Spending and Debt
We all know better than this. We know that you buy only what you can afford to buy. You spend only what you can afford to spend. We know this. But we try to fudge it. We think we can cut corners and we succumb to the values of the culture. We ignore the right thing to do.
In our Freed Up Financial Living Seminar we heard that the average household in the U.S. has $10,000 in debt. We have gone from being a nation of savers to a nation of consumers in just a generation or two. We do it because “it makes us feel good, right?”
We have bought into several myths that have emerged in this culture:
1. Debt is expected and unavoidable.
2. Things equal happiness
3. A little ( or a lot) more money will solve all my problems
What we have to ask ourselves is are these myths true? I think we can probably see from our own experiences that maybe they are not. But let’s look at some wisdom from the scriptures.
“The lover of money will not be satisfied with money; nor the lover of wealth with gain. This also is vanity.” Ecclesiastes 5.10
So look at Myth #3, “a little more money. . .” Ecclesiastes says otherwise. Money can’t satisfy. It just can’t. It is a vain proposal. And those who pursue it, pursue it in vain.
Continuing in Ecclesiastes, verse 11 “When goods increase, those who eat them increase;” This is pretty straightforward. Oprah has been telling us this for years. The more we eat the bigger we get. But I think there’s more to this verse. We get bigger in other ways. We get proud, “puffed up.” Our lives become self-important and self-centered; even grandiose. But happiness eludes.
“And what gain has their owner but to see them with his eyes?”
This is the way of boats, and luxury cars and stuffed attics and garages. The only pleasure we get out of them most of the time is the looking. And then there comes a time when we stop doing even that.
“Sweet is the sleep of laborers, whether they eat little or much; but the surfeit of the rich will not let them sleep.” Verse 12
The Church in America tends to teach that our attitude toward our wealth is the problem. The Bible tends to teach that wealth itself is the problem. “It’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom,” Jesus once said. The problem is the surfeit. It demands our attention. It demands that we look at it, think about it, manage it.
How many of us who have been in debt have thought, “If I could just pay my bills and get out of debt, how sweet would that be?” It would be paradise in comparison to the worry we have now. Now, we stay up nights thinking about money.
In Matthew’s Gospel Jesus says this, “Do not store up. . .”
We have ignored this teaching coming and going. We have stored up possessions and we have stored up debt. We’ve got two piles going. We’ve killed two birds with one stone. We’re killing ourselves.
Jesus says don’t store up because the things you are storing won’t last and even if they did, you are leading your heart in the wrong direction. Your heart follows the treasure. If your treasure is stuff, that’s where your heart resides. And it won’t reside in other places. If you pile up debt then your heart has to worry and linger over that pile. It’s distracted. It can’t go other places that maybe it’s supposed to go.
What if you didn’t have these piles in your life? What if you didn’t “store up”?
You would be free to make God and people your treasure. You would be free to be the blessing God created you to be. A freed-up life is possible. Living with piles is not normal. It’s not God’s way.
Psychiatrist Scott Peck author of the classic Road Less Traveled defines maturity as the ability to delay gratification.
“Delaying gratification is the process of scheduling the pain and pleasure of life in such a way as to enhance the pleasure by meeting and experiencing the pain first and getting it over with. It is the only decent way to live,” Peck writes.
When we delay gratification and meet “the pain” we say to God that we trust Him. We trust that he will care for us. We don’t have to pile up our private treasures because God’s world is a world of abundance.
We pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” He will supply our needs.
If you want to take a faithful step today I would suggest these things:
1. Don’t buy stuff you don’t need
2. Don’t buy stuff on credit
3. Enjoy the simple gifts God gives you: daily bread, meaningful work, loving people
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About Me
- Name: Rich Morris
- Location: Duncansville, Pennsylvania, United States
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
The Abundance of God
I had a great evening with my family the other day. It was great because we were all home and we had no other place we had to be. Jennifer cooked a great meal and we sat around the kitchen table and ate it. And we actually looked at each other and talked to each other. We relaxed. It was a real pleasure. In fact, studies show that maybe the single strongest predictor of family happiness is whether you sit down and eat meals together or not. It’s a real pleasure.
You know what make for the worst evenings? No food. There is no food on the table and we don’t have a plan for how we are going to have food. We’re hungry, but we’re unprepared. But we’re still hungry. So we get irritable and impatient and we start to pick the carcasses of meals past, like snapping hyenas. It ‘s every man, woman, child for themselves. It’s not a real pleasure.
A lot can be learned in the Gospels when everyday human needs bump up against the grace and power of God. Such was the case in our reading for today. A great crowd, at least five thousand people, has come out again to hear Jesus teach and preach. But the day has wore on, evening has come. It’s suppertime. But they are in a relatively remote area. There are no markets or bakeries. What’s more, there’s no money in budget for a big feed. Jesus and the Twelve barely have enough to feed themselves. They’ve looked in the refrigerator and its bare. Now I’m guessing that as Jesus is teaching and it’s getting late, there are at least some who notice that. You know, a few stomachs start rattling, a couple disciples wonder when Jesus will send the crowds home so they can eat – “Go, be at peace, go fill yourselves. See you tomorrow!” Something like that.
