Prayer Isn't Only Words

It is never a light thing to press towards the innermost place of His sanctuary.

Put off thy shoes; It is holy ground.

~ Amy Carmichael

 

One of the most popular topics of discussion for teachers, authors, and theologians is prayer.  Even though everyone agrees that we should pray, we still have questions.  How does prayer work?  How do we pray?  Do our prayers really matter?  What should our prayers be composed of - praise, gratitude/thankfulness, requests for needs, intercession, begging/pleading/cutting deals, whining/complaining, questions asking why, last minute cries for help?  Do we even really need to ask since He already knows our needs?

 

Most people approach prayer as language/conversation, and it is.  However, as I grow older, my prayers seem to be starting in a different place than language.  I find that prayer is more of a positioning of myself, a placement of myself in the hands of the Maker of all.

 

Patricia Hampl uses this analogy.  Picture a stream flowing down a mountainside.  God is on top of the mountain; all of our concerns are downstream at the bottom of the mountain where all of the boulders and silt are. 

 

When I approach prayer as just language/conversation, I am starting downhill instead of starting where the stream begins.  If I approach God upstream at the top of the mountain, my perspective changes.  What I see first is Him and His love and mercy and grace and goodness to us all.  Up there I see who I really am and how little my concerns might be in light of Him who is Lord of all.  When I can remember to start upstream, I place my attention on the one who is Lord of all that is or isn't.  

 

I believe this is what the psalmist was encouraging us to do in Psalm 46: 8-11 [Message].

 

Attention all!

See the marvels of God!

Step out of the traffic!

Take a long, loving look at Me, your High God above everything.

 

We have been given an awesome invitation.  "Come.  Behold the works of God.  Be still, cease striving and know that I am God.  I will be exalted."

 

Our lives are so busy that sometimes this invitation gets lost on the buffet along with all of the other reminders of things to do.  Yet, this act of prayer is what gives me life and purpose and identity.  Therefore, I must carve out a place for this stillness.  I cannot wait until I have some free time.  This must be a priority, for this is nourishment for my soul without which I will just simply exist and not thrive or be alive.

 

Philip Yancey says that stillness comes before the "knowing."  In other words, I must be still, be quiet to see the mystery and be otherworldly.  I must be still to simply be.

 

This stillness gives me focus.  As I focus on Him and all that He is, "the things of earth grow strangely dim" and my problems don't seem as big as they once were.  Here my vision is the long view of things, eternity's view.

 

Isaiah 30:15 [ESV] 

Thus said the Lord God, the Holy One.

"In returning (in turning back to me) and rest (stop your own silly efforts)

you shall be saved.

In quietness (settling down) and confidence (trust, complete dependence upon)

shall be your strength.

 

The Latin word for be still is vacate.  So in essence, God is inviting us to take a vacation holiday from trying to be in control.  He is inviting us into a place where we can be vulnerable and honest, where He is who He is and we are who we are in all our shortcomings and needs and emptiness.  Not only does He give us a vacation, but He also gives us gifts.  He responds to us with mercy and grace and forgiveness and healing and love.

 

I'm not advocating giving up the language part of prayer; I'm just issuing an invitation to start in a different place and proceed to the language from there. 

 

Our prayers really do matter.  If they didn't, Jesus wouldn't have prayed as much as He did, and He wouldn't have told us to pray and to ask.  He prayed as if His prayers made a difference, and He is still interceding on our behalf today.  While He walked this earth and was vulnerable as we are and rejected and tested, He clung to prayer as if it were a lifeline.  Prayer is a lifeline, but there is more to it than just the words.  I and my father are one; Him in Me and I in Him.  Jesus did pray words, but He also positioned Himself rightly in the Father and invited us to live, move, and have our being in Him. 

 

 

 

 

 





Confession of Love

Crowded restaurants . . . cards serious, cheesy, risqué - gigantic and small . . . chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate in stores, on television, in magazines . . . teddy bears dressed in shiny Elvis attire . . . heart antlers . . . gifts galore - jewelry, perfume, lingerie . . .

Yes, love is in the air!  Can't you just hear Barry White?

How did I spend my Valentine's week? 

• In Gatlinburg with my mom, dad, sister, and hubby to celebrate my mom and hubby's birthdays
• Riding on beautiful snow covered mountain roads
• In a chalet napping, putting together a puzzle, watching old movies, laughing and reminiscing
• In a casino losing $20 to a one-armed bandit
• In an outlet mall shopping, finding that one buried treasure I had looked for so long
• Getting a free extra day at the chalet
• Watching my 63-year-old husband snowtube for the first time.  He did really well on the slopes but busted on the escalator going up there.  I have never laughed so much in my entire life.

It was a great week. 

