Bring Your Umbrella!

I once heard a story about a town that was experiencing a devastating drought.  In spite of everything that they had done and all of the prayers that had gone up, it appeared that rain was nowhere in the forecast.  The Christians in the community had gotten together and one man said, "I have heard that a famous evangelist will be coming through town soon.  He has a reputation of being a man of prayer.  God has done some amazing things at his meetings in response to his simple prayers.  Let's ask him to pray for rain."  So on the day the evangelist arrived in town, they sent four men from the community to his hotel room to see him.  When they asked him if he would pray with them that the drought would be broken, he told them that the most common cause of unanswered prayer was unbelief and until they came to him believing that God would answer their prayers, he would not pray with them.  He then showed them to the door.  They were flabbergasted.  How could he know whether they believed in prayer or not?  The next day they returned, only to have him meet them at the door, take one look at them, and say, "You still don't believe that God will answer your prayers" and promptly shut the door in their face.  On the third day, when they knocked on the door, he opened it once more, took a quick glance and said to the young man standing at the back, "You can come in, the rest of you go home and find your faith."  When the young man entered the room, the evangelist said, "OK, let's get down to praying."  They knelt beside the bed and in very simple words the evangelist asked God to show mercy and spare the community of any further judgment.  He asked God to extend His grace and send the rain to break the drought and show himself mighty to the people of the area.  After only a few moments in prayer, the evangelist got up and said to the young man, "Now you had better hurry home.  The rain is coming."  As the young man prepared to leave, he asked the evangelist why he had allowed the young man in on this day when he had not on the days before and why him and not the others.  The evangelist said, "For three days you have been coming to ask me to pray for rain and today was the first day that you brought your umbrella."
Tomorrow at noon, we will begin a prayer vigil with the purpose in mind of seeing God shake our nation, save the lost, heal the sick, and provide our needs.  As we pray, we must be prepared for God's answer.  We must come with humble hearts.  We must be willing to be obedient.  We must put feet to our prayers and do what He calls for us to do in response to this special time with Him.
We will spend time in prayer for Revival.  Will we be willing to allow God to revive our hearts?  Will we be willing to lay down our pride, repent of our sins, and walk in obedience?
We will spend time in prayer for the nations.  Will we be willing to be a witness to the lost?  Will we be willing to give so that others can go?  Will we be willing to go where He sends us?
We will spend time in prayer for our country.  Will we be willing to fulfill our responsibilities as a Christian citizen?  Will we be willing to stand up in the public arena for what is true and right?  Will we be willing to face persecution and ridicule for the name of Christ?
We will spend time in prayer for the family.  Will we be willing to submit our will to His will and follow His plan for our lives?  Will we be willing to fulfill our God-given roles and be true and faithful to our vows?  Will we raise our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord?
We will spend time in prayer for the sick.  Will we be willing to confess our faults one to another?  Will we believe that God is able and willing to heal?  Will we put our lives in His hands and believe that His way is best?
We will spend time in prayer for our needs.  Will we be willing to let go of the controls and trust God to provide?  Will we release the worry and fear that often accompany our needs and trust God's ability to handle the situation?
We will spend time in prayer for our church.  Will we be willing to submit ourselves, our personal interests, and our preferences to God's will and way for our church?  Will we be willing to take the first step in resolving conflicts with our brothers and sisters in Christ? Will we confess our rebellious and  divisive attitudes that bring dishonor to the name of Christ?
Our willingness to take action on these things will be the evidence of our faith in God to answer our prayers.  I hope that you will be a part of our Prayer Vigil.  I hope that you will allow God to do a work in you that will change you forever. 
Oh, and don't forget to bring your umbrella!

Can Ye Not Watch With Me One Hour?

