Tag: prayer (Page 4 of 9)

Soul Food for a New Month

October 2, 2015 /

It’s October, and I’m with Anne, reveling in a world of good gifts. Wispy clouds across the moon, the smell of cinnamon and wood smoke, crunchy leaves and vibrant color that needs no filter to enhance its beauty.

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You may have noticed that I didn’t post on Wednesday like usual. It was hard for me to let it go, but it’s been an overfull week and when I prayed about it I sensed God whispering “It’s ok. It’s all Grace.” So I didn’t stress over it, and the world didn’t end. I’m learning that the discipline of mini-Sabbaths is an important one.

As a “do-er” prayer is another hard discipline, but this week we put together a prayer gathering that created environments for people to engage with God in a variety of ways.

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In one of the prayer corners we had a fountain running.

For with You is the fountain of life, in Your light we see light. Psalm 36:5

We said: Listen to the sound of the water and think of God’s love washing over you.

Then take a blank rock and write something or someone you’re thankful for and place it in the fountain.

Lastly take a rock with an attribute of God written on it that you need to be reminded of.

FullSizeRender-35Maybe this is an exercise you can do on your own.

This was a reminder from another corner of the room.

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Next, if you’ve been overwhelmed by all the bad news this week, take a look at 13 Inspiring Stories of Refugees Being Welcomed from Around the World.

And lastly, a couple of October recipes. The first one I tried last night and we loved it – it can be adapted in a bunch of ways.

Crab and Corn Chowder

6 bacon slices

2 celery ribs diced

1 green pepper diced

1 medium onion diced

1 32 oz. can/box Chicken broth

3 TB flour

3 cups fresh corn kernels (6 ears) If you don’t have some frozen from summer a yellow and white Birds Eye frozen mix works

1 lb fresh crab meat (I used 2 cans of lump crab meat, but you could also substitute chicken or shrimp, or leave out the meat)

1 cup whipping cream

1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro (I didn’t have this 🙁 )

1/2 ts. salt

1/4 ts. pepper

fresh cilantro for garnish

Cook bacon in Dutch oven over medium heat 8-10 minutes til crisp. Remove bacon and drain on paper towel. RESERVE 2 TB drippings. Sauté celery, onion, and green pepper in drippings til tender (5-6 min)

Whisk together flour and broth til smooth. Add to celery mixture. Stir in corn. Bring to boil; reduce heat and simmer stirring occasionally, 30 minutes. Gently stir in crab meat and rest of ingredients. Cook 4-5 minutes or til thoroughly heated. Makes 10 cups.

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Zucchini Bread/Muffins

Mix 3 eggs

1 cup oil (yes, one cup 🙂 )

3 tsp. vanilla

1/2 cup milk

Separately mix 2 cups sugar,

3 cups flour,

1 ts. salt,

1 ts. baking SODA,

1/4 ts. baking POWDER,

1 ts. each: cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves.

Blend wet and dry ingredients together and then fold in 2 cups shredded zucchini.

If making bread, it goes in 2 greased 8″ or 9″ loaf pans and you bake for about 45 minutes at 350.

If making muffins, cut the time to about 25 minutes.

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When You Pray and it Doesn’t “Work”

August 31, 2015 /

For 6 months I got used to waking in the middle of the night, prompted to pray for my brother, who was fighting cancer. I prayed with many others for healing. I prayed specifically, passionately and with complete faith in God’s power.

He died July 18th.

You’ve had a similar experience? Yeah, I thought so.

These days I can get downright snippy with God. Now I wake in the night, or my mind turns to Him through the day and I sometimes think, “Why bother? Why talk to God about the lesser things when He did not seem to care enough to fix this great big thing?”IMG_1403

Of course I know some of the “right” theological answers to this question.

Yes, David was ultimately healed and is alive and whole and free of pain with Jesus.

Yes, we live in a broken world and illness and death are a consequence of the fall…God is sovereign…Our minds are too small to grasp His grander plans…He will cause ALL things to work together for good to those who love Him…He is more concerned about our character than our comfort… Blah blah blah…

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Sometimes when you FEEL in the “depths of despair” as Anne of Green Gables would say, you don’t care about the words.

But I keep praying. I keep talking to God and I’ll tell you why.

