Tag: prayer

My Empty Heart

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Compassionate Lord,

Thy mercies have brought me to the dawn of another day,

Vain will be its gift unless I grow in grace,

          increase in knowledge,

          ripen for spiritual harvest.

Let me this day know Thee as Thou art,

          love Thee supremely,

          serve Thee wholly,

          admire Thee fully.

Through grace let my will respond to Thee,

Knowing that power to obey is not in me, but

   that Thy free love alone enables me to serve Thee.

Here then is my empty heart,

   overflow it with Thy choicest gifts.

This prayer from the Valley of Vision reads like poetry. The first line calls to mind Lamentations 3 but does something interesting by flipping the wording. The Lamentations passage acknowledges that God’s mercies are never-ending. They are new every morning. This passage is always a breath of fresh air when we feel like we’re at a roadblock, when things aren’t going our way. We recall this to be reminded that it is God who sustains and blesses us. We’re reminded that things can be better.

However, in this prayer the author takes it a step further to remind us that it is a mercy all its own that gets us to the new day in the first place. This is both a sobering reminder that we are not guaranteed tomorrow and a catalyst to action because we have been gifted another day to serve and worship Him.

But how are we going to do that? Historically, people don’t have a great track record at extending kindness in the midst of a pandemic. We’re captured by fear and suspicion. Sure, there are stories of selfless people sacrificing everything for others. Nevertheless, I fear that these stories are the exception. Things can quickly move to an every person for themselves mentality. What a great reminder for the mercy of a new day, “vain will be its gifts unless I grow in grace.”

This is not a call to ignore the dangers of this thing and to put other people at risk. Part of what it may mean to love our neighbors at this time is to remain distant from them. We use wisdom during these moments, but whatever we do, we don’t stop loving, caring, and showing people that they are not forgotten. This is, however, a call to be aware of your attitude toward those around you. How are you continuing to relate and grow in empathy rather than close yourself off and grow in distrust?

So, let us know and love God for who he is, and let us serve him faithfully by our love, extended not just vertically to God but horizontally to our neighbors as well. 

Prayer and Reflection

Pray that God instills in us a desire for grace rather than suspicion. Open your hearts and offer the empty vessel to the Lord that it may be formed into His likeness and filled with the Spirit’s fruit. Which of those fruits do you need most right now? Ask for that.

Nothing Can Separate

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The Church of England wrote a prayer for those affected by coronavirus, which today is the overwhelming majority of people in the world. It’s offered here as our prayer for the day. I’ll be using it as a guide throughout the day in my own times of prayer. I hope it can be beneficial to you in that way as well.

Keep us, good Lord,

under the shadow of your mercy.

Sustain and support the anxious,

be with those who care for the sick,

and lift up all who are brought low;

that we may find comfort

knowing that nothing can separate us from your love

in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Amen

The Gambler

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You’ve got to know when to hold ’em
Know when to fold ’em
Know when to walk away
And know when to run

This past weekend Kenny Rogers passed away. I listened to a lot of country music growing up because that’s primarily what my grandparents liked. It’s strange to me though because I don’t remember a ton of Kenny Rogers in the mix. I can think of a few songs, and I’m sure there were more sprinkled in that I just didn’t know. One that I do remember though was easily his most successful song, The Gambler.

This song is a country music classic, and I pulled it back out this weekend as part of a short retrospective with Hannah in the car. Her choice was Islands in the Stream, a duet he did with Dolly Parton. As I listened to The Gambler for the first time in some years, I couldn’t help but think of it like a proverb. The chorus begins with the lyrics above, and it strikes a very similar tone to wisdom’s discerning eye in proverbs.

The wisdom of the prudent is to discern his way,
but the folly of fools is deceiving. Proverbs 14:8

One who is wise is cautious and turns away from evil,
but a fool is reckless and careless. Proverbs 14:16

These two verses from Proverbs 14 get at the same idea that Rogers is trying to communicate through his parable. Opinions on gambling aside, he’s promoting caution and discernment over recklessness and carelessness. What’s brilliant about the narrative of the song (and something quite biblical actually) is that he takes a character whose stereotype is often one associated with negative traits like debt, negligence, imprudence and flips that on its head.

Discernment is something that develops as we mature. For the Christian, it hinges on our relationship with Christ and our reliance on His Spirit. 1 Corinthians 2 tells us that the things of God are revealed by the Spirit and discerned spiritually. Part of discernment is trusting that God is leading, which is not always easy to do or to recognize. The best way that I have been able to understand this is to look back. Discerning what is ahead of us requires us to reflect on how we’ve seen God work in the past. We trust that He is good and that He will act in the future how He has acted in the past. This is the heart of faith.

For some of us, we may not feel like we have seen God show up in the past, so we have to cling to Scripture, which is the account of His actions in history. These actions and words communicate God’s character and nature to us, and in that we have faith.

