Category: Prayer

A Prayer for the Angry

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You are the Creator.  You are holy.  You promise that one day, You will judge.

We are the created.

And, we have been angry.  Things don’t go as planned.  We have gnashed our teeth at inconveniences in our days.  We have railed against other people.  We have lashed out in frustration at ourselves, at our children, at our parents, at our sisters and brothers.  In rage, we have become, in little ways and large ones — the judge, jury and executioner.

In this, we presume.  We ignore Your place.  Our faith falters.  Rather than looking for Your hand, Your blessing, Your lesson, we allow our angry hearts to flow through us.

We have sinned.  Father, forgive us.  Father, give us the humility and courage to ask forgiveness from those we have sinned against.

Father, help us in our haste.  Check our spirits Lord.  May we listen.  May we be slow to speak.  May we allow You to transform our hearts, minds, and desires.

Great is your faithfulness.  We are grateful, Lord, for the beauty of Your everlasting love.  We are grateful, Lord, for the washing of our sins.  We cling to your grace upon grace.  Cleanse us.  May it not be a nature of pride that flows through us, but may it be Jesus…You have forgiven us much, may we forgive others.

Yes, may it be so.

Prayer

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Jubilee, Noah, Caleb and I ran to the grocery store the other day.  It was sunny out, and beautiful but for some intermittent, rather gusty wind.  I don’t remember why, but Jubilee complained about the wind.

Noah declared, “I’m going to praise now.”

“Dear God, pwease stop the wind.  Amen.”

After a moment, Jubilee remarked, “hey Noah, that actually worked!”

I recently received a rather swift, unexpected and obvious answer to prayer.  The answer caught me off-guard and has been very good, but hard.  (The usual mark of God’s hand, right?)  In the wake of dealing with this answered prayer, I keep trying to fit more circumstances into the obvious.  Cram more into the providence of God than He perhaps means.

I spent my younger years overspiritualizing many circumstances.  Looking for miracles under every bush and at every turn, expecting things to magically work out.  My middler years I spent at the other extreme for a Christian, never expecting or inviting God to actually speak to me about most things — determined to do what I set out to do.

God has been using motherhood to soften my heart so that I can again hear His voice in my circumstances.  He has been showing me His glory in the mundane.  Teaching me obedience in the tedious, hard things that nobody sees or gives me credit for.

And here I am, surprised by an answered prayer, certain that it occurred, and wondering how much of “everything else” is likewise an answer to this prayer in this arena of my life.

Things probably won’t tie up in a neat bow, as I see it, on this side of heaven.  God is so big that for everything to work out in a way that I comprehend it would not actually be good.  As I continue to struggle on, I’m trying to pray (and live) with a heart in the right posture before the Lord.  I’m trying to figure out what obedience in all things looks like, and just do that.  And I’m resisting the temptation to over-spiritualize things while simultaneously resisting the temptation to deny that God might do a miracle.

“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for, and certain of what we do not see, this is what the ancients were commended for … Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders, and the sin that so easily entangles and let us run with perserverance the race marked out for us.  Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith, who, for the joy set before him, endured the cross, scorning its shame and sat down at the right hand of God the father.”  Hebrews 11:1; 12:1-4

“Therefore, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink.  For your heavenly Father knows you need these things.  But seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be given to you as well.”  Matthew 6.

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.”  Romans 8:28

Thank You

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Right now, I’m studying prayer in my devotion times.  My pastor said something that made a ton of sense a while back about prayer.  I’ll paraphrase it here:  “We are in a spiritual war.  The enemy’s smart.  And, being a military man myself, I’ll tell you that I know from experience that the best way to win a war, the first thing an enemy does is take down the lines of communication.  This is why the Bible tells us to constantly be in prayer.  We need to keep the lines of communication open.”

I have been really convicted this year about how I’m spending my thought time.  Not, lest you get the wrong idea, that I was thinking about things I shouldn’t, but how I was probably squandering some of my though-time.

I shared a while back that I felt like the Lord was engineering my circumstances to create quiet in my life.  I mean, with two young children, not enough sleep and literally next to no spare time, it’s pretty hard to create quiet.  But, there are always moments in a day that can be spent in stillness before the Lord.  It might not be the stillness I enjoyed before I had kids, but it’s there, even if its just listening to a good sermon (instead of a mindless book) while I’m folding the laundry or doing the dishes.

Stillness and quiet, maybe are a part of prayer.  I know that boldness and persistence are part of prayer.  (Luke 11, 18:1).  So is bringing our true feelings to the Lord, so we can submit them to His perfect will.  (Luke 22:39-46). 

I feel like, maybe 31 is a little late in life to be asking, like the disciples did, “how should we pray?”  Yet, even with the Lord’s prayer, I feel like I’m going through some sort of rote formula and I feel like I need help with the “how.” 

At some point, when I actually do get some spare time, I’m going to read EM Bounds . 

This post is kinda rambly, and I don’t have much of a conclusion; however, I do have a scripture to share that I read today on my subject:  Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.  (Romans 12:12)

So … how about you?  What’s the current question you’re tackling before the Lord right now?  Have you made any leeway with it?