But Jesus says to Philip, “How are we going to buy enough to feed these people?” Philip was asked this presumably because he was originally from that region. Jesus, of course knows the answer to this. He is, after all, from that region as well. He’s the Galilean.
But “he said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do.” John 6.6
What is Jesus doing? Why the test? To bring them to the point where it’s God or nothing. To help them see what God can do.
Sometimes we need a crisis to show us the reality of our situation. You probably don’t remember this but in 1997 Korean Air flight 801, a Boeing 747 jet crashed into the side of a mountain on the island of Guam. 228 of 254 passengers died in the fiery crash. Why did it crash? Was the weather particularly bad? Did an engine catch fire? Did a terrorist set off a bomb? No, none of those things happened. In fact, those things are not the cause of most plane crashes. It doesn’t happen in real life like it does in the movies. Some engine part doesn’t explode in a fiery bang, or the rudder doesn’t suddenly snap under the force of takeoff. The captain doesn’t gasp, “Dear God,” as he’s thrown back against his seat.. The typical commercial jetline is about as dependable as a toaster. Plane crashes are result of an accumulation of minor difficulties and trivial malfunctions; and one other thing - human denial and miscommunication. Airline safety officials analyzed the black box recording from flight 801. There was no dramatic yelling and screaming. Everyone spoke very calmly and politely. But for various reasons, even when it became clear that something major was amiss, no one was willing or able to speak up and say we have a crisis on our hands. They politely crashed to their deaths.
Rahm Emmanuel, counsel to President Obama recently and famously said, “Never waste a crisis.”
Crises can point us in the right direction. Crises can save our lives. God can really use a crisis? I’m saying he creates them. I’m saying he uses them for good. If we are willing. Remember, he’s the Third Day God. He shows up when our need its most dire. He shows up when its darkest, when its curtains for us.
Jesus knew what he was going to do to feed those thousands of people. But he wanted them to own the crisis first. Don’t deny it by pretending things are okay. Don’t deny it by sending the people away hungry. Own it.
Then Jesus said, “Whadda we got?” What they had was the meagerest of provisions – five loaves of bread and two fish. These loaves weren’t big loaves of bakery bread that you or I might buy. They were more like the size of biscuits. The fish were not Gulf stream tuna. They small already prepared morsels. But this is all that was available. They got this from a boy. Could it have looked any more pathetic?
But Jesus said watch me work. And he did. The pathetically small amounts just kept on spreading as they distributed to the crowd. All were fed. There was more left over than what they had started with.
It’s a good Bible story. But that can’t happen, can it?
Well, God says it can. God has an abundance to work with.
“The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.” Psalm 24.1
God has the fullness. Is it too hard for God to feed five thousand when he’s now feeding billions? Ah, but you say, theoretically, philosophically, I guess he could. But does God really get that involved in human affairs?
He says he does. “Every good endowment and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” James 1.17
The God who created the heavens and the earth as a gift is still giving.
“Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well.” Matthew 6.33
Something great was said at our Ad Council the other night. Someone said this: “We have a lot of vision here.”
We do. God has blessed us with vision. And when God gives vision God will give the resources to fulfill the vision.
It’s true. We don’t have enough simply by ourselves. And maybe the first faithful step is naming the dilemma, stating the crisis. We’ve got all these needs and our resources are the equivalent of five loaves and two fish. But now will you take the next step of believing that God has the abundance we need? Let’s present our bread and fish to Jesus and see what he might do with it.
Like the hymn says, let’s “ponder anew what the Almighty can do.”
In this economy we are getting used to thinking in terms of scarcity. I yell in fright every time I look at my pension statements. But just because things are scarce . . .maybe because things are scarce, we can start relying on the Third Day God.
The church in America has poor soil for growth so much of the time because we are so wealthy. Wealth makes it very difficult to grow the word. Maybe now, that we begin to feel the pinch financially, God can get our attention.
Maybe he has us right where he wants us.
Lost and Found
If you go into the office at the Foot of Ten Elementary School you will notice to your right, a table. On top of the table and underneath the table are boxes of all kinds of items: there are jackets and hoodies, jump ropes and basketballs, and hats, hats, hats, and gloves and scarves, and there’s a skateboard or two, and well you get the picture. It looks like an orphanage is having a yard sale. It is, of course, the school’s Lost and Found.
When I go in the school I always at least casually glance at the Lost and Found in the hopes I will see something one of my sons has lost. . . and I will found it.. Because they have lost things. I can’t be too hard on them because I did a lot of that when I was their age. I once buried my basketball in a snow bank somewhere in the West End of Williamsport thinking I would come back later and get it when the snow melted. It seemed like a good idea at the time. And so I temper my frustration with the boys when I ask them, “Where is the basketball?” and I get, “I don’t know, somewhere.”
