Tag: prayer

1 Kings 8:22-30

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
            I grew up in rural Iowa, a place with a lot of gravel roads.  In the seasons of Spring and Fall, the thawing and re-freezing lead to some impressive ruts in those roads.  It is difficult to avoid them since they nearly dominate the driving space.  When it comes to prayer, there are seasons of life where we can slip into ruts – times where focused wrestling in prayer is set aside by just going along with the rut of prayer that has always been done.  There are Christians who can pray wonderful prayers… over and over again with almost no thought to it, continually saying the same things anytime they pray.
 
            In today’s Old Testament lesson we have a prayer of Solomon at the dedication of the Lord’s temple.  The two aspects of this prayer that jump out to me are:  Solomon reminded God of his promises to the covenant people; and, Solomon reminded God of who God is.  Solomon, as the wisest person to ever live, did not believe that somehow God forgot about his promises or had some sort of divine dementia about his basic nature.  But Solomon prayed with a kind of prayer that God delights to hear.  God likes it when we pray according to the promises he has given us; and, God enjoys it when we pray with a focused understanding of whom we are praying.
 
            So, then, in our prayers it would be a good thing to emulate the example of King Solomon.  Know the promises of God contained in the Scriptures, and pray that they will be confirmed in our lives, families, churches, and world.  Next, also pray with the intention of declaring what kind of God we acknowledge and expect to hear.  We serve a big God whose hugeness is continually above all things, and whose work is always continuing according to his decrees and words. 
 
            One way of moving our prayers out of the ruts of familiar language and thoughts is to journal them.  Writing our prayers can become for us an act of worship as we slow down enough to craft a response to God that is thoughtful and connects us with him beyond the rote and routine.
 

 

            All-consuming God, the highest heavens cannot contain you, for you above all creation.  Yet, you have stooped to notice us, small as we are with our wants and needs.  Thank you that in Jesus Christ all your promises are found and fulfilled.  May I know Christ more intimately, and serve him more passionately with the spiritual power of prayer you provide.  Amen.

Christian Contemplation

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
           There is a great deal of loneliness in this world.  Increasingly, more and more people live alone.  As job hours build to crazy levels, disconnection occurs simply out of having no discretionary time to spend with others.  So, for many people, taking the time to sit in the presence of God and forget about the clock seems almost absurd.  It is as if contemplating Christ is some luxury instead of a necessity.  But it is a vital Christian practice. 
 
I propose that just maybe the reason why so many Christians, churches, and ministry organizations have contemplation off their spiritual radars has to do with how we view our relationship with God.  Communicating with God is a great privilege, and made possible through the Lord Jesus Christ.  In Christian contemplation we do not just pray to get something; we seek to adore God and enjoy being in his presence.  God longs for our companionship.  Yes, you read that right.  God delights in us.  He wants to be with us.  This weird notion that God always wants something from us is one-dimensional and truncates the true knowledge of God into a business transaction where we give God obedience and he answers our prayers.
 
If that is your typical understanding of how we relate to God, consider the beginning of humanity.  God enjoyed “walking in the cool of the day” with Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:8-9).  The original garden is portrayed as a paradise because it was the place where God and his creatures simply enjoyed being with one another.  We must come to grips with the reality that becoming spiritually mature means learning to love God for who he is, not just for what he can do for us.
 
Contemplative prayer has as its singular goal being with God, period.  It is about allowing time to melt away into an enjoyment of God, and God’s enjoyment of us.  If this seems strange, mystical, or medieval, it is only because contemporary evangelicalism has strayed far from the streams of living water offered through the kind of prayer that contemplates the grace and love of God in Christ.  Maybe you can only view God loving you if you are living a perfect life.  Remember this:  there is nothing you can do to make God love you more or less.  It is high time we relax enough to receive the wondrous reality that God loves us for who we are and not for what we can give to him.
 
God longs to be with us!  The “Jesus Prayer” is a simple and ancient prayer that combines the prayer of the tax collector from Luke 18:13 (“God be merciful to me, a sinner”) with the earliest confession of the church (“Jesus is Lord”).  Put it together, and the Jesus Prayer is:  “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”  It is meant to be a means of entering into the presence of God and experiencing communion with Jesus.  Repeating phrases from Holy Scripture are some of my favorite ways of engaging in contemplative prayer.  I like personalizing Philippians 3:10, “I want to know you, Lord Christ, and the power of your resurrection, and the fellowship of sharing in your sufferings.”  Using the biblical book of psalms is a wonderful place to express the desire of our hearts toward God, and to drink in his love for us.  Over time the repeated words begin to fall away into a deep connection with God.
 
