In addition to having 3 young sons, my wife is also privileged to be the nanny for a 4 year old girl from our church.  On most days, I’m off to work with hugs and kisses from the family and miss seeing the complexity required to get these 4 children ready for pre-school.  It takes a lot of energy and a lot of patience to move these little ones from point A to point B.  I’ve seen a book entitled, ‘Herding Cats’, and that is a pretty close description of what this is like. 

This morning I stayed home to help with our youngest son while my wife attended a pre-school class to assist with the presentation of a craft.  In addition to staying home to help, I had also picked up one of the many cold bugs that makes it back to our place at the end of the day – I was sitting quietly with a spearmint Halls mentho-lyptus lozenge in my mouth trying to soothe a very sore throat.  I watched from the den as an argument began regarding who would get to open the door.  “It’s my turn to open the door today.” - “You can’t be a gentleman and open the door because you’re a girl and gentlemen are men and I’m a man.”  I watched as the kids bounced into each other grabbing their school bags and wandering around and wandering off when told to get on their jackets.  At one point there was a near meltdown because someone’s bear was stuck under something heavy.  “My bear, my bear – quick, he’s getting squashed!”  

My wife remained relatively calm and cool as she took things out to the car and came back to assist with the jackets that were still not on their respective shoulders.  Finally in the midst of the chaos my wife asked in a clear strong voice, “OK everyone stand still and put your hands together.”  At first I thought this sounded like something a policeman might say to a crowd of common criminals.  But then she followed up with, “Now bow your heads, we are going to pray.”

My wife prayed a really simple prayer that the children could understand.  She asked God’s forgiveness for things that had been said this morning in anger.  She asked the Lord to help them all as they headed to school to be kind and loving towards others.  She prayed for the teachers – that God would give them wisdom and that the day would be a safe day and full of health and blessings.  It was a wonderful way to calm the storm and a great way to start the day.  What a beautiful moment and a powerful reminder.  In the midst of the chaos and in times of pandemonium, we can always stop and pray.

Blessings to you ~ Steadman

The elders of our church met this evening at the home of a dear Christian couple.  We were coming together with elders from two other church groups to discuss a common matter.  One of the elders present was facing chemotherapy because of a recently discovered cancer and it was suggested that we close our evening in prayer for this brother.  When the meeting was winding down we gathered in the den where a fire was burning in the fire place.  A chair was placed in the middle of the room and our friend who was facing hospital visits, ongoing tests, and many months of medical treatment sat down.  One of the teaching elders in our midst took a bottle of oil and read the following passage.

Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. (James 5:13-16)

Having read this passage aloud, the pastor poured a bit of oil on his hand and touched it to our brother’s forehead.  His wife sat in a chair behind him and the elders present gathered around laying hands on this friend, this elder, this man of the faith facing a battle with cancer.  We began praying until our prayers were exhausted.  We prayed for both our brother and his wife.  What a blessing it was to be amongst the members of the Body of Christ.  My faith was strengthened this evening and I wanted to take a moment here to reflect on this time.  There were members of three separate church groups present.  Yet, in the midst of our prayers, we were truly one church united in Christ around a common purpose and a common need.  My hope for the church in the world today is that we will come around those in trouble, those who are happy, those who are sick, those who have sinned and that our prayers will be lifted up in unity in such a way that will bring healing.  Lord we pray that you would raise up righteous men and women in our midst to pray on behalf of the needs of this generation.

