“I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you” (John 15:15). Other pressing matters led to my getting a late start on this post this morning. So I’ll just introduce [...]
“Rejoice always; pray continuously; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus” (I Thessalonians 5:16-18). Note the bookends holding up continuous prayer: rejoicing and giving thanks. Frankly, rejoicing isn’t the first thing I think to do in most circumstances; or giving thanks, for that matter. “Rejoicing always” seems [...]
“Pray continually.” Sounds daunting, doesn’t it? Even with all we’ve experienced and learned during our 24/7 and 24/45 prayer journeys, praying all the time still sounds not only challenging but unrealistic. It’s one thing to pray all the time one person at a time, like we did in the prayer tent. But each person praying [...]
“The Lord kept vigil that night to bring them out of Egypt…” (Exodus 12:42).
During 24/45 I had the very strong sense that more than our keeping vigil before the Lord, God was keeping vigil over us. Instead of feeling like I had to draw his attention to the tent, it was more like he was [...]
The flipside of “holy dissatisfaction” (see yesterday’s post) is holy desire. Holy dissatisfaction arises out of holy desires. It is this holy desiring that Jesus encourages us to bring to our praying: “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will [...]
Death has passed us by.
The Egyptians were not so fortunate. After their pharoah repeatedly refused to let the Israelite slaves go, and after repeated plagues were sent to convince him that the Egyptian gods and Pharoah’s own supposed divinity were no match for the God of Israel, the final plague struck the firstborn in each of [...]
Imagine it. Imagine the Kingdom of God.
If there is anything that our modern culture has hijacked, it’s our imagination. Actually, our own desires and worries are capable all on their own of pirating the ship of our imaginations. Our sexuality is proned to fantasize the gutter rather than glory. Worry-fueled imaginations picture worst possible scenarios.
What’s next? We’ve been praying for what we want; now we’re going to start praying for what God wants. We’ve been praying our own prayers; now we’re going to start praying the Lord’s Prayer.
In a post a few weeks ago I talked about how prayer is still a mystery to me. One of the mysteries of prayer is the “mystery of the many.” The apostle Paul refers to this mystery in his second letter to the Corinthians, writing after a time of terrible danger:
I’m discovering that one key to experiencing a vibrant prayer life is noticing the little things — the little gifts from God that come unsolicited; the little ways he answers the petitions I actually think to bring to him. I’ve been realizing lately how often what I want is for God to prove himself. In [...]
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