Category: Religious

The Russian novelist, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, creates a vivid image of inadequacy that unsettles the heart of a lonely individual in the short story, White Nights: A Sentimental Love Story From The Memoirs Of A Dreamer.[i]  The protagonist moves from day to day in a stale and unprofitable life that lacks any meaningful connection to another. All that changes one night on a bridge when his life intersects that of a woman crying. A gentle expression of concern plunges into an experience of such previously unknown intimacy of conversation that he asks of the woman if he might return the next night, “I can’t help coming here tomorrow. I am a dreamer. I know so little of real life that I just can’t help reliving such moments as these in my dreams, for such moments are something I have very rarely experienced.”[ii] Jesus points to someone praying and dares to insist, “Don’t pray like that!” and Paul writes that no one really knows how to pray. From the mouth of Jesus and the writing of Paul, we learn that our prayers can be inadequate.

The prayers we utter may be flawed, but prayer remains mandated by God. Prayer makes us conscious of the presence of God and reminds us that sin and death are still at work in our lives. Prayer directs our steps and enlightens us, and changes us. Prayer expands our vision beyond ourselves – makes us something bigger than we are. The paradox is that the very thing Paul tells us we don’t know how to do is the very thing we must do. God intends it. What are we to do? Paul helps us here. Moving beyond the shattering recognition that our prayers are flawed, Paul declares that we are not left alone in our stumbling. Moving us toward Dostoyevsky’s bridge, our prayers intersect with the very Spirit of God. It is an encounter of intimacy that is found in attention to the Scriptures. As our hearts are steeped in the story of God, we are led to see the world through the eyes of God. Minds and hearts are transformed by this new intimacy, which makes us co-creators of God’s Kingdom. The Spirit takes up residency within us and makes our prayers for us.

It is the ultimate paradox – where we are the weakest, God’s power is the strongest. Unable to pray, as God would have us pray, the Holy Spirit, who knows no weaknesses, searches our hearts and makes the prayers that are most urgent on our behalf. Finally, it is an act of grace. Where we are inadequate, God completes the work of prayer – and it is work because changes in attitudes and behaviors are a direct outcome of prayer. It is dangerous work because it risks conversion from seeking God’s blessings for our own small projects and wants and needs to becoming caught up in God’s hopes and dreams for the world. The Spirit’s prayer on our behalf results in an interruption of our lives and attaches us to God’s redemptive work in the world. As we look back on the shape and character, and sense of urgency that many of our prayers of yesterday had, we realize how flawed our prayers really were. They were about us, not God. They were about our individual pursuits, not about a life in a relationship with God.  

What remains for us is to take the time regularly to read Scripture and immerse ourselves in the great story of God in the pages of the Old and New Testament. Then we reflect deeply upon what we hear in the reading and ask God what we are to do. It is not time that we find. We never find time to pray in the crush of daily life. We must take the time. Just as surely as we take the time to place a call to a loved one in the midst of an overscheduled day, block out an evening for a child’s game, or linger in bed a few additional minutes to watch a beautiful sunrise out our bedroom window, we take the time to be with God in the pages of the Bible. This intentional time of reading the Bible and prayer doesn’t further deplete our energy – it restores it! Without “God time” each day, the energy for life runs down. Yet, the marvelous discovery that waits to be experienced is that we no longer pray for God’s divine help in our lives. Day upon day of prayer will demonstrate that divine help has always been present.

Joy,

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[i] Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, The Best Short Stories of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, London: Folio Society, 2021, 3-48.

[ii] Dostoyevsky, 11.

Recently, my friend Tom Tewell shared with me a basic and helpful approach to seeking God’s will—an approach he had learned years earlier from Lloyd J. Ogilvie. The place to begin is a careful reading of the Bible and prayer. Seeking God’s will in a particular circumstance, or more generally for one’s life, must always begin with some grasp of who God is. What can we know of God and how God has worked through human history from God’s Word in the Holy Scriptures? God’s desire for today will not contradict God’s character as disclosed in the Bible. If God is opposed to adultery in the Bible, for instance, God remains opposed to adultery. Simply, we will never discern that God may be calling us to violate our marriage vows.

