Having not added to Comments from my Bookshelves for a while I had a bit of a blitz. Why not have a look?

I’m slowly feeling my way through using the Easter Bunting and Wall Hanging hat I made last year to get our family looking at some of the promises in the Old Testament that are fulfilled in the events leading up to and including the day of Jesus’ glorious resurrection. Further details to follow, but I’ve added a couple of pictures to the Resources page.

Our dear and precious Father God,

I praise you that Jesus has completed for us all the works of righteousness required by the law and so freed us to walk in the beautiful ways of righteousness revealed by your law.

I come to you in praise now only in his wonderful name, Amen.

 

I’m currently reading ‘Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God by Tim Keller.’ I can highly recommend it – the only problem is it is quite a big book and I find myself stopping every few moments to write something down – great stuff! So rather than give you my thoughts I thought I would pass on his!

(Page numbers refer to the 2014 Hodder and Stoughton hardback edition.)

“I was not being called to leave behind my theology and launch out to look for “something more,” for experience. Rather I was meant to ask the Holy Spirit to help me experience my theology.” Page 17

“[Prayer] is the way we know God, the way we finally treat God as God. Prayer is simply the key to everything we need to do and be in life. We must learn to pray. We have to.” Page 18

Looking into the reflections on prayer of Flannery O’Connor (who began a prayer journal in 1946) he draws our attention to her insightful thoughts on the prayers we find ourselves often repeating in church etc. “I do not mean to deny the traditional prayers I have said all my life; but I have been saying them and not feeling them. My attention is always fugitive. This way [I think she mean – by writing..] I have it every instant. I can feel the warmth of love beating me when I think and write this to You.” Page 12. 

What a great picture of our attention wandering – like a fugitive, an escaped prisoner on the run!

Commenting on Paul’s prayers for the Christians he wrote to, Tim Keller notices that in essence his main concern seems to be for their prayer life. “He [Paul] does not see prayer as merely a way to get things from God but as a way to get more of God himself. Prayer is striving to “take hold of God” (Is 64:7) the way in ancient times people took hold of the cloak of a great man as they appealed to him, or the way in modern times we embrace someone to show love.” Page 21

The taking hold of the cloak thing made me think of a child and their parent – the All or Nothing used to grab my face and turn it to look at him to get my attention!

    And finally:

“Again we see prayer is simply a recognition of the greatness of God.” Page 26

I have finally managed to put some more details of Adventures in Advent onto the Resources page for those interested. Photos of the visual for each day to be added soon.

Last week I shared the rather shocking realisation that I had had about my prayer life. That much of my planned praying was leaving me feeling burdened, rather than … well rather than what? How should we feel after we have prayed? More importantly do I actually mean feel? What I am trying to examine has more to do with my thinking, my mindset and my ‘heart-set’ than it has to do with the emotions I experience on any given morning.  It is about that biblical concept of the heart that is referring to a person’s core control-centre, their will, that the English language struggles to express well. How I feel during or after I pray has as much to do with how I am feeling generally as it has to do with my attitudes and my beliefs about God and it is these latter elements from which the parasites need to be removed.

Currently my feelings are rather scuppering everything else. I’ve hit a low and am in a bit of a fog. What a strange combination clinical depression and tough ministry make! However, despite the current fog of depression I seem to be able to look back in my mind’s eye with clarity and so I’ll proceed.

So what are the parasites that have attached themselves to my prayer life?

1. The lie that God needs me in order for things to happen.
2. A practical unbelief in God’s activity in the world.
3. The me-centred thinking that puts the onus on me wording my prayers right, or having an adequate level of concentration/engagement with that I am praying in order to ‘activate’ God’s activity in the world.
4. The practical belief that my efforts are the best answer to my prayers
5. An external, physical perspective that focuses on what can be done, or said or put in the diary to the neglect of the spiritual, unseen, internal realities that are where the real battle is being fought.

How horrific? I feel like I have just climbed out of a pool and found myself covered in leaches. It’s revolting. In fact it’s worse than that because these horrible lies have wormed their way right into my prayer life. They don’t sit there in plain sight, blots on the beautiful landscape that shout to be removed.

They hide under godly thoughts of faithful service:

“Isn’t it right to want to be a godly mum? Isn’t it obedient to intentionally and diligently bring our children up in the training of the Lord?”

They camouflage themselves in well sounding warnings and half truths:

“Be careful not to fall into the trap of ‘let go and let God’. We’re not just spectators here.”

“It isn’t just a case of repeating the right words often enough. God’s not a genie you know.”

“If you love that person, if you care for them then you’ll meet up with them, or cook a meal for them. Biblical love is active, the bible is clear that we can’t just say “Go in peace, be warmed and filled” without giving them the things needed (James 2:16) .”

