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January 13, 2013 5:13 pm

God of the small things

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by    in Prayer

The story is famous: when Elijah went looking for God, he searched for him in the grandiose, in the mighty, in the massive. But he didn’t find him there – instead, he found it in the still small voice. One way to read this is to realise that, for instance, our busyness or our worries stops us from hearing God. Yet there is a lot more to the “still, small voice” than this.

smallthings

Photo: adapted from Joe Lencioni, under CC License

The story also depicts us and our own expectations: it describes how we think God will show up in great and marvellous ways; and forget that he also shows up in the mundane. Ignoring God’s presence and action in the everyday life, may be just down to our desire to retain control over the mundane:

  • in remembering the miraculous (that Jesus fed the multitude with barely anything), we find an excuse to forget the example that is set (for instance, that people were fed and welcomed. Or that the start of it was food belonging to the disciples, not conjured up out of thin air.
  • in looking at the big miracles first – and yes, that includes the resurrection – we allow ourselves to box Jesus into someone who concerns himself only with the big issues. Jesus performed miracles, yes. But that is far from being his predominant activity over his three-and-a-bit-year ministry.
  • in thinking in terms of salvation first – whether it be issues of soteriology, eschatology or predestination – we shockingly allow ourselves to make Jesus irrelevant to our day-to-day lives.

The truth is far more beautiful: God is relevant to our lives: as a model to follow, someone to imitate, yes. But also, and just as importantly, God is a constant presence in our lives: someone who cares about the mundane and acts in the little things as well as the big.

I think it’s important to remind ourselves that our prayers should not be limited to the supernatural, the unexpected. I myself have a tendency to push prayer to the extreme:  to ask beyond my expectations of what might actually happen. And there is a place for such bold prayers. But not all prayers should be reaching for what we couldn’t do ourselves.

Because I’m afraid that if we do limit our prayers to what we couldn’t do ourselves, we quickly reach a stage where we feel we have to sort ourselves out before we can come before God. And then, those areas of our lives that most need healing, we cut off from the one person who can heal them.

When’s the last time you prayed for the natural rather than the supernatural?

Have you ever felt your situation did not merit God’s attention?

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November 25, 2012 5:01 pm

Pray for your pastor

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by    in Calling,Lists,Prayer

As you will know if you’re a regular reader of this blog, I delivered my first sermon last Sunday. I am incredibly grateful to all who prayed for me on that occasion; and I’ll reiterate that it went really well.

Photo taken from christmasstockimages.com, reused under CC License

Up until last week, whenever I read or heard “pray for your pastor”, I would never think much of it. I’m not sure what my excuses were; but I think that deep down I was thinking a combination of the following four things:

  • The preacher is more qualified than me. He will pray before preaching. That prayer will be better than mine.
  • The preacher will get the inspiration of the Holy Spirit anyway. There’s no need to pray.
  • That’s his job, for which he has been trained; he does not need any prayer in the first place
  • That’s for Sunday. Pleeeeeeenty of time.

These are the most insidious of arguments, because they each hold a tiny nugget of truth. That makes them ring “true-ish”; and makes them all the easier to use as excuses. But each of these arguments is also twisted. Let’s go through them again:

  • The preacher has some level of qualifications; and yes, he will pray before preaching (as well as, hopefully, through the week!). It does not mean that his prayer is better than yours. On the contrary, writing a sermon is no easy task; and it comes with its burdens, stresses, and feelings of low self-esteem. These may impede the preacher’s prayers for his own sermon: for instance, he may feel like he should have done a bit more preparation and he can’t present that work to God (that would be stupid, but stressed people do stupid things). Then your prayer is truly needed; and the knowledge that he is prayed for makes the preacher bolder in his own sermon-writing.
  • The Holy Spirit will inspire the preacher. But that does not supersede the need for prayer (or preparation). There is a famous joke about a young curate who, every week, spent hours preparing his sermons. He was mocked by a very Pentecostal colleague who told him “I only wait to hear from the Spirit”. Enthused by the idea, our young curate decides to try it out. The  next week, when they meet, the Pentecostal colleague asks: “So, did the Spirit speak to you? What did He say?” The curate answers “Yes. He said ‘you’ve been very lazy this week’.”
  • Hopefully, the preacher has undergone some form of formal training. It will generally be the case; and where not, he should receive some form of support by those who are trained. But no training can fully prepare for the sharing of the living Word – or else, that Word becomes dead; and preaching merely a mix of manipulation and of teaching of old doctrine. Only through prayer can we ensure that what the preacher says will genuinely touch the hearts and minds of the congregation.
  • The sermon will be delivered on Sunday. It will, generally, have been written beforehand. Especially in the case of someone preaching for the first time, this will take place days, nay, weeks in advance. Prayer is necessary at all stages of the sermon-crafting, up to the delivery and even beyond that. Additionally, as I’m sure you’ll find, Sunday isn’t that far around the corner.

