Have you ever done a prayer walk?
Last Sunday I started a new small group study with young couples at our church using The Circle Maker curriculum by Mark Batterson. You can read more about it here.
Anyway, because this study is on prayer, and because I really do want God to transform us through this, and because I hadn’t done it in a long time, I found myself walking circles around the outside of our church, praying at 9:00 Sunday morning. Yes, I felt a little odd. I’m just sayin’.
The answer to the question in the title of this post is:
Nothing, as far as I can tell.
But kind of, maybe…
Here’s what got me thinking. It was Maggie’s Facebook status update recently:
Have you ever had the experience where God brings His words to mind at just the right time? Like He’s talking to YOU?
At one of the lowest moments of my life, on a mountain in Europe, all alone, I was overwhelmed by “hearing”: “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those crushed in spirit.”…”I will never leave or forsake you”.
However, I think I’ve mentioned before that although I love Scripture and I really try to memorize it, I’m TERRIBLE at it (especially at getting the reference right). From what I hear, I don’t think I’m the only one in this proverbial “slow” boat. Can I hear an “Amen!”?
Anyway, I refuse to give up. I’ll try anything and recently I found Scripture Writer. It’s a unique site that takes you through three steps over and over again til you master a verse.
First you type it while looking at the verse. Then you type it while looking at it with some words removed. Then you type it completely from memory. Every step along the way, if you type a wrong letter or word the type shows up red instead of green. And it even gives you feedback, like “Wow! That was your best yet! You almost have this memorized!” (Who doesn’t love an encouraging computer?)
You can input your own verses, or use ones they have already inputed. I’m trying to memorize the whole first chapter of James. I think I’ve been working on 1:1-3 for two weeks (I told you I’m in the slow group!) Anyone want to join me?
James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,To the twelve tribes scattered among the nations: Greetings. (It’s that first part I always have trouble with!) Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, when you encounter trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.
I love Christmas. Maybe too much.
I might have been a Christmas Elf in another life. I’m one of those obnoxious people who starts playing Christmas music the day after Halloween (admit it, there are others reading this that are with me).
When we first moved to Minnesota two women invited me to join them in a Bible study. Right before Christmas we met at the home of one of them. Both said they weren’t going to decorate for Christmas because it was too much hassle. We did not become friends and the Bible study lasted about as long as Christmas cookies that are anywhere near my husband.
But as much as I dive in with jolly holiday gusto, I fear that the activity of Christmas can hinder the activity of God in me.
A few weeks ago I wrote about the Communion Debacle our daughters experienced at church. It made me think about how hard it can be to truly enter into this sacrament and be present to God in the moment…reflecting on His grace and our sin. Sometimes we can feel so conspicuous and self-conscious, but not Jesus-conscious. It made me think about a spiritual practice tied to confession and forgiveness that I find really meaningful, but have let slide recently. It’s an ancient practice called the Examen you may be familiar with.
It simply means you look back over your day and identify where you sensed being most alive to God’s presence and pleasure most (the “spiritual” word is “consolation”) and where He felt most absent (“desolation”)…Where you experienced death or separation from God.
Life or Death,
Beauty or Ugliness.
It’s helpful for me to practice it with a regular activity like brushing my teeth, but if you’re more spiritual you might actually light a candle, get down on your knees and do it big time.
Last week I did it while I was riding my bike to Starbucks, asking God to help me look back over my yesterday. The times that came to mind when I felt most alive and experiencing a sense of God’s pleasure were in the midst of a couple of hard conversations I had. There was a sense of obedience, God’s grace, keeping short accounts… I thanked God for His equipping in those moments and the encouragement I felt at the end of these. The time when I felt “desolation” was when I neglected to follow through and serve in a way that I could have. I just pushed it out of my mind in favor of comfort. As I thought of that I asked forgiveness and committed to follow through at the next opportunity.
Kind of like when you’ve painted a room and the next day go back to see if there are streaks or drips you need to take care of.
Have you tried this? Want to try this?
I’ve told you before that our family likes to make a game out of anything. Especially if there are points involved. Maggie is famous for making up these games and somehow she always ends up being the boss of the game in charge of giving and (more importantly) taking away points.
Anyway, when the girls were growing up we would work on memorizing scripture. Now don’t get the idea this was any systematized, consistent, we’ve-now-memorized-the-whole-book-of-Leviticus kind of thing, but we would do a game from time to time at dinner where we would go around the table and each person would have to say one word of the verse we were memorizing in order. Like this (Hebrews 12:11):
Laura: No
Maggie: discipline
Katy: seems
John: ?
Well the girls thought it was hysterical because the person who was the WORST at this game was John, the professional holy man. He would have them cracking up as he tried to guess the most likely words like “LOVE!, JESUS!, GRACE!….RATS!”
Now, I’m NOT a good memorizer either, but I’ve been hugely impacted by the way God has used my meager attempts at putting His word in my heart, and it is uncanny how He’ll bring a verse to mind (or even part of a verse 🙂 at just the moment I need it encouraging (or convicting!) me.
Since Maggie’s birthday and since John finally gave up his $15 phone, we now all have Iphones. I’ve discovered a verse memory app that I really like. Just type in “Bible Memory Verses” in the search box of the App Store. It’s free and it’s the first one that pops up (Woody Hays). It has a lot of core verses already in-putted, but you can also add your own and can designate some as target verses you’re working on. The coolest thing is that you can pull up a verse and touch “blanks” and it will create the verse with mostly blanks you need to fill in. If you forget a word you can just tap the blank and it supplies the word your missing.
My big idea is to have our family all work on the same verse again. The girls were all for it, (I think mostly cause they’re looking forward to us going around the table at Thanksgiving and watching John sweat.) In order to get buy-in I told Katy she could pick the first one (although maybe I should ask John so he’d have a head start). She chose Isaiah 58:11 for our first group effort. You’re welcome to join us or pick your own verse and ask someone to join you.
For Spirit Stretch Friday I thought I’d pass this along in case you’d like to add the app. Obviously you don’t need a special phone to find effective ways to memorize scripture! Is there other technology that you’ve found helpful in following Jesus?
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