Category: Religious

Several years ago, my friend, Michael Brown, retired from the Marble Collegiate Church in New York City, where he was the senior minister. Retirement implores each of us to examine what we have gathered through our life and forces the decision of what will be retained for a few more years and what will be given away. For Michael, one of the most difficult decisions was what he would do with his professional library—a library built with considerable thought and care over forty years of ministry. Among his large and distinguished collection of books were approximately twenty volumes by Leslie D. Weatherhead, a Methodist pastor of another generation. These volumes had special value for Michael, and he could not simply dispose of them. What he settled upon was asking me if I would add them to my library.

This is not uncommon—passing to our children or dear friends those things that hold rich meaning for us, but we are simply unable to possess any longer. My brother, Wayne, has our mother’s wedding ring and I have my father’s wallet which holds very old pictures of him as a child and of his parents—pictures that were to him of great nostalgic value. Nostalgia is a very natural, deep, and powerful emotion that takes up residence in many of us. The value of nostalgia is that it reminds us from where we come and provides a sense of identity and connection to something much larger than our individual lives. But nostalgia can be dangerous. Nostalgia is dangerous if it entraps us in yesterday; traps us in a yearning to return to the past. By idealizing the past, the present and future begin to grow dim.

The apostle Paul recognizes the potential dangers of nostalgia in these words he writes to the Christians in Corinth; “God has prepared things for those who love him that no eye has seen, or ear has heard, or that haven’t crossed the mind of any human being.” Though the Bible has a rich regard for remembering the past—particularly God’s mighty acts—God desires that our faith be one that leans forward into the future. Paul seeks to assure the Christians in Corinth that the past, however rich their memories may be, is nothing compared to what is to come. God continues to be present in our lives, as God was present in our past. God continues to create, as God created in the past. Therefore, the practice of our faith is to lean forward, not backward as some caught in nostalgia are apt to do.

Today there are frightened and insecure people. They don’t know what the future holds. They cannot grasp the future, cannot see the future. The result is that they cannot manage or manipulate the future. Largely beyond their control, they fear the unknown. At its core, that is what original sin is, that great teaching of the church that is simply the desire to go through life on our own. Fiercely independent, we may love God, but we don’t want to trust God with the navigation of our lives. That belongs to us, or so we wish it would be. The result is fear, fear of what unknown circumstances, health challenges, and loss of loved ones will bring. Paul asks that we let go of our grasp of the future and trust it to God once again. For God does know the future. What is now hidden from us has been prepared for us by God.

Joy,

Whether anything happens in prayer largely depends upon what kind of person we are. Many of us want to live a life of significance—a life that impacts our world in a large or small way. Such a life is rarely achieved without preparation, hard work, and the perseverance to move forward in the midst of challenges and difficulties. The road to significance is often hard. Yet, to recall a well-spoken line of wisdom from a movie some years ago, A League of Their Own, “It’s the hard that makes it great!” The question is one of orientation. Some seek to define for themselves what significance looks like and then move toward that vision. Others seek to know God’s will and then move toward that.

Regardless of our beginning place—fashioning our own desired future or seeking God’s future for us—we want to take full advantage of the years we are given on this earth. Robert Cohn, a character in Ernest Hemingway’s novel, The Sun Also Rises, comments to his friend, “‘Listen Jake,’ he leaned forward on the bar. ‘Don’t you ever get the feeling that all your life is going by and you’re not taking advantage of it? Do you realize you’ve lived nearly half the time you have to live already?’[1] Urgency has grasped Robert Cohn. Urgency grasps us. Looking back, we make a judgment, an evaluation of where we have come. Life is going by and the question presses, “Are we taking full advantage of it? Are we making a difference?”

If we are the kind of person that lives as we please, as we have fashioned our future, our aspirations, and our will, then the prayers we make will lack power. Prayers are rarely made unless our plans get into a snarl. That is the occasion we pray. We ask God to get us out of it; God is reduced to our celestial office assistant. Then we move forward with our own small plans. We remain unchanged. Ignoring God for a long time until our plans become jammed up is a little different from being a grasping child. The child asks the parent for unreasonable and selfish things. The parent may give what the child asks on occasion when it seems there is no other way to communicate love. But, as the child matures, parents help the child to think reasonably.