I was reminded again as I crossed Honey Creek this morning what an amazing artist our God is.  The sunrise was a brilliant display of colors shining through the clouds, reflecting off the water, on an otherwise gray morning.  The beauty of Grand Lake at that early hour has never lost its impact on me.  But this morning, a question crowded its way into my mind.  Is my awe and wonder at the beauty of the sunrise just worship of the Creation rather than the Creator?  Now clearly, the passage in Romans 1 that warns us against this speaks of those who have denied God and turned to perversion and idolatry, but the thought that came to my heart this morning was something different.  If, in the beauty of the sunrise, God is inviting me into an intimate conversation with Him, have I responded as I should?  If God is passionately pursuing an opportunity to show Himself to me, is it not incumbent on me to give Him the time to do it?  I know that I have so structured my time with the Lord, that sometimes I crowd Him out and silence Him by all the things that I try to do in order to hear from Him.  I try to cram my prayer, Bible reading, and journaling into 30 or 45 minutes in the morning and often by the end of that time, my mind has already wandered off to the myriad of tasks that I am going to have to get done today.  I am reminded of the last night that Jesus spent with His disciples before the crucifixion.  He was dealing with the weight of the sins of mankind bearing down on His shoulders.  He welcomed His disciples to join Him in the Garden, but rather than minister to his needs, they kept falling asleep.  His question to them, sometimes haunts me as well, "Could ye not watch with me one hour?" 
I rarely spend an entire hour in prayer and intimate fellowship with Him.  I read the stories of great men of God from centuries past who rose up early and spent several hours on their faces before God before ever starting their day, and I wonder, how did they do it?  I believe that I have found the answer.  They didn't look at prayer like a shopping list, rather they saw it as a conversation.  They recognized that prayer involves several elements, many of which we neglect all together.  We have so compartmentalized our walk with God that we lose sight of the fact that it is all worship and needs to be seen from that perspective.  If we are going to spend sigificant time with the Lord in prayer, then may I suggest a few things that will help. 
Worshipful music to prepare your heart and soul for communion with Him.  In our discussions(battles) over church music in the past few years, I believe that we have lost sight of an important fact, music is a tool that the Holy Spirit uses to open us to His promptings. We should not let it become stale and ritualistic so that it loses its impact on our spirit.  Neither should we allow it to become a performance that becomes the center of attention and takes the focus off of God.  Music that draws us into worship will allow God to direct our prayers rather than having to follow the path that we have chosen for Him.
Read a few Scriptures about praise and thanksgiving and pray them back to God.  Take the time to look up verses that refer to the glory and splendor of our God and the marvelous things that He has done for us.  In the process, seek His face.  Ask God to reveal Himself to you in new and deeper ways.  Don't be satisfied with the snapshots of His glory that You have stored away in the past.  Look for something new and fresh. 
Be sensitive to His conviction of sin that needs to be dealt with in your life.  As we become aware of God's presence and as we see His glory, it will make us more aware of our own sinfulness.  Confession of sin is a vital part of prevailing prayer.  Sin that is harbored in our lives robs us of power and hinders our prayers.  Early on in our times of prayer, God will bring conviction of our sin so that we can deal with it immediately and have victory through His forgiveness.  This is a matter of humbling, a test to see if we will submit our will to His will.  Don't move on in your prayer time until you have dealt with the sin that God is dealing with you about.
Ask God to direct your heart toward the needs of others.  Genuine worship will result in godly love for others.  When we are humbled by God, it seems to put our needs and the needs of those around us into proper perspective.  When we submit to His Spirit, the very first fruit of the Spirit is love.  When we genuinely love others, their burdens become our burdens.  It is only then that we can genuinely pray as fervently for their needs as we do for our own. 
Make a conscious choice to rejoice in the Lord.  Even in the hour of our greatest need, there are things that we can rejoice about.  By exhibiting a joyful spirit, we acknowledge that God is in control and that He holds our future.  Such rejoicing can very easily lead us back into a time of worship as we acknowledge God's exalted place in our lives. 
Pour out your heart to God about your deepest needs and most pressing concerns.  The elements that we have already discussed will help to put these things in perspective.  Never be afraid to tell God what is on your heart.  Christians often bottle up hurt, anger, or frustration, because they think it would be disrespectful, or worse, sinful, to aim these at God.  But God already knows our heart and He wants us to be honest with Him.  If we minimize the pain, deny the anger, or ignore the frustration, we only make the problem worse and we don't give God the opportunity to intervene.  Remember, Jesus said, "Ask."  He has welcomed you into His presence and He wants to hear from you.
Take the time to listen for an answer.  God will speak to your heart if you will listen for His voice. Reserve a portion of your time to listen for God's answer to your prayers.  The Bible tells us to "Be still..."  God will not shout over the noise that we have allowed to crowd our hearts and minds.  He will speak to us in a still small voice and the only way that we will hear it is if we shut out all of the other voices for a while.  This is really the most important part of our prayer time.  It is the part that gives us direction for our next step.  It connects our time of prayer with the rest of our day and sets the tone for how we will approach everything that we will face. 
If we will learn to include these elements in our time with the Lord, it won't be hard to spend significant time with Him.  Our prayer life will cease to be the recitation of a shopping list and will become an active conversation with God that brings us joy and peace and fulfillment.  As a result, we will never have to hear Him say, "Could you not watch with me one hour?"