Blessings to you ~ Steadman

Several sources have shared that so many people have gone overseas to assist with the tsunami relief that the aid workers have become a considerable operational challenge.  There are increased needs for clean water, food, shelter, and medical supplies to cover the needs of these foreigners.  A group of Christians here in Greensboro will be gathering tonight to pray.  If we can not go in person, our hope is that our prayers for those who have gone, for those who are suffering, for those who are in need will be heard by God.  May our prayers move the heart of the Lord to remember His mercy, His steadfast loving-kindness.  Tonight we will use the Lord’s Prayer as a model for the flow of our meeting.  I’ve been thinking today about the Lord’s Prayer in context of praying for our neighbors in Asia.  We call out tonight upon our heavenly Father praising and giving honor and glory to His name.  He is a good and an awesome God.  We acknowledge that this is a fallen and a broken world.  Things are not as they should be.  Our prayer is that Jesus, the King of all creation, will return to the earth and set things right, that the time will come soon when we see His face, when every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that He is Lord.  The creation groans with longing for the return of the King.  We pray that God’s Kingdom will be made complete.  It is important that the good news of Jesus Christ, the Gospel, goes forth to every tribe and to every nation.  May those who have gone to Asia bearing the name of Jesus give testimony to His goodness, share their gifts, their love, and the truth of the Word in such a way that the Kingdom of God would come, would grow, would expand, would be made complete and perfect.  We ask that the Lord’s will be done.  We must search our hearts to know how God wants us to individually respond to the great needs of our neighbors.  How are we being called to give, to share from our great wealth, to pray, to spend our time?  We pray these prayers in the here and now that things will be different here on the earth where we live in our time of struggle, in our time of need.  God does not want us to abandon this reality, to strive for some spiritual place where we are unaffected and untouched by the pain and suffering around us.  Instead, Jesus teaches us that we need to look to our neighbors needs and to care for others just as He cared for and loved us.  This is a love that requires sacrifice.  We pray for the provision for those who are hungry, for those who need medicine, for those whose livelihoods have been swept away.  We must not take for granted all that we have been given.  Oh how we need to pray for forgiveness of sin.  This is a foolish generation.  We have abandoned the worship of the living God and turned our attention as a generation to our own selfish needs.  We have turned our eyes away from Jesus and looked instead to the God of self.  Forgive us Lord.  We are told if we will humble ourselves, pray to the Lord, and turn from our evil ways, that He will hear our prayers and heal the land.

Our Father in heaven
Hallowed by your name
Your kingdom come
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
And forgive us our debts
As we also have forgiven our debtors
And lead us not into temptation
But deliver us from evil. (Matthew 6:9-13)

Blessings to you ~ Steadman

It has been my prayer for several seasons now that the Lord would bless me with wisdom and a long life to be able to employ that wisdom.  I want to be old and wise.  I was recently challenged by a business colleague to pray for wisdom each day before coming to work.  This was certainly a new thought and one that I have tried diligently to apply to my daily routine.  Here at the start of a new year I thought it would be good to share a few quotations on the subject of wisdom in hopes that these are an encouragement to those who may come across this blog entry.

“Wisdom is the knowledge of God given to all men in this world which embraces all other knowledge within the limits of human awareness and comprehension, particularly the profound knowledge of self in relationship to all men and all things in this world.” ~ William Stringfellow

“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives to all men generously and without reproaching, and it will be given him.”  James 1:5

“This is the highest wisdom:  to despise the world and seek the kingdom of heaven… It is vanity to wish for a long life and to care little about leading a good life… It is a great wisdom and perfection to consider ourselves as nothing and always judge well and highly of others”  ~ Thomas à Kempis

Pray for wisdom.  Clear your mind and heart of self-importance.  Find a way to let yourself diminish so others around you can surface.  Hold your tongue and remember that in many words there is sin.  Be a man of integrity and be bold in your witness of Christ.  Pray diligently for God’s undeserved mercy, grace, and benevolent care over your own body, your family, your church, your workplace, your city, your country, and your generation.  Think about what you should say ‘yes’ to and what you should say ‘no’ to.  Slow down and let the joy of Christ be present in all that you do.