Somewhere doesn’t really do me any good. Because somewhere is a lot like lost. And when something is lost, I don’t have it. It is lost to me. It no longer belongs to me. Jesus talks about Lost Things. He tells stories about lost things and emphasizes what a great difference there is between being lost and being found. It’s like the difference between being dead and being alive.
In fact, in the parable of the Prodigal Son that younger son returns home to his father and the father calls for a great celebration because, “this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.”
Being lost is like being dead. Being found is like coming alive again.
I mention this because our tendency is to not view ourselves and our lives in so strict of terms. We judge things on a sliding scale. We talk about perspectives and being on a journey. True that. But sometimes we have to make choices. Sometimes doubt must give way to commitments, one way or another.
There was a disciple of Jesus named Thomas. His nickname was Didymus which is Greek for The Twin. We have another nickname for him – the Doubter. Thomas was a bit of a skeptic. You might say he was a robust doubter. He had a pessimistic bent. This doesn’t mean he didn’t believe in Jesus, it just means he wasn’t happy about it. For example, when Jesus announces his intention to go on up to Jerusalem, Thomas gloomily says to the other disciples, “Well, let’s us go up too and die with him.”
Thomas was the Eeyore of the disciples. There was always a cloud over him. But he was a disciple. Thomas took his commitment seriously. In John’s Gospel when Jesus says to the group, “I go to prepare a place for you. . .And you know the way where I am going (John 14.2-4) Thomas speaks up, alone among the disciples, and says wait a minute Lord, I don’t know what you are talking about. You imagine the other disciples are nodding their heads pretending like they understand, but Thomas won’t pretend.
“Lord, we don’t know where you are going; how can we know the way?”
Thomas did the other disciples a great favor. In this case, Thomas’ doubt served his commitment and faith. He believed in Jesus enough to ask the obvious question. Sometimes our doubts can have the effect of strengthening our faith. We have made going by the name Christian too easy, too unthinking, and too undeciding. Being a Christian is more than reciting the words and giving a nod and a wink at the proper time.
Most of us would be much better off if we, like Thomas, demanded I won’t believe until I see the nail prints and scars. If we dared to cry out to meet Jesus, then we would be moved in one direction or another out of safe comfort zones.
Thomas used doubt to lead him to greater commitment. For commit he did. Jesus showed up, maybe in response to Thomas’ demand, and said, “Here. Here are holes, here are wounds. Reach out and touch them. Stop doubting and believe.”
It’s unclear whether Thomas actually did touch the wounds of Jesus. What is clear is that He cried out his belief that he was standing in the presence of the risen Lord – “My Lord and my God!” Thomas cried. The Doubter became the Convinced.
Sometimes doubt can be a good thing. But doubt will only take us so far. The grey fog of doubt must give way to the clear sun of commitment. The philosopher William James said that doubt is the wrong alternative when three conditions are met: when we have live options, when the stakes are momentous, and when we must make a choice. Surely Thomas faced such a situation. And so do I. I have to live. John Ortberg writes:
“ I have to make choices. I have to spend my life praying or not praying, worshiping or withholding worship. I have to be guided by some values and desires. And then I have to die. I must give my life in total, in full, without the luxury of holding something back for the second hundred years. My life is the ballot I cast – for God or against him.”
There are a lot of people in our world that don’t know what they are living for. They are living in polite half-doubt, half-belief. They have committed to nothing and no one but themselves. I just read about a 22 year-old woman from San Diego named Natalie. Natalie decided to fund her post-graduate education by selling her virginity to the highest bidder. The idea came from her sister, who was able to pay for her education after working as a prostitute for just three weeks.
“I know a lot of people will condemn me for this,” Natalie says, “but I don’t have a problem with that.”
Natalie has received offers from over 10,000 men. The highest bid came in at over $3.7 million. Even Nathalie was surprised. “It’s shocking that men will pay so much for something which isn’t even prized so highly anymore.” Ironically, Natalie is planning to use the income to earn a degree in Marriage and Family Counseling.
Our culture teaches a twisted value that anything has a price and therefore anything can be devalued and debased. The Scriptures teach us that things are inherently valuable because God has ascribed their worth. We may go our whole lives looking for something worth our while. My question is this: if you found that thing or that person, would you really give your life?
Show video The Pearl
Have you ever felt lost? Have you ever been so confused or tired that you felt purpose and value slipping away from you unbidden? Friend, you are not alone. To be lost is not to be condemned. Jesus died and rose for the Lost. But Lost is not where he wants us to stay. Jesus wants us to be found.
Will you choose this day for Jesus? Are you willing to give your very Life to follow him?
Third Day God
Today is about hope. We all hope. Pope John Paul II said that there is no faith without hope. Hope is faith waiting for tomorrow. Faith requires belief, and believing is what we do with our minds. Faith requires commitment, and committing is what we do with our wills.
