Lenten Devotional – Good Friday

Q. 98. What is prayer?

A. Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God, for things agreeable to his will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgment of his mercies.

“Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us.” (Psalm 62:8)

Prayer is not "going to God" (he's already in you), or "seeking God" (he's already found you), or "opening yourself to God" (you couldn't keep him out if you tried), or "becoming spiritual" (he's already sent you the Spirit -- who would rather show you Jesus than help you display your spiritual prowess). And it's certainly not buttering God up with abject apologies for your existence - because in his Beloved Son, he already thinks you're dandy. Prayer is just talking with Someone who's already talking to you. - Robert Farrar Capon, The Foolishness of Preaching (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1998), 68.

  Our problem is that we assume prayer is something to master the way we master algebra or auto mechanics. That puts us in the "on-top" position, where we are competent and in control. But when praying, we come "underneath," where we calmly and deliberately surrender control and become incompetent... The truth of the matter is, we all come to prayer with a tangled mass of motives altruistic and selfish, merciful and hateful, loving and bitter. Frankly, this side of eternity we will never unravel the good from the bad, the pure from the impure. God is big enough to receive us with all our mixture. That is what grace means, and not only are we saved by it, we live by it as well. And we pray by it. - Richard J. Foster

  Prayer is not a way of making use of God; prayer is a way of offering ourselves to God in order that He should be able to make use of us. It may be that one of our great faults in prayer is that we talk too much and listen too little. When prayer is at its highest we wait in silence for God's voice to us; we linger in His presence for His peace and His power to flow over us and around us; we lean back in His everlasting arms and feel the serenity of perfect security in Him. - William Barclay, The Plain Man's Book of Prayers

  We all pray whether we think of it as praying or not. The odd silence we fall into when something very beautiful is happening, or something very good or very bad. The "Ah-h-h-h!" that sometimes floats up out of us as out of a Fourth of July crowd when the skyrocket bursts over the water. The stammer of pain at somebody else's pain. The stammer of joy at somebody else's joy. Whatever words or sounds we use for sighing with over our own lives. These are all prayers in their way. These are all spoken not just to ourselves, but to something even more familiar than ourselves and even more strange than the world.

Lenten Devotional – Day 29

Q. 44. What does the preface to the Ten Commandments teach us?

A. The preface to the Ten Commandments teaches us that because God is the Lord, and our God and Redeemer, therefore we are bound to keep all his commandments.

When I think of your ways,
    I turn my feet to your decrees;
I hurry and do not delay to keep your commandments.
Though the cords of the wicked ensnare me,
   I do not forget your law.
At midnight I rise to praise you,
   because of your righteous ordinances.
I am a companion of all who fear you,
   of those who keep your precepts.
The earth, O LORD, is full of your steadfast love;
   teach me your statutes. (Psalm 119:59-64)

The truth is, of course, that the curtness of the Ten Commandments is an evidence, not of the gloom and narrowness of a religion, but, on the contrary, of its liberality and humanity. It is shorter to state the things forbidden than the things permitted: precisely because most things are permitted, and only a few things are forbidden. - Gilbert Keith G. K. Chesterton

  NASA had high hopes for their Mars orbiter - it would make possible some exciting new research into the Red Planet. They were stunned when suddenly, without warning, they lost the Mars orbiter in deep space. After the initial shock, NASA tried to determine what went wrong. The answer was almost as alarming as losing the orbiter itself. The fatal malfunction was the result of a tragic error in calculations - bad math doomed the Mars craft. One set of engineers had worked with English measurements - while another set of engineers did their calculations by the metric system! ...

  A costly failure was the result of measuring by two different standards ... . You can't keep vacillating; commuting back and forth between what the world around you says is right and what your Lord says is right. You can't just go God's way when it's convenient and doesn't cost you much. In God's words, you have to "choose this day whom you will serve." When you do, life is a whole lot less confusing. - Ron Hutchcraft, "The measurement mess," Ron Hutchcraft Ministries, December 1999.

Lenten Devotional – Day Ten

Q. 11. What are God’s works of providence?

A. God’s works of providence are his most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all his creatures, and all their actions.

