Day 18: The Prayer Jesus Taught Us

[The following is adapted from Live Prayerfully: How Ordinary Lives Become Prayerful]

Certainly, as followers of Christ, no other prayer is as central to us as the one that Jesus taught us. I know of no sense in which we can call ourselves followers of Jesus without taking very seriously the words he gave us when he said, “When you pray, pray like this, ‘Our Father, who art in heaven...’”

One way that I have found particularly helpful to be guided by Jesus’ prayer is to allow it to focus my prayers for others and for myself. For example, let’s say I am praying for my children. I can pray for them by saying,

Our Father in heaven, and be mindful and thankful that whether I’m with them or away from them, that God is present with and caring for them just as he is present with and caring for me.

I pray, hallowed be thy name, and I’m praying that God’s name would be treasured and honored in their lives and in mine.

And I continue on through the prayer, being mindful of praying it for the other person. Then I can pray, Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, in my children and in our family, just as it is in heaven, praying that their lives in this world, today and always would be an extension of God’s life among us.

And I pray, Give us this day our daily bread, praying that my little boy and my little girl would have all of the things they need today to live their lives fully in God: physically, emotionally, spiritually, relationally, in every way.

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us... My children are now at the age that, regardless of what time of day you might be reading this, they've likely built a list of things for which they need forgiveness. As I pray this for them, I am praying particularly that they would always know our home to be a place of forgiveness and mercy. They’re going to mess up, and by praying this I’m in part praying that when that time comes, I’ll be a forgiving father to them just as my Father has forgiven me.

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. What better thing to pray for your children, or for whomever, than that they would be led along, not in the ways of the world around them, but in God’s ways, and that they would be completely and fully delivered from all the kinds of evil that will ever be a threat to them every day of their lives?

For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. These kids are my children, yet they are God’s children. Just as my name is on the line in their lives, because we’ve entrusted them to God, his name is on the line with them too, and so I pray that their lives will, today and always, give him glory.

It’s interesting that we know even as early as 60 A.D., within a generation of Jesus’ own life, even before much of the New Testament had been written, Christians were being instructed to pray these words of Jesus three times a day. Certainly we can benefit from doing the same, and perhaps you'd like to take up that practice for the remainder of Lent, realizing when you pray these words, you're joining together with millions of other Christians around the world praying them today, and throughout history, all around the world.

A Prayer for the Day:

O God, the author of peace and lover of concord, to know you is eternal life and to serve you is perfect freedom: Defend us, your humble servants, in all assaults of our enemies; that we, surely trusting in your defense, may not fear the power of any adversaries; through the might of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.*

A Prayer for the Week:

Gracious Father, whose blessed Son Jesus Christ came down from heaven to be the true bread which gives life to the world: Evermore give us this bread, that he may live in us, and we in him; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.*

Click here for this week's scripture readings.

*From The Book of Common Prayer

[This is part of 40 Days of Prayer: Daily Emails for Lent]

Day 17: Don't Pray To Be Seen By Others

If you've ever been part of any Christian group that ended its times together by someone saying a prayer, you've probably experienced something like this: Person in charge: Okay. Anyone want to say the prayer? [Silence] Person in charge: C'mon. It's no big deal. Somebody? [Silence that's more awkward, with increased fidgeting] Someone in the group, who also said the prayer the previous three weeks: [Sigh] I'll do it...

I grew up participating in this routine in Sunday School classes, youth group meetings, etc., and somewhere along the line the impression was given to me that it was a mark of maturity in our lives as Christians to be the one willing to heave the sigh, say "I'll do it," and then say the prayer so that the awkwardness could be over and everyone could leave. If that was true, then it was a mark of super-maturity whenever someone would skip the awkwardness, fidgeting, and sighing to volunteer themselves immediately upon the request. (Or perhaps, if not maturity, it was a mark that they were in a hurry to get to the dessert, or the football game, or whatever was happening next.)

Since I had a sincere desire to live as God wanted, and being the one willing to say the prayer was part of my picture of a mature Christian, somewhere along the line I decided I would be one of those willing to pray aloud whenever the awkward silence reached a certain level without anyone else volunteering to do it. That willingness opened the door to a whole other set of popular prayer games. As I got further into my teenage years, I began to make friends with others who were also willing to be the ones to say the prayers. Again, out of our young sincere desire to please God, we would sometimes arrange ourselves in groups to do this kind of praying together, and I discovered something interesting: in that kind of setting, the expectation changed from someone in the group being willing to say the prayer to everyone in the group being required to say a prayer. If we didn't pray anything aloud, it would obviously mean we didn't love Jesus very much.