“But faith must also have hope, and hoping is what we do with our hearts.”
I have hoped for a lot of things. And often I am disappointed. The Pitt Panthers come to mind. I would mention the Pittsburgh Pirates, but they no longer qualify in the hope category. I hope for a lot. John Ortberg says that hope comes in two flavors: hoping for something and hoping in someone. “I hope I get that job. I hope I get that house. I hope I get that girl. I hope I get that girl and she gets that job and we get that house.”
I hope its not cancer. But one day it will be. And if it’s not that, it will be something else. One day – and this is the truth – every thing we hope for will eventually disappoint us. Every thing, every circumstance, every situation is going to wear out, give out, fall apart, and fade away. “When that happens, the question then is about your deeper hope, your foundational hope, your fallback hope when all your other hopes are disappointed.”
There are different kinds of stories in the Bible, some of which can be divided by their time frame. There is the forty day story. These are usually “wait-around-and learn-patience” stories – Noah’s family on the ark; the Israelites hanging around Mt. Sinai waiting for the ten commandments; Elijah in the wilderness hiding from Jezebel. The focus of these stories is on the need for people to be faithful, to persevere. These are crock pot stories.
There is another kind of story – the three day story. These are stories about crisis and urgency –microwave stories. The focus is not on a need for human response at all. Here the pressure is so great that God must show up to the rescue, or it’s curtains. Three day stories are stories of desperate need and hope hanging by a thread. When Israel was afraid to go into the Promised Land, God said to Israel, “Be strong and courageous. . .Three days from now you will cross the Jordan here and go in and take possession of the land the Lord God is giving you for your own.” (Joshua 1.6, 11)
When Israel was threatened with genocide, Queen Esther said that she would fast for three days then go to the king to seek deliverance for her people.
When the prophet Jonah was swallowed by the great fish, guess how long he was in the belly of the fish? Yup, three days, before he was released. His prayer the whole time he was in that big fish was, “God, just let me go out the way I came in.” At least that’s what I think it was.
Three days becomes a term meaning the time to wait for deliverance. Right now, things are messed up. Right now, hope is being crushed. Right now, hearts are disappointed. But a better day is coming.
“Come, let us return to the Lord. . .After two days, he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence.” Hosea 6.1-2
Good Friday wasn’t good for Jesus and it wasn’t good for all the people who had put their hopes in him. At least there was no good apparent that day. It was a day full of suffering and agony and crushing disappointment. We watch a film of the Passion and flinch and say, wait, was it that bad? Yes, it was that bad. It was a dark day.
The second day didn’t look any better. Pilate and the Pharisees posted a guard around the tomb. Pilate was in control now and he didn’t want anything funny happening. He had heard the third day prophecies. He would secure the tomb. He would make sure the prophecy didn’t come true. He said to himself, “Well, I guess that’s the end of that. I guess we won’t hear any more about that movement. I don’t know much about this Jesus but we sure have built him a nice little cage.”
But a funny thing did happen – Jesus would not be secured. He would not be caged. He would not even be entombed. Yes, he would die, of his own accord, his own purpose. He purposefully died for us. He died the death we should die. The was the second day, a dark day; a disappointing day.
But the story of Jesus is a three day story. And friends, the third day is God’s day. The day belongs to him. What God wants to happen on the third day will happen. On the third day mountains shake and rivers part and the people go into the Promised Land. The third day is a day when harem girls like Esther face down powerful kings. The third day is when prophets like Jonah are dropped off at seaports by giant fish. The third day is the day when stones are rolled away.
We have a black and white family portrait in our house taken a few years ago. I like to look at the picture. I think we look pretty good. I looked at this picture one time and realized that I am at the age my father was when I have the most vivid memories of him when I was a kid. He was around forty years old when I was playing Little League ball and when we went trout fishing together in the Spring in the late seventies. I look at me in that family portrait and I can see my dad. I used to tell my boys stories about my dad and my grandfather, about fishing and picking berries and Little League games.
“They’ve been dead a long time,” Seth once said.
“Sometimes it seems that way,” I say. “I miss those guys. We’ll see them again,”
I say. I say this because I hope. I hope not just in something but I hope in Some One. I hope in the One who went to the Cross for my sins and rose up out of that tomb by the power of God. I hope that his resurrection will be the power that raises me to new life. He is my foundational hope when all other hopes fade.
I hope that when they play taps for me on this side someone is playing reveille on the other side.
I hope. I hope, but this man, this Jesus, says he knows.
He’s a third day God. From that third day on, the world has never been the same. Jesus’ followers, who used to observe the Sabbath on Saturday, began instead to observe on Sunday – on the third day – what they began to call “the Lord’s Day.” They said, “we’re third day people now. We’re betting the farm on this one.” The kingdom they hoped for had turned out to be real.
I put my hope, all of it, in a third day God.