I keep praying for the same reason a child keeps talking to her parents after she hasn’t gotten her way.

There’s something deep inside me that still knows that God loves me and I am drawn to Him.

There is something in me that knows there is something bigger going on.

Prayer doesn’t “work” in the way we’d like it to. It doesn’t “work” as in we pray to get what we want. We pray to get what God wants.

I think we make the mistake of seeing prayer as transactional, when it’s primarily relational.

I still don’t know what to do with those verses that exhort us to ask and receive, be the widow badgering the judge, have faith to move mountains, but I can get on-board with this thought from Tim Keller.

We can be sure our prayers are answered precisely in the way we would want them to be answered if we knew everything God knows. Tim Keller

Prayer makes more sense to me when I envision myself in a boat tethered to the shore (God) and prayer is the process by which I pull myself to it/Him – pull my will in line with His.

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Still, I often feel tossed around by the huge waves of confusion. I squint to even see the shore, desperately trying to hold on to the rope that tethers me to to Truth. I have been reading Philip Yancey’s book on prayer and find I’m in good company.

“The only final solution to unanswered prayer is Paul’s explanation to the Corinthians: ‘For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.’ No human being, no matter how wise or how spiritual, can interpret the ways of God, explaining why one miracle and not another, why an apparent intervention here and not there. Along with the apostle Paul, we can only wait, and trust.” Philip Yancey

What has your experience been with understanding prayer?

Linking up today at…

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What to do When You Don’t Know What to Do

July 27, 2015 /

I’m trying to get my feet back on the ground after a stretching season, so today, a re-post from 4 years ago. 

I ran into a 23-year-old friend the other day and asked how she was doing. “Being in your twenties is…awkward!” she answered.  “All these questions about what you’re going to do with your life…who you’ll be, where you’ll go…what to say ‘yes’ to.”

That same day I had coffee with a fifty-something friend who said her son is wrestling with some of the same unsettledness, and she herself is in a time of transition that has raised questions about God’s direction.  She said, “I thought by this age I’d have it figured out and be cruising along!”

24 hours earlier I had had dinner with a thirty-something friend who said, “My life looks a lot different now than I thought it would.”

Each person’s situation was different, but there was a common theme.  If I were God (a job that’s apparently already taken) I’d give detailed instructions like:

“Susan, I want you to move to 673 Elm St., Provo Utah,  join the Church-of-People-on-the-Right-Track, take the job with State Farm, (not General Mills), and order the tomato soup at Panera for lunch.”

And sometimes in the Bible God does that, like when God gives Ananias specific instructions (Acts 9:11) to go to the house of Judas on the street called Straight, (Love it!), but often it’s a bit fuzzier, like in Acts 15:28 where Paul writes, “It seemed good to us and the Holy Spirit…”

When I’m in seasons of discernment and transition, the three words that I feel like God often whispers to me are “Open your hands”

  • Open your hands…to release your plans in favor of God’s. Acknowledge your dreams, but don’t clutch them.  Release them to God to change, add, refine…
  • Open  your hands…to receive counsel from wise advisors who know you well, but don’t clutch it either.
  • Open your hands…to use what God has put in them, whether that seems like saying “yes” to dramatic invitations, or something that seems very small and quiet.  Respond to what God has put right in front of you.

That’s just me.  What has been helpful to you when making life decisions?  What have you sensed God whispering to you?

When You Don’t Like the Plot Line of Your Story

July 3, 2015 /

I snuggle into the overstuffed nest-like chair in my bedroom with knees pulled up, feet against the ottoman, Bible and books scattered around me.IMG_0516

It feels safe here.

Through my window I see there’s a tug ‘o war going on between the clouds and sun that mimics the push and pull of the thoughts in my head.

Outside the gray is winning.

Inside…

I’m reflecting on the plot line of the story God is writing with my brother, David’s life.

How many millions of times, with how many different words have I prayed for healing for my brother?

Please, please, please… Write the story THIS way Lord!

Now I’m out of words. Or when I have them, they end up feeling rote and empty of meaning or power. Like some mumbo jumbo incantation from an old tired magician. Now there are only groans and sighs left.

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It’s not my words, after all, that hold any power. It’s just You. You hold the pen.