And suddenly the ugliness seems a bit less ugly. “Well, when you put it that way…..”

So let’s expose the ugliness further. The above list, and the half truths that follow basically take the spotlight off of our awesome God and that is a bad move. When I first started looking into this I spotted that this tendency to emerge from prayer with a sense of a heavy list of things to do was not there when I was running to God in need in the midst of something. When we are at the end of ourselves we are far more likely to leave our arrogance behind at the door and fall at our heavenly Father’s feet, or collapse into his arms. I come with the attitude that I need God in order for something to happen – not the other way round. I come clinging to the knowledge that God is active in his world and far more aware that it is only through his activity that I am even praying now. I am painfully aware that my efforts, on their own, are not worth ‘the paper they are written on’. I focus on God’s listening ear and not the words I speak. I come having seen the limits of the external and the need for God to work mightily in the unseen places of my heart and the hearts of those I bring to him. I don’t come in order to wiggle out of service, or diligence, but in the context of it.

But the thing is… we are always at the end of ourselves if only we could see it. We are only ever children spending the day at work with our Father.

When we pray in awe of our Father in heaven, when we focus on him – on his name being hallowed*, on his will being done – how different will our perspective be after we have prayed. We will lose that sense of having staggered out of one of those horrendous staff meetings in which every task seems to have been delegated to us. Instead we will emerge lightened, more aware of who we are ‘working’ for, and all that he is doing. We will have left things on his desk, completely confident that he will act wisely, right into the heart of the matter, in perfect line with his perfect will. And if, by his grace, we are to be further involved in those matters – we can leave that to be worked out by him too.

As I mentioned I am currently living in a fog. This throws a whole different dynamic of prayer under the spotlight. In the fog however something shone out very clearly. Having rather trawled through my prayers the other day I came to the page that starts: Lord glorify your name today. I can’t describe the lightness that broke through at that moment. Whatever I was feeling, however unable I felt to step forward into the day, and however much fog whirled around me, God would glorify his name.

* Spell-checker wanted to change this to hollowed. Surely that is virtually the opposite of hallowing God’s name. We want it to be seen in all its fulness!

Although prayer has never been far from the blog surface….

You might remember, for example, that we looked at prayer a while ago as we watched the little girl cross the bridge with her umbrella (see Blog Post November 12th 2015) and it has been a regular guest star in our ponderings about burdens.

….I want to stop and stare for a minute at my attitudes to prayer. Recently I have been hit between the eyes about how easy it is to think very wrongly about prayer.

I have noticed that to pray about something leaves me with a sense of having added it to my to-do list. Note: I’m not talking about the issue of prayer itself (for better or worse) becoming yet another thing we need to do, but rather that the actual things I bring to God in prayer seem to leave me feeling as though there is yet more stuff to do. This is not the case when in the midst of a task, tricky conversation or a worrying thought I run to God in prayer, but rather when I am ‘list’ praying.

So, for example, take these extracts from my prayer cards for the children:

Gentleness: Ephesians 4:2: with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love. Self control

Quick to listen, Slow to speak and Slow to become angry

Godly manhood, gentle leadership and protection of the vulnerable. Not celebrating violence and defeating others.

A good range of things he can be good at and enjoy. Balance in his passions and a willingness to join in.

Calm expression of grievances and a love for peacemaking.

Humility and teachability: Teach me to do your will for you are my god! Let your good Spirit lead me on level ground. Psalm 143:10

Poverty of spirit.

A growing prayer life and dependency on God. Philippians 4:4-7, Proverbs 3:5-6

Thankfulness, contentment, generosity. Philippians 4:19 (supply)

So I pray these things for them and at the end I have a list, or at least the sense of a list, that feels/looks a bit like this:

• Make a prayer diary with….
• Do some bible teaching with …. on…..
• I’m such a bad Mum, we haven’t had family prayers for three days running
• Consider if such and such is having a bad influence on …..

Not that any of those things are wrong (except the extrapolation from I haven’t done… to the conclusion that “I am a bad Mum”)

But I don’t think that a list such as the one above is the intended end point in talking to my heavenly Father. It’s like I’ve jumped off the train while it was still moving rather than staying on until the destination on the ticket. I also imagine that it explains some of my reluctance to pray. Do I really want to start something that is going to open up a whole new can of worms to consider, plan towards, or do something about?

So I spotted this one day and was frankly shocked at myself. How wrong can you be!! And yet – how subtle. A poisonous parasite has infiltrated my prayer life and I want to extract it!

More to come……but in the meantime – can any of you spot anything similar in your prayer lives?

This is a phrase my brothers used to throw at me when I was (in their eyes) freaking out about something, over-reacting, taking something too seriously…. Of course it was guaranteed to turn the dial on my stress levels up a thousand! Possibly, at times, the effect they were looking for.