“The LORD is just in all his ways, and kind in all his doings.” (Psalm 145:17, NRSV)

And yet you are never alone. Let yourself be plumbed to the depths, and you will realize that everyone is created for a presence. There, in your heart of hearts, in that place where no two people are alike, Christ is waiting for you. And there the unexpected happens. — Brother Roger of Taizé, Parable of Community

  I saw full surely in this and in all, that ere God made us he loved us; which love never slackened, nor ever shall be. And in this love he hath done all his works; and in this love he hath made all things profitable to us; and in this love our life is everlasting. In our making we had beginning; but the love wherein he made us was in him from without beginning; in which love we have our beginning. And all this shall we see in God, without end. - Juliana of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love

Listen my people, mark each word.
I begin with a story, I speak of mysteries
welling up from ancient depths,
heard and known from our elders.
We must not hide this story from our children
but tell the mighty works and all the wonders of God.
      - Psalm 78:1-4, version unknown

  “Providence” comes from the Latin meaning “to provide for” or “to foresee.” Most broadly, it refers to God’s divine plan through which the whole creation will eventually come to God’s ultimate goal. It describes God’s working within human history, sustaining creation, and accomplishing God’s purposes in and through history. This understanding of God’s work is perceived by faith, as events within the lives of believers are seen as expressions of God’s guidance and direction.

  God preserves the creation. God’s care for the world is to preserve that which has been created as it has been created and to sustain all things so that they can continue to exist. God’s providence also governs or guides the creation, God is at work within it. God works in the world, in human history, and in individual lives to guide all things to God’s final ends or purposes. God’s purposes are being carried out through all God’s activities. These purposes are for the whole world as well as for those who believe in God and have faith in Jesus Christ.

Lenten Devotional – Day Seven

Q. 8. How does God execute his decrees?

A. God executes his decrees in the works of creation and providence.

"But ask the animals, and they will teach you; the birds of the air, and they will tell you; ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this?  In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of every human being.” (Job 12:7-1, NRSV)

I am convinced one of the joys of heaven will be discovering the hidden ways that God, in his sovereignty, acted in our lives on earth to protect us and guide us so as to bring glory to his name, in spite of our frailty. As I look back over the years, however, I know that my deepest feeling is one of overwhelming gratitude.

I cannot take credit for whatever God had chosen to accomplish through us and our ministry; only God deserves the glory, and we can never thank him enough for the great things he has done. - Billy Graham, "God's Hand on My Life," Newsweek, March 29, 1999, 65.

  Holiness comes wrapped in the ordinary. There are burning bushes all around you. Every tree is full of angels. Hidden beauty is waiting in every crumb. Life wants to lead you from crumbs to angels, but this can happen only if you are willing to unwrap the ordinary by staying with it long enough to harvest its treasure. - Macrina Wiederkehr, O.S.B, "A Tree Full of Angels"

  Both the Old and New Testaments show us a God who is thoroughly involved in creation. God sustains the physical creation, the universe and all within it. The book of Psalms is rich source of praise to the God who has created and who continues to care for the world. God also sustains humans within the creation. Yet, God not only sustains and upholds, God also guides. God guides both individuals and, in the Old Testament particularly, the nation of Israel.

  The story of Joseph is a prime example. After facing the hatred of his brothers and slavery in Egypt, Joseph rose to a position of prominence. When he met his brothers after his father’s death, he was able to say: “Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good” (Gen. 50:20) Joseph was conscious of God’s guiding and directing his life to carry out God’s purposes.

Lenten Devotional – Day Three

Q. 3. What do the Scriptures principally teach?

A. The Scriptures principally teach what man is to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man.

“But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” (John 20:31)

“the Old Testament book of Psalms gives great power for faith and life. This is simply because it preserves a conceptually rich language about God and our relationships to him. If you bury yourself in Psalms, you emerge knowing God and understanding life. – Dallas Willard, “The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering our Hidden Life in God.” , p. 65

  As important the content of the Bible is, the Presbyterian catechisms, creeds, and confession refuse to limit the Bible to being a textbook full of true ideas about God and life. The Bible is also a meeting place, a place of encounter. As we go to the Bible, God comes to us and speaks to us, becoming for us a living presence.