Blessings to you ~ Steadman

Have we lost the discipline and practice of prayer?  We are a generation of weak prayers at best.  Perhaps it is because we have learned to hide our sins from ourselves and therefore we believe them to be hidden from God?  Perhaps we can blame our desire for authenticity, our desire to be ‘real’ or ‘true to ourselves’, our need to be in the right mood, or our need to be in the right spirit for our lack of prayerfulness? Perhaps we are more sheltered than past generations from hunger, poverty, death, sickness, and physical suffering?  When was the last time you saw someone die?  When was the last time you suffered a physical pain that was not numbed, anesthetized, or quickly removed?  Have you ever wondered where or when you would get your next meal or where you would sleep?  We are a generation marked by fast food, self-service, ATM machines, credit cards, air conditioning, remote controls, supermarkets, painkillers, urgent care doctors, and nursing homes.  Food is convenient, pain is alleviated, sick people are taken to hospitals, and the temperature inside our homes, offices, cars, and classrooms is within our control.  Our world is a flurry of activity and there is a source of entertainment or distraction available in every direction.  In our successful modern world of comforts we have numbed, anesthetized, and in some cases utterly removed our need for God.  One could argue that these are over statements, stereotypes, and worst case scenarios but can we say with assurance that we are passing along the discipline and practice of prayer?  We are out of shape.  We are out of touch.  We need to get down on our knees and pray.

God knows our sins but do we?  There are so many ways for us to spend our time in this day and age other than examining our hearts.  The focus of our attention is definitely on self.  However, rather than searching our motives or looking at the object of our acts of worship, our time is predominately occupied seeking to kill time and not to redeem it.  There are sports games, television programs, movies, social gatherings, vacations, video games, and a host of other opportunities to dull our senses and remove us from quiet contemplation and most importantly, confession.  By giving in to the routines of modernity we are failing to cultivate quiet times of meditation, reflection, and prayer.  We have exalted ourselves as gods and lords over our own lives choosing self-indulgence over worship of the true and living God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  “Prayer, true prayer, does not allow us to deceive ourselves.  It relaxes the tension of our self-inflation.  It produces a clearness of spiritual vision.  Searching with a judgment that begins at the house of God, it ceases not to explore with His light our own soul.  If the Lord is our health He may need to act on many men, or many moods, as a lowering medicine.  At his coming our self-confidence is shaken.  Our robust confidence, even in grace, is destroyed.”[1]  It is critical that we move beyond self-deception and self-importance and enter the sanctuary of prayer where we can truly be transformed. 

The greatest transformation will come when, through prayer, we humble ourselves and confess our sins – our sins against God.  Through the searching act of prayer we unearth the sins that we have hidden from ourselves and allow the light of Christ to illuminate the changes that He must make in us.  Remember David’s plea, “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!  And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” (Psalm 139:23-24)[2]  It is through the act of prayer that we are able to engage in true confession and repentance. “Face your special weaknesses and sins before God.  Force yourself to say to God exactly where you are wrong.  When anything goes wrong, do not ask to have it set right, without asking in prayer what it was in you that made it go wrong.  It is somewhat fruitless to ask for a general grace to help specific flaws, sins, trials, and griefs.  Let prayer be concrete, actual, a direct product of life’s real experiences.”[3]  The individual who actively seeks the Lord in prayer cannot remain distracted by the entertainments and temporary cares of our culture.  They are confronted with the kingdom of heaven that is at hand.  

Prayer wakes us up to the reality of the spiritual battle in which we find ourselves.  “True searching prayer is incompatible with spiritual dullness or self-complacency.”[4]  It is through prayer that we are able to once again get in touch with what is important to God and turn away from what is important to men.  “Not to pray is not to discern – not to discern the things that really matter, and the powers that really rule.  The mind may see acutely and clearly, but the personality perceives nothing subtle and mighty; and then it comforts and deludes itself by saying it is simple and not sophisticated; and it falls a victim to the Pharisaism of the plain man.”[5]  In the 1999 film, The Matrix, the main character, Neo, is visited by a group of rebels from the real world that have hacked into the computer reality where humans are imprisoned.  Neo wakes up from years of being trapped by the matrix, a computer program with the sole purpose of entertaining his mind while his body is used to produce electricity.  Our culture is very much like this computer program, the matrix, in that we have been lulled to sleep by the vices of this age.  It is time that we wake up and it is the act of praying that will ultimately free our minds.  We must wake up.  We must pray.