Those who seek to find God’s mind and will experience greater power in prayer. Principally, such persons pray because they love God and God’s will. Prayer is a communion between two who seek increasingly to know the other, to please the other. We pay close attention to a spouse or a dear friend to learn about them and to know what they like and dislike. Then we turn the orientation of our life over to causing the other joy. Loving and caring for the other is not separated from life. It becomes our way of life. In the final analysis, prayer implies a conversion, a new orientation to live not solely for oneself but for the other. It is a decision to turn our will over to the will of God. There, our lives find their significance.

Joy,

[1] Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises,18.

A little boy once explained to his minister that he didn’t say his prayers every night because “some nights I don’t want anything.” Many of us are like that little boy. Our view of prayer is a limited one, reduced to asking God for something. Certainly, Jesus invited us to take our request to God in prayer. But that is not all Jesus taught—or demonstrated in his own life—about the subject of prayer. The consequence of an inadequate understanding of prayer is felt in our own lack of spiritual power. We are troubled by doubt, and by fear, and by a sense of weakness to make any real difference in a world of brokenness and need. We miss much of the strength God would provide us through a more expansive understanding—and practice—of prayer.

In this teaching from Mark’s Gospel, Jesus had just finished a hard, demanding day meeting the needs of numerous people. Another awaited him. How could Jesus be ready for it? The answer is right here in this one sentence of Scripture; “Jesus rose and went to a deserted place where he could be alone in prayer.” Conspicuously absent is any record of the content of Jesus’ prayer. In other prayers that Jesus offered, we are told the substance of the prayer. Perhaps the most familiar prayer is the one Jesus offered the night he was betrayed by Judas, arrested, and placed on trial during the night. It is a prayer that is familiar because we have offered it so often ourselves: “Take this suffering from me.” But here, in this account of Jesus at prayer, we are not allowed in on the conversation. All we know is that Jesus got up early in the morning to be alone with God.

This little verse teaches more about prayer than most realize. Rather than distract us with the actual dialog between Jesus and God, we are left only with the fact that it was important to Jesus to be alone with God. Before another day of ministry, before another day of addressing the great need of the world, Jesus addressed his own need to be alone with God. Regular time alone with God was the source of Jesus’ incredible spiritual power. Here, Jesus teaches us that prayer is more than our formal presentation to God of our various needs. Prayer is a demonstration of a life that is lived with God. Our failure with prayer is that we have reduced prayer to asking rather than understanding that prayer is a real and vital relationship with the divine.

Mark has one additional insight on the wisdom of prayer before we leave this story. Moving the narrative quickly along, we are told that Simon and the other disciples tracked Jesus down, told Jesus that other people, with their various needs, have gathered looking for Jesus, and that Jesus surprises the disciples by announcing that he is going in the other direction. What is apparent is that time alone with God in prayer supplied Jesus with more than spiritual power. Prayer infused Jesus with fresh clarity and focus upon God’s intention for Jesus. Jesus was now to go to the nearby villages so that he may preach there also. “That’s why I’ve come,” Jesus declared. It is easy to respond to the “asks” of those around us, people asking us to meet their needs. It is the greater wisdom to discern God’s intention for us, in prayer, and to respond faithfully.

Joy,

If we come to a throne, our posture must be that of deep reverence. Continuing today is the demonstration of respect and reverence as world leaders come before a king or queen – reverence demonstrated by a simple bow. It may be a bow of the head or a bow from the waist. Yet, what is expected is that any approach before royalty is accompanied by homage and honor. In the instance of prayer, the royal one we approach is the highest of all royalty, the King of Kings, says the prophet, Isaiah. Thomas Long, a wise interpreter of scripture, writes that sometimes contemporary Christians, schooled on a tame and domesticated picture of God, forget the sheer audaciousness of human beings daring to approach the holy, and thus we engage in prayer with all the casual nonchalance of ordering at a fast-food restaurant.[ii]

Though we come before “the throne of favor” with humility and reverence, we do come before a throne. Small change found in the sofa and left-over crumbs are not dispensed in a place of royalty. More, we are present before God at God’s invitation; we a called God’s children. That knowledge removes any hesitancy to ask God for anything. That knowledge also removes any expectation that all we can hope for are small favors – small coins or breadcrumbs. God’s invitation suggests that we are to appear with enlarged expectations! Yet, beware of imagining that God’s thoughts are our thoughts or that God’s ways are our ways. Ask for great things because you stand before a great God. But always pray as Jesus prayed, “let it be what you want.” (Matthew 26:42)

Joy,

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[i] Karl Barth, Prayer: 50^th Anniversary Edition (Louisville and London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002) xiii.