  In his book Experiments with Bible Study, Hans-Reudi Weber tells a story from an East African village:

A simple woman always walked around with a bulky Bible. Never would she part from it. Soon the villagers began to tease her: “Why always the Bible? There are so many books you could read!” Yet the woman kept on living with her Bible, neither disturbed nor angered by all the teasing. Finally, one day she knelt down in the midst of those who laughed at her. Holding the Bible high above her head, she said with a big smile: “Yes, of course there are many books which I could read. But there is only one book which reads me!”

  E. Dixon Junkin, former Associate for Discipleship and Spirituality in the Presbyterian Church (USA), reminds us that "our commitment is not to 'study' Scripture but to 'listen' to it. It is not as if Scripture were a subject like mathematics, a useful tool that we learn, nor is our goal to analyze Scripture as if it were any other piece of literature. We are not out to learn Scripture as we would various historical facts. The point of our reading is less to master the words of the Bible than to offer ourselves to be mastered by the Word to whom they point." - As quoted in The Gospel and Our Culture 5 (June 1993), 7.

To Wait in Hope – Advent Devotional

"Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD.

Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications!

I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope;

my soul waits for the Lord

more than those who watch for the morning,

more than those who watch for the morning.” (Ps. 130:1-2, 5-6)

Daily Scripture Reading – Psalm 130

   This week with the death of South African Nelson Mandela, there are a host of topics that come to mind when I think about Mandela's life and the good news of the gospel. The topic of waiting and forgiveness was important in Mandela's life and to the meaning of Advent. I find the story of Mandela's life inspiring in regard to what he would not let happen to him. With all the years he spent imprisoned, it would have been easy to understand how he would have only wanted to get even and seek revenge upon his captors, but no, he chose to seek peace and forgiveness. His choice helped to lead a nation to reconciliation rather than hate and warfare.

  In Mandela's story he was forced to wait, until that time when he might someday be released, though that was never guaranteed. The years of waiting could have turned him bitter and hateful, but he used the time to seek another path. He said once to former President Bill Clinton that his captors took many things away from him and could have taken his life, but he realized they could never take away his heart and mind. He would have to voluntarily give these away and he was not going to give them up, but develop both his heart and mind so they would help him through this time of imprisonment and the years ahead.

  To endure the struggles and the periods of waiting, similar to Mandela's would be unimaginable to us. Most of the time, we have great difficulty in waiting. And we certainly don’t wait in silence. Most of the time, we hurry and we push. We split time into tenths of seconds. We complain when a traffic light turns red and holds us up longer than we would like. The press of hurrying creates harried and hassled souls, disconnected from life and from kindness itself. There is a way of being and knowing that dimly remembers that waiting in hope is an attitude of faith.

  Waiting in silence, creating space for steadfast love to grow within, may be the most essential practice of all. It is in many ways the spirit of Advent, that time of the Christian liturgical year when we practice the waiting for hope, faith and love and trusting in new life not yet fully known.

  Trappist monk Thomas Merton remarked that life is a perpetual Advent. He sensed that in that waiting, trust began to grow. Trust in God, trust in the Holy One who is beyond all that is created and is the source of all things, seen and unseen. Trusting and waiting allow the loving-kindness that is the essence of God’s own Life to grow in us, and to bear fruit that we never expected.

... one of the essential paradoxes of Advent: that while we wait for God, we are with God all along, that while we need to be reassured of God's arrival, or the arrival of our homecoming, we are already at home. While we wait, we have to trust, to have faith, but it is God's grace that gives us that faith. As with all spiritual knowledge, two things are true, and equally true, at once. The mind can't grasp paradox; it is the knowledge of the soul. - Michelle Blake, "The Tentmaker," 1999, p. 153

 “I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope;” (Ps. 130:2)

  Grant me O God the capacity to wait in hope, to allow your own loving-kindness to grow in me, for the life of your world. Amen.