Pursuit

Wow!  It's been a while.  As a matter of fact, it's been so long since I posted to my blog that the website address dropped off my recently used URL's .  The truth is, I have been working on a long list of procrastinated items and preparing for my favorite time of the year.  The ministry opportunities and demands of this time of year are extraordinary and I love it.  We have some of our most fruitful and memorable events during this season of the year and with the holidays approaching, there is excitement in the air.  To be honest, you know that I love to write, and when I am doing my updates consistently I often spend the entire morning getting the devotional right.  That means that I sometimes put other things off, but the morning devotionals are almost always the direct result of something that the Lord is saying to me in my personal time with Him.  I never want to get so busy working for Him that I neglect to spend time with Him. 
The thing that God has been impressing upon me in recent days is the concept of pursuing Him.  It comes from the myriad of passages that speak of seeking the Lord, following after Him, searching for Him. At first sight, it appears from these scriptures as though God hides Himself or seeks to avoid intimate contact with His people.  But the overriding indication from the New Testament is that this is not true.  In reality, the natural tendency of human nature is to move away from God, therefore an intimate relationship with Him demands that we maintain an attitude of passionate desire for closeness that will drive us to match Him step for step.  The rushing wind of the world flying by in the opposite direction makes our walk with God seem frantic.  So this idea of pursuit really is more of a decisive attitude to move in God's direction than a high speed chase of a God who is leaving us behind.  We must choose, moment by moment to follow God rather than conform to the world around us.  When we do, God promises to make Himself available to us in an intimate way.  One of Chelsea's favorite quotes is, "You will never possess that which you do not pursue.  Lord, help me to chase what really matters, YOU!"  May each of us passionately pursue an intimate relationship with God on a consistent basis.

Things I Never Want To Forget

The mind is an amazing thing.  God has created us with the amazing ability to think, learn, remember and imagine, all in vivid detail and in full technecolor.  I was reminded how precious this gift is the other day when I visited one of our long-time members in the nursing home.  Gary is suffering from an inoperable brain tumor and the combination of the tumor placing pressure on his brain and the effects of radiation therapy have had a profound impact on his ability to think, speak, and remember.  My short visit with him has stuck with me for the last week; seeing the frustration on his face when he couldn't gather his thoughts enough to express what was on his heart, hearing the confusion in his voice as he tried to remember how long he had been going through treatments, and seeing the tears in his eyes as he apologized for being weak and emotional.  I began to think about all that I would lose if I could no longer remember the things that God has done in my life.  There are so many memories that I treasure, a joyous childhood marked by love, acceptance, and the godly example of my parents, a unique adolescent and high school experience that set me apart from my peers.  I had the opportunity to go to BBC at the zenith of its fruitfulness and experience the excitement and challenge of college life.  I would hate to lose the memory of the first night that I laid eyes on Shelley, and the near-stalkeresque pursuit of her that followed.  I treasure my memories of my days on the back side of the desert in Spokane, WA and the magical moments and hard lessons that I experienced there.  I can't imagine losing my grip on every little detail of the night I asked Shelley to marry me or the vision that she was as she walked down the aisle to become my bride.  I couldn't bear to lose my sense of wonder at the birth of my children and at each stage of their development.  I would hate to forget what my heart felt like the first time I stepped into the pulpit as the pastor, the rush of excitement and the utter terror at the awesome responsibility that God had laid on my shoulders.  How could I ever lose sight of the hundreds of couples that I have counseled with and then presided over their weddings?  How could I forget the blessed peace that God has given, even in the darkest hours, when I held beloved church members in my arms and sought to bring them comfort in the hour of tragedy and loss.  It would be a tragedy to lose sight of the hundreds of people over the years that I have been given the privilege of leading to Christ, and the look of relief and gratitude to God that radiated from their faces.  Victories and defeats, championships and near-misses, joys and trials, every one of these memories is precious to me.  As I have struggled this week to process the emotions that I felt after my visit with Gary, I have come to this conclusion.  First, I need to be thankful every day for the blessings that God has given me. Second, I need to tell the people that I love that I love them at every opportunity and the ones that are not so lovely, I need to make things right with before it's too late.  And finally, I need to write these things down so that when my memory begins to fade, I can look back with thanksgiving on what God has done.  I do not doubt that the day will come when I find myself in a similar situation to Gary's, whether it be because of illness or longevity.  So while I still can, I plan to hold fast to the memories that I treasure and be thankful to God every day.