[ii] Thomas G. Long: Hebrews: Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1997) 64.

When the king in Alice in Wonderland was asked where to begin, he said gravely, “Begin at the beginning… and go on till you come to the end: then stop.” Begin at the beginning. Naturally, that guidance seems reasonable. That is, until you have to actually open your mouth, and speak. With thoughts racing from one place to another, it quickly becomes apparent that there are many fine places to begin. Jesus tells his disciples, here in Acts, “you will be my witnesses.” Where do the disciples begin? Where are we to begin? Sharing our faith in Jesus seems reasonable until we actually confront that moment – that moment when we are asked, “Who is Jesus?”

That moment came to me one Easter morning. I was enjoying breakfast in a Doylestown, PA diner, looking over the message I would preach in just a few hours. Mary, the waitress assigned to the table where I was seated, approached with coffee and said, “I guess this is your big day, pastor!” “I guess so,” I remarked. Then Mary asked, “What is Easter all about anyway?” Initially, I dismissed her question, not thinking she was serious. But I was mistaken; Mary was very serious. It was then I took the time to really notice her, to look into her eyes and really see her. I will not forget those eyes—eyes that betrayed her silence; silence of considerable pain. “Where do I begin?” I thought. I began with her pain. “Easter means that you can stop beating yourself up. Whatever guilt you may have now, whatever mistakes you have made in life, Easter means that you are to stop immediately from beating yourself up. God has removed it all.”

“But there is more,” I said to Mary. “Easter is an invitation to pay attention to Jesus.” I shared with Mary that as she paid attention to Jesus, by reading of him in the Bible, she will discover that she will want to be more than she is now. “Pay attention long enough to Jesus and you will experience a compulsion to be something more; you will begin to live differently.”  Mary needed to hear that Jesus doesn’t leave a life unchanged. Any significant time spent with Jesus always results in a desire to be made new. “Your whole world will appear different. You will want to be different.”

“Finally, Mary, begin to follow Jesus as you learn about him.” I shared with her that what that means is to “do what he asks in his teaching.” Imagine Jesus as a mentor in life and do everything that is asked of you. Something inexplicable happens when someone commits to doing all that Jesus’ asks: they receive an uncommon power to do so. People who obey all that they understand of Jesus’ teachings receive a power from outside of themselves; a power that actually makes them something so much more than what they were. Mary began to cry and asked how to begin. That is when I knew I had come to the end. And there, in a diner in Doylestown, PA, Mary gave her life to Jesus.

Joy,

“I’m not saying this because I need anything, for I have learned how to be content in any circumstance. I know the experience of being in need and of having more than enough; I have learned the secret to being content in any and every circumstance, whether full or hungry or whether having plenty or being poor. I can endure all these things through the power of the one who gives me strength.”

Philippians 4:11–13

Have you noticed how many people have delayed their happiness? They seem to believe that if they can achieve a little more success, acquire a little more wealth, or marry the right person then they will possess happiness. Happiness, they believe, is what follows effort, time, and, perhaps, a little luck. It is as though happiness is somewhere out in front of everyone who is industrious enough to pursue it. Happiness is something to grasp, they believe, and their minds remain fixed upon it until they have taken ownership of it. Striving day upon day toward the possession of happiness, what they miss is that the secret of happiness is already present in the lives of those who long for it.

Paul’s letter to the Philippian Church provides the secret of happiness—as God’s people, we are to live in humility, looking out for others more than for ourselves. That is a great reversal of the commonly accepted formula for happiness. Essentially, Paul teaches that if we are always chasing after happiness, happiness always remains beyond our grasp. On the other hand, if we occupy ourselves with looking out for others, adding value to other people, and promoting their welfare, happiness quietly joins God’s people and takes-up residence in them. Paul is urging God’s people to break free of the tiny little world of themselves and join the great enterprise of God’s work in the world.