The second movement to discerning God’s will is by consulting with a few trusted people who have demonstrated, in some way, that they listen carefully for God’s direction. These will be people who have been widely noticed by others as “paying attention to God” as they live each day. Share with them what you think God may be calling you to do. Then invite them to place what you think you hear alongside what they know of God and God’s activity. Is there consistency? Does what you believe God is saying match up with the God your friends have come to know from years of following Christ? Some Christian leaders refer to this practice as “discernment in community.” Bring what you hear to a faithful community so they can say if it makes sense to them from what they know of God.

Finally, pay attention to the opportunities that present themselves—and those that don’t. What some may simply call “circumstances” may be powerful indicators of what God is up to in your life. If you believe God is calling you to missionary work overseas and no doors seem to be opening for that to happen, it is well to rethink if God’s will has been properly discerned. On the other hand, if you sense God is calling you to partner with Habitat for Humanity for building homes for the poor, and you have particular skills for building homes, and have discretionary time available in your routine rhythm of life and then hear of a specific need from that organization that you can meet, and feel a burden for those who can’t afford a home—well, you see where I am going.

Many ask why finding God’s will has to be such a struggle. My own take on that is that God planned it that way. It is in the struggle that we go deeper and deeper in a relationship with God. Think of it this way. A meaningful relationship with a spouse is built by paying close attention to their likes and dislikes over a long period of time. We listen carefully when they speak. We watch what makes them happy and what discourages them. We take notice of their idiosyncrasies. This takes effort, naturally. But it is the effort—over time—that results in a deep and satisfying relationship with another. God wants no less from us.

Joy,

“Most important, live together in a manner worthy of Christ’s gospel. Do this, whether I come and see you or I’m absent and hear about you. Do this so that you stand firm, united in one spirit and mind as you struggle together to remain faithful to the gospel. That way, you won’t be afraid of anything your enemies do.”

Philippians 1:27, 28a (Common English Bible)

Some years ago, a young man shared with me that years earlier he made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ. However, in the time that followed, he never sought to grow in his relationship with Jesus. Now his life was moving through a crisis, and not moving through it very well. This brought uncommon insight for him. He said, “I never did anything with my faith so now my faith is not doing anything for me.”  Apparently, this young man reduced the Christian faith to right beliefs. He confessed before a church that Jesus Christ is his Lord. He believed in Jesus Christ and that was that. Nothing more required. What he was now learning – in the midst of a personal crisis – is that the Christian faith is not merely right beliefs. The Christian faith is something that we do, and optimally, in community with others.     

In his present tumult, what this man desired is calm. Some years ago, William George Jordan wrote, “Calmness is the rarest quality in human life. It is the poise of a great nature, in harmony with itself and its ideals. It is the moral atmosphere of a life self-reliant and self-controlled. Calmness is singleness of purpose, absolute confidence, and conscious power ready to be focused in an instant to meet any crisis.”[i] Simply, the person who is calm identifies a singleness of purpose and pursues that purpose with both a sturdy confidence and an intentional strength of resolve. This is precisely the point Paul makes in his letter to the Church in Philippi: “live together in a manner worthy of Christ’s gospel.” That is our purpose. Further, Paul asks for a steady resolve toward this regardless of external circumstances – whether Paul comes to see them or is absent from them.

A familiar song during the Christmas season has this refrain, “I’ll be home for Christmas, you can count on me. I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams.” Initially, the response is a chest that swells with anticipation and joy. A loved one is coming home for Christmas! However, the chest deflates when the refrain continues, “if only in my dreams.” Notice here that joy, or its absence, is dependent on something from outside of the individual – something that is beyond the grasp of the individual to control. Will a loved one be home for Christmas or not? Paul is saying that joy and a life of obedience to Jesus Christ is not dependent upon some external circumstance; not dependent upon whether Paul comes to be with them or is absent from them. Calm is available either way once a mind is focused upon a great purpose.

These few sentences of Paul conclude with the promise that fear and uncertainty will not fill the heart if the mind is set upon the single purpose of living for Christ’s gospel. If we hand authority to external circumstances for our well-being, we confess our inferiority to them. We grant them the power to dominate us. It is then that worries of every measure stir us to unease, wear upon us, and eventually, we wear down to surrender. Calm dissipates. Paul announces it does not have to come to that. “Live together in a manner worthy of Christ’s gospel.” Do that and the natural result is that you will not be afraid of anything your enemies do. Malice and slander, difficulties and hardships, disappointments and failures may assail you. Calmness will remain.