Hope for a Nation

This morning I was able to participate in an event that I find very encourgaing.  I stood in front of Grove Middle School with a group of sixth through eighth graders and prayed for our community, our nation, our leaders and the lost.  The entire event was led by the students themselves and it offered hope for what the future holds for our country.  There are, among the upcoming generation, a few young people who are passionately in love with the Lord and His Word.  They understand their responsibility to be a witness and they are not ashamed to make a public stand for Christ out in front of their school.  Another group met at Grove High School and still another at the Community Center, all with the common purpose of standing up for Christ and acknowledging that the first and best remedy for our schools, our community, and our nation is prayer.  I look forward to seeing what God is going to do with some of these young prayer warriors.  I believe that He can use them to shake their world!

Radical

I have been reading a lot of things over the past few months that have challenged the status quo in my own Christian life.  I have begun to realize that I have settled into a comfortable pattern of worship, service to God, and witness that doesn't really demand too much of me.  Don't get me wrong, I work hard.  Many Saturday nights, I am in my office until 10:30 or 11:00 PM putting the finishing touches on the plans for Sunday's services. I have a steady routine wherein, I spend Monday seeking the Lord about what the sermon should be the following week, deal with any bookkeeping that needs to be done as a result of visitors or decisions the day before, and settle in to study for the next Sunday's sermon.  Despite what it looks like in my office, I have a fairly organized routine that allows me to prepare my sermon, create the study guide for the bulletin, create the PowerPoint, do the bulletin, prepare the order of service, set up the computer for projecting the song lyrics and sermon notes, and get all of the soundtracks and videos in place and ready to go.  I love to write, so the daily blog and email updates that sometimes take up my morning, are a fun and exciting part of my day.  They also serve as a natural outflow from my personal devotional time.  The pastoral tasks of visitation and counseling fall where they may during the week, giving every day a little variety and adding a personal touch to ministry that I love. Salt in the daily times of personal and long-term planning and putting out the little fires that arise from time to time and you have a basic picture of what my life and ministry have become.  I like it.  It's comfortable.  It's a challenge, but I generally know what to expect.  When I compare that to the example that I see in the New Testament and some of the basic statements of Christ about following Him, I am beginning to see that maybe He is calling me to something more. 
We have developed a brand of Christianity that we can easily align with the American way of life.  Blessing equals affluence.  Obedience is simply the avoidance of the big sins.  Charity has its limits and its boundaries.  But what if Jesus really did mean for us to give it all away and follow Him?  Or what if He simply meant for us to live within our means, simply and frugally, and give everything else to reach the lost, to feed the hungry, and to change the world?  What if He really intends for us to genuinely redeem the time? What if the waste of our resources, time, energy, and emotions on things of this world like sports, reality TV, and leisure activities really do grieve the heart of God and quench His Spirit in us?  What if "Sunday Morning Christianity" only makes us accountable to Him for "Monday Morning Witness?"  I'm not sure of all of the answers yet, but one thing I do know, God wants to speak and have us to listen.  He is tired of us assuming that we know what He wants us to do.  So I guess the first step, for me and possibly for you, is to be still....just pull over for a few minutes.  Just turn off the TV, pull out of traffic, give your mind a minute or an hour to stop racing about what is next on the agenda.  Find a quiet place and pray with Samuel, "Speak, Lord, thy servant heareth."  Wait....wait....don't get in a hurry.  Just stay there until He speaks to your heart.  Listen for one thing that you can do to turn things around and begin to follow His plan for your walk with Him rather than your own.  Be prepared.  It may shake you up a bit.  He may ask you to do something that upsets your orderly, cleanly manicured, fine-tuned ritual.  But whatever it is, it will draw you closer to Him.  And one by one, maybe we can set aside the "golden calves" that keep getting in our way and begin to see His Spirit move in us in a powerful way. 