God Breaks Down the Barriers
The story is told of a young father in a supermarket pushing a shopping with his little son, who is strapped in the front. The little boy is fussing, irritable, and crying. The other shoppers give the pair a wide berth because the child is trying to reach out and grab items of the shelf to throw them. The father, though, seems very calm. As he continues down the aisles, he murmurs gently: "Easy now, Donald. Keep calm, Donald. Steady, boy. It's all right, Donald." A mother who is passing by is greatly impressed by this young father's attitude. She says, "You certainly know how to talk to an upset child." And then the woman turns to the little boy and says, "What seems to be the trouble, Donald?"
"Oh no," the father says to her. "He's Henry, I'm Donald."
It's been noted that Amish children never scream or yell, even on the playground. A writer doing research asked the Amish schoolmaster why this was so. The schoolmaster replied, "Well, have you ever heard an Amish adult yell?"
In this respect, God is Amish. The Lord of the Universe is not used to yelling to be heard and obeyed. His word runs swiftly and accomplishes his purpose with ease.
"He sends out his command to the earth; his word runs swiftly. He gives snow like wool; he scatters frost like ashes." Psalm 147.15-16
He speaks to the fig tree, be cursed, and the tree withers. Jesus is used to his word being obeyed. It’s his word. It’s his universe.
One time Jesus encountered a Roman Centurion who had a servant who was very ill. The centurion sent word to Jesus, asking if he would come and heal the man. But when Jesus was still a ways from his home, the centurion again sent word and said, "Don't trouble yourself, Master, if you just give the command I know my servant will be healed."
Jesus was amazed at such trust and faith in his word and power. Jesus said, "I've not found faith like this even in Israel."
Great faith, like great power, is recognized by the ease of its working. This Roman soldier had complete trust in Jesus. The centurion was used to speaking words of command that would be immediately obeyed. So he was completely willing to believe that another person of authority could accomplish great things. The centurion believed in that kind of universe.
This morning I want to focus on the power of asking. We talked about this a bit last week. These are the prayers of supplication. If we are going to pray these prayers, “Please God help. . .” then we better believe that He will help. We better believe that God can and will move the mountain.
Bill Hybels puts it this way:
“Faith comes by looking at God, not at the mountain.”
So whatever the mountains are in your life, you know them. You know what they are and where they are. You don’t have to fixate on them. You need to turn your eyes upon Jesus. When we fix our eyes upon Jesus God gives us faith to pray and pray with power.
“And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.”
This is a remarkable statement, almost an unbelievable statement, unless you believe in God. Unless, like the snow and the rain, the oceans and the fig tree, you hear God’s word, believe it, and obey it.
When we are praying through the mountains in our lives, there are often mole hills of our own, barriers to prayer that get in the way. We mentioned one of the them last week, the tyranny of the visible. Hybels suggests some other barriers to prayer, or prayer busters.
Prayer Busters
Everything But Prayer The most common barrier to our prayers is prayerlessness. There is always a great danger in us talking about prayer more than we actually pray. You know, telling someone you’ll pray for them and not actually getting around to doing it. Hitting a prayer before a meal or a quick one on the way to work, but not spending significant time alone with God. There is room for these kinds of prayers prayed on the run. But if this is the only kind of praying we do then our prayer lives become irregular and ineffective.
Our aim is that our praying becomes intentional and intensive. This is the kind of praying that expects a response and gets a response.
Unconfessed Sin is a big barrier to our prayers. Sin damages relationships with others and with God.
“Your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.” Isaiah 59.2
Before we come to the Lord’s Table together we are commanded to unburden ourselves of any sins we have against our brothers and sisters. We are told to “go first” to them and ask for forgiveness, then, we can go together to the Table.
Unresolved Relational Conflict This may in fact be one of the big mountains to which you are praying. Your heart may be broken by a relationship that you have prayed and cried over for years. But there may also be something you need to do for that relationship before God will do what He’s going to do.
“Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness.” 1 John 2.9
“If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” Romans 12.18
Selfishness and Uncaring Attitudes
“When you ask you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” James 4.3
There are prayers that are simply inappropriate because they are selfish. God make me rich. God hurt that person for me. God make it so I will never have any hardship. These are the prayers that a loving God will never grant, because they are not what’s best for us and for the world. There are some things that God will not bless even if we pray a hundred times, a thousand times for it.
God wants to widen our hearts to see the needs of others and hear the cries of the poor and needy. I had a professor in seminary that used to say God has a preference for the poor. And one need only to carefully read scripture to see the heart of God for the humble and poor.
Here is a good prayer for us: “Lord, help me to care about the things you care about. Lord, help me to care for the least of the world, whom you love so dearly.”
The final and perhaps biggest prayer buster is ourselves and our
Lack of Faith and Trust
In one sense, we are all control freaks. We want to remove all uncertainty from our lives. But in God’s world, trusting is better than controlling.
John Ortberg uses as an example The Stepford Wives. Have you seen this movie? The wives in Stepford are systematically replaced by robots that look exactly like them. The husbands can count on precisely the behavior they want from their cyber-spouses. No uncertainty. No frustration. No need for trust.