Prayer and Reflection

How has God shown up in your past? What does the Bible say about who God is? Pray that these things are revealed to you and pray for the faith to trust that he will help you discern your future actions.

Freedom in Limitation

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May I find freedom in limitation—

           to fully give myself

To what I can do

          rather that to worry about

          what I cannot.

This short prayer from Justin McRoberts seems like an appropriate one for our current cultural moment. It’s a strange feeling to be uprooted from our normalcy so quickly. The world feels so fragile right now, and it’s easy to be discouraged and afraid. There is a very real part of me that is unsettled by the very clear uncertainty of so many things ahead of us.

For you Gen Zers, this will likely be a defining moment for your generation. It’s possible that it will fundamentally shape the way you see and interact with the world around you for decades. It’s hard to understand how a single event is able to do that, but it has been true of most generations and will be likely be true for yours as well. I think what’s most amazing about this experience is just how global of an event it actually is. People across the world are simultaneously having similar experiences.

Currently in Memphis this situation is not nearly as dire as in many other places. The biggest thing most of us are dealing with is how to cope with this new normal of social distancing. I pray that things don’t get worse here, but there is no promise that it won’t. In the meantime, my hope is that we begin to see newfound freedom in the limitations that we’re experiencing. This posture is one that nurtures growth and helps us see what is possible rather than what is not.

There are a lot of people hurting because of the losses suffered from the effects of this virus. We don’t ignore that pain, but we recognize the possibility to surround one another with love and support in whatever ways we can. The limitations we are experiencing in physical proximity give us an opportunity for creativity, to creatively love those who are experiencing heavy pain and loss. When we focus on the possibility, I think, it positions us to come out of the other side of this thing with deeper trust, deeper trust in God, in others, and in ourselves.

When we focus on possibility, we find hope that there is a way through this current crisis. We recognize that God is still working in the midst of our broken world, that he always has been. When we focus on possibility, we find trust in others rather than suspicion. We recognize that the fight is not against one another but against something else altogether. When we focus on possibility, we find out that we are more resilient than we ever knew. We recognize that God has made each of us for more than what we are currently experiencing.

It’s easy to be discouraged and afraid right now, but my hope is that we can begin to see clearly the freedom to love more deeply that has been put so clearly in front of us. It will take creativity and grace to learn how to do this well, but there’s something in me that is excited to figure it out.

Prayer and Reflection

Think about people who may need to hear an encouraging word from you. Pray for the courage to reach out and let them know you’re thinking of them.

It Is Well

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In 2010, author Shane Claiborne published a book called Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals. I like the book. It’s designed to guide the daily prayer life of a group or individual. I’ve used it, like other things, as an off-and-on devotional since we bought it. I happened to pull it out this morning to use it for my personal reflection, but not necessarily for the blog, however, here I am. I’m going to use a simple quote from the March 1 reading in conjunction with the lyrics of a song from a concert that Hannah and I attended last night. I want to write it off as coincidental, but this endeavor is about seeking. So, let me break these moving parts down for you and see what you think.

Yesterday, Hannah and I had a doctor’s visit. She’s now 39 weeks pregnant. We’re completely aware that we are well into the birth range timetable, but things have progressed in such a healthy way that we haven’t been too worried about how things have progressed. Hannah and our boy have remained healthy throughout the duration of the pregnancy, and we’ve counted it a significant blessing. Yesterday though, there was a slight hiccup in a pretty routine visit. Our doctor wasn’t overly concerned about it but needed to run some tests to rule out possible complications that could change some of the details of our birth plan. Given how the pregnancy has gone up to this point, it seems unlikely that it will turn into something more serious. Nevertheless, this was the first instance in the 39 weeks that we’ve had to do something like that and in the moment it felt jarring.

We had tickets to a concert last night, The Lone Bellow, at a venue near our home. We saw them once in Chicago a couple of years ago and loved the energy they brought to their live performance. On the heels of the news from our prenatal visit, we were unsure whether we should attend. We want to do whatever we can to reduce stress at this stage and make sure we’re proceeding responsibly. We decided to go but would sit in the back and just enjoy the music.

Lone Bellow

The band added their stop here in Memphis late to their tour, so the setting was intimate. We saw a few friends and found some seats in the back corner. We couldn’t see the stage very well, but at different parts in the show could easily make out the upper quarter of the musicians. They were good. The Lone Bellow is not explicit about their religious beliefs, but there are certainly elements in their song writing that strongly suggest that they are people of faith. It’s possible there’s an interview somewhere in which they talk about it, but I haven’t searched that hard. Either way, there was an interesting moment in the concert last night during their song May You Be Well when the frontman Zach Williams, during an instrumental interlude in the song, raises both of his hands and clearly mouths the words “May you be well” multiple times with eyes closed. It was an odd sensation. It felt out of place, which is weird because it was a concert where a singer was singing the words to his own song. It felt out of place because he clearly wasn’t singing. It looked like he was speaking those words. It looked, very much, like he was praying those words over the crowd.

