Tag Archives: prayer

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Figuring Out What’s Next for You

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Photo by Austin Chan on Unsplash

One of the biggest struggles many people have is figuring out what to do with their lives. Is now the time to get married? Is this the person I should marry? Do we have kids now or have another one? Is now the time to buy a house, retire, start a business, or return to school?

We stress over these decisions because they have life-altering implications.

According to the Harvard Business Review, we make 33,000 decisions a day.

But making the wrong decisions about big and small things is easy. We all fall into various decision-making traps no matter how well we think we are making decisions or figuring out God’s will for our lives. If you listened to my sermon on Sunday, you know that I don’t think God’s will is as mysterious as we make it out to be.

In Galatians 1, Paul gives us a spiritual autobiography that helps us see how to make decisions and figure out God’s will for our lives by looking backward. In it, Paul talks about the importance of personality and wiring, our family of origin and time spent learning and waiting, and the confirmation of others.

4 questions to ask to figure out God’s will for your life.

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What matters most. One of the most quoted verses in Galatians is Galatians 1:10, where Paul asks, For am I now trying to persuade people, or God? Or am I striving to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Who are you trying to please with your decisions: God or your parents, spouse, or someone else?

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Paul wants us to ask ourselves, who are we trying to please? Many people end up going to school, taking a job, or making a decision related to parenting to please someone. Paul wants us to ask, whose opinion matters the most to us? Many Christians would say, “Obviously, the answer is God,” but is it really in their lives?

Personality and wiring. God’s plan for our lives closely relates to how we are wired to the talents and gifts God has given us. We often overlook these as we think about God’s will for our lives or what is next for us, or maybe you grew up in a tradition that made God’s will sound like an awful punishment. To know what is next, look at how you are wired.

In Galatians 1, Paul talks about the importance of understanding how we are wired to what God has planned for us. Paul was incredibly zealous and driven. When God saved Paul, he didn’t change that part of Paul’s personality; he redirected that passion.

God doesn’t necessarily change our personality, gifts or talents; he redirects them for His purposes.

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The personality you have isn’t an accident. The gifts and talents you have aren’t an accident. But many of us miss what God has for us because we want a different personality or talent or don’t think we are as good as someone else. Yes, God molded Paul just like everyone else as he grew in his faith and maturity, but he didn’t change who God created him to be.

I wonder if we would see God move in our lives more often if we were available to be used by Him instead of caught up in how we compared ourselves to others.

I wonder if we would see God move in our lives more often if we were available to be used by Him instead of caught up in how we compared ourselves to others.

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This is why Paul starts with the first question in verse 10: who are we trying to please?

Time spent learning and waiting. An incredibly important part of Paul’s journey was the three years he spent in Arabia. Almost every person God uses greatly in Scripture and throughout history had a waiting period. Moses waited 40 years in the desert, Elijah ran out into the desert, David was in the desert on the run from Saul (even though he had been anointed king), Jesus was in the desert for 40 years, and so on.

We overlook the importance of the desert season of waiting. But if we skip this, we will greatly reduce our effectiveness.

If you are in the time of waiting, don’t fret. Look to see what God is teaching you and how He is preparing you. You may not be ready for what is next, or someone else may not be ready for what is next for you.

Many of us miss what God has next for us because we rush what we’re in right now.

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The confirmation of others. Lastly, Paul talks about the importance of others confirming what God has placed in you. In this passage, Paul discusses the importance of Cephas and James, two apostles whose words carried much weight.

When you share what God has placed on your heart with others close to you who know you well. What do they say?

While the opinion of others shouldn’t be a driving factor (remember verse 10), it is an important part of figuring out what God is calling us to do.

4 things that might be holding you back in life & leadership.

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To figure out what’s next, here are 4 simple questions to ask: 

  • What matters most to me? What excites me and wakes me up in the morning?
  • How am I wired?
  • Am I prepared for what is next, or do I need to learn and discover more?
  • Do the people who know me best and love me the most confirm what God has placed on my heart?
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How to Pray When Life is Hard

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Photo by Amaury Gutierrez on Unsplash

Much of our lives are spent avoiding pain. And it makes sense because no one likes being in pain or difficulty. It makes sense that when it comes to our faith journey, we focus on the parts about joy, celebration, and happier feelings.

But that leaves us wondering what we do with our pain. What do we do when life hurts? When relationships become hard? How do we handle the difficult moments? How do we walk with a friend through difficult moments?

When they happen, we are usually unprepared for them; at least, I am. We often expect God to keep us from those situations and feelings; we expect God to bless our faithfulness when that blessing means ease and things going up and to the right.

