When I Pray…
I recently overheard a guy say something like,
"When I mostly prayed for God to bless me, it felt like I lived in a room of mirrors. All I saw was me and my issues. Then I was challenged to pray to be a blessing, and those mirrors turned into windows and the whole world opened up to me."
Not so sure I got it just right, but I do like the way I remembered it. This quote, for me, carries two ideas:
How do I pray?
How do I live?
Ever listened, really listened to how folks pray? Better yet, have you ever paid attention to what you say when you pray? All too often it seems my prayers major on the stuff I hope God will do for me and mine. Don't get me wrong, we are encouraged to ask for what we need, but if we settle there time will show if we shrink down to a room of mirrors. For followers of Jesus, that is no way to live.
A bit ago I attended a funeral for an older man, a good friend and brother in Christ, who quietly lived a huge and impactful life. At the service, person after person told stories of the man blessing them with his wisdom and care, his kindness and attention. He was a master at asking questions and demonstrated real interest in hearing ideas. He welcomed into his life a wide variety of characters: neighbors to academics to the wounded and to the lonely. On his walks through his neighborhood, folks came out of their yards just for the chance to go with him for a while. He lived out the quote at the top of this note. One man simply said of our friend, "He saved my life." He taught me much about faith and life and how to die well.
Funerals still abide as one of the few places where the noise of life is turned down low enough for us to ponder our own existence. After the service and home, I found myself wondering whether my friend spent much time praying to be blessed or rather to be a blessing; most likely a smattering of each. What a challenge to keep both in play, especially when surrounded by our own needs. Where can I find the heart to be a blessing when it's all I can do some days to personally stay afloat? The room of mirrors I can find myself in easily blinds me to how Jesus would have me live, looking out windows and making a difference in a needy world.
Striking a right balance between honestly acknowledging our needs and desires while bringing to God the needs of others, then stepping beyond words to do some things for them can be a challenge. But it is here where we can sense teaming with the Holy Spirit to make our world just a bit more kind, a smidge more healed, a step closer to "kingdom come." Otherwise, I'm just another God-consumer, where he becomes a divine vending machine and me, only in it for what I can get out of faith. That seems somewhat selfish given how much we have already received.
Also, we easily denigrate our abilities and chance for impact in others. This is so normal and so wrong-headed. It is exactly the wounded kind of believer who can make the most inroads into helping another along their way. Denver-based pastor and writer, Nadia Bolz-Weber, has an interesting line of thought on God using folks just like us in his work in the world.
“Without higher-quality material to work with, God resorts to working through us for others and upon us through others. Those are some weirdly restorative, disconcerting shenanigans to be caught up in: God forcing God’s people to see themselves as God sees them, to do stuff they know they are incapable of doing, so that God might make use of them, and make them to be both humble recipients and generous givers of grace, so that they may be part of God’s big project on earth, so that they themselves might find unexpected joy through surprising situations.”
When we, as she writes, see ourselves as God sees us, we will both pray and live differently. We will pray like children of a good, good father. We will ask for our needs and desires, with a deep sense of trust in God that he will not lead us astray or leave us alone. But we won't stop and stay in a mirrored room, rather ask for the needs of folks we see around us, and then look hard for practical ways to be the Jesus they cannot see. That may be shoveling a walk, or cooking a meal, or sitting listening for an hour on the phone, or any of the myriad ways grace shows itself in life. At that point we are "part of God's big project on earth" one person at a time.
When the scriptures teach us to "pray without ceasing" this is what it looks like. Inviting God into every corner of your world and teaming with him in any part of his. That sounds like a life worth living, regardless of your field of play.
How about this week taking down a few mirrors and replacing them with windows. Seems to me we will be pleasantly surprised to see all of life just outside. I agree with Bolz-Weber that then "they themselves might find unexpected joy through surprising situations."
And some music...
Some of you missed my special in church last Sunday...enjoy (song starts at :50)
30 minutes of soul-enriching music to cleanse your brain after the last one...
How about a couple of bad jokes
WORST ANALOGIES...EVER
~ The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.
~ Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.
~ She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.
~ She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.
~ He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.
~ She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.
~ I felt a nameless dread. Well, there probably is a long German name for it, like Geschpooklichkeit or something, but I don't speak German. Anyway, it's a dread that nobody knows the name for, like those little square plastic gizmos that close your bread bags. I don't know the name for those either.
~ The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the period after the Dr. on a Dr Pepper can.
~ Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.
__________
John went to a psychiatrist: "I've got problems. Every time I go to bed, I think there's somebody under it. I'm scared. I think I'm going crazy."
"Just put yourself in my hands for one year," said the shrink. "Come talk to me three times a week, and we should be able to get rid of those fears."
"How much do you charge?" John asked warily.
"Each visit is $300," replied the doctor.
"Well, I'll sleep on it."
Six months later the doctor bumped into John on the street: "Why didn't you ever come to see me about those fears you were having?"
"Well, three hundred bucks a visit three times a week for a year is an awful lot of money! A friend at work cured me for nothing. I was so happy to have saved all that money that I went and bought myself a new pickup!"
"Is that so?! And how, may I ask, did your friend cure you?"
"He told me to cut the legs off the bed!"