Here, in the fourth chapter of Paul’s letter to the Philippian Church, Paul further develops the secret to happiness. Having shared the secret of happiness, disclosed in the activity of Jesus who accepted humility to become like us, for the purposes of restoring us to God, Paul points to a mysterious strength that converges in our service to one another. That strength comes not from any person—or from the community of God’s people—but from the outside. It is God’s strength. There is far more going on when God’s people join with one another for the promotion of the welfare of others. The same Christ who became human to serve now empowers and enables God’s people in their service to one another.

Shortly following the death of his wife, J. R. Carmichael entered a nursing home. Yet, if you inquired about him, you learned that he is never in his room. It seems that each morning Mr. Carmichael would shower, dress, eat breakfast, and then move from one residential room to another. In each room, Mr. Carmichael spoke with the resident about their family, read the Bible to them, prayed with them, and told them that he loved them. Then it was off to the next room to do the same thing. Mr. Carmichael missed his wife every day but he never waited for happiness. Happiness found him, as he loved others deeply.

Joy,

Here is a specific teaching of our Lord to be used against the assault of circumstances and battles of life: continuous prayer. Jesus teaches that prayer is the predominant means available to access the power of God and to experience God’s grace. The practice of prayer was a constant in Jesus’ life and ministry. After exhausting himself teaching and healing people, Jesus withdrew to a deserted place for prayer. Before calling together the twelve who would be his disciples, Jesus prayed all night. When faced with five thousand hungry people, Jesus took five loaves and two fish and prayed for a miracle. Once everyone had eaten, the disciples filled twelve baskets with the leftovers. And on the night of his arrest, the night that preceded his crucifixion, Jesus prayed. Jesus urges others to do what he was always doing.

What is it that we do when we pray? Simply, we bring our spiritual enemies, our battles that must be fought, into the presence of God. The enemies remain and the battles must still be fought. But we face the enemy and fight the battle in God’s presence. It is God that changes the equation. As a child, one of my favorite television shows was The Equalizer. The premise of the show is that someone—someone who is being unfairly victimized—finds that the odds are stacked against them. The battle was uneven. There simply was no possible route to face the battle, the enemy, and win. Then, through an introduction with a person with uncommon ability—the equalizer—the game is changed. The battle moves from hopelessness to certain victory. What is changed is that the battle is brought into the presence of considerable power.

There are people who seek to face an enemy or fight a battle on their own. There is an admirable grit that drives them. The desire of self-sufficiency occupies every cell of their being. One can hear the faint voice of a child, “I do it!” Unfortunately, many are sadly beaten. Bruised and broken, a reassessment of the enemy or battle is considered, strategy is modified, and they engage once again—alone. Present is a reluctance to accept the intention of God that we never face life alone. We are rarely strong enough for life’s enemies or the battles that must be fought. Jesus’ invitation in this teaching from Luke’s Gospel is that we take the battle into God’s presence and engage there. Life’s critical battles are lost or won by the decision we make. We are conquerors when the battle ground is prayer.

Another dynamic is also discovered when we bring our enemies and battles before God, they lose their stature. Frequently, the enemy appears as large as a shadow that is cast from a light on a dark sidewalk. From one place, the shadow is considerably larger than we are. Such a shadow can have a terrifying impact. It is all out of proportion with the image that has been caught by the light. The result is that we feel diminished. Yet, move along the same sidewalk, and the shadow changes. It may increase but keep moving. Eventually what is seen is that the shadow begins to decrease. This is the experience we have when we bring our battles before God. We bring them to a holy place where they are right-sized; the threat is shrunk. That is because we have brought them to a much larger place. That is where battles are won.

Joy,

John C. Maxwell, internationally recognized leadership expert, speaker, and author, writes, “Nobody does anything great alone.”¹ Maxwell identifies this as The Law of the Inner Circle—the understanding that those closest to you determine your level of success. One of the earliest teachings in the pages of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, is that God intends that men and women live in a manner that includes God in their inner circle. Life isn’t to be a solo act, but one lived in the presence and guidance of our creator. Following this teaching, the Bible unfolds the narrative of lives that include God or those who chose to move forward without God. What comes into focus is that one choice results in life, the other death. A powerful plea is heard from the lips of God in the Book of Deuteronomy, “Choose life!”