But we see a different story through Scripture. We see that while pain and suffering are not God’s original design, they are part of living in a fallen, broken world. No one, including Jesus, is immune to pain and difficulty. We must learn how to navigate those moments and how they shape and impact our faith. God has given us ways to do that through the Psalms of Lament.

According to John Calvin, “The Psalms are the anatomy of all the parts of the soul. There is no human emotion that anyone finds in himself whose image is not reflected in this mirror. All our griefs, sorrows, fears, misgivings, hopes, cares, anxieties.” 

The Psalms are the anatomy of all the parts of the soul. There is no human emotion that anyone finds in himself whose image is not reflected in this mirror. All our griefs, sorrows, fears, misgivings, hopes, cares, anxieties. -John Calvin

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The Bible has space for our feelings of grief, disillusionment, and heartache, so our faith needs to as well. But many of us today focus on happier feelings in the modern church. 

To help with that, I encourage you to write your own lament. A lament has a few parts: Invocation, complaint, affirmation of trust, petition, statement of confidence, and vow of praise. 

The Bible has space for our feelings of grief, disillusionment, and heartache, so our faith needs to as well.

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Invocation

This is where you ask for help. Here are some questions to consider: 

  • Who are you addressing? This might seem obvious, but we must know who we are addressing. The Psalms of Lament focus on the character and power of God. We must remind ourselves who God is and what he has promised to do. 
  • What are you asking for? Is it for sleep, peace, dealing with fear or anxiety?
  • This is also a place to remind ourselves of what God has done in the past. List out how God has moved in your life and faith journey or the lives of others. In lament, we often only focus on our pain and grief, so our hearts must be reminded of what God has done. 

Complaint

This part can be hard for many of us because it can feel “un-Christian,” but this is an important part of the lament. We have complaints, grief, and heartache to bring before God. He won’t strike you dead. The psalms are filled with complaints. People even complained to Jesus, like when Lazarus died and Martha came to Jesus and said, “If you had been here, our brother wouldn’t have died” (John 11:21). That’s a complaint.

It is okay to complain to God in prayers of lament.

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Things to think through are:

  • What is the problem? The issue that you are facing. 
  • What is your complaint?
  • What do you think God has not done?

Part of the complaint in many psalms is also a time to confess our sins to God.

Affirmation of Trust

This is the place where we look to why we can trust God. What has God promised in his word? As you think of your complaint, what God has promised speaks to that. Here are some examples of promises of God. 

Petition

This is the place where we ask God. Questions to help with this part are: 

  • What are we asking God to do?
  • What are we asking God to heal or to deliver us from?
  • Be specific in how you are asking God to move.

Often, I think we aren’t specific in our prayers because we don’t want to be disappointed if God doesn’t do something. But we must pray specifically. 

Statement of Confidence

This is the place of hope. This is where we say, “God, I know you can answer. I know you can heal. I know you can change this person or situation.” 

Vow of Praise

Many psalms end with a verse of praise. Even if God doesn’t do as I ask or on my timetable, I will still serve and praise Him. 

How to write your own psalm of lament.

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What if I Can’t Forgive Myself?

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One of the things I will often hear from people is, “I know God forgives me, but I can never forgive myself.” Or, “I know ___ blank forgave me, but I can’t move forward. I’m stuck and can’t forget what I did.”

Our past continues to creep up on us and doesn’t stay in the past, no matter how much we’d like it to. 

In Genesis 3, we understand how God wants us to deal with our past and the things that keep us stuck. I’m so thankful to Chuck DeGroat for pointing these out. 

When Adam and Eve sin, God comes and asks 4 questions: 

  • Where are you?
  • Who told you? 
  • Have you eaten from the tree?
  • What have you done?

What gets us stuck, and keeps us stuck, is we start with the 4th question: What have you done? And that is all we focus on or answer. But there is more happening in us and around us that God wants us to face. 

And most importantly, God doesn’t start with “What have you done?” So, it is a good idea to start where God does. 

In these questions, we find what is broken in our lives, the shame we carry, and the way forward. 

Where are you? This is the question about hiding. God isn’t confused about where Adam and Eve are, and He isn’t confused about where you are. He is asking about where we are internally. Why? He wants us to know where we are. 

What do you use to hide? It might be your personality, jokes, work ethic, or something else. But all of us do something to hide whenever we feel exposed. Part of forgiving myself is seeing what I use to hide and keep people at arm’s length. 

Where did this come from?

Somewhere in your early life, you probably learned what it means to be safe and secure in relationships and have continued to do that again and again in your adult life. But as one of my mentors says, “What worked for you as a little person works against you as an adult.” We need to see what we do to hide, where that came from, honor how that protected us in life, and see how that can keep us from freedom now. 

But this hiding might also be the brokenness we carry and our secret sins. 

