The progress of prayer

Teach us how to pray, could we be a praying people
Shake us up today Lord.

We're calling out on our knees, desperate Lord for you to be......

Are we??

That is the question that has occupied my thoughts for some time now. We know how to sing about prayer, talk about prayer but we don't really know how to pray. For the last few months I have been drawn into the whole subject. First I went to an Evangelism vision and action evening where one of the sisters spoke about prayer support in evangelism.  It was good stuff but I realised pretty soon that it was not really happening in any organised way. There was no targeted prayer say on a Saturday afternoon when people were on the streets.  So some of us had the idea of prayer texts. I had a list of people on my phone and texted prayer needs live from the evangelism scene. Peole could pray whilst, doing the Ironing or digging the garden.  This has proved to be a successful way to use our resources and has seemed fruitful. There are now 21 people who receive the prayer texts.

I found myself in the position of an administrator of prayers. In addition to that, we started a small intercession time before the Sunday evening meeting. In terms of my personal prayer life although I saw the need to pray, I wasn't really much the wiser about what it involved. Then at the last Bank Holiday weekend I went to one of the pre meeting intercession times, thinking "well I'm into this stuff, I may as well join in". When I got there I was aware of the presence of God, not flashes of lightening or anything extreme like that but enough to shake me up a bit. I wrote down my thoughts in a poem which I subsequently read out at the testimony time:

Not many rich, not any rich,
Or famous, or of note
Were gathered in that corner praying
No great orators, change makers
Worls shakers, no outward strengths portraying
Not fashionable, sexy, cool
Popular, young up and coming
Full of flair
Just lowly people
Knowing inadequacy, nothing fancy
But HE was there.

I didn't go to any more of those times through the weekend. I felt that this was not just something I could dip into and out of.  This was serious and I was a bit scared. For some weeks after that I shied away from praying that much. I got that feeling, which you get when you are considering becomeing a christian :- "if I get into this it is going to consume my life and I don't know if I am ready for it". The Lord has kept on knocking though and I have continued to say "teach me how to pray".  The other week I was praying it I think when I was in the bathroom in the morning and I felt the Lord said: "you have got to focus" So I got some pieces of card and on each card I wrote a name of someone close to me (18 names in all) then I looked at each of the names for one minute each (setting a timer on my phone - I know I am a nerd!).  That was it.  I would not particularly call that praying but I was just doing what I thought God was saying to me. I have done this a few times I have also thought about various people in the car on the way to work and most recently when running. I say to myself I am going to think about that person until I get to that point and so on. The way I see it is like this: As I am focussing on a person I am believing that God is focussing upon them and doing them good. I don't think so much that prayer is powerful, rather that prayer moves God's hand and he is powerful.  Not that what I am doing is prayer in the conventional sense.  Once I have felt a slight sense of what people call "a burden" but that is probably about it.  So I am coming to the end of a run last Friday and I'm asking God to teach me how to pray.  I get in, have a shower blah blah and so on. Then I start to do a bit in the garden, someone phones me. There is this trial of a new initiative the next day at acc. Continual prayer throughout the meetings would I lead a team and coordinate the other teams and if we decide to roll it out to all big meetings I would be considered the coordinator of that. Interesting. Some kind of agenda is going on here and its not of my doing. All I am asking is to be able to pray particularly for other people and see changes in their lives for the better.

Has anything happened apart from the above - well a few things of note.  The other week someone who attends Church occasionally was chatting to me.  This person's conversation isn't the most inspiring and usually I try to get away asap but I felt no need to do that.  The normal sense of imatience wasn't there. That was good.  It seems generally that because I am thinking about people more, I have more time for them. The other thing that has happened is that there seems to have been a lot more opportunity to Pastor people (which is my main ministry).  Sunday afternoon was full on sharing with this and that person and it was all good. Possibly the result of sowing to the spirit. Who knows? It bodes well really for how it will be when I really know how to pray.

The grim truth

I was with someone yesterday in the course of my work I had not seen for a while. In the course of conversation I asked about how their drinking was going. They told me that they were doing OK although they admitted to going for the odd couple of pints otherwise they were doing ok. They had to get out of the car to attend to some business and left the lucozade bottle they had been carrying on the floor by the seat.  So, like you do I unscerwed the lid and had a sniff.  Yes, I'm afraid so, it was lager.  I had thought I caught a whiff of it earlier. So we have someone who is keeping themselves topped up, uses the pretty normal trick of putting the booze in a soft drink bottle.  Why? I am not judging them.  The truth is that they are lying to themselves,  trying to pretend they are Ok when they are not Ok.

I remember once,  a guy who told me he was not interested in having a girlfriend loaned my phone to send a text.  I had a look at it later (he should have deleted it).  It was, of course of a romantic nature to a lady.

I used to get really upset when people lied to me, taking it personally and all the rest.  Now (always assuming it is not a really close friend) I guess I just feel sad.  It is Adam and Eve covering up in the garden, hiding their face from the Lord,  it is the polititian,  actor, footballer, famous person who lies to try to maintain their status. It's about them not anyone else.

God forbid that I should hide the truth about myself, from myself.  One day it will come back and bite me.

Suffering for the sake of Jesus.