Saturday, Lanny and I ate at Cracker Barrel, bought groceries, and exchanged cards.  Then I went to Vineyard Recovery Church.  Candles lit the room, and heart boxes filled with M & M's surprised us all.  We sang about God's love for us and our love for Him, and even sang a spontaneous song.  Michael taught about God's love, and Barry ended the evening.  Ministry time followed, and as usual Holy Spirit showed up and people were moved by His love. Afterwards, our "core" group met and loved on each other.

Yes, Love was in the air.

This morning, I revisited Amy Carmichael's Gold Cord and just happened to land on more love.
Amy went to South India in 1895 and remained there without break until she entered "into Life" in January 1951.  I discovered her writings in Jim Eliott's journal.  She started an orphanage and school there in India that rescued thousands of children many of whom were destined to be temple prostitutes.  The last few years of her life, she did the work from a bed of pain.  She wasn't just a great woman who did a great work; she was an extraordinary woman who did an extraordinary work because of an extraordinary God.  Below is the fellowship's "Confession of Love."  Those who wanted to work there signed this confession.  It became their covenant with each other and with God.

 

Confession of Love

• My Vow:  Whatsoever Thou sayest unto me, by Thy grace I will do it.
• My Constraint:  Thy love, O Christ, my Lord.
• My Confidence:  Thou art able to keep that which I have committed unto Thee.
• My Joy:  To do Thy will, O Lord.
• My Discipline:  That which I would not choose, but which Thy love appoints.
• My Prayer:  Conform my will to Thine.
• My Motto:  Love to live; live to love.
• My Portion:  The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance.

Teach us, good Lord, to serve Thee more faithfully;

to give and not to count the cost;

to fight and not to heed the wounds;

to toil and not to seek for rest;

to labour and not to ask for any reward save that of knowing that we do Thy will, O Lord.

                                                                                                                                 March 18, 1916

O Lord, bathe us is this kind of love toward You and toward others.  Love like this moves mountains and humbles nations and brings freedom and restoration to all.

 

Brokenness

Lately I seem to be doing a study on brokenness.  Everything I read, everything I listen to brings me back to this topic - even a new song I have written.

Ten years ago I wrote a poem entitled "Only the Broken."  The gist of the poem is that only the broken can mend; only the sick can be healed; only the restless, stilled; only the empty, filled.  You get it?  I was coming out of a year of brokenness at the time.

Some of the worst years and best years of my life have been within the last thirteen years.  My life has read like a Dickens' novel:  It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. 

All of us are broken somewhere, sometime, somehow.  How do we deal with the pain of the brokenness?  Philip Yancey's motto is something like this:  Pain is good; pain is bad; pain can be redeemed. 

• Pain is good because if we eliminate pain, people will destroy themselves because pain is one of the universe's ways of warning us that something is wrong or dangerous. 
• Pain is bad because it is part of the "fall." 
• Pain can be redeemed because out of the worst of the whatevers we face, good can come. (Romans 8)

Ultimately, pain and brokenness are a given. 

Amy Carmichael tells the story of the opal in Gold Cord.

An opal is made only of desert dust, sand, and silica.

It owes its beauty and preciousness to a defect.

It is a stone with a broken heart.

It is full of minute fissures which admit air, and the air refracts the light,
creating the fire in its midst. 

Hence, its lovely hues, its flames.

 

We are very much like the opal if we humble ourselves under the hand of He who loves us most of all.  Then our brokenness can refract His light like the fire in the opal's broken heart, and our pain is redeemed.

He has made everything beautiful in His time.  (Ecclesiastes 3:11) 











Oh, that my heart
would be a holy place,
haunted by His presence,
pulsing with His grace.

My song would then be pure.
My actions would ooze love.
My words would drip with wisdom
and be filled with mercy from above.

I would see as he sees,
know as He knows,
love as He loves,
and go where He goes.

The privilege of my existence,
my loveliest prayer would be:
to pour out my life for Him
as He did so for me.

       ~ a birthday gift from above
                 May 2014

All About the Gold, 'Bout the Gold, 'Bout the Gold

Lately, especially after reading William Penn's No Cross, No Crown and studying Deuteronomy, I have been thinking about holiness.  There is holiness imparted to us through the finished work of Christ on the cross, but there is an echo of, "Be holy because I am Holy," throughout every book in the New Testament.  

After initially meeting Jesus and asking Him into our hearts, there should be the desire to walk and talk and live as He did.  In order to do that, we have to be vulnerable and come to God in honesty and ask Him to inhabit every area of our lives.  This isn't a one time event; it is a lifetime event.  If we cooperate with Holy Spirit, God in His mercy will begin to change us on the inside so that we become transparent enough for Jesus to shine through.  That is their goal; this should be our desire.  

Change is never easy, nor is it painless.  This change isn't easy or painless either.

This morning two passages in the Bible really pressed this home to me.

Malachi 3:1-3  Look!  I am sending my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me.  Then the Lord you are seeking will suddenly come to his Temple . . .Who will be able to endure it when he comes?  Who will be able to face him when he appears?  For he will be like a blazing fire that refines metal or like a strong soap that whitens clothes.  He will sit and judge like a refiner of silver, watching closely as the dross is burned away.  He will purify the Levites, refining them like gold or silver, so that they may once again offer acceptable sacrifices to the Lord.