In this teaching from Luke’s Gospel, Jesus goes to a mountain to pray. Jesus prays to God all night long. Jesus is including God in his inner circle. The content of Jesus’ prayers is soon disclosed—Jesus is seeking guidance for the extension of his inner circle. At daybreak, Jesus identifies and calls together twelve who will be called apostles. There is a night of prayer, and then there is a great decision. Our great lesson here is that our Lord took time to pray before he decided. Life also presents each of us with choices, choices that are personal and choices that are professional. Choices that may seem of little consequence and choices of considerable weight. Prayer always surrounds the choices of our Lord, and if we are truly wise, we will acknowledge that we are the stronger when God is included in all our decisions, small and large.

What did God do for Jesus in prayer? Prayer gave magnitude to the decision that Jesus would make. The choice of Jesus’ inner circle, the choice of the twelve that Jesus would teach, and mentor, and send into the world to share the Good News of God’s Kingdom, was a momentous decision. Prayer possessed Jesus’ mind of the gravity of this decision. Each of us is prone to live small lives with tiny purposes, lop-sided prejudices, and ambitions that rise no higher than a sunflower. As someone once said, the good is the enemy of the great. Without prayer, the gravity of decisions is reduced to little consequence. The natural result is a life that neither strives for something great nor achieves all God intends. Nothing kills the little things like our prayers.

Prayer also reaches beyond our own limited understanding of possibility. Someone once wisely commented that if we can ever grasp God and understand God’s mind, we must begin looking for another God. A God that we can comprehend is far too small to save us! Prayer to God, including God in our inner circle, is to draw upon insight and wisdom, and resources greater than what we possess. When we pray, we move into the realm of knowledge and possibility that we could never have imagined. Bigger ideas, bigger motives, bigger sympathies take possession of us. Prayer opens the windows of the soul to grandeur vistas where rich discoveries are made, and the heart is stirred to wonderous activity not before realized. Here Jesus teaches that the biggest outlooks come to those on their knees.

Joy,

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¹ Maxwell, John C., The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You, 25th Anniversary Edition, (Harper Collins Leadership, 2022) p. 135.

I was once told of a college professor who had been married for nearly thirty-five years when his wife became ill with dementia. Anyone who is familiar with this cognitive disease knows that eventually all memory is stolen from the individual. The professor did his best juggling his teaching responsibilities and caring for his wife until he could no longer do both. As he put it, he faced one of the most difficult decisions of his life when he placed his wife into a memory care center located nearly two hours from their home. Each day, following his last class, he would drive the two hours to share dinner with his wife. After some time with her, he drove the two hours back home to teach the next day.

Four hours of drive time each day eventually caught up with the professor. The emotional and physical toll was unmistakable as he realized that such drive time each day was not sustainable. Only one option presented itself – one option as the professor saw it. He would resign his teaching position at the college, sell his home, and move closer to his wife. When this decision was shared with the administration of the college and his students, they urged him to reconsider. With love and compassion, the administration and students told the professor that his wife no longer knew who he was, that she has now forgotten him. Perhaps make the drive less often – maybe on the weekends. Stay, they all asked. Stay with us.

With equal love and compassion, the professor refused. “Yes, my wife no longer knows who I am. She has forgotten everything. But I know who I am. I am her husband. Thirty-five years ago I made a promise to her. I intend to keep that promise.” That day the professor did more than demonstrate the worth of a promise made and a promise kept. Most powerfully, the professor taught his greatest lesson of all – that a loss of memory does not make any of us less a person. As long as his wife had breath, she was a person of value, a person to be cherished. Those who can no longer remember our names or of stories shared in the journey of life continue to hold a special place in our hearts and mind.

Isaiah asks, “Can a woman forget her nursing child, fail to pity the child of her womb?” Tragically, answers Isaiah, “Yes, sometimes yes.” Yet, Isaiah quickly moves the conversation forward and adds these words, “Even these may forget, but I won’t forget you.” Isaiah announces to us that, in the end, what ensures our worth – our value – is not what we can remember or fail to remember. What ensures our personhood is that God remembers us. Often our memories are so much a part of who we are that we cannot imagine an identity without them. What the professor teaches us – and Isaiah affirms – is that we are more than our memories. When our memories foil us they are held on our behalf by those who love us.

Joy,