Again, if I seem to be sounding like some reclusive monk locked up in a remote monastery, I can assure you that I am not in any such place.  I am a busy pastor who has more responsibilities that he ought to have.  But I do neither my church nor my God any favors by constantly working with no time set aside to connect with the reason we are to engage in this Christian work to start with:  to know Jesus to the very core our beings.  None of us are brains-on-a-stick meant to check off on a list of beliefs; then, go on our merry way being uptight, anxious, and worried about everything under the sun because we did not let those beliefs sink down into the marrow of our spiritual bones.
 

 

God is huge, and he is full of huge love for his creatures.  The Western church must begin to allow the fog to lift so that we can walk with God in the garden of the soul.  How will you and your church allow God into your lives to make this happen?  The answer to that question might just be the very thing you have been looking for all along.

Psalm 55:1-15

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
            We all know of the modern day proverb, ‘the squeaky wheel gets oiled.’  The saying is often used in reference to someone who is loud, even obnoxious, about what they want.  In today’s psalm, David cannot avoid the squeaky wheel.  There are people in his face.  All we know about David’s enemies from the psalm is that they were nursing a grudge against him for something.  David was hurt and betrayed.
 
            So, David prayed.  “Give ear to my prayer, O God, and hide not yourself from my plea for mercy!  Attend to me, and answer me; I am restless in my complaint and I moan, because of the noise of the enemy… in anger they bear a grudge against me.”  David felt the ache of certain persons speaking against him.  For whatever reason, they had an axe to grind and were determined to make David’s life difficult.
 
            Although, like David, we sometimes feel like flying away and being at rest from the turmoil, we must deal with the insults, the untrue and half-true rhetoric of others.  The way David confronted the problem was primarily through prayer.  When David prayed, it was never a quick on-the-run sort of prayer to God in the rush of dealing with all his kingly duties.  Instead, David offered specific, agonizing, timely prayers asking, even begging God to not let the violent speech and actions of his enemies prevail.
 
            Out of the range of possibilities that we could do in response to sins of the tongue against us, prayer needs to be the primary weapon.  Heartfelt, passionate, detailed, and pointed prayers need to be offered to the God who hears the righteous in their grief.  If you are in such a position of being oppressed by another, a sage way to begin addressing the situation is through praying the very same psalm that David did when he was under duress.
 

 

            Listening God, you hear the cries of the righteous.  Give ear to my plea.  I cry out to you for respite from those allayed against me.  I ask for justice so that the wicked and the unrighteous do not have their way in this world.  In the mighty name of Jesus I pray.  Amen.

Psalm 26

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
            Although we are several millennia removed from the Old Testament world, we still share a great deal of solidarity with our believing brothers and sisters throughout the ages.  Times may change, yet the basic nature of people remains the same.  Evil is still evil; and, integrity has permanence.  Maybe because I am a pastor, I see the inner workings of sin more than the average Joe.  And I will say that evil still exists, and it is every bit as ugly as it was in biblical times.
             Followers of Jesus throughout the world still stare into the face of wickedness, and of those who would seek to do them harm.  Even in this enlightened age, in this modern Western world I live in, there are those who twist the truth, and try to bend every circumstance to their own advantage, not caring whom they damage in the process.  If you know this to be true, and you are or have experienced the slanderous breathings of devious persons, then Psalm 26 is for you, my friend.
             Although the psalmist had to endure situations he did not deserve, his response was twofold:  he was determined to walk with integrity, no matter what others might do or say to him; and, the psalmist left room for God to work instead of paying back evil for evil.  It would be good to pray along with this psalm, “Vindicate me, O LORD, for I have walked in my integrity, and I have trusted in the LORD without wavering….  As for me, I shall walk in my integrity:  redeem me, and be gracious to me.”
             The lectionary repeats the same psalm every three days, every week, for a reason – to encourage us to pray biblical prayers that allow truth and sound theology to permeate our spirits and sink deep into our needy souls.  And those prayers are perhaps most needed when we are undergoing the adversity of human evil.
             O Lord God Almighty, prove me and try me; test my heart and my mind.  Your steadfast love is before my eyes and I walk in your faithfulness.  Do not sweep my soul away with sinners.  Be gracious, merciful, and kind to me today and always for the sake of Jesus Christ, your only Son.  Amen.