Faithful in Prayer

I approach the tree in the dark and inquire as to whether I need to climb it for the prayer meeting.  The teen boys answer down "no," as their housefather walks up and tries to count heads.  "Who is in the tree?" he asks.  Eventually half a dozen young men drop out of the tree to join the rest of us on the ground.

I've been invited once more to join the teenage boys for their Tuesday night prayer time.  Some have brought a light jacket on the chilly night, others are shivering in shorts, flip flops and a T-shirt.  We begin with prayer requests and sing a song.  They finish with a prayer for me, laying their hands on my shoulders and arms as they thank God for my life and pray for my family.  In a world full of fear and conflict, I stand under the stars with a group of ten young men and find hope in prayer.

And I pray for them, that they would be set aside from this culture of self-absorption and living just for the moment.  That they would be strong and courageous, and discover the gifts God has given them.  I pray that they will truly get to enjoy their youth, but, additionally, that they would realize that their decisions now have consequences and affect their future.  May they learn how to love and respect God, themselves, and others.

I walk home, feeling the memory of the weight of their hands on my shoulders.  Their prayers have challenged me to be more involved in their lives and to make more use of the gifts God has given me.  I need to pack for my upcoming trip to the U.S. for Thanksgiving, but I pause once more to pray for these young men.  Something I should do much more often.

God with us

I recently finished reading the book, With by Skye Jethani,  Its subtitle is "Re-imagining the way you relate to God," and I highly recommend it to anyone who would like to do just that.  I shared a "book report" at morning devotions the other day, and I thought it'd be good to share here as well.

Skye Jethani starts by pointing out that we live in a scary, messed up, and chaotic world.  He proposes that all religions in the world start from the same place - fear and a desire for control.  Then he defines four positions that are taken in response to our fear of danger and attempt to control it: life OVER God, life UNDER God, life FROM God, and life FOR God.

LIFE UNDER GOD is traditional religion.  Basically, if you obey God you will be blessed, if you disobey God you will be cursed. People in this position think: "Are you greatly blessed?  You must be doing something pleasing to God.  Tsunami? Terrorist attack? Death of a child?  You must have done something to displease God."   This position does not resolve our fear of the world, it just makes us afraid of God in addition to his creation.

Jesus spoke of people like this when he talked about the Pharisees and experts of the law.  He called them hypocrites, who tied up heavy burdens for the people and put them on their shoulders. (Matthew 23).  The irony with this position is that, rather than submitting to God, we really end up trying to control him through morality and ritual.

LIFE OVER GOD is similar to atheism or deism.  This position sees the world as controlled by science, laws, and principles that we just need to manipulate to get the results we want.  With life over God, Christians see the Bible as a divine instruction manual.  If we follow find basic principles, we'll be fine.  In this case, we feel like we have direct control over the universe and God doesn't even need to be involved.

Moses tried to live this way when he put his trust in a proven formula of getting water out of a rock, rather than acknowledging God (Numbers 20).  This move kept him from entering the Promised Land.  We exchange a relationship with God for applicable principles, and end up with a life without God at all.

LIFE FROM GOD sees God as a divine genie who exists to fulfill our every desire.  We are driven by our desires for comfort and we consider ourselves successful if we have identified and fulfilled each one.  We only value God as far as what we can get out of him.  Taken to an extreme, this is the prosperity gospel.

This approach doesn't take away our fears, it just distracts us and insulates us from them, but they're still there.  Jesus' parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32) is a good warning about this kind of thinking.  The son didn't want a relationship with his father, he just wanted what he could get out of his father.

LIFE FOR GOD is a popular position in ministry communities.  It is when we feel significance not in God's love for us, but in how much we can do for him.  In this position, missionaries and those involved in ministry are seen as leading lives of more value than others.  We try to remove fear by accomplishing great things for his kingdom, and we end up putting God's mission ahead of God himself.

This is the story of the brother of the prodigal son.  He also missed the point, thinking that everything he did for his father would win him favor.  Both sons were focused on what they could get from their father.  Both sons were using their father, one just did it in a more socially acceptable way.  But what brought the father joy was not his son's service, but simply having his son with him.  (Luke 15:25-32)

But there is another position we can take, that of LIFE WITH GOD.  Skye Jethani defines life with God as treasuring, uniting with, and experiencing God in a way that allows faith, hope and love to flourish.  The coming of Jesus Christ has set Christianity apart from other religions.  He is Emmanuel, God with us.