I do take things seriously, I am an intense person. I realise my crazy lists of things that burden me might have been annoyingly personal, or just irrelevant to any feeling you have ever had. You might want to scream at me – “Take it down a thousand!”.

And, to a certain extent, fair enough, fair cop gov. A deep breath and applying some Cognitive Behavioural Therapy might well be helpful. But I really do think that the theological issues raised by my crazy intense brain and its excessive lists are worth exploring.

The thing is I know my burdens! I don’t know yours. I know the things that ‘stick’ to me as I walk down the corridor of my house, or through town, or watch a TV programme – and I’m not talking about sticky sweet wrappers! I mean the stain on the carpet that needs another dose of Vanish, or the stray Christmas decoration that needs to be put away. The over-full coat pegs that just need me to get rid of the ones that have got too small. The thought that floats in as I go down the stairs – “you never thanked that person”. The thing that needs to be purchased before the service on Sunday if you’re going to do that illustration or game. Then there’s the thing you originally went upstairs for that you have forgotten, but you know there was something! And of course that whole walk up and down the stairs was actually an interruption from what you are meant to be focussing on – whether it is preparing a bible study or the evening meal. A TV programme can prompt a stream of thoughts on parenting, or give an idea about a talk illustration, or just remind you of something you haven’t done.

Is it just me? I seem to walk through life with an ever growing fog of potential burdens surrounding me until I resemble Charlie Brown’s friend Pig-Pen. An ever growing collection of burden-burs sticking to me in order to travel and disperse their seeds.

Your burs might look very different to mine, but the challenges they pose to our walks with God are perhaps not so different. So below is a compilation of thoughts about burdens from the last few months’ worth of posts – hope it’s helpful.

• Don’t let them block your view of eternity.
  • Instead: Let your view of eternity equip you to press on cheerfully, you are gifted with things to do, not burdened.
• Don’t forget that you are not in full possession of the facts and don’t try to be.
  • Instead: Praise God that he is God and submit to what you do know of him and of what he wants you to do.
• Don’t save your God-perspective thinking for the BIG burdens.
  • Instead: Keep thinking BIG about the little things. It seems like more work, but it is vital in the road to lightness.
• Don’t serve idols, and don’t neglect to obey God
  • Instead: Operate wisely and prayerfully in the space of freedom in between.
• Don’t love the idols of control and an empty list, no-one demanding anything of you.
  • Instead: Ask God for more love for his glory, and his people.
• Don’t see every task as a burden – God’s got things covered.
  • Instead: Do the jobs you can do extravagantly and ditch the burden.
• Don’t be overwhelmed.
  • Instead: Lament and cry out to God about what is lament-worthy and receive his help to press on cheerfully with the rest.
• Don’t add burdens to God’s good gifts to us.
  • Instead: Remember what he is doing and work hard in the buoyancy of his grace, the low gravity atmosphere of a child ‘helping’ their Father.
• Don’t see this list as a burden!
  • Instead: PRAY!

Dear Father, may my life be a testimony to the fact that your yoke is easy and your burden light. May I work hard in your service, may I strive to grow in holiness, may I make every effort you call me to make, and may I do it all joyfully declaring that it is well with my soul. In the name of the one who has done all that was necessary to make that so, your precious Son, Amen.

At first sight the concept of an eternal weight does not seem to be helping me in my burdened state!

BUT….

Read on, or rather around in 2 Corinthians chapter 4:

⁶ For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ….

¹⁶ So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. ¹⁷ For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, ¹⁸ as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

Please note: I really am just grabbing this phrase and pondering. We really need to read the whole chapter, rather than just ‘pluck’ as I have done here. The whole concept of glory is a weighty one (literally!) that I would love to explore more.

Thank you Lord that you are preparing me for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. Help me to endure to the end through these light and momentary troubles. In the name of your precious Son, Amen.

To quote Wendy Alsup again (Practical Theology for Women) writing about the saints in Hebrews 11.

It’s not that their daily problems were inconsequential. Rather they had learned to look at their daily struggles from an eternal perspective that provided the context they needed to appropriately deal with those issues. We too must train ourselves to take our thoughts captive and make them submit to what we know to be true about God. We don’t ignore the details of this earthly life, but we must always read them in the context of our eternal reality. 

Now you might have read my rants about my so called burdens and thought:

“What IS she moaning about? She wouldn’t know a burden if it hit her in the face!”

Fair enough, my burdens are certainly very “first world”, privileged burdens to have. But think about the Hebrews 11 guys. Now they knew burdens. Not only did they know burdens, but they weren’t perfect. These are people we know about, we get some of their life stories in massive detail – warts and all – in the Old Testament. I don’t think the expectation here is that we sail through life unruffled, serene as a swan, and certainly not that we feel we have to give the impression of doing this no matter how things are really going.