Joy,

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[i]Earl Nightingale, “Managing Your Inner World,” Transformational Living: Positivity, Mindset, and Persistence(Shippensburg, PA: Sound Wisdom, 2019) 39.

The beginning of the matter is faith. Faith does not mean the absence of doubt. As Jesus spoke to his disciples for the last time, the Bible tells us that some of them doubted. Their doubt did not bother Jesus. What Jesus did was to command them how they were to live after he left them. Here, faith is the determination to live “as though it is true.” When two people make marriage vows to remain together “until death do they part,” they are aware of the staggering divorce rates. They are aware of the possibility that their marriage may fail. Yet, they begin their life together on faith, the determination that they will remain together until death. Hebrews instructs that we begin the search for God “as though God does exist.”

Faith is not putting aside all doubt. It is determining to believe that God is there, just as we are present in the world. Faith is not putting aside all arguments against the existence of God but, rather, choosing to “accept as true” that God loves and understands and is interested in the smallest details of our life. A serious quest for God will put away all excuses for not beginning to seek God, excuses such as not having sufficient time to be alone with God each day, and sincerely striving to be in a personal relationship with someone as real and present as a spouse or dear friend. Faith is an acknowledgment that God is someone who is worth our worship, our love, our striving to learn from, and a decision to follow.

Let the one looking for God then turn each day into a quiet place, a place free of the possibility of interruption and distraction. In silence, think of God as present. Perhaps make a mental picture of God standing directly in front of you or seated right beside you. If it helps, picture God as Jesus groomed as your favorite picture of Jesus, wearing the traditional dress of the Hebrew people of Jesus’ day. Some find sitting in a church before a stained-glass window of Jesus helpful, as do I. Imaginatively, look into tender eyes and see arms outstretched to embrace you. At that moment, confess how you have wronged others and God. Pour out your hurts, disappointments, and longings. Share with God your unmet needs.

Then, after the silence, accept the forgiveness of God, the forgiveness you have heard proclaimed from the pulpit, read in the Bible, or shared with you by those who believe in Jesus. Accept the forgiveness even if you find it difficult to believe that anyone can forgive you, even God. By faith, trust the promise that you are forgiven. Trust that God has taken all that you are ashamed of and removed it from you. As God has placed all of it behind you, now make a mental picture that your back is turned to it, and you face forward with no guilt. In that new freedom—and in gratitude—resolve to learn from Jesus and to live as Jesus teaches us to live. Hebrews promises that God will reward you—promises that you will find God.

Joy,

The Newlywed Game was a popular television show in the late sixties and early seventies. The show would place newly married couples against each other in a series of revealing question rounds that determined how well the spouses knew or did not know each other. There would be two rounds; the wives were taken off stage first, while the husbands were asked three questions. The wives were then brought back into the studio and asked for their answers to the same three questions. Once the wife gave her answer, the husband revealed the answer he gave—written on a blue card—in her absence. Five points would be awarded to the couple that shared the same answer. The roles were reversed in round two, and the wives were asked to answer questions about their husbands. The couple with the highest score at the show’s end won.

Imagine a similar game that puts to the test how well we know God and how well we understand God’s purpose for our lives. I suspect many of us would be embarrassed. Here, in Luke’s Gospel, the disciples came upon Jesus when he was praying. Tremendously moved by what they saw, the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray. There is no hint in this passage that the disciples witnessed answers to Jesus’ prayers. Results weren’t what caught their imagination. There was something else: something that went much deeper.

If we dispense with the notion that prayer is only about answers, that prayer is simply presenting pleas when we are in need, in danger, or in a crisis; our eyes are cleared to see what the disciples saw when they came upon Jesus at prayer. In Jesus’ prayer, the disciples saw a concentration and absorption into a relationship with God they had no experience with. Jesus’ prayers demonstrated a deliberate and sustained cultivation of a relationship with God that would put Jesus in the winner’s seat of The Newlywed Game. What is clear in this passage is that the disciples wanted the same.

Perhaps the greatest difficulty with prayer today is that many are simply out of touch with God. Prayer is reduced to instinct rather than habit, to approaching God out of need rather than a regular cultivation of a personal relationship with our creator. And that is our deepest need—to renew our acquaintance with God. Prayers that flow from instinct tend to be self-centered. The prayer of Jesus is God-centered. It is prayer that takes time to cultivate and requires extraordinary perseverance. But once this fresh approach to prayer is mastered, don’t be surprised if another approaches you and asks, “Teach me to pray like that.”