Generation X and Y have been characterized as a people desiring to be authentic for the supposed purpose of insuring their personal integrity.  How can one pray if it doesn’t feel right?  How can one talk to God if it feels fake or simply like the individual is going through the motions?  In a desire to be real and to wait for the appropriate and truthful mood for prayer, prayer has been abandoned.  It is a lie to believe that we must wait for the right mood or spirit to hit us.  Satan has used this lie effectively and he is cutting off our communication with God and the subsequent transformation that can occur within our hearts.  “To cultivate the ceaseless spirit of prayer, use more frequent acts of prayer.  To learn to pray with freedom, force yourself to pray.  The great liberty begins in necessity.  Do not say, ‘I cannot pray. I am not in the spirit.’  Pray till you are in the spirit.”[6]  Prayer is a discipline.  For those who have taken on the goal of running a marathon, they do not wait for the mood to strike them to run.  Running must become a discipline if one is to go the distance.  For those who have been called by Christ to be his disciples, they do not wait for the mood to strike them to pray.  Praying must become a discipline if one is to go the distance with Christ!

Because we are so out of shape when it comes to praying, we are easily fatigued and disappointed when we put prayer into practice.  This culture of instant gratification has led us to believe that our prayers should be answered in the same fast food, anytime teller machine style to which we are accustomed.  Our timing is not God’s timing.  We want closure to come quickly and our timeframes are often short when, instead, we need to think eternally or at the very least press ahead with perseverance in order to see what God will do over time rather than being disillusioned by our belief that we should see the answer to our prayers in a matter of moments.  Prayer is a conversation and an interaction.  “We do not simply spread our thought out before God, but we offer it to Him, turn it on Him, bring it to bear on Him, press it on Him.  This is our great and first sacrifice, and it becomes pressure on God. We can offer God nothing so great and effective as our obedient acceptance of the mind and purpose and work of Christ.  It is not easy.  It is harder than any idealism.  But then it is very mighty. And it is a power that grows by exercise.”[7]  Our quick and solitary prayer needs to turn into lengthy ceaseless prayer like that of the persistent widow we learn about in Luke 18.  "In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor regarded man;  and there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, 'Vindicate me against my adversary.'  For a while he refused; but afterward he said to himself, 'Though I neither fear God nor regard man,  yet because this widow bothers me, I will vindicate her, or she will wear me out by her continual coming.’”  (Luke 18:2-5)  We must ask and keep on asking having the faith that at any moment God may act where He may not have acted before.  Let us wear God out with our continual coming.

We should increase the maturity of our prayers and not simply list off the daily needs that come to mind.  As we exercise the act of prayer we become more serious about the subject matter of our prayers.  We need to pray that our prayers would be enriched and more effective.  We need to pray for joy, for power, for wisdom, for discernment, for opportunity, and for God to use our suffering.  “Prayer is an encounter of wills – till one will or the other give way.  It is not a spiritual exercise merely, but in its maturity it is a cause acting on the course of God’s world . . . ‘Thy will be done’ is no utterance of mere resignation; though it has mostly come to mean this in a Christianity which tends to canonize the weak instead of strengthening them.  As prayer it was a piece of active co-operation with God’s will.  It was a positive part of it.  It is one thing to submit to a stronger will, it is another to be one with it.  We submit because we cannot resist it; but when we are one with it we cannot succumb.”[8]  Through this relationship and conversation we speak to God and in speaking to God we are changed. 

“Prayer is the highest use to which speech can be put.  It is the highest meaning that can be put into words.  Indeed, it breaks through language and escapes into action.”[9]  As our minds and hearts are accustomed to this spiritual discipline our body begins to conform to the same pattern of living.  Our will is conformed to God’s will and the habits of the previous way of living are put away.

            Having fooled ourselves into believing that we do not need God, we must first remember that we are mere creatures.  In the act of worship, in praying to God we submit ourselves to the Creator.  In generations past people were confronted with their needs.  It was God who brought rain to the land and without Him they would starve.  It was God who healed and without Him they would suffer pain and death.  Today mankind has removed their perceived need for prayer by controlling the flow of water and irrigating dry lands, by bringing food to the corner store by the truckloads, by providing doctors, hospitals, medicine, and medical insurance to the affluent.  We have disguised our need for God and replaced the habit of prayer with the habits of modern living.  “[To pray] means the constant bent and drift of the soul . . . All the current of its being set towards Him.  It means being ‘in Christ,’ being in such a moving, returning Christ – reposing in this godward, and not merely godlike, life.  The note of prayer becomes the habit of the heart, the tone and tension of its new nature; in such a way that when we are released from the grasp of our occupations the soul rebounds to its true bend, quest, and even pressure upon God.  It is the soul’s habitual appetite and habitual food.”[10]  Prayer should be our soul’s appetite and habitual food and not the temporal comforts of this world.