But, if you are a man, would you really want a woman who always dressed up for you, always fixed the food you wanted, always cleaned up after you, always agreed with whatever you said, always devoted herself to your pleasure with no will of her own?
(The correct response here would be “No.”)
Stepford is a nightmare community because trust is absent, and trust is the only way that loving persons relate. Trust is a gift that you give to someone. Trust is what holds relationships together. This is reflected in our language - Universities and other organizations have boards of trustees, people to whom the well-being of the community is entrusted. Parents may put money for their children in a trust fund. Then your children trust that you will die on time so that they can get your money.
We don’t call these things control funds. We don’t appoint boards of control. Although sometimes people think that is what they are. Trust and control are two different things.
Uncertainty can be a gift to us. If nothing else uncertainty asks us to trust and have faith
The writer of Hebrews says, “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” Hebrews 11.6
Without faith it is impossible to please anyone. Try making a friend without faith. Try getting married without faith. Try raising a child without learning about trust. Uncertainty is a wonderful reminder of that nagging little detail I often forget, which is that I am not God.
Say that to your neighbor right now, “I am not God.”
Now say, “I will trust God with my prayers.”
God Invites Us to Talk With Him
You may not have heard the news, but you are looking a published writer. And I’m not talking about the sermon blog that I publish for myself. I mean I had a story published in the Altoona Mirror the other week. (genuine print medium, also a dying medium but I digress). I received a check in the mail for my efforts. Several people called me on the phone and others said they read it. Their reactions ranged from effusive praise to simply “I read that thing of yours.” A couple people asked for my autograph which encouraged my vanity all the more. I called Barnes and Noble and offered to do a newspaper article signing but they said they don’t do those and would I please stop calling.
That first moment of seeing my story and name in print, and then later having others see it . . . I gotta tell you, it felt good. It’s been a couple weeks now and nobody is talking about it anymore, so I’m bringing it up again. I know that the buzz won’t last. And that elusive good feeling a writer gets won’t last either.
Steve Martin said on the Oscars, “To write is to live forever,” and then he deadpanned, “ The man who wrote that is dead.”
Which begs the question, “If you want that buzz why don’t you just write some other stuff and get it published?”
Because it’s work, that’s why. I’ve listened to real professional writers talk about their writing. They may use words like inspiration and craft but the word they use most is work. It’s work.
Let’s play a little word association – what do think of when you hear the word prayer? What words come to mind? God. Jesus. Talk. Inspire. These are all appropriate and true words. But I also want to say this - prayer is work.
“Prayer is an unnatural activity,” Bill Hybels notes. It just not something most of us do with ease. We have to try for it. We have to work at it.
When we are born into the world, some of us need to be reminded to breathe – we might even need a slap. So just because we need to be reminded to pray doesn’t mean this isn’t vital for life.
Bono, lead singer for U2, asks “How can I sing about love when I am never home?” Likewise, how can we say we believe in God and never pray?
“When you pray. . .” Jesus says. Jesus assumes that we will. If you have any notion of following the way of Jesus, if you have any notion of knowing God, you will pray. It won’t be a question of if but when.
One of the reasons we have difficulty praying is the power that the visible world has over us. My son asked me just the other night, “If you had to be either blind or deaf, which would you be?” It took me about three seconds to say, deaf. Because the visible world seems to be so crucial to defining reality for me. And yet the Word of God speaks of that which is invisible, the Kingdom of God, ruled by a God who is invisible.
He invades the visible. For the Israelites wandering in the wilderness, he came in burning bushes and pillars of cloud. He instructed them to offer sacrifice, continual sacrifice at the door of the tent of meeting between God and Israel,
“Where I will meet with you, to speak to you there.” Exodus 29.42
Jesus cautions us that our prayers are not performances for others to hear. We are not judged by how spiritual we sound or even if we can string a coherent sentence together. Some of the best prayers are “groans of the spirit too deep for words.” Jesus counsels us to go to our secret place to talk with the Father who invades the visible in the secret places.
Time and Place
Time and place are two steps that can take that will allow you to make great progress toward intimate, ongoing conversation with the Father.
Find the time that works for you. Many of us are best in the morning. We are larks who are ready to sing and think and talk in the morning. So carve out some time during this best time for you in the morning, before work, before school. Before the hundred monkeys of your thoughts and plans for the day start jumping up and down screaming for action. Others of us are night owls, so trying to talk with God in the morning will go about as well as when you talk to your family or coworkers in the morning – no one wants that. Carve out time in the afternoon, evening, or at bedtime to meet with the Father.
“But whenever you pray go to your room and shut the door and pray. . .”
Find the place that works for you. It has to be a place free of distractions, a place where you don’t feel compelled to do anything except pray and be with God. “Your room” may be the laundry room, the office, a public library or park, or the inside of your car, but it should be a place that you can go to consistently.