It seems somewhat unlikely that this is actually what was happening, but I couldn’t shake it. It felt so much like the moment in a worship service when the singer repeats parts of the song as a prayer under his breath. Fast forward to this morning and the aforementioned Claiborne book. There’s a quote for today’s entry from fourteenth century Christian mystic Julian of Norwich.

The worst has already happened and been repaired. . . . All Shall be well, all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.

I’ve stated previously in this blog that sometimes pain will last a lifetime. We aren’t promised reprieve during our lives, but we hold on to the hope of the life to come. The refrain here of “all shall be well” is unavoidably similar to the lyrics of the song last night. I can’t help but feel encouraged. Even though I know that we aren’t promised that bad things won’t happen to us, and even though these types of moments are easily written off as coincidental, I’m not going to do it with this one. I’m going to choose to believe that it’s the Spirit. I’m going to take the connection and rest in the comfort it provides.

Simeon Temple

Prayer and Reflection

What connections might you have written off recently as coincidence? Could they be something more? Pray that God gives you the courage and ability to see what he’s doing in your lives. Pray for God to remove the cynical spirit that keeps us from living in the joy he provides.

Digest

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Wilt thou love God as he thee ? then digest,
My soul, this wholesome meditation,
How God the Spirit, by angels waited on
In heaven, doth make His temple in thy breast.
The Father having begot a Son most blest,
And still begetting—for he ne’er begun—
Hath deign’d to choose thee by adoption,
Co-heir to His glory, and Sabbath’ endless rest.
And as a robb’d man, which by search doth find
His stolen stuff sold, must lose or buy it again,
The Sun of glory came down, and was slain,
Us whom He had made, and Satan stole, to unbind.
‘Twas much, that man was made like God before,
But, that God should be made like man, much more.

Holy Sonnet XV – John Donne

Poetry like this can feel antiquated.  The language is confusing and disorienting, but I’m still drawn to it. I think I’m drawn to things like this because it forces me to slow down. It forces me to read carefully, then to reread it. I’m thankful for things in my life that force me to do this because I’m always reminded of how much richness I miss. This poem is beautiful, but it takes work to understand.

I first encountered this poem in one of my favorite seminary classes. We boiled this poem down to a simpler, more understandable idea. It’s a poem about downward mobility. It’s about God humbling himself for us. It’s a Trinitarian poem showing how God the Father, Son, and Spirit, has exhibited this downward mobility for our sake. It’s in the Spirit, served by angels, making His home in us. It’s in the Father who has a Son, making us co-heirs with Him. It’s in the Son, putting on flesh and being slain to unbind us from sin.

Trinity Painting.jpg

Prayer and Reflection

God humbled himself for us and for our benefit. How can we have a heart like that? What can we do to live into that beauty? In what ways can we humble ourselves? I’ll leave you with a prayer. Pray it with me.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.

– Peace Prayer of Saint Francis

but in Your Cross

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This morning I’d like to shift gears and try something different. Instead of taking a look at a passage of Scripture, I’d like to share a prayer with you from the 20th century monk and author, Thomas Merton. I don’t typically use traditional devotionals in my own life. I don’t really know why, but I often gravitate towards other things like written prayers and poetry to supplement my Bible reading. They tend to be both short and reflective.

The reading this morning appears in a collection of Merton’s prayers titled, Dialogues with Silence. Hannah and I randomly came across it a few years ago in a small bookstore in Providence, Rhode Island. I’ve since used it off and on for daily reflection. It’s funny to me how something so random, so seemingly inconsequential can work its way into the daily rhythms of life. If you’re in my college group, you may have read this particular prayer before, but it’s one of my favorites. Sometimes these take a second, slow reading to really catch the intimacy and details. Reflect with me.

My Lord, I have no hope but in Your Cross. You, by Your humility, sufferings and death, have delivered me from all vain hope. You have killed the vanity of the present life in Yourself and have given me all that is eternal in rising from the dead.

My hope is in what the eye has never seen. Therefore let me not trust in visible rewards. My hope is in what the human heart cannot feel. Therefore let me not trust in the feelings of my heart. My hope is in what the hand has never touched. Do not let me trust in what I can grasp between my fingers, because Death will loosen my grasp and my vain hope will be gone.

Let my trust be in Your mercy, not in myself. Let my hope be in Your love, not in health or strength or ability or human resources.

If I trust You, everything else will become for me strength, health and support. Everything will bring me to heaven. If I do not trust You, everything will be my destruction.

Amen.