Waiting, All Day Long - Advent Devotional

“Do not let those who wait for you be put to shame; let them be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.... Lead me in your truth, and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all day long.” (Ps. 25:3, 5)

Daily Scripture Reading: Psalm 25:1-10

  The Psalmist in today's passage speaks of himself as one who waits for God in Psalm 25:3, and later in verse 5 says, "you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all day long." What does this mean, to wait for God? What is it that the psalmist expects? By waiting for God, the psalmist is acknowledging that he cannot continue on without the Presence of God. He cannot win against those who would put him to shame; he cannot save himself; there is nothing for him to do except lay aside his struggles and wait.

  When a situation gets out of control, we need to determine what can we realistically control in our life and determine what other things, we must give over control to God and say, "God, in this one you need to intervene."

  But to wait is not passive, nor is it simply hanging around waiting for God do it all. It is the time to call on the Presence of God. It is coming to God in the moment to receive God's wisdom and direction.

  When we come with open, empty hands, no longer under the illusion that we can do anything worthwhile outside of communion with God, we become open channels for God's wisdom. In this sense "waiting" is actually a sustained act of listening, of letting God continually flow in and through us. In the very act of deciding to wait for God, we find God immediately there. When we bring our attentiveness, our openness, and our release of control, then all that is necessary will be accomplished in union with God, "all day long."

  If our "face time" with family, friends and neighbors is dwindling, our time spent one on one with God is on the endangered list. Our busy world with endless to-do lists challenges the notion of the importance of quiet time with our Creator. Waiting is not big on our to-do-lists, we don't like to wait. We don't like to wait in lines, wait for spouses, wait for responses, etc.

  Advent invites us to turn that life-draining pattern upside down. Advent celebrates the incarnational, the Word-becomes-flesh, God moves into our neighborhoods, our family and our lives. Advent announces that God was not willing to have a distant, arms-length relationship with us. Advent is all about God's willingness or even God's insistence to be vulnerable, accessible, reachable, and attainable. Advent breaks down the barriers between the created and the Creator.

  God's desire was to deliver the Good News of mercy, love and hope in person. God chose face time in a way that would change the world. God spoke to the hearts of the people through Jesus, God's son.

  Not only does God yearn to communicate deeply and intimately with God's people, God chose the perfect way to slide into our lives by showing up in person. Sometimes, we need to wait to receive the gifts, because it might be the only way we will appreciate the gift and be instructed in the way that leads to truth and life.

  “Make me to know your ways, O LORD; teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth, and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all day long.” (Ps. 25:4-5)

Sometimes, I Need to be Saved

“The world can no longer be left to mere diplomats, politicians, and business leaders. They have done the best they could, no doubt. But this is an age for spiritual heroes - a time for men and women to be heroic in their faith and in spiritual character and power. The greatest danger to the Christian church today is that of pitching its message too low.” ― Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives

  Each day of our lives we will face decisions that challenge all our senses and bring emotional distress. These decisions can fill us with doubts and fears and we hope we have the correct information and resources for a good, solid, just decision.

  As a pastor, I face moments of critical decision-making where leadership skills are strained and all my skills and patience is required. When I face these moments, my hope and prayer is that I will be as smart as Jesus in my decisions, but I also hope I will be supported and encouraged by the community of faith.

  When looking on a situation from the outside, others sometimes lead us to believe that some decisions are just simple, no brainers when the fact is that they are far from easy. After the fact, when critical action was taken, we can seem to others like we were geniuses or fools. Others might believe we made these decisions on our own, but within the body of Christ this is not generally the case, nor should it be.

  Knowledge and skills are beneficial when making critical decisions, but what is even best is when we face these challenges within a supportive, faithful, and nurturing community that provides focus and direction for the gifts, talents and things we know. Communities during the times of trouble in our lives save us, sometimes from our own unreliable knowledge and our lack of patience.

  Most of the time I just need Christ and the Christian community to save me. As the Psalmist says: “In your righteousness deliver me and rescue me; incline your ear to me and save me.” (Ps. 71:2) Jesus faced challenges not unlike the challenges the church faces today.