A Pattern for Prayer
“Pray then in this way:”
The Lord’s Prayer is not meant to be a magic formula but rather a model of prayer. Hybels lifts up a pattern found in words of Jesus in the Lord’s Prayer that should be followed for almost all of our conversations with God.
The Pattern is A C T S - Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication.
Adoration is addressing God with what is right and good. It is seeing and saying about God what is true. Its Moses removing his shoes because he was on holy ground before a mighty God. It is Mary lifting up a praise song for what God promised through her. It speaking into the invisible what is visible to us by faith.
“Our Father who is in the heavens, holy is your name. . .”
Hybels notes that adoration, like prayer, is foreign to many people. It is crucial that we ask for help even in this. I attribute this prayer to C.S. Lewis. I’ve found it helpful:
Lord, help me to see you as you really are, and not just as I imagine you to be.
The Psalmists call us to magnify the Lord together. When we magnify something we make it bigger. A magnifying glass looks at small things and helps the human eye see them bigger. Could it be that in our eyes God is small and needs magnified, but in reality God is big and its our eyes that aren’t seeing correctly. It’s like looking through the wrong end of a telescope or a pair of binoculars. Things in view are larger than they appear!
An honest effort at adoring God in prayer will help us see the greatness of God and that in turn will inform our prayers.
Confession is the most underused and underappreciated took in our spiritual arsenal. Jesus teaches us that clearly sin is the biggest obstacle that stands between us and God. Even and especially as Christians born into new life through the grace of Jesus, unconfessed sin is a barrier that inhibits the flow of the Spirit in us. Confess specifically and ask for power over sin in your life. Confess so that sin does not trouble and weaken your relationship with Jesus your Friend.
Thanksgiving is expressing gratitude to God for all that God has done. Thanksgiving blesses God and it changes us. It opens our eyes to the simple gifts of life. It draws our focus outward, off of our small, whining selves, and into the vast expanse of the kingdom and the great needs of the world.
Supplication is asking of God. Dallas Willard says that asking is the key that unlocks the spiritual world. Asking not only moves God but it moves other people as well. We continue to be surprised when someone gets something unexpected. We ask them, “How did you get that?” “I asked for it,” is the answer that comes to us like a miracle.
“You do not have because you do not ask.” James 4.2
Remember, when we work we only accomplish what we can. When we pray, God works, and accomplishes what it in his power to accomplish, which is a lot.
If I want my children to be safe at school that day, I pray about it. If I have bills to pay and I’m not sure if I have enough, I pray about it. If I know of a relationship that is going through a rough time, I pray for them. If someone is sick, I pray to the God who heals.
There is a lot more that could be said in this area of what to ask for in prayer. Prayer is not merely asking for what I want. God is not the cosmic butler or handyman. And yet, it might surprise of how much we want to happen in the universe is what God wants too. Dallas Willard counsels to pray about what matters to us. When we start here, then God will enlarge our hearts and our circle of interests will grow with that.
Remember, we are talking with God. In Willard’s words, we are
“talking with God about what we are doing together.” Prayer is work, but work that matters, now and forever.
Let’s talk with God about what we are doing together here.
Too Busy Not to Pray
We are beginning a series this week on prayer. I chose this in part because it is Lent and this is a good time to think about spiritual practices, and I chose it because I think we need help in this area. I am going to be using a book by Bill Hybels called Too Busy Not to Pray. I think it is a good tool for all of us to grow in prayer. It is solid, biblical, and accessible. Pick it up and read it on your own if you are able.
Hybels looks at this parable from the Gospels. The story involves a judge and widow who has a complaint. William Barclay tells that Jewish court at that time almost always had three judges overseeing a case – a judge for the defendant, a judge for the plaintiff, and a judge independently appointed by Herod or the Romans. This third judge is our judge. Apparently these third judges had a notorious reputation – they had the nickname of robber judges because they were susceptible to the bribe. It was well-known that these appointed judges were crooked.
Jesus uses this common perception when he tells the story of a certain judge. In case we miss the point Jesus comes right out and calls him “an unjust Judge.” More than that Jesus tells us that this judge didn’t believe in God and he didn’t care much for his fellow human beings either. The judge is this story is a secular atheist. He is the bench neither for love of God or love of man. He is on the bench for love of money.
Money is the thing that moves him. Nothing else will.
The widow in this story is obviously a sympathetic figure. She has no husband, and in that time and culture, therefore, she has no job, no income, no inheritance or means of support. Unless she has a brother or brother-in-law to care for her, or adult children, she is in trouble. The story tells us that she is a victim of an injustice. We don’t know what – perhaps she has been cheated out of money or property by a neighbor or even a family member. Whatever the case, she probably cannot afford to lose.
This widow has certain things in her favor, in a normal situation. As I said, she is worthy of our sympathy. But we also know that sympathy doesn’t count for much in Judge Dread’s courtroom. If she had a normal judge, she might be fine. But she doesn’t have a normal judge, she has this judge. This judge has no fear of God and no affection for others. He is not just immoral, he is amoral. The only thing that will influence this judge – cash – she is in short supply.