Who told you? This helps to identify who told us about our nakedness and our shame. 

What are the voices that have gotten us to where we are? This isn’t about blaming but about identifying our past. 

Have you eaten from the tree? This question helps us to identify what we did. 

What Adam and Eve did, and our tendency now, was to blame someone else. This is another way of staying safe and distancing ourselves from what we did. We have less ownership and guilt if we can say it was someone else’s fault. 

Ultimately, this often leads to regret, shame, feeling forgotten, guilt, and bitterness.

But God won’t let us stay there. He patiently moves forward and asks, What have you done?

As I said, we usually start here, but God doesn’t. We need to get to this question, but this question isn’t the starting point. God wants us to get under the hood of our lives and ask deeper questions before getting to what we have said or done. 

But in the goodness of God, He doesn’t leave us standing there with what we have done. He helps us to name it and move forward to freedom. 

In 1 John, John writes to his church struggling with sin and seeing themselves correctly.

There was a group in his church that, when it came to sin and struggles, though they didn’t sin, they weren’t sinful (or as bad as our culture talks about it), and there were no consequences to their sin. It didn’t do anything or harm anyone.

Now, no matter what you think of sin, you do things wrong. There’s a good chance that in the last hour, you’ve done multiple things wrong. You may not call them sins. You might call them mistakes or failures or missed opportunities. But (and this is crucial) if we don’t see them correctly, we will miss God’s grace and forgiveness. And if we don’t see them correctly, we will end up with regret, shame, guilt, and eventually bitterness.

This is why John points us to confession in one of the most famous verses in the Bible.

1 John 1:9 is a great reminder: If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Confession is being honest with yourself and God about who you are and who He is.

Confession is being honest with yourself and God about who you are and who He is.

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It is seeing yourself through the lens God sees you, which is the only path to freedom.

This path takes us from comparison, being the victim, and even moping around. It takes us to freedom because, through confession, we can let go. We can drop our bags of sin, guilt, shame, and regret.

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5 Questions About Prayer

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Photo by Timothy Eberly on Unsplash

One of the questions many people wrestle with is, “Does prayer work?” Many of us have prayed for something: healing, a wound to be taken away, a relationship to be restored, only to have it not answered.

We have also seen moments when we prayed for something, and that prayer wasn’t answered the way we expected it.

This leaves us to ask, “Does prayer work? Is prayer even worth the time and effort?”

In James 5:13 – 20, James lays out how to pray, the role of the unconfessed in prayers, and how a church should gather to pray together.

This passage is often used to pray for the sick, which it is about. But the word for sick in James 5 doesn’t just mean physically ill but also includes spiritual and emotional weakness. This is one reason James uses the example of Elijah because Elijah was spiritually and emotionally weak in 1 Kings. That idea completely changed my thoughts about this passage and my prayer life as I prepped this message. 

In chapter 5, James gives us five questions to ask so that we can see prayer be more effective in our lives: 

5 reasons why prayer doesn’t work.

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Are you self-made and have little need for God? Many of us are self-made, able to work hard, strategic thinkers, or people who can feel our way out of things.

Without realizing it, we create lives that have little need for the power of God.

This begs the question of when we start praying about something and how long it takes us to ask God for help.

Do you see the hard and good times as things God has allowed? In James 5, James talks about Job and Elijah as examples for us to understand his point. Job said, “God gives, and God takes; blessed be the name of the Lord.” James wants us to see how this interacts with our prayers. Do we see the good and the hard as from God? Or just the hard?

Do you pray for your will and not God’s? Jesus taught his disciples in Matthew 6 that when they pray, they are to pray for God’s will, not their own.

But one of our frustrations with prayer is that God doesn’t answer us on our timetable or the way we want.

This is the crux of prayer. Because we will often ask for A, and God gives us B. The question we have to wrestle with is, do we believe God heard us? Do we believe God spoke to the other person? This is when we are reminded how little control we have in life, and that’s hard. 

Do you pray specifically? I know it can be scary to pray specifically because I am opening myself up to being let down or opening myself up to potential doubts and struggles. What if I ask for this specific healing and don’t get it? What if I ask God to do this or that, and it doesn’t happen?

That’s hard. 

But the example that James uses is Elijah, who was a man who prayed specifically. He was also a very flawed man, which is also incredibly encouraging. 

Do you live in unconfessed sin? Unconfessed sin creates a barrier between you, God, and others. And James tells us it is a hindrance to our prayer lives. James connects the confession of sin to answered prayer and healing. 

This is important because the healing we are promised is spiritual, physical, and emotional, but we aren’t promised when that healing will come, just that we will have it. 

5 questions to ask about your prayer life.

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What Happens While we Wait on God

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Photo by Semyon Borisov on Unsplash

 

You will find yourself waiting on God at some point in your life.

