All tagged prayer
Here is an invitation whose ambiguity begets a kind of clarity. What does it mean to turn my Bible into prayer? I’m not quite sure, to be honest. And yet, it seems that saying it exactly that way reveals something about the nature both of the Bible and of prayer.
Is God really hearing? Is he aware of our pain? Does he care? Yes, he does. He hears and is aware and cares. He will respond. He will do justice. He will do justice for us, and quickly. Let us “always pray and not give up.”
Two young students spent the semester reading and doing ethnographic research on the topics of worship and burnout in churches. Here’s a taste of their findings.
Pray for workers. Pray for those who will talk about the Jesus journey. Pray for those who will invite others to hear the good news. Pray for those who will teach the good news of Jesus. Pray for those who will walk beside the new Christians.
I know that, in my home church, we are all-in on making disciples. Kingdom growth. I spend a lot of time talking to church leaders about reaching lost people. That is the dream that I want to be real in my life and my church.
Take the opportunity. Tell the good news. Keep the main thing the main thing. Jesus died for our sins, he was buried, and God raised him from the dead. Ask God to keep you focused on the message. Ask to keep on task. Ask God to remind you of what you ought to do.
As followers of Christ, we ultimately want what God wants. So how do we figure out exactly what that is? While neither I nor anyone else knows exactly what that is every time, there is time and space to discern and arrive at what that could be.
Perhaps God’s miraculous rescues, when and if they happen, aren’t easily verifiable. Maybe they depend on faith to see these divine interventions.
It wasn’t until Moses had to run into the desert and confront who he was and what he had done that he was able to notice the presence and movement of God.
In talking to older saints, I realize some of them wrestle with what their value to the Kingdom is.
I think what this boils down to is this question set: Can I be actually okay with not getting my way? Is it okay if the thing I desperately want just doesn’t happen?
Prayer is our way of asking God to lead us not into temptation but to deliver us from evil through His grace and power! This is the only way we can be victorious.
Overwhelming gratitude is born in our hearts. It begins in our thoughts. It permeates our attitudes. It seeps out in our words. It is heard in our prayers.
One of the most common desires I heard from so many people really came down to the same request from God: we wanted His presence.
I ask for one thing; he gives another. I want some unpleasant situation removed; he knows that this is the very situation that will deepen my faith and reliance on him.
As I learned the examen practice, I discovered that I wasn’t examining myself nearly as much as I was examining the presence and movement of God in my life.
The church minister occupies a unique space. It is a difficult space inhabited by critique and pressure both from within the community and from without.
May we too continually be surprised with the moments of joy in our care that reflect God’s presence in the world!
The time is short. In the military, you often get 18-30 months to make a difference where you are assigned. Depending on your faith tradition, the timeline is often the same.
Our ability to enter into His presence with thanksgiving and praise comes only from His power within us. Often, we find that the cards we have been dealt could never warrant thanksgiving or praise.