But this is her only shot. So she takes her matter to the judge and when he predictably says no, she doesn’t give up. She keeps asking him, day after day. He give the same predictable answer, but she won’t accept it. She bothers him at court, she bothers him at home. She makes him an offer he can’t refuse – grant my request, your honor, and I will quit bugging you.
Now the nature of a parable is always that it conveys one main truth. A parable is not an allegory where every person and detail stands for something else outside the story. A parable has a main point. The point of this one is not that God is like this unjust judge – too many people make that mistake. The parable, rather, contrasts this God with this judge. God is very different from this unjust judge, so different that it beggars description. But we will try.
So much in life depends on our preconceptions and expectations. Are we hopeful and grateful or are we jaded and cynical? The difference can be shown in something called the Diary of a Dog and the Diary of a Cat. Just looking at two pictures can show us a difference.
But here is an excerpt from the diary of a dog:
8am Dog food! My favorite thing!
9:30am A walk in the park! My favorite thing!
12pm Milk bones! My favorite thing!
2pm Wagged my tail! My favorite thing!
4pm Played in the yard! My favorite thing!
7pm Watched TV with the people! My favorite thing!
11pm Sleeping on the bed! My favorite thing!
Here is an excerpt from the diary of a cat:
Day 983 of my captivity: My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects. They dine lavishly on fresh meat while the other inmates and I are fed hash or some sort of dry nuggets. Today I decapitated a mouse and dropped its headless body at their feet. I had hoped this would strike fear into their hearts. Today I was almost successful in an attempt to topple one of my tormentors by weaving in and around his feet as he was walking. I must try this again tomorrow, but at the top of the stairs.
So much in our faith and especially in our efforts at prayer depend upon what we already think about God and life. So what are your expectations of God? What is your picture of God?
Do you picture God as an Unjust Judge – someone you must bug, and cajole, and maybe he bribe in order to get what you need from him?
Do you picture God as a Police Officer running a “speed trap,” trying to catch you breaking the rules.
Or is your picture of God one of a disinterested and aloof CEO, only caring about his empire and his profit margins, way too busy to care about or even know about you and your problems?
The truth is if we pray at all sometimes we will be disappointed in the apparent results of our prayers. We will not always get the answer we’re looking for. It is bound to happen. Jesus anticipated this when he prefaced this parable:
“Jesus told them this parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.” Luke 18.1
Don’t lose heart when you don’t see immediate results to your prayers. Don’t lose heart when things don’t go your way. Don’t think that because you have to wait at all means that God doesn’t care about you. Don’t think that when bad things happen to you that God took a vacation or stopped answering the phone.
When I was still in high school there was a very popular book called When Bad Things Happen to Good People. The book was written by Rabbi Harold Kushner, a man of faith. Kushner was trying to come to grips with a difficult question – why do bad things happen to good people? Why don’t we get the answers to prayer that we want and need?
Good questions – the answers Kushner gave? No so much. Kushner concluded that God may want to help us, but he can’t. God is limited. He is good, pretty much, and he is powerful, but not as powerful as we would like to think God is.
To which one wag has responded, “If God is really like Kushner describes, then someone more competent ought to apply for the job.”
I believe that the picture of God the Bible reveals to us is a God both supremely good and supremely competent and powerful.
“Why do you say “my way is hid from the Lord and my right is disregarded by my God’? Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or get tired, and his understanding knows no limits.” Isaiah 40.27-28
This is the picture and the expectations that God wants us to have of him when we pray.
When Seth was almost four years old he wanted a toy called Socker Boppers for his birthday. To his credit he didn’t ask for anything else, just Socker Boppers. That’s all he talked about. At that time Seth was still using a binky and a blanket to go to sleep at night. I remember the night before his fourth birthday Seth and I had a talk and I offered this proposal: “If you give up your binky and your blankie tonight for good, you can have Socker Boppers for your birthday.”
Seth thought about it for a minute and he agreed – for about sixty seconds. And then he asked, “Can’t I still keep my binky and have Socker Boppers?” But that was my answer and he agreed, though it wasn’t easy for him to give up his binky. But we went to sleep with a smile on his face, mutter sweet prayers of “socker boppers, socker boppers, socker boppers. . .”
Now if I , a flawed, limited, semi-ignorant earthly father can sometimes be loving and wise and eager to help my son, how much more will a good and powerful God help his children that he so readily wants to help?
As a parent I have to say no sometimes, it’s my job to say no. But it’s my joy to say yes to my kids. I love to say yes! God is the same and so much more.
I hope you will at least begin forming that expectation and that picture of our heavenly Father and hope this picture encourages you to go to him in prayer often and eagerly.
I’ll let Hybels have the last word here:
“God is interested in your prayers because he is interested in you. . .He is willing – anxious even – to hear from you. Moreover, he is willing to act on your behalf.”