Come Holy Spirit. Have mercy.  Pray in my place please, with all the right and mystical and holy words that I don’t have.

I breathe. I listen. And then I remind You of how well Your razzle-dazzle work with Lazarus and Jairus’ daughter played, in case You forgot. I suggest that showing off with a healing like that again wouldn’t be such a bad idea. Write another amazing blockbuster!

I fluctuate between wanting to distract myself with a happy clappy crowd of people, and craving silence, and just You, Jesus.

Like an overloaded African truck, I strain under the most recent tonnage of  words like “It’s spreading too fast to fight”.

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I share the weight of those words with both You and praying friends.

But once I’ve dumped them one last time, I end up sitting very still and breathing.

Not thinking. Not carrying. Not burdened, but just being. And breathing. Breathing in You.  Reassured that no matter what,  You are good and nothing – NOTHING – can separate us from Your love.

David is afraid of how this might affect his boys – seeing their vibrant, active dad, weak and helpless. But I tell him they are seeing a different kind of strength in him now; a strength of faith and character that far outweighs the importance of physical strength. It is a picture of Your strength that Kyle, Cris, and Cooper need so desperately. A strength that serves, and submits to a larger story.

1 Corinthians 12:9 My grace is enough; it’s all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness.

There are so many physical choices Dave can no longer make – the choice to hike, to fly-fish, to ski, to golf. But he is doing hard and holy things. Each day he makes the loving choices he can – calling each of the many doctors and nurses by name, thanking them, affirming what a great job they’re doing, even as he is in tremendous pain. This is Your strength.

My sweet brother knows You as the Lover of his soul, and looks forward to spending forever with You, but he’s worried that if he dies, his boys will blame You. There are a million reasons why he wants You to heal him, but this may be number one.

He knows that in spite of how we may read our chapter, You see all the characters, all the plot lines, the beginning and the end and you weave them together for Your purposes. You are good and perfect, but we live in a world bent by sin, and that can leave us angry and confused and wanting to shout very bad words in frustration when the story doesn’t go the way we think it should.

Throughout the past months Dave has said repeatedly that You are the Holy Ghost-Writer of his story and he’s just a supporting character. Each day, he has shown up and waited for what You want to write. He’s looked for the moments to cheer You as the Hero. He’s been honest about the plot twists and turns that seem confusing, the times the Villain seems to be winning, times when he’d like to grab the pen back from You.

You are writing an epic Love story, while we sometimes want to settle for pulp fiction.

But David continues to trust You as the Master-crafter who already wrote the end to our story when You went to the cross.  On Golgotha, we were afraid maybe You were writing a tragedy. Or maybe You weren’t the hero we thought You were. Maybe it was just a story of death. But it wasn’t. We waited and discovered three days later it is a story of Life. And it is a good story.

3 Prayer Mistakes I’m Trying to Learn From

June 24, 2015 /

Prayer is a mystery to me in so many ways. Like math or the rules of Cricket, or why people like cats is a mystery.

But I keep doing it.

I keep talking to God because He says it’s a good idea and it reminds me of who and whose I am.

As I pray, I think I get it “wrong” a lot, but I picture God smiling patiently, still glad I’m showing up. Like my dad used to do when I tried to build something out of wood alongside him at the basement workbench. He was glad I was down there with him, but I had a lot to learn.

When it comes to prayer, I have a lot to learn.

Here are three mistakes I’ve become aware that I make when I pray: Continue reading

A Different Way of Praying

May 27, 2015 /

There are a heck of a lot of people in pain, in need, in despair these days. Can I get an amen?

That means a heck of a lot of prayer concerns.

If you’re like me, that can result in almost mantra-like repetition of “Please heal…Please guide…Please provide…Please bring…” The focus ends up being on the concern rather than on the character of the God we are talking to.

Kind of like when you’re in a conversation with someone and realize you’re focused more on what YOU want to say than on them.

So, I’m trying something a little different lately.  I’m picturing holding the person or the situation before the Lord and then meditating on the attributes that He brings to bear on the situation. Continue reading

The Five Hardest Words You May Ever Say

May 10, 2015 /

My phone pings and I look at another text update from my sister-in-law.

My brother David, who is two years younger than me, my brother who is strong and fit, my brother who is faithful and kind and always has a great sense of humor, has cancer. Stage 4.