Once I figured that out, and was praying aloud every time it was my turn so that no one would have cause to doubt my love of God, another level opened up to me. If I said things in my prayer that others in my "we're-willing-to-pray-aloud" group really liked, they would respond–right there as I was praying! Everyone seemed to have their own way of doing it. For some, it was a "Yes, Jesus," or "Yes, Lord." Others might give a more conservative "Amen." The most common response seemed to be an "Mmmmm," which I learned to translate as, "I really like what he just said."

I no longer accept anyone's willingness to pray aloud as an indicator of their love for God. Nor do I have any problem with people who have their own verbal way of agreeing with a prayer that someone else has said. The problem that I have in looking back on those experiences is with me. Yes, I meant the things I said in the prayers, but I was paying at least as much attention to the reactions of the people hearing me–even calculating my words in order to try go get a reaction from them–as I was paying attention to God.

In those days, I didn't know these words of Jesus as well as I do now:

And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. (Matthew 6:5-8, NIV)

These days, apparently, I usually pray with more reserved people than I did back then because–even though I still do pray aloud in different contexts fairly regularly–those kinds of reactions don't happen as often as they used to. But I'm fine with that. Thankfully, I've come to see the point of our praying as enabling us to live prayerful lives rather than trying to see who can get the most "Mmmm"s and "Yes Lord"s in the prayer meeting. Throughout the rest of this week, we'll look at three ways of praying that can be helpful when we attempt to follow up on Jesus' "when you pray..." instructions: praying with other people's words, praying without words, and praying with our own words.

A Prayer for the Day:

O God, the King eternal, whose light divides the day from the night and turns the shadow of death into the morning: Drive far from us all wrong desires, incline our hearts to keep your law, and guide our feet into the way of peace; that, having done your will with cheerfulness while it was day, we may, when night comes, rejoice to give you thanks; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.*

A Prayer for the Week:

Gracious Father, whose blessed Son Jesus Christ came down from heaven to be the true bread which gives life to the world: Evermore give us this bread, that he may live in us, and we in him; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.*

Click here for this week's scripture readings.

*From The Book of Common Prayer

[This is part of 40 Days of Prayer: Daily Emails for Lent]

Third Sunday in Lent

Readings for the Third Sunday in Lent:

Isaiah 55:1-9 Psalm 63:1-8 1 Corinthians 10:1-13 Luke 13:1-9

A Prayer for the Day:

O God, you make us glad with the weekly remembrance of the glorious resurrection of your Son our Lord: Give us this day such blessing through our worship of you, that the week to come may be spent in your favor; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.*

A Prayer for the Week:

Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.*

*From The Book of Common Prayer

[This is part of 40 Days of Prayer: Daily Emails for Lent]

Day 16: Big Spending and Over-Saving vs. Contentment and Generosity

Apparently some of us are wired to be big spenders, while others of us are over-savers. Regardless of which side of that spectrum you may lean toward, we can all become a third type of person: someone who lives in contentment and generosity. Yet contentment and generosity don't become ours by accident. In a world like the one you and I live in, they have to be cultivated. Studies say that we receive an average of 600 advertising messages every day, and it's safe to say that every one of those is pulling us toward being a big spender (You have to buy your wife this big diamond or she may not kiss you any more), an over-saver (You need to invest now in gold, because the entire economy could collapse around us–then at least if it did...well, you would own some gold). I have yet to see any advertisement whose point is, Be content with what you have so that you can be more generous to others.

So if contentment and generosity are qualities we desire for ourselves, we need to pursue them resolutely. As Jesus indicated several verses after he said "When you give...," the way that we pursue these things is by seeking God's kingdom.

But what in the world does that mean, how are we supposed to do it, and how does it help us become content and generous?

Perhaps the simplest summary of the meaning of God's kingdom is what God is doing in our world. If God is king in any meaningful sense, surely he has say over some things and is active in some way. So when we seek God's kingdom, we seek to understand what God is doing–in our own lives, around the world, and in all of creation throughout history.

To do this, we pay attention to the same three areas that we constantly develop as Jesus' followers: our minds, our habits, and our relationships.

Then, once we begin taking next steps in each of those areas (which usually make themselves obvious to us when we start looking for them), over time we will notice something: characteristics like contentment and generosity are no longer things that we have to grit our teeth and try to force. Rather, they begin to come naturally. We might even be surprised at how easy they become, all because we've begun to learn to live in God's kingdom.