By the way – on a very stressful morning this week as I was driving along my heart was lifted to see a flock of swans (apparently a wedge of swans if flying in formation, or possibly a bevy according to Google!) flying over head. Thank you Lord!

Things will surprise us and knock us off what we thought was the course. We will tire and suffer illness. Plans will have to change. Basically, life will not always flow along like a gentle stream: ‘merrily, merrily’ burbling through the sunny countryside. Sometimes life will more closely resemble a raging torrent of a river. BUT the more constantly and consistently we live life with an eternal perspective we (as children of God in Jesus, in-dwelt by the Holy Spirit) do have what it takes to be calm and peaceful, to repent of worry, and to rest in the truths that are bigger than the flood waters that threaten to break the banks. As John Piper has reminded me this week (not personally – but via Solid Joys, via the NTV) we need to be busy reminding ourselves (and each other) of the God we believe in and of the promises he has made us.

Of course with swans – they appear serene, but often a lot of paddling is going on under the surface. I want to be the opposite of the swan- a ‘naws’ you might say – active for the Lord, sometimes ‘messily’ so, but underneath – calm in his arms.

To start with a digression -is anyone else thinking ‘Baby Fish Mouth’ at this point?

No??? Perhaps it’s just me – although I am counting on the NTV to join me.

On a more serious note..

I read a challenging piece recently in a book called Practical Theology for Women by Wendy Horger Alsup. The author was getting us to consider the way in which God speaks to us. That is – the nature of the sort of communication he can have with us given that he is GOD and we are not only mere humans, but broken ones at that. Well I say the ‘author’ – Wendy Horger Alsup was in fact pointing us back to an idea of John Calvin’s. Alsup writes: “John Calvin once said that God talks to us like we talk to babies. He uses words we understand, but there is so much meaning behind those words that we cannot yet comprehend.” She gives the example of telling her dogs to sit when they come in at night so that she can wipe their feet. What she is doing is getting them to sit still so that she can wipe their feet so that they can then have the run of the house. All she says to them is: “SIT!” – not because she has no greater purpose than them sitting, but because that is what they can comprehend.

I don’t know about you, but this is hard to hear. Partly because my pride doesn’t like me being compared to a dog! And partly because I am so bad at not knowing WHEN? and WHY? and WHAT NEXT? and ARE WE NEARLY THERE YET?

What will it take to help us receive God’s words of WAIT! and TRUST! and OBEY! ?

Knowing him better and submitting to him more deeply. Humans are quite clever really – even quite young ones. We are back to that step in my utility room. (See post from 13/1/2016: Small things can weigh the most). We are so wonderfully made, but so totally flawed that we are slow to recognise what we can’t do, what we don’t know and what we can’t understand! In fact without the work of the Holy Spirit we can’t even start to see how limited we really are.

A small child is amazing – in a matter of months it has learnt to move and reach and investigate. This small child is very pleased with itself – and so are its parents. However, this child has a problem. It does not know what it can’t do and it is unaware of what it doesn’t know! Without loving parents in charge this child is not going to thrive! The parents will need to regularly say NO!, WAIT!, NOT YET! They will over rule by picking the child up or strapping it down! (Oh for those days!) As the child grows it will declare: I DO IT MYSELF! and constantly ask WHY? They will grow ever more certain that they know better.

(Sadly (!) in the case of human children and their parents this can occasionally be true – as I found out after losing to the One and Only Daughter in a quiz game yesterday!)

Do we see ourselves and our relationship with God in this light? Our pride pricks!

(I can’t resist another film reference: “Is one of us supposed to be the dog in this scenario?”)

Despite our oft referred to low self esteem problems, and our ‘Uriah Heep’ style humility we are really very slow to see ourselves in anything but rather glowing terms. Even when we are sure we are rubbish we are generally dismissing the wisdom of friends, family and all manner of other evidence because we know best! Our sin elevates us and shrinks our God. It also doubts our God’s goodness. Sometimes I just long that my children would display some acknowledgement that I love them and generally (although imperfectly) act generously and in their best interests. Some acceptance that I know things that they don’t know that give me a different, and more complete picture of a situation. But that is just what I need to do with God – and more so because he is GOD , he is the Father of our Lord Jesus who died for me to make me his child!

I long to see myself as an infant in God’s household, loved and looked after and supported in growing in maturity – a maturity that sees ever more clearly how small I am and how great is my God.

Lord help me not to rail against your simple words to me, but to rest in them. Forgive me that I burden myself with what you have not chosen to burden me with. In the name of the one whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light, Amen.