Trust

August 24, 2023 | Leave a Comment

The Habit of Prayer

Prayer is basic. Prayer is Faith 101. Prayer is to faith what breathing is to life. We just gotta do it. Eugene Peterson writes in his The Jesus Way, “Prayer is the street language that we use with Jesus who walks the streets with us. It is the only language available to us as we bring our unique and particular selves” to God.

The challenge of prayer, though, is how easy it is to cheat. I’m thinking about God. Doesn’t that count? Maybe, but not necessarily. I’m singing along to Q102.7. Doesn’t that count? Maybe, but not necessarily.

I’m trying. Doesn’t that count? Actually, yes, that does count every time.

Jesus taught us to pray, “Our Father in heaven…” (Matthew 6:9-13; Luke 11:1-5). This Lord’s Prayer is not the only prayer we’re ever to pray. Jesus himself uses other words in prayer, so clearly he can’t intend these to be the only words we speak. Instead, we understand that his prayer serves also as a sort of outline for authentic prayer as God intends it.

The Lord’s Prayer teaches us that authentic prayer is God-centered. It’s addressed, after all, to God. Not luck. Not fate. Not the universe. Prayer begins with God. [Read more…]

July 27, 2022 | 1 Comment

As We Wait…

Minnie was a sweet lady I would visit at her home south of town. Frustrated with her lack of progress in physical therapy after a fall, she’d ball up her fist, scrunch up her face, and say in a stage whisper,

“I want patience, and I want it now.”

Oh, Minnie, we are with you.

When will I get a break? When will it be my turn? When will it get easier? When? There are no easy answers to these questions.

I’ve read whole books about patience. I pray for it all the time. I know the answers I’m supposed to give to others and myself. “It’s all God’s timing,” or “Trust God. He will provide.” My answers are true, but they’re not necessarily what I want to hear when the good news is slow to come. [Read more…]

February 18, 2022 | Leave a Comment

Business as usual?

Then Jesus began to denounce the towns in which most of his miracles had been performed, because they did not repent. “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted to the heavens? No, you will go down to Hades or if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day. But I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you” (Matthew 11:20-24).

Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum: What had they done to deserve such reproach? What had they done to earn such a curse?

Nothing. They’d done nothing. And that was the point. In the words of the old King James, “…they repented not” (11:20).

Our great grand-daddy of Presbyterians, John Calvin, in his commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, named their indifference was the sin of ingratitude. It was, he wrote, “As if there had never been poured upon it a drop of Divine grace.” The punishment would be greater “in proportion to the higher favors which it had received from God” (https://www.ccel.org/study/Matt_11:22-11:24).

Simply put, the miracles dazzled their eyes, but didn’t change their hearts. Jesus wasn’t a Messiah to them; he was a magician, nothing more. Their hearts weren’t changed. They didn’t turn their lives around. That’s what “repent” means, after all. “To turn around.” To turn from the old and embrace the new. To turn from sin and choose virtue instead. To turn from death and rejoice in new life.

But, u-turns are hard to make some times…for lots of reasons. Even when you’ve had that heart stopping moment of God’s presence wrapped around you, [Read more…]

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