In God's kingdom, we become convinced of the truth of those opening words of Psalm 23: God is our shepherd, and therefore we will not lack anything. We no longer need to over-spend on clothes to get people to think of us in the right way. We no longer need to over-save, as if our futures were in our own hands rather than in God's. No, when we train ourselves to notice how abundantly generous God is–each day–toward us, then our fears begin to be laid aside and our big spending and over-saving naturally become transformed into contentment and generosity.

A Prayer for the Day:

Almighty God, who after the creation of the world rested from all your works and sanctified a day of rest for all your creatures: Grant that we, putting away all earthly anxieties, may be duly prepared for the service of your sanctuary, and that our rest here upon earth may be a preparation for the eternal rest promised to your people in heaven; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.*

A Prayer for the Week:

Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.*

Click here for this week's scripture readings.

*From The Book of Common Prayer

[This is part of 40 Days of Prayer: Daily Emails for Lent]

Day 15: Why We Don't Give in a Hurry

One of the most helpful guests our church has hosted in the last few years (in my opinion) was Dr. Richard Swenson. Swenson is a physician who is best known for helping people become aware of our need for what he calls margin. In his excellent book, Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives, Swenson defines margin as "the space between our load and our limits," suggesting that many of us are carrying loads that are beyond our limits in the four areas in his title, and his prescription is that we function best when we leave margin between the loads we carry and the limits that we naturally face as humans beings. Our discussion this week about Jesus' statement, "When you give..." brought to mind a story that Dr. Swenson told during his visit with us. He said that a group of researchers did a study on seminary students. These seminarians were told that they were given the assignment of giving a talk in a nearby room, and some of them were given the task of explaining Jesus' parable of the Good Samaritan. The primary variable in the study was the sense of hurry that was created for the students. Some were told that they were already running late and had actually been expected a few minutes ago. Others were told their audience was ready for them and that they should go right over into the other room. A third group was told that it would be a few minutes before their audience would be ready, but they might as well head over to the other room.

On the students' way from one room to another on their campus to give their talks, they each individually encountered a person lying in a doorway, doubled over, with eyes closed and coughing. The researchers' hypothesis was that the primary factor in whether or not students would stop to help would not be personality differences or religious commitment or other such factors, but simply how much hurry the seminarians sensed. They were exactly right. Of the seminary students who had some margin, who had been told they had a few minutes to spare, 63% stopped to help. Of those who were not early, but on time, 45% stopped to help. Of those running late, only 10% stopped to give any help to the obviously struggling person in the door. The study noted that some of the students even stepped over the apparently injured person. And half of these students were on their way to give a talk on the Good Samaritan!

The lesson we must learn from this is, regardless of our level of Christian devotion, we are much less likely to give of ourselves to others–whether it be through giving our time, resources, or other ways–when we are in a hurry. Hurry is an interior condition brought on when we feel threatened, but even though Jesus' threats were so real throughout his life–particularly on his way to Jerusalem and the cross–we never get the sense that he was in a hurry. Rather, he knew that despite the cross that awaited him, he was ultimately safe in God's kingdom.

So am I, and so are you. And that is why we can live–and give–at a kingdom pace. In tomorrow's final reflection on "When you give..." we'll take a closer look at how the reality of God's kingdom affects our giving.

[For a few other thoughts I've written on hurry and our lives with God, see "Prayer and Hurry" and "Will This Cause Me to be in a Hurry?"]

A Prayer for the Day:

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.*

A Prayer for the Week:

Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.*

Click here for this week's scripture readings.

*From The Book of Common Prayer

[This is part of 40 Days of Prayer: Daily Emails for Lent]

Day 14: The Difference We Can Make

One of my heroes was an old Texas oilman named Chester. Chester was a grandfather figure to me growing up, and he was one for whom giving was deeply ingrained as a habit. It’s likely that the majority of people who ever knew Chester have some story of his giving which few others know about, and after Chester's death it was fun to hear some of those stories surface even decades after they happened. His wife once mentioned to me that years ago Chester had a young man working with him on one of his oil rigs. Chester found out about the young guy’s desire to go to college. Rather than just wishing him luck and getting back to work, Chester told the boy, “I’ll put you through school.”

Then he did.

Chester didn’t flaunt his generosity, so I won't tell more stories of it here, but generosity was a habit for him, something that was ingrained in him deeply enough that it wasn’t at all difficult for him to give for the good of others.