So pray for your pastor. Pray for his health, his energy, his drive, the inspiration of the Holy Spirit – through the week. Pray that he may be a true imitator of Christ, and that he inspire you to be, in turn, imitators of Christ. Pray that he may move you, challenge you, and speak words relevant to you and to the rest of the congregation. Pray that he may move himself, and be once again reminded with great awe of his own nature as a beloved child before God.

What’s your excuse? What will your prayer be?

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Note: given recent news about female episcopate, it might be worth saying that, in the above article and, I’m sure, in many places through the blog, I have used the masculine as a generic term. It is not a theological statement! In this case, the preacher is a “he”, but might as well be a “she”. I find dual writing “he or she” tedious and cumbersome for the reader as well as for the writer; and abhor the abbreviation “s/he”. The plural sometimes works, it felt very odd to use it here. So if your pastor is female, I will leave it to you, reader, to make the appropriate substitutions!

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November 11, 2012 5:39 pm

Praying is testing God (sometimes)

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by    in Bible,Prayer

Being bold in prayer is tricky.

Don’t get me wrong: boldness in prayer and a faith to move the mountains are good things. There are also practical ways to increase boldness in prayer. But in all of that, there is a difficult balance to strike, between expecting our prayers to be answered and considering that as a right that we have come to acquire.

The danger is there, that we start demanding things from God, as though he were indebted to us, rather than the opposite. The Israelites did:

They tested God in their heart
by demanding the food they craved.
They spoke against God, saying,
“Can God spread a table in the wilderness?”

Psalms 78:18-19 (ESV)

And God got angry at them for it.

I wouldn’t be quick to dismiss this as God being angry at some form of lack of faith on the part of the Israelites. Or to think that the Israelites wanted to make sure of God’s power before they went on and trusted Him. After all, they had all left Egypt on the basis of that faith, the power of God had just been shown them when they were thirsting for water.

Yes, their prayer was a test; but one that we can be led to put God to in our own prayer life, without noticing that we do. We test God in our prayers when we allow our faith to depend on the outcome of the prayer.

Expectant prayer becomes tricky, then: we want to both be  bold in the assurance that God will provide, but we need to not let our faith depend on it. Prayer, and our relationship with God, cannot become a utilitarian thing. How do we achieve that, though?

In remembering that our prayer comes from faith and relies entirely on that faith. Yes, answered prayers can feed a little into faith; and both may grow together. But we must not allow ourselves to turn to a system where faith relies on answered prayers.

The Lord’s prayer, rightly, starts with a statement of praise of God. This is not only a statement of what is the most important, but also a way of giving us the right state of mind for prayer: one that looks at God first, and  then allows us to respond and ask for our daily bread expectantly.

To conclude, though, let us remember that after being angered, God still provided the manna. He still answered the prayer, even when it did not rely on faith alone. Prayers born out of necessity, prayers born out of strife, or those where we doubt our own worth in God’s eye and therefore God’s answer – these are all acceptable. But let’s not make a habit of them ;-)

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October 28, 2012 5:32 pm

10 ways in which listening to God is like waiting for luggage

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by    in Lists,Prayer

Photo: Agus Munoraharjo, reused under CC license.

1. You’re actively looking for your item of luggage. It’s not like waiting for, say, Christmas or the bus. Once you see the conveyor belt moving, your eyes will be searching for your item of luggage. In the same way, when I’m praying, I am in “expectant waiting”. I’m actively listening for God, looking out for what he has to tell me.

2. You know it’s going to come.
You are right to expect its arrival. And that changes the dynamics of waiting – it turns it from a dreadful chore into joyful and excited anticipation.
(Well, it does for prayer. Not too sure about waiting for luggage :-P)

3. You can’t increase (or decrease) the speed of the conveyor.
Ultimately, “expectant waiting” is waiting. I could tell the Holy Spirit to hurry up, mind. And that prayer might work. But in prayer, and in listening, I have to recognise that I’m not setting the agenda. That I am not praying in order to be holy and show myself up for hearing from God; and that God .

4. If you miss it the first time around, it’s no big deal. It can go round the conveyor belt again.
In the same way, it’s never too late to start praying. Or to start listening. Or to start it all again.

5. Luggage comes in different shapes and sizes – but it’s always luggage! Different people will recognise the Holy Spirit in their own way. Judging people because of the way they respond to God, or because of the  way they worship, is not only arrogant – it’s also fundamentally misguided.

6. Even though others may not recognise your luggage, you know for sure when it comes that it is yours. But, if pressed for an explanation as to how you know it’s what you were waiting for, you will find it hard to explain.
The same goes with what comes from God – there is a distinct recognisability of what comes from God in prayer.
That said, a child may not go and pick up their parents’ suitcase unless prompted to do so; and on occasion, further scrutiny is appropriate.