Today myself and my colleague went from Coventry to Nuneaton to collect and old cooker that had been kindly donated to the Jesus Centre. Prior to collecting it I had inadvertantly parked the car across someones drive. I had just been focussing on finding the address and so on, and simply failed to notice I was parked across a drive. We collected the cooker and when we came out with it (only a few minutes from when we had arrived) an angry young man, indeed the owner of the car shouted at us. It just so happened that the vehicle we were driving had the word "Jesus" quite prominent on the side. I did not hear exactly what the guy said but Jesus' name featured somewhere. I immediately said I was sorry and went to move the vehicle straight away. The young man said something else also which I did not fully catch, but one of the words he used began with "F" and I caught that loud and clear so I gues it was abuse. I said "I apologise" and went on to move the car. The young man and his partner drove off.

10/10 for the right response, why then did I feel so upset and angry afterwards? Why did I imagine various bad things happening to that couple today? As I thought about it I realised that actually the guy had slagged off Jesus so it could be counted as persecution for the sake of righteousness so I should be rejoicing. I don't find that easy in these situations. Having said that I hope that some conviction, or change will come about because of my turning the other cheek. If the commands of Jesus don't work for good then we are all in trouble.

Servant of everyone

Jesus said that the greatest among you must be a servant. What does this mean? Possibly in Jesus time it meant slave. Someone with no rights owned by another. Being a servant could be great subject matter for a sermon but what does it actually involve?

One of my friends is in a very senior leadership role in our Church with massive responsibility. I had to go to the place he lives in for a meeting a few days ago. He met me at the door where he was chatting to someone else, went with me into the house made me a cup of tea and we had a chat before our meeting. He also has responsibility to care for one of the community minibuses and regularly cleans it out. He could quite reasonable claim he is too busy and noone would object. He has the habit of a servant.

Some people (even some leaders) use serving as a strategic tool so when there is a task to be done that is "in the public eye" they will get involved but it can be the equivalent of the Pharisees giving alms or praying on street corners and maybe "they have their reward". I would be concerned about following such a leader, he may serve, sometimes, but he isn't a servant. As soon as it's not convenient or he's stressed out or feeling like he needs a break his service drops away.

I feel that there is a danger of church leaders becoming "Guru's" who have lots of wisdom but when it comes to the application of the commands of Jesus in the heart fall short. Jesus said "I am among you as one who serves", that carries a sense of continuation, of habit.

Think about the old time servant (I am sure that T.V. programmes like "Downton Abbey" have glamourised it somewhat). They work long hours, have no voice, often weary. Most of them I am sure had they the opportunity would have got out into an easier life. Jesus advocates, nay, commands that we should become servants (with all that would have involved in his day). Is that a radical solution for a church looking for advance?

Ifs

The word "If" counjours up two pieces of writing. The first is the famous poem by Rudyard Kipling "If you can dio this that and the other without it bothering you then you'll be a man my son" or words to that effect. The other is a collection of sayings by Amy Carmichael gathered into a small book saying things like "If the ultimate, the highest cannot be asked of me, if my fellows hesitate and ask another, then I know nothing of calvary love" again or words to that effect. There is a similarity between the two. I used to have the little Amy Carmichael book and it was one of my prized possessions, I used to regularly beat myself up psychologically after reading it.

These days I treat such writings with a great deal of suspicion. They seem now to be a bit self righteous; an unreachable bar. I know Amy Carmichael spent a lot of time bedridden in the days before T.V. I guess you have got to occupy youself somehow. She is a person I greatly admire, don't get me wrong, but her writings didn't do me much good as an intense young christian wanting to be holy. As a not particularly macho bloke Rudyard Kipling's "If" just left me feeling inadequate.

What I believe defines a person is not the gritty determination to overcome all obstacles but the failures, the skin of the teeth escapes. The lucky goal that goes in off your backside. None of us are good enough that's why we need Jesus.

Dentists waiting rooms

When I sit in the waiting area of my dentist there are two watercoulour pictures on the wall opposite. They are obviously by the same artist and on the face of it of the same scene. the scene is a large white house with several sections with different roof heights on top of a hill. Surrounding the house is grassland and some wooded areas. Although the pictures appear to be of the same building they are drawn from a different place. One of the things I try to do is work out by looking at one picture where the artist was located when he drew the other one. I think I have it worked out but it is not conclusive.

In life what we see depends a lot on where we are looking from. That is why two people describing the same thing sometimes differ massively in what they describe. I don't think it is possible to really climb into someone elses shoes; however, the recognition that there are other veiws than our own which can be accurate, if different from ours is one step down the road towards unity.

Nuclear power and other random thoughts.

I was driving to work today thinking about the environment (like you do). If only you could harness the power of nature somehow so that you could create clean energy. As I thought about it I realised that that is what has happened with nuclear power. Scientists have done that. Unfortunately the result is - a bomb - bad. I have read about all this radioactive waste stored underground in the U.S. and it worries me. Nuclear power is like a very gradual explosion, its not going to blow you apart straight away but it is only a matter of time before it does. One thing is certain we are all going to die sometime so maybe the best thing is to do the best with the life we've got.

Changing the subject, I had a tinnitus free day yesterday. It's back today, but yesterday was wonderful and I am grateful for it. Maybe it will go altogether; I have experienced a few noise free times recently (but never a complete day). Even if it doesn't, yesterday stands as a great day because of it. I have been praying of course and will continue to do so.