Joy,

Tommy Lasorda, former manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, tells about an experience he had in church. One Sunday he was in Cincinnati for a ball game against the Reds. That morning he went to early morning Mass and happened to see the Red’s manger there. They were old friends and sat beside each other during Mass. Afterward, the Red’s manager said, “Tommy, I’ll see you at the ballpark. I’m going to hang around a little.” Lasorda said that when he reached the door, he glanced back over his shoulder. He noticed that his friend was praying at the altar and lighting a candle. He said, “I thought about that for a few moments. Then, since we needed a win very badly, I doubled back and blew out his candle.”ⁱ Though misguided, what a powerful demonstration of faith in God’s presence and activity!

Countless people today long for that deep confidence in God’s presence and activity in their lives. God seems distant to them. They plod through each day, fearful, anxious, and burdened with uncertainty. Some may remember once having a close relationship with God but that was a long time ago. Prayers seem to never rise higher than the ceiling—and that is when we even feel like praying! The good news is that this is not an uncommon experience in the Christian faith. Just as people can grow apart in relationships with one another, so we can drift away from God. As Thomas Tewell once said to me, the difference is that in human relationships, both parties contribute to the distance. But, in a relationship with God, the reality is that we drift away from God. God never drifts away from us.

In those moments when God seems distant, what are we to do? Perhaps an experience I had will help. My daughter, Rachael, was in Norway—a studio photographer for the Holland America Cruise Lines. It’s was not uncommon for Rachael to work twelve and fourteen hour days. Wi-Fi is limited and with her long hours it was difficult to “connect” with her by telephone or by other means in real time. Rachael reached-out to me via Facebook Messenger. She said that for a limited time she was available to receive a phone call from me and that she really would like me to call. Immediately, I moved something that was already on my calendar to another time and placed the call. Do you see what happened? Suddenly, my greatest desire was to speak with my daughter. To do so, I had to make the time.

We reconnect with God the same way. We move beyond our desire to be close with God and carve out time from our busy lives to simply be still in God’s presence. We open the Bible and read expectantly, asking God to speak powerfully through the words that we read on the page. We learn from our reading more about God, about God’s good desires for us, and we learn what God requires of us. We spend time together with God. And we listen; we listen deeply in the silence following our reading to the hunches, the promptings, and the direction we sense from God. As we respond positively, the distance we once felt from God begins to close.  

Joy,

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i William R. Bouknight, The Authoritative Word: Preaching Truth In A Skeptical Age. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2001) 30.

The Book of Jonah is one of the most unusual in the Bible. Tucked away among the Minor Prophets at the tail end of the Hebrew Bible, it’s radically different from its neighbors. Unlike the other prophetic books, Jonah primarily tells the story of what its prophet did, not necessarily what its prophet said. And what a story! A reluctant, cowardly prophet! A man eaten by a giant fish somehow surviving in its belly for three days! Desperate eleventh-hour appeals to God and dramatic reversals of fortune! The unanimous repentance before God of an entire pagan city! Field animals donning mourning clothes alongside their masters! Even its spatial dimensions stretch beyond credulity: the doomed city of Nineveh is described as requiring three days to cross on foot. For reference, according to Google Maps, it only takes eight hours to traverse New York City from the bottom of Brooklyn to the tip of the Bronx. The Book of Jonah is an outlandish, dramatic tale that scratches the very human itch for the strange and fantastic. Is it any wonder it’s a favorite of storytellers, scribes, and Sunday school teachers?

However, the Book of Jonah also bears a more unfortunate distinction: it’s one of the most abridged, misunderstood stories in the Bible. We Christians have a nasty habit of neglecting the last chapter of the book, which brings the rest of the story into sharp, uncomfortable focus. After Jonah begrudgingly obeys God’s command to preach repentance to the Assyrian capital of Nineveh, he becomes infuriated when God honors the city dwellers’ repentance and doesn’t destroy them. An incensed Jonah rages against the Almighty’s mercy and reveals his true character: he didn’t flee from God’s command to travel to Nineveh because he feared the Assyrians; he fled because he knew God would spare them if they repented! It was his hatred of Nineveh that spurred him to Tarshish.

