Monday,
March 6, 2006
James 5:16
Confess your sins to each
other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.
The
most intimate communication we can have with God comes through prayer. But God
did not create us alone. He created all of us so that we may live in community
with each other. It is in prayer together that we find our greatest sense of unity
and fellowship with one another.
Christian
fellowship is an important aspect of attending church. Before moving to
Creating
a community of faith gives us the opportunity to share our pain and suffering
with one another and to pray with each other for healing. This is important
because we grow best when we are supported in prayer by others. And praying
together teaches us more about prayer itself. By listening to others and
vocalizing our own prayers we learn to pray more effectively. We can also be
encouraged and challenged as we hear others pray. God doesn't always answer our
prayers on our own terms or timetable. So we may often need the support -- and
sometimes even the tough love -- that a caring community can provide. By
praying together, we hear each other's conversations with God and we then can
see how God responds and reveals His works in the people around us.
Lord, help us to encourage
each other to be patient in suffering, remind us to pray and care for one another
and bolster our faith through fellowship with one another
Keith Gibson
Tuesday,
March 7, 2006
John 15:7
If you abide in me, and my words abide in
you, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be given unto you.
What
does it mean to abide in God, and to have God’s words abide in me?
The
roots of abide stretch back to the old High German verb irbitan,
to await, with its implication that abiding somehow will involve our patience
and our expectation. There’s also the more familiar connotation of dwelling in,
remaining steadfast.
When
I consider this passage from John, I notice how balanced is its imagining of
the relationship between human and divine. It’s a two-way street: we dwell in
God and His words dwell in us. We’re not being asked to dwell in faith without
the necessary sustenance of God’s vision.
Personally,
I don’t find it very easy to abide in God. I find it much easier to abide in my
house or on my porch in the summer—someplace physical, tangible. To abide in
God asks me to rest in a place of mystery and to ask of God with
expectancy that I shall be fulfilled. I don’t like asking for things. I have a
hearty sense of American self-sufficiency.
I
wonder if God’s words dwelling in me might transform the way I imagine wanting
and asking. Perhaps God’s words will nurture me to want differently?
The
gospel tells us that God’s word is to prosper us, to give us abundant life.
That sort of abundance might not be the material success prized by contemporary
culture…that sort of life might not consist of an abundance of riches but of
soulfulness, spirit, and relationship—qualities eternal and life-giving.
Prayer: God be in my head and in my understanding
God
be in my eyes and in my looking
God
be in my mouth and in my speaking
God
be in my heart and in my thinking
God
be at mine end and at my departing
Lois Williams
Wednesday,
March 8, 2006
Luke 6:12
And it came to pass in
those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night
in prayer to God."
Jesus
spends a night in the hills in prayer, and when it is day "he calls his
disciples and chooses from them twelve" to be apostles. He comes down with
them and stands "on a level place" to deliver what we have known for
generations as the Beatitudes – "Blessed are you poor, for yours is the
kingdom of God, Blessed are you that hunger now, for you shall be
satisfied." Those powerful words hang at the entry to my kindergarten
classroom reminding me of God's promises to His people.
In
my overcrowded and boisterous room of 39 restless children I must say at least
ten times a day, "Help me think!" Translated, for the five-year-old
brain, that means "Leave me alone for just 20 seconds so I can let my
thoughts unscramble, or gather, so the mind's door can open for the fresh air
to enter." "Help me" means give me quiet space to think. In the
school setting I can only go to the virtual mountain, and often I am praying,
for patience, for strength, for new inspiration.
Here,
in the scripture, Jesus is going on a one night mini-retreat into the hills to
pray. My guess is he's pulling himself together; he probably said "Let me
think" and went away to ask and wait for God to renew his spirit. At
daybreak, standing before a huge crowd of disciples and those gathered from
near and far he speaks those familiar "blessed are" lines. The Bible
says "power came out from Him." And that is often the gift from the
mountains, from taking that night away in the hills to pray. Escaping from the
clamor and demands of life we are filled with the spirit and power comes out.
Dear God, thank you for
giving me time in the mountains. Thank you for giving me the Spirit and the
power. Help me to use them in my "level place." Amen
Nancy Eddy
Thursday,
March 9, 2006
Luke 11: 5-13
He also said to them,
“Suppose one of you has a friend and goes to her in the middle of the night to
say, ‘My friend, lend me three loaves, because a friend of mine on his travels
has just arrived at my house and I have nothing to offer him.” and the woman
answers from inside the house, ‘Do not bother me. The door is bolted now, and
my children and I are in bed; I cannot get up to give it to you.” I tell you,
if the woman does not get up and give it to him for friendship’s sake,
persistence will be enough to make her get up and give her friend all he wants.
So I say to you: Ask, and
it will be given to you, seek and you will find; knock, and the door will be
opened to you. For the one who asks always receives, the one who searches
always finds, the one who knocks will always have the door opened to her. Who
among you would hand a child a stone when she asked for bread? Or hand him a
snake instead of a fish? Or hand her a scorpion if she asked for an egg? If you
then, who are imperfect, know how to give to your children what is good, how
much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
I
changed the gender a few places when I copied the scripture (Jerusalem Bible).
It makes the familiar story seem fresh and more contemporary. And besides, it
is quite possible that it might be a woman who rouses her good friend in the
middle of the night for some bread. It is just as possible that the good friend
would tell her to go away and let me, I mean her, sleep. After all, she should
have been better prepared for emergencies.
