Tag Archives: prayer

Pastor's Wives

Self-Discovery

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As I am on my journey of self discovery (finally at age 50), I am learning how much I base my value on what I do.  It is hard for me to comprehend someone loving me just for me.  I feel like I have to do something to earn love and when I translate that to my Christian faith I always feel like a failure.  I am coming to understand more and more that God’s love is UNCONDITIONAL.   That means I do not earn it.  My head has always known this but I have not really lived that way.  Devotions, prayer, church, good deed all seemed, in my mind, to be ways of making myself worthy in God’s eyes. 

What is coming to light this year is that devotions, prayer, attending church and good deeds are ways that I connect with God.  I am still unworthy except for the advocate Jesus that washes away my sin and makes a way for me to approach the throne of grace.  Jesus makes me worthy and all the other stuff I DO should be out of love and relationship. 

I think the church has taught me that being a good Christians means to follow all the rules and do the right things.  Instead I think it should be teaching all the sources of connection available to us. 

Devotions

I was taught that devotions were what good Christians did.  I think a better wording would be that as a Child of God he wants to talk to me everyday through His word.  It is not because I am good that I read the Bible, it is because God wants to connect with me and that one way He provided for that is through His word. 

Prayer

As I have struggled to have a concentrated one hour prayer time each week, I have learned that prayer is not what I do because I am a good Christian.  Prayer is talking out my struggles, my questions, my unbelief with the God of the Universe who cares about those things in my life.  He wants me to cry, to yell, to be quiet, to feel the need to let it all hang out.  He knows it all any way and we try, instead, to be dignified in prayer.  If we follow Jesus’ example, he did not pray dignified prayers. He weep, he fasted, he sweat.  Do we put that much energy into the things we are asking God for?  Are we asking things so big that they make us sweat?  Are we asking for things that are so close to our emotions that we weep?  I hope the answer is yes, but I hear far to many Christians say their prayer time is in the car, or random prayers throughout the day.  There is a place for quick, anytime praying but there should be a place for those heart wrenching prayers when we get to the real heart of the matter.

Church Attendance

For many has become a social club mindset.  We go there to catch up with friends, to sing, and to hear what the pastor has to say but most of us do this out of obligation or duty.  When I hear people say they didn’t like this or that about a service, I wonder if they came for the right reason.  Did you come to connect with God and with other believers?  If so, unless the pastor and worship was not biblical, you should be able to connect.  It is not about making you happy.  It is about connection. 

Ask yourself if you are trying to find the love of God by doing something or by really knowing the He loves you and then just connect with Him in different ways to see how that love can change your life.

Meditations

Where Has the Power Gone?

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As a young child I remember going to our church prayer meeting on Wednesday nights and hearing the adults pray through the requests and burdens they were carrying.  They would pray over each other and help carry the burden of others that were suffering.  As a child I was usually bored and either sleeping or talking quietly to a friend in the back pew but I remember how fervently the adults prayed together.

I don’t see that anywhere any more.  We are all in our own little bubble of spiritual growth and seem scared to share our burdens and struggles and pray for each other out loud.  The spoken word is so powerful and yet we rarely pray this way any more.  We leave this to the pastor or church leader that is in charge of prayer time.

Our prayer times at church have also become just a hospital list.  A list of ailments not a list of spiritual battles.  Don’t get me wrong, we should be praying for our physical struggles but that is not ALL we should be praying for.  Where are the verbal cries for the lost in our families?  Where are the anguished pleas for the sin that is overtaking our towns?  Where is the fight for our families and friends trapped in addiction?  Where is the plea to be used by God to help those around us?

2 Timothy 3 begins this way:

But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—  HAVING A FORM OF GODLINESS BUT DENYING ITS POWER.    Have nothing to do with such people.

Are we denying the power God wants to display because we are not calling out to Him? I believe the answer to seeing the power of God work in our families, in our churches and in our communities is through corporate prayer.  Praying together, fighting the battles together and being united for the cause of Christ.  Will you join a local prayer group and change your community for the better?