Prayer-liners [ii]

some more quotes from ‘Prayer: Does it make any difference?’ by Philip Yancey, which you really should read:

‘Be still and know that I am God’: the Latin imperative for ‘be still’ is vacate. As Simon Tugwell explains, ‘God invites us to take a holiday [vacation], to stop being God for a while, and let Him be God.’ Too often we think of prayer as a serious chore, something that must be scheduled around other appointments, shoe-horned in among other pressing activities. We miss the point, says Tugwell: ‘God is inviting us to take a break, to play truant. We can stop doing all those important things we have to do in our capacity as God, and leave it to Him to be God.’ [pg. 19]

‘Why pray? I have asked this question almost every day of my Christian life, especially when God’s presence seems faraway and I wonder if prayer is a pious form of talking to myself. I have asked it when I read theology, wondering what use there may be in repeating what God must surely know. My conclusions will unfold only gradually, but I begin here because prayer has become for me much more than a shopping list of requests to present to God. It has become a re-alignment of everything, I pray to restore the truth of the universe, to gain a glimpse of the world, and of me, through the eyes of God. In prayer I shift my point of view away from my own selfishness. I climb above the timber line and look down at the speck that is myself. I gaze at the stars and recall what role I or any of us play in a universe beyond comprehension. Prayer is the act of seeing reality from God’s point of view.’ [pg. 21]

for more thoughts on prayer, click here.

Prayer-liners [i]

i have just started reading ‘Prayer: Does it make any difference?’ by Philip Yancey which was given to me by two great friends Emiel and Philippa a while back and which i just started reading at the right time… still early days but REALLY enjoying it and highly recommend it [and it is not ‘the ten steps to really great prayer’ at all]

and while you should read the book, until you do, i thort i’d share some lines or thoughts that really stood out, from time to time as i continue to read it…

‘Most of my struggles in the Christian life circle around the same two themes: why God doesn’t act the way we want God to, and why I don’t act the way God wants me to. Prayer is the precise point where those themes converge.’ [pg. 9]

‘Prayer helps correct myopia, calling to mind a perspective I daily forget. I keep reversing roles, thinking of ways in which God should serve me, rather than vice versa. As God fiercely reminded Job, the Lord of the universe has many things to manage, and in the midst of my self-pity I would do well to contemplate for a moment God’s own point of view.’ [pg. 14]

for more thoughts on prayer, click here.

you can’t “Love your enemies” if you’re never near them…

we read this as part of morning prayer this morning:

‘Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “Jesus Christ lived in the midst of His enemies. At the end, all of His disciples deserted Him. On the cross He was utterly alone, surrounded by evildoers and mockers. For this cause He had come, to bring peace to the enemies of God. So the Christian, too, belongs not in the seclusion of a cloistered life, but in the thick of foes.”‘ [from Common Prayer: a liturgy for ordinary radicals, April 9th]

Jesus’ call is for us to love God and love people, and to make disciples of all men, teaching them to obey everything He taught us… we can’t do that from a distance. it requires genuine relationship.

psalmthing to chew on: psalm 9

the danger of this, for me, much like for a preacher to be planning a preach, is that the reading becomes preparation for blogging as in reading to find my blog point… and so i am doing my best to ensure that doesn’t happen by trying to read the psalm a number of times, where a later one of those will be to draw out the point i am wanting to share, but the first one is simply to read and embrace the psalm for what it is…

and so on to psalm 9:

for starters, this is a great reminder of a good place to start prayer – with recognition of Who God is and praising His name…

‘I will give thanks to you, LORD, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonderful deeds.
I will be glad and rejoice in you; I will sing the praises of your name, O Most High.’ [vs.1-2]

Then this part of the psalm jumped out at me:

‘The LORD reigns forever; He has established His throne for judgment.
He rules the world in righteousness and judges the peoples with equity.
The LORD is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble.
Those who know Your name trust in You, for You, LORD, have never forsaken those who seek You.’ [vs.7-10]

what i was reminded of is the two facts i know about God – one, that God is Love, and two, that God is Just… and sometimes those characteristics may seem to contradict each other, but the reality is they never do. God’s Love never cancels out His Justice [His Justice makes the punishment for sin death but His Love causes Him to send His Son Jesus to take that punishment of death in our place] and likewise His Justice never cancels out His Love.

there is a lot more, and this psalm is worth a couple of read-throughs, but those were two things that stood out for me… what about you?

[To continue on to Psalm 10, click here]

[To return to the start of this series on Psalms as well as some other Bible things, click here]

love, prayer, feet

i’ve mentioned this site before but i’m still really enjoying the simple daily prayer thorts they put up there so if you looking for a place to help you meditate and reflect and prepare for prayer and for the day check out this daily prayer site commonprayer.net

just some of the thorts on there today:

When we love and learn to share : when we love, Christ is there.

Elizabeth of the Trinity, a nineteenth-century Carmelite nun, said, “Let us ask God to make us true in our love, to make us sacrificial beings, for it seems to me that sacrifice is only love put into action.”

God of love, forgive us when we make a mockery of love by only speaking of love. Burden us with your embodied love so that our first response may be to love with our hands and feet. May our love take on the flesh you so humbly bore. Amen.

who does barack obama answer to?

i came across this article about barack obama’s personal faith and the unsurprising statement that it is the call to look after ‘the least of these’ [matthew 25, sheep and goats parable] that keeps him focused… very cool…

excerpt from article below – link to full article and clip here

‘President Barack Obama gave an unusually personal speech about his religious faith on Thursday, saying that “it is the biblical injunction to serve the least of these that keeps me going and keeps me from being overwhelmed,” in address to a prayer breakfast in Washington.

The speech, delivered at the National Prayer Breakfast, comes on the heels of public opinion surveys that show only a minority of Americans know that Obama is a Christian and that a growing number believe he’s a Muslim.

“My Christian faith has been sustaining for me over the last couple of years and even more so when Michelle and I hear our faith questioned from time to time,” the president said Thursday, referring to his wife. “We are reminded that ultimately what matters is not what other people say about us but that we are true to our conscience and true to our God.”

“When I wake in the morning, I wait on the Lord, I ask him to give me the strength to do right by our country and our people,” Obama said later. “And when I go to bed at night, I wait on the Lord and I ask him to forgive me my sins and to look after my family and to make me an instrument of the Lord.”‘

just to make it today. we got to.

so i really want to punt this site again – think my beautiful wife valerie put me on to it – it’s called common prayer and it basically has like a prayer devotion for the day so usually a bit of an extract of some significant story (today was on Rosa Parks, who refused to give up her seat on the bus in the states which ignited the whole civil rights movement) and then a smattering of psalm lines and other scriptures and a bit of a prayer – for someone like me who struggles to get into praying on any big scale or even daily devotions sometimes, this has been like a breath of fresh air and just a daily guide to get my thorts and spirit aligned and focused on God – great page to bookmark and start your day with…

check it out