And day and night we, his home team, in the bleachers and on the bench, pray for healing. For relief from unbearable pain and nausea, for strength and courage.

We are a family of Jesus-followers with a long heritage of belief and a sound-track of “Great is Thy Faithfulness”.  We trust in a giant of a God. We know without a shadow of a doubt that our God is powerful and loving and can heal David with both hands tied behind His back (so to speak).

In the past two years one of our closest friends was healed from Pancreatic cancer. Unheard of. A miracle. Another close friend died of Pancreatic cancer. Both were faithful, both trusted the goodness of God and the power of prayer.

So what do we do with that as we walk with David through this fiery furnace? How do we pray with total faith and hope for the kind of healing we want for David while acknowledging that, for whatever crazy reason, it may not be God’s will to show off?

I think the hardest thing we do is to join Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in being “if not” Christians.  Continue reading

The God Who Rescues

April 19, 2015 /

For the past couple of days I’ve been at the International Justice Mission Global Prayer Gathering in Washington D.C.

John and I have been privileged to partner with IJM, fighting on behalf of the oppressed in the name of Jesus since Gary Haugen started this organization.

If you know anything about IJM you know that they are committed to prayer – not just talking about it, but doing it as if their work depends on it. Because they know it does.

The Global Prayer Gathering is full of reminders of God’s character, praise for His faithfulness, hard stories, and lots of prayer.

One of the stories that has impacted me the most over the past two years comes from Ghana on Lake Volta, the largest man-made lake in the world. There, experts estimate that tens of thousands of children work in Ghana’s fishing industry and one IJM study found that 60% are likely slaves. So, we have been praying and IJM started laying the ground work for rescuing these child slaves.

Three years ago when they were doing research and putting in place necessary partnerships with government agencies, they came across a slave in a wooden boat on Lake Volta named Gideon.  Gideon had been brutally abused, trafficked when he was 11 years old. He begged IJM investigators to take him with them, but they couldn’t until systems with local law enforcement were in place.

Can you imagine how hard it was to leave Gideon behind that day on the lake? Continue reading

The Genius of Inconvenience

March 23, 2015 /

Our family loves travel like E.T. loves home.

But travel is often tough. Uncomfortable, patience-stretching, anxiety-producing tough. This is what we’ve learned – it doesn’t matter whether it’s a road trip, or driving a carpool, or taking a bus downtown, or business commuting to 3 cities in a day, or something more exotic.

We heard a leader once say that he doesn’t make any major hires unless he has traveled somewhere with the candidate because travel can reveal so much about a person’s character.IMG_5483

(In case you can’t read this it says there may not be a toilet on the plane :))

Although travel can reveal our character, God can also use it to refine our character.

Recently, we were headed out on a trip and John discovered the night before that he had booked his flight for 7 P.M. and mine for 7 A.M. (Uh, no…I have no idea how that happened).

When we arrived, we found that he had booked our rental car for a different city (on the opposite coast) where he had traveled not long ago.

While walking to the car rental desk we got a call from our friends who were supposed to host us in their home, saying they had food poisoning and we’d have to find a hotel.

Lastly, when we were heading home, a freak snowstorm hit and our flight was cancelled.

We’d like growth to happen while we’re flying first-class with wine and fluffy pillows, but that’s not the way it works. Growth is uncomfortable – found in the middle seat at the back of the plane or in the driver’s seat of a mini-van carrying toddlers.

Continue reading

When You’re Heavy with Too Much to Pray About

January 28, 2015 /

“I look at God, I look at you, and I keep looking at God.” —Julian of Norwich

I’m in the ministry so I naturally get a lot of prayer requests.  People figure it’s in my job description.

But lately it seems like there are so many more prayers than ever. So much pain, so much heaviness.

There’s all the cancer (which, let’s face it, could fill a prayer book alone), and infertility and loneliness, and job-searching, and broken relationships, not to mention that world-going-to-hell-in-a-hand-basket stuff.

I go to sleep praying and when I wake in the middle of the night I figure it’s God poking me and it’s time to pray again.  I get a note or a phone call or I see someone and I try to pray in the moment. But sometimes it just feels soooo heavy.  Like too much.

But here’s what I think we get wrong. Continue reading

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