But
a good friend would know she could keep knocking, that the friendship would
stand the strain of disrupted sleep. No matter how irritating it would be to
make her trundle down the stairs grumbling and complaining, their friendship
would still be intact in the morning. One can presume such grouchy, loving
tolerance from only the best of friends – and from God.
In
the familiar verses that follow the story, we are told to be persistent in our
prayers. Ask. Seek. Knock on God’s door in the middle of the night. Assume that
the Lord wants your trust. Brave the possibility of irritating your Creator. .
Our
persistence makes us refine our requests. It helps us listen to ourselves, to
express our deepest desires, to discern our intentions. I have found that the
wait between when I think God should provide a solution for me, and when God
actually does it, is the most instructive portion of the process. Things
change. I discover aspects I hadn’t considered at first. I come to see the
greater need, the bigger picture, the deeper intention of my prayer.
And,
after grumbling about our timing and our limited perception, God astounds us
with answers that are surprising, brilliant and perfect - crafted out of pure
and infinite love.
I come to you at the oddest
moment, I know. My requests seem shallow. I am not really prepared to address
you in all your glory. But I do. And you listen as I ask them again and again
until revelation comes within the asking. You guide my prayers and then you
answer them. I put my trust in you.
Gail Ransom
Friday,
March 10, 2006
Luke 18: 10-14
Two men went up to the
temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood
up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like others –
robbers, evildoers, adulterers – or even like this tax collector. I fast twice
a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
But the tax collector stood
at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and
said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
I tell you that this man,
rather than the other, went home justified before God. For those who exalt
themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will
be exalted.
Prayer Type I – Hey God, look at me, check me out, I’m your guy, I’m the best,
and I just wanna thank you for making
me so holy and wonderful. Yeaaaah ME!
Prayer Type II – I’m really sorry, God. And even though I don’t deserve it, thanks for
loving me.
Church Type I – Hey God, thanks for giving us all the answers
to all the questions of life and for putting all the right kind of people in
our congregation and for keeping us
holy and pure by not allowing all those sinful type of people to invade our space (or changing them to be like us
before we really include them in anything) and for making us such a wonderful
congregation. Yeaaaah
Church Type II – We make mistakes. Only you, O God, know all.
We humbly ask you to use us in our
imperfection as the instruments of your Love. Thanks for loving us.
The
words of our prayers reflect our understanding of who is Jesus and how His
sacrifice on the cross makes a difference for us and for all the people of our
world. May we strive to live so that our prayers raise the image of Jesus with
true humility of spirit and purpose in this world.
Prayer: Holy God, empower
us so that our prayers may bring us into the center of your understanding of the
relationship between who we are, and who You are. May the humility of the cross
ever be a focus in our thoughts, words and deeds. Amen.
Jeff Miller
Saturday,
March 11, 2006
Mark
And in the morning, rising
up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place,
and there prayed.
About
five years ago, I was introduced to the practice of Centering Prayer, a modern
version of the ancient Christian practice of contemplative prayer. The first and
primary requirement of the practice is to intentionally consent, each and every
time one sits to pray, to a relationship with God. Then one simply sits and
waits, not speaking either aloud or in one’s head, but waiting and listening
with the “ears of one’s heart,” expecting nothing but being open to
relationship with the divine within and around us.
I
don’t know whether the early morning and solitary prayer practice of Jesus,
reported in Mark’s gospel, was like Centering Prayer but I like to think so. It
took me several years, and the support of a Centering Prayer group that meets
weekly at the East Liberty Presbyterian Church, to make Centering Prayer a
disciplined part of my life. The recommended practice is to pray in this manner
for at least
In
“ordinary times,” I find the prayer gives me much peace and joy; it helps to
keep me mindful of the grace of each moment. In times of life crisis, such as I
am experiencing now, Centering Prayer is essential in sustaining me, getting me
through the day, and helping me believe I am not alone but held in a profound
web of relationship and love that characterizes all of creation and is what I
call God.
My
intention and hope this Lenten season is to become more disciplined in my
Centering Prayer, practicing it twice a day, and getting up early enough to
pray each morning so that I am not distracted, rushed, and feeling guilty
because I must choose between prayer and other life responsibilities. I begin this intention by offering this poem,
which was inspired by one of Pastor’s Bob’s first sermons at FUMC:
What do I want?
Healing, joy, community?
Yes, all of that, and even more.
I want mindful moments.
Moments
when I stop running,
Stop
for just one moment,
Full
of mindful grace.
One mindful moment,
Open to the meeting of human and divine,
Seeking the gateway of heaven.
One mindful moment,
Which is nowhere and now here.
Carol McAllister
Sunday,
March 12, 2006
A Covenant Prayer in the
Wesleyan Tradition
I am no longer
my own, but thine.
Put me to what
thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing,
put me to suffering.
Let me be employed
by thee or laid aside for thee,
exalted for thee
or bought low by thee.
Let me be full,
let me be empty.
Let me have all
things, let me have nothing.
I freely and
heartily yield all things.
to thy pleasure
and disposal.
And now, O
glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit,
thou art mine,
and I am thine. So be it.
And the covenant
which I have made on earth,
let it be
ratified in heaven. Amen.
Tracy Merrick