Faith is a Walk

Fully broken I stand content
To live a life of dying
Fearing man, not so much
As fearing my self and deception

When the deep calls for response
Will I have one word of wisdom
When questioned as to my life
Can my death be a worthy defense

While theologians easily divide fear and faith
My heart is not so divided
Am I in pursuit of God’s ways
Or am I lazy

Called to do what I can not do
Gathering people when I delight not to
Broken by self awareness now
More broken by justice atoned

A public boast is a little thing
Who will stand firm in dark nights and isolated space
In this life of death to self
Brothers, Father, Spirit; guide me

Praying in Peoria

One great beauty of the Catholic church is their organization that supports people who live there life in community and give themselves to prayer. In the protestant world each one needs a worth greater than community and communion with God. If I plan and prepare for a one hour meeting, then I am a minister. If I give hours in intercession for others, I am lazy and need to get a job. After all I can always pray. But is it now the time for communion to be restored?

I feel such a pressure to earn money, have a good job and develop a platform to minister from. Yet I must tell you that when I stand and offer prayers for unknown people in unknown pain, when I give my self to God and feel His hope flow through me to those in need, suffering, isolated, rejected…. Even though I have no scorecard to verify my labor, even though I have not means of testing my fruitfulness, I hope in Christ that I have not lived in vain.

The hours I spend with God trying to find a place in this world that embraces me. Why should I seek a place to rest my head. Am I enough like Christ that I too suffer rejection in this life? Am I so off that the Bride rejects my folly, my stupid ways.

Dan 9:3 So I gave my attention to the Lord God to seek Him by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth and ashes.

What does that look like in 2007 in America? IHOP touches the nations, but will Peoria IL open up and receive? Will priests, singers, musicians and intercessors be a part of the life of God’s Bride in Peoria?

Dissatisfied

What if Satan came up with a plan to attack us and ruin our lives? What if that plan was to make us dissatisfied, to make us complain, to make us unhappy in most every area of life? So the evil one might make us complain about the government, our jobs, our mates, our families, our jobs and our churches.
What if "the plan" of the evil one was to make us hard, to have little faith, little hope? What if Satan won a victory over God by making us people who complain, who are critical, who have no hope in mankind or God? In time we might become a society of people who grumble and complain, doing little if anything to make life better. And why should we labor to make things better, someone else or something else will just come along and ruin it!
Maybe we should look at all the sources of our life that bring us messages of dissatisfaction. We should look at what we watch and listen to. We should watch what we read and how we read. We should neglect idle comments, not listen to vain opinions and be careful to examine things to see the truth, the good and the just; not to just fill our mouths with grumbling and complaining.
I just came from a week in the out doors. No matter how stormy it is, nature does not complain. Even when the winds of life break the trees and overrun the streams; you will hear no grumbling remarks from nature. Should not created man take a lesson on life? Have you ever thought of what "life" is? What does it mean to be alive? What is living about? What is it about the very nature of life that should cause rejoicing, hope and value?
In the days past there was a people of God who traveled through the wilderness with God, yet all the time grumbled and complained. Is the church in America just like those people? I hope that I am not.

God Uses Props

As I was reading through the O.T. I noticed how many props God used. If an ax head fell into the water the prophet did not pray, "float". No the prophet threw a stick in the water. If one prophet was going to pass on his power to another, a mantle or "light summer jacket" was given as the method of transmission. In our day I think we would say "receive" or "take it" and there would be no object involved.

Could it be that we are enlightened now, more academic and we do not need props or equipment to do the work of the Lord. Maybe we are more educated and we trust words more than images. Maybe we just don 't know what they knew?

I was thinking about taking my walking stick and laying in across the face of the next sick person that wanted me to pray for them. By "laying" I mean nicely, politely. I think it could get the same results as my verbal prayers. When did we become a society of Christians who function in a word only ministry style?

At the end of the day the Holy Spirit must be the one to engage the human heart with the message of God. Yet even today the Lord Himself still uses nature and imagery to connect with us. So maybe we too can be used in partnership with the Holy Spirit to work the work of God with sticks and stones. I know of one stick (cross) and one stone (seal on the tomb) that were dramatic tools.