Some of the moments with Chester that I’ll always cherish the most were in the last years of his life, when even though his health was declining, it gave me more chances than I’d had ever had before to just sit with him and hear stories of his life. One story from his childhood helped me to understand where his generosity came from:

He said that as a boy he was walking to town with his father one day. His father always kept a dollar bill folded up in his shirt pocket. As they were walking, a man came up to them saying that he was hungry and needed help and didn’t have any money to buy food, so Chester's father took the dollar bill from his pocket and gave it to the man.

As they kept walking, Chester said that he asked his father why he did that since it was the only dollar they had with them, and his father told him that the man asked for help, and he could help, so he gave the dollar.

Later in the day, as they made their walk back home, they walked past a saloon and saw the man to whom they’d given the dollar inside the saloon drinking. Chester said that he got angry and pointed the man out to his dad. His father’s response was, “That’s okay, son. If you give a dollar to a hundred people, ninety-nine of them might go do something like that. But think of the difference you’d make to the one who really needed it.”

I know some who have decided to give to agencies rather than giving money to individuals, but regardless of how each of us decides to approach this, it's clear that as generosity should be one of our marks as Jesus' followers. In his kingdom, we have no reason to fear being taken advantage of, so we are free to pursue being generous. We often try to make ourselves into generous people, then we just revert back to being as we always were. But with people like Chester, to whom–by the time I knew him–it was more natural to be generous than to be stingy, he never had to grit his teeth and make himself give to others while he really wanted to keep things for himself. No, his generosity began with a story like this that was deeply ingrained in him, then that story shaped his own habits throughout his life so that by the time I came along, giving to others was so deeply ingrained in him that it was a natural part of who he was.

A Prayer for the Day:

Heavenly Father, in you we live and move and have our being: We humbly pray you so to guide and govern us by your Holy Spirit, that in all the cares and occupations of our life we may not forget you, but may remember that we are ever walking in your sight; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.*

A Prayer for the Week:

Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.*

Click here for this week's scripture readings.

*From The Book of Common Prayer

[This is part of 40 Days of Prayer: Daily Emails for Lent]

Day 13: Wesley's Guidelines for Giving to Others

One of my more peculiar hobbies is reading sermons from the 1700s by John Wesley. The positive side of this hobby is that his sermons were brilliant. The lives of Christians from any tradition would be deeply enriched by reading them. The negative side of this hobby is that his sermons were long and boring. Christians from any tradition would fall asleep while reading them. Apparently good jokes weren't seen as an essential part of sermon preparation in 18th century England. From my perspective, the value of the brilliance of the sermons outweighs the challenge of drudging through them, because of those times when I come across something that's highly beneficial. This happened a couple of years ago as I was working my way through his series on Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. In the sermon [not so very creatively] titled, "Upon Our Lord's Sermon on the Mount, Discourse Three," Wesley responds to Jesus' statement, "Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you" with three very simple, but very helpful guidelines. They apply just as well in our day as in his.

1. Carefully avoid being in debt to anyone. Wesley makes the point that if we have debts, the things we give to help others are not our own to give, but they belong to someone else. Debt was a big problem in Wesley's day (his father, a priest, spent time in debtor's prison), and it is a huge problem for us today. Perhaps debt is more complex and sophisticated for us today than it was three hundred years ago, but principle is still clear: We are freest to do good for others with our resources when we owe nothing to anyone.
2. Take care of your own household. Wesley instructs us not even to consider things our own that are required for the physical and spiritual well-being of those in our own families. Caring for them is as much of a duty to God as anything else we do.
3. Then, give everything that remains, day by day and year by year for the good of others. He also notes that it will be impossible to address all of the needs in the world with the limitations we all have on how we can give of ourselves and our resources, so we should consider first the needs of "the household of faith," our brothers and sisters in Christ, wherever they may be.

Certainly this plan, written so long ago, doesn't spell out every detail of how we should handle giving for others today. But it is a serious call to deny ourselves and follow Jesus through giving, and as we consider this week Jesus' words that we're given each Lent, "When you give...,"we should reflect on how we can each best apply these three guidelines. (Perhaps a needed Lenten decision for some of us is to apply these things in more detail, and an excellent plan for our day is contained in Dave Ramsey's Baby Steps and Financial Peace University.)

A Prayer for the Day:

Lord God, almighty and everlasting Father, you have brought us in safety to this new day: Preserve us with your mighty power, that we may not fall into sin, nor be overcome by adversity; and in all we do, direct us to the fulfilling of your purpose; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.*

A Prayer for the Week:

Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.*

Click here for this week's scripture readings.

*From The Book of Common Prayer

[This is part of 40 Days of Prayer: Daily Emails for Lent]