When God challenges Jonah for questioning God’s mercy, Jonah responds like an indignant toddler, storming to the outskirts of the city. Once there, he builds a hut, sits down, and faces the city, almost like he’s trying to will God to change God’s mind and smite Nineveh with the sheer force of his will. Like a patient parent, God causes a tree to grow over him so he might sit in the shade. But after a day of Jonah not getting the hint, God smites the tree with a terrible worm. When Jonah yells at God for destroying his shade, God challenges him once again, asking if his anger is justified. Once more, like a child stamping its foot, Jonah whines and wishes he might die. To which God responds with a simple question: why are you more upset about the life of a tree than the lives of thousands of people and animals in Nineveh?

Contrary to how the Book of Jonah is commonly understood, it’s not a story celebrating the faithfulness and power of God to save God’s faithful. It’s not a story meant to complement Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the furnace or Daniel in the lion’s den. The book generously mixes satire, humor, and folklore to challenge its reader to self-examine their obedience to God’s command of loving their neighbor. If Jonah truly loved the Lord his God, he would have rejoiced at the salvation of the Assyrians, the hated enemies of the Jews who sacked their cities and murdered their people. But it offers a second, just as potent challenge to its reader: what kind of God do we truly want to believe in? Jonah’s idealized God of vengeance and wrath, slayer of the weak and repentant? Or the Bible’s revealed God of mercy and justice, forgiver of sins, and bringer of salvation? May we choose better than this spiteful prophet.

Joy,

Many, many people are frustrated in their prayer lives. Told over and over again that whatever they need, whatever they want, simply bring those requests to God in prayer, and God will not disappoint. Anticipate miracles, we are told by the faithful. All things are possible if only we believe. We pray. And there is silence. Prayer is attempted again, with greater mental effort to “believe more” or “have more faith” as though either was possible with greater effort. The silence remains. We are told to blame ourselves. Discouragement settles into our souls, and we drop out on faith—or at the minimum, on the exercise of prayer. Prayer has failed us; we know that somehow we are not getting through to God, so we give up. Worse, without a positive experience of prayer, the energy for a life of faith runs down.

Lowell Russell Ditzen suggests that the problem may, in fact, be with us. Ditzen writes, “We become what we think! Our spiritual health is the result of our spiritual diet.”[i] Naturally, that begs the question, “What are we feeding on?” Psalm 1 advances this notion with three quick declarations: “The truly happy person doesn’t follow wicked advice, doesn’t stand on the road of sinners, and doesn’t sit with the disrespectful.” This spiritual guidance is immediately followed by two imperatives, the happy person loves the Lord’s Instruction, and they recite God’s Instruction day and night. Apparently, our spiritual diet – our day-to-day behavior and thoughts – becomes the filter through which we see the world. How is the resolution by which we view the world? Have we drawn near to God or moved far away?

Ellen F. Davis moves this thought forward, “The psalm makes only one point, and makes it really clear: you’re not going to get anywhere in the life of prayer unless you’re reading scripture, God’s Torah, all the time.”[ii] A genuine, vital, and effective experience of prayer emerges out of the midst of reading the Bible regularly – even daily – and focusing our thoughts on the question, “What does God require of me?” As we become better readers of the Bible, our prayers are deepened and transformed. We remove ourselves from the company of those who ignore God’s purposes and, thus, disrupt God’s order for the world. Steeped in scripture and disciplined in prayer, we are able to see what God is doing in the ordinary moments of life.

Life consists of choices – we choose either a constant attentiveness to God’s instruction or a self-centered life that largely ignores God until we believe God might be useful to us. One is a high-resolution faith, the consciousness of God here and now, and the other is a low-resolution faith that sees little beyond the self. Strength rises up in the person who both learns of God and approaches prayer as fellowship with God. Courage is rekindled, insight is broadened, and the power to endure and move forward is heightened. Such prayer pries the “me” out of our consciousness and provokes us to see life all around us in fresh new ways. Such a high-resolution faith leads to a lifestyle that experiences great power in prayer. A people who mastered prayer wrote the Psalms, and it is well that they instruct us.

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.[i] Lowell Russell Ditzen, Secrets of Self-Mastery: An Inspirational Guide to The Mastery of Life (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1958) 22.

[ii] Ellen F. Davis, Wondrous Depth: Preaching The Old Testament (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005) 147.