Yes, this is the Old Testament, and the prophet Malachi is speaking to an Israel, specifically to Israel's leaders the Levites, who has turned away from God and forgotten His blessings so many times that God finally said, "Enough!" and sent most of them into captivity or to their death.  The Refiner He speaks of is the coming Messiah, Jesus, whom the Jews still rejected.  Messiah would come as a Refiner, one who purifies and eliminates the dross from the precious metal.

Later, the scriptures counsel the church to buy gold tried in the fire.  Revelation 3:18/Revelation 21:18    I counsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in the fire - pure gold, like unto clear glass.

I did a little reading about gold. 

• Of all metals, gold is the most malleable, Latin for a metal that can easily be hammered out after it has been heated to a certain temperature by fire .
• It is also ductile, Latin for capable of being drawn out into a thin wire, stretched to almost breaking.
• Gold can be beaten into plates of leaves so thin that it takes 300,000 of them placed one on top of another to make one inch. 
• This beaten, hammered gold is so transparent that rays of sunlight can pass right through it like sunlight shines through a windowpane - "like unto clear glass."

First comes the fire; then comes the hammer over and over again until nothing but transparency remains. 

He is the Refiner.  We are the precious gold He has purchased with His blood.  His blood destroyed our sin nature.  Our character is His to form.  He uses fire and a hammer to remove the dross and make us more like Him, more like Pappa.

My prayer is that I will be alert, willing, malleable, and ductile.  He promises that He will be with us every step of the way and that we will survive.

Refiner's fire
My heart's one desire
Is to be holy
Set apart for You, Lord
I choose to be
Holy
Set apart for You, my Master
Ready to do Your will
   ~ Brian Doerksen

Broken reed that I am,
I come in pain and joy to Thee.
No service to offer,
no song to sing,
no question needing answers . . .
simply,
humbly,
to love Thee.

Caged bird, though I be free,
I come in pain and joy to Thee.
Nothing to confess,
nothing to profess,
no where I'd rather be . . .
simply,
humbly,
to love Thee.

Broken and caged, though I be,
my Lovely One treasures me,
and through the loneliness,
sleeplessness,
and pain . . .
comes simply,
tenderly,
to love . . . me.

inspired by Amy Carmichael - "God never wastes His children's pain."          debbie.handy1@facebook.com

Of Sand and Pearls

I went to bed last night thinking about the mountains that each of us face in our lives.  These mountains are known by many names:  trials, temptations, addictions, problems, sickness and disease, aging, mental and emotional disorders, loneliness, etc.  Regardless of the name, they are real issues that we must deal with sometimes on a daily basis.

Each one of us deals with one or more of these issues even if we deny the truth of their existence in our lives.  We are all broken somewhere.  We all hurt sometime.  We have all failed.

I would love for God to miraculously, instantaneously remove the issues I and others face, but He rarely does so.  These temptations, distractions, failures, guilt, shame, self-hatred, detrimental habits rarely go quietly or instantaneously off into the night somewhere never to rear their ugly heads again.  No, that is too easy. 

The struggle we have with our "issues" reminded me of pearls.

Mr. Oyster is minding his own business at the bottom of the ocean.  As he takes in water, a grain of sand gets lodged inside his muscles.  He begins to struggle to rid himself of this aggravating obstacle and slowly begins to secrete layer upon layer of nacre to coat the sand so that it isn't as bothersome.  Day in and day out, month after month, year after year, he continues with his struggle with this tiny grain of sand.  Then one day a fisherman catches him, opens him up, and finds a pearl, not a grain of sand.  The oyster's struggle with the grain of sand produced something valuable.

More than likely we, like others before us, will conquer our "issues" the same way they have been conquered in the past.

• Through self-discipline and persistence.
• Through community - intimate relationship with God our Maker, our Redeemer, the One who knows us better than we know ourselves and intimate relationship with a body of people who may struggle with the same struggle but who have chosen to love us unconditionally in a real, honest way
• Through prayer

Yes, God could and often does heal our issues miraculously and instantaneously, but most of the time He seems more interested in developing our character rather than making us comfortable.  So many scriptures talk about this, and so many men and women in the Bible are examples of His developing their character through the struggles they face.  We live in a broken world and are broken in areas in our lives.  The things that bring us the most discomfort are often the very tools God uses to fashion our character.

So when "issues" arise and when my expectations for life and people and myself aren't working out, I try not to get angry with God.  I humble myself before Him with empty hands and try to trust Him through the struggle into the renewal and growth He has promised.  St. Augustine said, "God gives where He finds empty hands.  Hands that are full and fists cannot receive."

Pappa knows best what will grow my character and yours.  He is present and attentive to us.  He is always thinking about us awaiting our trust. 

    











debbie.handy1@facebook.com