Prayer

December 2, 2020 | Leave a Comment

Simple hope

Have you ever prayed to God about something for a long time? I mean, I really long time, so long that you started wondering if God was listening? So long that you thought to yourself, “Okay, maybe God’s got something better planned,” but you keep praying anyway? So long that your friends have started giving you that line about how sometimes God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers? (That’s from Garth Brooks, by the way, not the Bible.)

Have you ever keep praying anyway, because what you’re praying for is good: healing or health, or a new job, a mended relationship, or peace with your children? Have you ever kept praying, even though God was silent? Where’s the hope?

The first chapter of the Gospel of Luke tells the story of Elizabeth and Zechariah, who have been praying for a child for a long, long time. “Both of them were righteous before God, living blamelessly according to all the commandments and regulations of the Lord, but they had no children because Elizabeth was barren, and both were getting on in years” (Luke 1:7-8).

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September 29, 2020 | Leave a Comment

Frustration

(Adapted from a sermon preached September 6, 2020.)

Remember the movie Bruce Almighty, about the man whom God allows to be God just for a while? There’s a scene, early in the movie, in which Bruce is done, just done. He’s tired of his mediocre job, his mediocre apartment, his mediocre life, and he blames his mediocrity on God.

“God is a mean kid sitting on an anthill with a magnifying glass, and I’m the ant. He could fix my life in five minutes if He wanted to, but He’d rather burn off my feelers and watch me squirm.”

Bruce may have not been altogether wrong. Bear with me.

This is a meditation on frustration. [Read more…]

September 19, 2020 | 1 Comment

This black swan event

Halloween, 2019. I had the collar, I had the robe, why not? Of course, I outweighed her by thrice, but, you know, I pulled my hair back and did my best. RBG.

Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death is heartache for her family and many Americans. It’s a cause for celebration for a handful of others.

More to the point, her death is being called a black swan event. That was a new term to me. I googled. A black swan event is “an unpredictable event that is beyond what is normally expected of a situation and has potentially severe consequences (Jim Chappelow, “Black swan,” https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/blackswan.asp). Is any death really that unpredictable? No. Was RBG’s death unpredictable, given her long battle with cancer? Not at all.

Yet, does her death have potentially severe consequences? I fear, yes. I fear it will unleash even further vitriol, during a season of such meanness and spite within America as I have not witnessed in my lifetime. I fear that ugly things I will hear and read out of people whom I have, until now, known to be kind of soul and demeanor.

I wonder if, instead, this black swan event may in fact be an opportunity for us as people of faith to walk our talk. Love your enemy (Matthew 5:44). Practice mercy (Luke 6:36). Love our neighbor as we love ourselves (Mark 12:30).

My prayer for followers of Jesus in America is this:

That we followers of Jesus will put our allegiance to Him above party loyalty
That, out of that allegiance, we will recognize that every person–even those with whom we profoundly disagree–is a child of God, made in His image
That, out of that recognition, we will commit to stopping the name-calling and mud-slinging and yet be brave to speak the truth in love without fear of public shaming
That, out of that commitment, we will witness to the goodness and grace of our Savior and His hope

I invite others to join in this prayer, this allegiance, this recognition, and this commitment, so that Jesus will be glorified indeed.

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