I Wonder...

I had a conversation yesterday that made me wonder what it would have been like to talk to a young William Carey.  How would a young Amy Carmichael have looked at the world, before she went off to change her world for Christ?  How did a young Bob Hughes wrestle with the calling of God on his life?  What did those missionary greats that we have come to know look like, act like, think like, before they hit the field for the first time?  I have a unique vantage point right now on the workings of the Holy Spirit on the heart and life of a young missionary, because there is one who counts me as her confidant and sounding board.  Who knows whether she will become one of those few whose exploits for God turn them into household names stirring the hearts of future generations to greater heights for God.  Odds are that she will become one of the nameless multitude who faithfully serve in some darkened corner of the world known only to God, until the day when we all stand before Him to receive our crowns.  However the future turns out, today I am standing in awe of the work that God is doing in the heart of His young servant, my daughter, Chelsea.  It seems that every time we speak now, it doesn't take long for the tears to start flowing.  Most of you know that she is preparing for an 11-month,11-country, missions trip that will take her into the heart of darkness in the most poverty-stricken and gospel-starved corners of the earth.  But few of you have the window into her heart that she and God have afforded me.  A year ago May, I moved Chelsea from Springfield, MO to Amarillo, TX.  I packed most of what she owned in the back of our Suburban and a 6'x8'x12' U-Haul trailer and stored the rest in our storage space here in Grove.  In only a matter of days, she would graduate from Baptist Bible College with a degree in business and she hoped to start her own business one day. But first, she planned to take a little missions trip to the Philippines and China.  While there, God began a slow but deliberate process of pruning, shaping, and refining her into someone that He could use. Since her return, He has continued to chip away at the things that would hold her back.  And she has willingly (sometimes) allowed Him to do so, until her life and heart are now refined to their most basic essence.  In a few weeks, she will move back home for a short time before leaving on her journey.  When she does, she will bring with her four plastic bins that contain what remains of her earthly possessions.  She will, for the most part, have sold everything that she has in order to be used up for God.  Which brings us to the conversation that we had yesterday afternoon.  She said, "Dad, I'm sending you a list of all of my books.  See if there are any that you want before I sell the rest.  God has made it clear that He wants it all.  At first, it wasn't too hard.  He wanted me to simplify my life, make a few sacrifices, get rid of some of my excess.  But now, He is carving away some flesh and bone.  He is asking me to give up a part of my identity.  I'm the girl who always has five books in her backpack, whose house is like a library to her friends, who almost any time you see her has a book in her hands.  This is getting hard.  My friends keep telling me, you are coming home someday and you will need some of this stuff, but God keeps saying, "If I can provide for you over the next year, why would you think I wouldn't provide for you later."" All I could think of while I listened to her speak of the running dialogue between her and God, was, "Who is this woman that she has become?  How did she emerge from that defiant little girl with a rapier wit and a fiery temper?  And with a heart of passion like this who knows what God will be able to do through her life?"   I have always been proud of my children.  I tend to brag about there athletic accomplishments a little to loudly and a little too often. But the feelings that I am having these days about both of my kids tend more toward awe and wonder than fatherly pride.  Because what I see in their lives today is not the imitation of the Godly example that I have tried to live before them, but the passionate pursuit of an intimate relationship with God that goes far beyond what they have ever seen in me.  I see in Chelsea a radically different level of commitment to the Gospel than has ever been true of me.  I see in her an example to follow as I press toward the mark in the waning years of my life.  I have no idea what the future holds, but I do know that she is ready to be used by God wherever He chooses and when someone is willing to lay themselves in the hands of God, He has a tendency to do great things through them.