7. You don’t randomly look for your luggage everywhere in the airport. But if you see it sitting in an unexpected place, you still know it as your luggage.
In the same way, I’m not in contemplative prayer 24/7. And I’m (mostly) actively seeking God when in prayer. But at the same time, God may talk to me at other times, and in other ways. In those cases, I (hopefully!) will recognise God’s word and  pick up my luggage where I find it! Although it has to be said, in those cases, I would very carefully check that it was mine…

8. You have a baggage reclaim tag. You know, just in case it gets lost.
We have a promise. And a trace of that promise. That means that if things go wrong, for whatever reason, and I don’t hear from God straight away, I need not worry.

9. You didn’t get your luggage onto the conveyor belt. But you’re the one who has to pick it up.
In the same way: we have teachers whom we can trust to direct us to the right conveyor belt. We have encounters along our life story that get our faith from one place to the next. And ultimately, it’s God who sends us his messages – and not just us.
If I don’t listen, then I won’t hear God’s word. If I don’t respond to it, the transformative power of that word won’t work in my life, and I won’t grow. Just spotting my item of luggage and leaving it on the conveyor belt would be a bit stupid, wouldn’t it?

10. If you skip that part of your journey (assuming you had checked in some luggage) you won’t be able to go through your day quite as easily.
And feel quite foolish too, probably.
In the same way, contemplative prayer sustains us and helps us in our daily lives.

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September 9, 2012 9:07 pm

The conundrum of seeking forgiveness

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by    in Bible,Prayer

Forgiveness is at the heart of much Christian practice. Communion liturgy mentions it, as the blood of Christ washes our sin away. Some widespread evangelism strategies give it a prominent place, going something like this*:

  1. We are all sinners and deserve the wrath of God.
  2. Jesus took on our sin on the cross and bore the penalty for our sins.
  3. We therefore stand justified and forgiven in the eyes of God.

The direct link between sin and justification makes it sound easy. It looks as though repentance automatically leads to forgiveness. And in a way, it does – because God’s nature is always to have mercy. But it makes it look silly too. On its own, it’s petty. Arrogant. Why would God want us to say sorry for our sins in order for them to be forgiven?

Photo: Roger Davies, reused under CC License

Behind this question, there is a double misconception: firstly, about the place of forgiveness in Christianity: we cannot think of sin or forgiveness without placing them in the context of God’s incredible love for us – lest we make that forgiveness a mechanical thing. Secondly, a misconception as to what being sorry actually means.

When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfume, and as she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.

(Luke 7:37-38 NIV)

Is that the attitude we take when we pray for forgiveness? When I realise my sin, I sometimes say “oops! Sorry God”. The assurance of forgiveness makes me treat the grave matter of forgiveness and repentance very lightly. It is actually very rare for me to have that broken and contrite heart. But where that happens – when I do feel contrite, it feels too big to bring to God. Too big to be forgiven. This is the true conundrum of seeking Jesus’s forgiveness: either the guarantee of forgiveness makes it so I don’t come forward with a contrite spirit, or my contrite spirit stops me from coming forward. This is why the sinner in Luke 7 is weeping. This is why the prodigal son goes back to his father’s as a hired servant. This is why the tax collector cries out in the temple: because they have all grasped the grave matter of their sin, and seek forgiveness without thinking they will get it. The reaction is overwhelming. The relief is great. From that relief, comes the joy of dwelling in Christ and true repentance.

I’m not arguing that we should make a show of being contrite. I don’t think we have to weep to show true anguish or sorrow. I don’t even think we should feel much anguish or sorrow. But we should not trivialise sin by making it commonplace (yes, we all do sin, in word thought or deed, but should we lump all our sin together?). In the same way that God is not a vending machine when it comes to petitionary prayer, He is not a vending machine when it comes to asking for forgiveness. Approach asking for forgiveness with humility and with a contrite heart, but also with the wisdom of the Psalmist who said

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

(Psalm 51:17 ESV)

How do we do that? To be honest, I don’t really know, and would be grateful for any pointers. All I can do is to turn to Jesus (rather than, as I often do, my own mind) as the convictor of my sin, and pray that the Holy Spirit create in me a contrite heart. Not for the sake of being sad – that would be stupid – but for the joy of being truly forgiven.

How do you seek God’s forgiveness?

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* It’s easy to criticise any evangelism strategy; but that is not the point of this post. It would, after all, be too easy if I didn’t offer anything to replace this approach (which I may attempt in a future post). The main purpose of this post is to reflect on forgiveness of sins – and even then, I only scratch the surface. What about our commission to forgive sins? What about sinning against the Holy Spirit? Sin and forgiveness are vast subjects which could (and do) fill up books! If you’ve got some to recommend, please let me know!

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