one stray dog hair attached to me at some point in the day. I vacuum pretty frequently, but the Hoover is no match for my little shedding machine.

Of course, she can't help it, God made her that way. Everywhere I go, there is a little reminder of Bailey with me. It doesn't usually faze me; I've come to accept that putting up with dog hair is one of the hazards of being a dog owner. When people notice dog hair stuck to my clothes, they know that I either own or have been around a dog. That's evidence that a dog is in my life.

I was wondering the other day if evidence of God at work in my life is just as noticeable. Can people tell just by observing me that I've got the Holy Spirit "stuck" to me? Certainly I take Him with me everywhere I go--but do people at work, or in the checkout line, or in traffic recognize that?

Just as you can walk into my house and, even if Bailey weren't there, you'd know I had a dog there by seeing some stray dog hair or her dog dishes or the milkbone jar, I want people to be able to walk into my home and know instantly that God resides there, even if they didn't see a Bible on a shelf or heard Christian radio playing. I want the evidence of God at work in my life to be unmistakable.

Another Book Recommendation

If you want to be challenged and encouraged in your prayer life, then I have a book recommendation for you: The Autobiography of George Muller. Caught up in a life of sin and rebellion, Muller was converted to Christianity and eventually became a preacher in 19th century England.

After establishing his ministry, he began opening orphanages. Muller decided that he would not ask others for the funds to establish and supply these orphanages; rather, he would depend solely on God to meet his needs. His autobiography contains many of Muller's diary entries throughout his ministry that testify to his dependence on God.

As I read through the entries, I was amazed at Muller's incredible faith. There were many recorded instances (and doubtless many others not recorded in the book) where the orphan ministry was in dire straits, with not even enough money to buy milk or bread for the next day. Rather than despair, however, Muller continued to lay his needs before God, depending completely on Him. Without fail, God came through with one donation after another, sometimes anonymously, sometimes in unexpected ways, but always just in time. Muller truly took the words "Give us today our daily bread" to heart.

In reading Muller's autobiography, I have really been challenged put my trust more fully in God to meet not only my material and financial needs, but my emotional and spiritual needs as well. Although I need God to meet my needs every day, there are some days where I don't sense that need to depend on Him, even though that need is there. I think Muller put himself into a position where he felt that need every single day, and as a result, his faith grew stronger each day.

To sum up, if you want some inspiration in your prayer life--read this book!

Hitting the Wall

There is a term in running vernacular called "hitting the wall." Basically, that means that you reach a point of being physically spent, feeling like you could collapse at any moment. And many people, when they reach that point, do stop. But those who push through the pain and fatigue eventually reach a new phase in their efforts, where they get their "second wind", a renewed sense of energy and focus that propels them to finish the run when moments earlier they were ready to give up.

In our Christian walks, some of us hit the wall and keep going, and some of us hit the wall and give up. Last week was one of those weeks when I hit the wall, emotionally speaking. I felt lower than I'd felt in the past six months--and believe me, I have felt really low during this time so that's saying a lot. I was in a lot of pain, and feeling like I'd made zero progress over the past few months, healing-wise. Satan pulled out his bag of tricks and did his best to convince me that I'd never fully heal, that no one would love me again, that I had no real purpose outside of work, etc. All those nasty lies that start to sound true after you've heard them so many times.

I've never been great about expressing my emotions; I tend to keep them bottled up around other people and let them out when I'm alone. It's a definite pride issue, one that I've battled for a long time. I've gotten really good at putting on a happy face and pretending that I'm fine when I am really not.

And last week I was definitely not feeling "fine." I'd hit the wall, emotionally speaking. But instead of keeping it to myself, I opened up to a few friends, sending an "SOS" asking for their prayers. And then I hit my knees and poured out my heart to God in a way that I hadn't for several weeks.

Within hours, I received several emails from friends with words of encouragement, prayer and Scriptures to share with me. Later in the week, I received cards in the mail from friends who pointed out how they had seen growth and progress in me. I heard from a friend who has been going through a similar experience in feeling useless, so I knew that I wasn't the only one feeling this way. I received encouragement in unexpected ways as well, including from someone who doesn't even know that they encouraged me.

When I hit the wall, it was tempting to just lay on the pavement and not move. To just stay there and watch everyone else run the race without me. But instead I chose to cry out to God, and to my friends, who came to me and picked me up, dusted me off and are running with me.

I still don't feel like I've fully hit my "second wind" just yet, nor am I going at as fast a pace as I think I should be by now. But the important thing is that I'm moving forward.

How thankful I am that, in difficult times, God supplies me with encouragement in so many ways, from the expected to the unexpected. Thank You, Lord, for not giving up on me, even when I'm ready to quit. Thank You for the encouragement You give me through Your Word, through cards and emails, through other people's blogs, through music, through so many ways. Thank You for the people You have put in my life to run alongside me and pick me up when I fall. Help me to keep my eyes focused on You, forgetting what is behind and striving toward the life that is ahead.

I Will Lift My Eyes

"I Will Lift My Eyes"
Written by Bebo Norman and Jason Ingram

God, my God, I cry out
Your beloved needs You now
God, be near, calm my fear
And take my doubt

Your kindness is what pulls me up
Your love is all that draws me in

I will lift my eyes to the Maker
Of the mountains I can’t climb
I will lift my eyes to the Calmer
Of the oceans raging wild
I will lift my eyes to the Healer
Of the hurt I hold inside
I will lift my eyes, lift my eyes to You

God, my God, let Mercy sing
Her melody over me
God, right here all I bring
Is all of me

‘Cause You are and You were and You will be forever
The Lover I need to save me
‘Cause You fashioned the earth and You hold it together, God
So hold me now

Watch the video here (thank you Karen for the link!).