            Our Lord Jesus Christ set the perfect example in His own life.  In Matthew 14 we find the people hungry for food and it is Jesus who miraculously provides through the hands of the disciples to feed the five thousand.  The people were hungry for bread to satisfy their stomachs and yet Jesus was hungry for prayer to satisfy the needs of His soul.  We are told, “And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray.”  (Matthew 14:23)  It was their on the mountain that Jesus found His sustenance as He communed with His heavenly Father.  Before breaking the bread that He shared with the crowds it was a prayer that was lifted up and then answered.  Perhaps Jesus is teaching us by example here that it is prayer that we need more than the food that God provides.  We need to recognize the true provider and remember that He is the source of all good things.

            As we practice the discipline of prayer our hearts are transformed.  Not only do we recognize the nature of our relationship as creatures to the Creator but also we learn to be servants and ambassadors for the King to whom we pray.  Prayer calls us to faithful action.  “Every true prayer carries with it a vow.  If it does not, it is not in earnest.  It is not of a piece with life.  Can we pray in earnest if we do not in the act commit ourselves to do our best to bring about the answer? . . . What is the value of praying for the poor if all the rest of our time and interest is given only to becoming rich?  Where is the honesty of praying for our country if in our most active hours we are chiefly occupied in making something out of it, if we are strange to all sacrifice for it?  Prayer is one form of sacrifice, but if it is the only form it is vain oblation.”[11]  We need to bring the sacrifice of prayer before the Lord and follow it with the sacrifice of service to Him.  If we are to show our allegiance to God in prayer and recognize our need of Him will we not also be moved to do His bidding?  If Satan can paralyze us by keeping us so distracted that we fail to pray, he effectively keeps us from the work of God as ambassadors for the kingdom of heaven. 

Our goal needs to be a life of action informed and guided by prayer.  It is a diet that prepares our bodies for the test of endurance and the work that is ahead.  The act of confession is integral to the cleansing and preparation of our bodies.  The prayer of provision yields the daily bread that will sustain us.  The prayer of praise reminds us for whom we live and how good our God is in His mercy and grace to us.  If we do not lift our voice in praise we are told that the rocks will cry out.  This has been a silent generation that has failed to approach the Lord in prayer.  May we never hear the rocks crying out because of our silence!   

Have we lost the discipline and practice of prayer?  If so, we must actively engage in the war against this evil.  It is a great sin not to pray and, as with all sins, there are great consequences that accompany it.  “The worst sin is prayerlessness.  Overt sin, or crime, or the glaring inconsistencies which often surprise us in Christian people are the effect of this, or its punishment.  We are left by God for lack of seeking Him.  The history of the saints shows often that their lapses were the fruit and nemesis of slackness or neglect in prayer.”[12]  If we are convicted that we are a slack generation and a people who have neglected to turn to God in prayer, then we must come to grips with the very real concern of the consequences.  To be left by God is to be turned over to our own selfish inclinations.  At times it seems that this generation is so self-absorbed, so wrapped up in the distractions of the moment that we might not notice if we were left by God.  Have you ever seen a young child who catches a glimpse of their parent walking away as if they were about to leave a store and leave the child behind?  There is a little more distance between the parent and child than usual.  There is a greater gap than expected and it catches the child off guard.  The child yells out in fear, “Papa, don’t leave me!” and immediately runs to embrace the parent. “Son, Papa wasn’t going to leave you – he knew exactly where you were – he would never leave you.”  When we recognize the unsettling distance that there is between God and us, may we cry out in prayer like that little child.  The Lord has promised us that He will never leave us or forsake us.  We must not forsake Him in our failure to pray.