God himself came to be with us.  "Life under, over, from and for God each seeks to use God to achieve some other goal.  God is seen as a means to an end... But LIFE WITH GOD is different, because its goal is God... God himself becomes the focus of our desire...  He would cease to become how we acquire our treasure, and he would become our treasure."

FAITH:
When we pursue a life with God, we can accept the simple fact that control is an illusion.  Faith is the opposite of seeking control, it is surrendering it.  When we live in communion with the Good Shepherd (Psalm 23), we feel safe and no longer live in fear.  We break the danger-fear-control cycle of this world

When we experience the goodness and love of God, we are no longer afraid of the danger and chaos of this world.  We realize that with God, this world is a perfectly safe place to be,  And we become free from fear, Jesus' teachings finally make sense.  We are free to give rather than hoard, free to enjoy each day rather than worry, free to forgive, free to love our enemies.  "Life for those who live with God never ends.  A Roman cross or an assassin's bullet may destroy our body, but our life, our true self, is hidden forever with God in Christ."

HOPE:
The hope we find in uniting with God means that we no longer need to flounder in the stormy waves of the chaos of this world.  The Bible tells again and again of God's power over water, a symbol of chaos in this world (Genesis 6 - Noah's family surviving the flood, Exodus 2 - Moses surviving the genocide of infants being thrown into the Nile, Exodus 14 - God saving his people by parting the waters, Matthew 8 - Jesus calming the storm).

  Instead we can trust that God has power in the chaos.  "What brings a person value and significance is not what he does, but with whom he does it.  The call to life in continual communion with God means that every person's life, not matter how mundane, is elevated to sacred heights... No condition in life is more honorable than another, because nothing God does lacks value."

LOVE:
Love is what Jesus said would distinguish his people.  "Once we experience the undeserved rain of God's love, it sets us free from the striving for love that enslaves others.  It allows us to ignore the voices of the world telling us to seek power, success, beauty, and relevance."  We are already unconditionally loved by God.  It is not earned.  It was there before you were born and will be there after you die.

In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul famously speaks about love.  "In these short verses Paul deconstructed so much of what we build our lives on... How could Paul say that love is greater than gifts, knowledge, faith and service? Because 'love never ends...'"  Fear and control will be undone when God restores his creation.  But hope and faith will cease as well.  Our hopes will eventually be fulfilled and one day we will see what we have to have to rely on in faith now.   But love will remain always.

It is true that we are sinners (LIFE UNDER GOD) and God has given us moral instructions that it may go well for us.  It is true that we are managers (LIFE OVER GOD) who must steward resources and abilities with wisdom. It is true that we are consumers (LIFE FROM GOD) with needs and desires that can only be satisfied by God and others.  And it is true that we are servants (LIFE FOR GOD) called by God to accomplish things in this world for his glory.  But "disconnected from a LIFE WITH GOD, each of these can lead to a dangerously flawed understanding of Christianity."

The true message of the Gospel is a divine message of invitation into love and relationship with God.

Choosing Hope

I try to avoid talking politics, but since I haven't posted in a while and the elections are this week, I thought I'd share a journal entry from a few months ago.

Woke up to news that the Broncos won last night, and that North Korea says they successfully conducted their fifth nuclear test.  With the upcoming elections, the political future of this world seems mighty uncertain, helping me to remember to trust in God and not in man.

Last night another player took a knee during the national anthem - choosing not to honor a flag that represents a country where police brutality still exists, where racism is still so clear.  After being reminded of the danger of North Korea this morning, I am thankful for that freedom to peacefully disagree.

Some people are outraged at how unpatriotic it is - how disrespectful it is to those who fight for our freedom.  But what is freedom for if we cannot peacefully take a stand against something we perceive as wrong?

I grow weary when I consider the state our world is in, so I will turn my eyes to my Creator and Redeemer - the author of Salvation and the author of my future.  May my peace and hope be found in him alone.

I pray for North Korea, for our Christian brothers and sisters there.  But I also pray for the enemy, for the leaders, that the Holy Spirit give them dreams and visions.  May that country be transformed by the light of Christ's love.

I pray for the USA.  May we stop reacting in anger and hate towards those who are different than us.  May we respond to one another with love and compassion and mercy.  These times are revealing whether we trust in God or in man, whether we will follow Christ's example of love and sacrifice, or cling to our comforts and ideals.

May we see what is being revealed in ourselves and be able to change what we need to change, with the help of God's greatest gift, the Holy Spirit.

I don't know what this election week will bring, and I am a little afraid of what is to come.  But I will continue to confront my fears with prayer and follow the example of the psalmist and say:

"Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God." Psalm 42:11