We will often find ourselves waiting for God to answer a prayer, to speak to us and give us direction, or maybe you find yourself waiting for God to provide you with a reason for the season of pain or difficulty you are in.

What we do in those moments might be some of the most critical moments of our faith journey. Those are the moments when God is doing a lot in us, even if we don’t see it at the time.

In James 5, James gives us a few things to be aware of and ask ourselves while we wait:

4 questions to ask while you wait on God.

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Am I controlling what I can control and releasing what I can’t?

Farmers in the first century didn’t have irrigation systems or even weather radars to know when a storm was coming. They were utterly dependent on the rain. They had to lean into what they could control and what they couldn’t.

We will often feel like we are utterly powerless in life or overestimate how much power we have.

One exercise that has been helpful to me is one Henry Cloud suggests in his book Necessary Endings: list out what you control and what you don’t control in a situation. You might find that you have control and agency over some things you didn’t think and you might find yourself worrying over something you have no control over.

Am I being patient?

James uses the example of a farmer to show us something important while we wait: the kind of patience we are to have.

Farmers cannot make crops grow, but they can do things while waiting.

Patience isn’t something we usually want (at least I don’t), but we must lean into it because things do not change or grow quickly.

James tells us to be patient in our suffering and difficulty, for the Lord’s return is near. This is a reminder that all we are going through will one day be made right, be made new, and that everything we are going through is under the rule and reign of God, which is why James harkens back to the story of Job.

Am I strengthening my heart?

Then he tells us to strengthen our hearts because the Lord’s return is near.

We strengthen our hearts by being in the word of God, by spending time with Him, listening to Him and speaking to him, casting our cares on Him (1 Peter 5:7), and sharing our sighs with him (Psalm 5:2).

We also strengthen our hearts in community, being with people who can help to encourage us and spur us on, but who can also help us carry our burdens and point out when we need to have things pointed out to us to grow in our faith. 

Am I guarding my heart?

James then switches gears in verse 9 to tell us to guard our hearts. 

Why?

While we are waiting and walking through pain and difficulty, we are vulnerable. 

He says: Brothers and sisters, do not complain about one another, so that you will not be judged. Look, the judge stands at the door!

That vulnerability can lead us to complain about each other, judge each other, criticize people or take judgment into our own hands. 

James says, be on guard. 

This is important because, amid our pain, frustration, and hurt, we can easily hurt those around us and take our anger out on them. 

4 questions to ask yourself if you’re going through a hard season.

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What is God doing in you now as you walk forward in a hard season?

It is easy to look forward, to look for a reason for it, but God is looking to grow us in those moments. 

Pete Scazzero said, “To mature in Jesus and learn true faith requires we go through walls, dark nights, and valleys. There is no other way.”

To mature in Jesus and learn true faith requires we go through walls, dark nights, and valleys. There is no other way. -Pete Scazzero

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How to Figure Out God’s Will for Your Life

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Photo by Jamie Templeton on Unsplash

When people talk about figuring out God’s will or hearing the voice of God, we tend to get very mysterious and talk about it in ways that, when we step back, seem odd. 

Have you ever noticed that you can often see God’s will for someone else before they can? Others can usually see it for you as well. 

What if you are trying to figure out things in your life and hear the voice of God for you? God speaks to us in a variety of ways. He speaks through his word, open and closed doors, friends, family, community, our desires and fears, and nature, to name a few. 

As you face your next decision, whether big or small, here are some ways to begin hearing God speak, move in your life, and stop resisting His voice. That last one is a big one.

1. Listen to the Bible and close friends you trust who are spiritually mature. God’s will for your life is not a mystery; in fact, it’s all over the pages of the Bible. He tells us how to be married, be friends, and parents, have integrity, honor leaders and government and bosses, pray, fast, worship, and be a good steward of our treasure, time, and talents.

I believe that if we do these consistently and wholeheartedly, we will rarely wonder what God’s will for our lives is.

Why?

Because when we listen to his word and wise counsel, we will be doing what he called us to do, what he designed us to do.

On top of that, ask trusted friends and mentors who you consider to be spiritually mature.

What do they do? How do they live? What do they say about the questions you ask or your struggles?

Listen to them.

Does what they have to say line up with Scripture?

If so, that’s a clue you are heading in the right direction.

Pay attention to what the Bible says to you.

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During this time, you also need to make sure you are taking time to pause, sit and wait and listen. Don’t rush. One of the ways we get into trouble is when we rush ahead and get started too quickly.

2. Live out what the Bible and those friends tell you. 

Here comes the part where many of us get off the ride: Live it out.

It is one thing to say you are going to get up and read your Bible or exercise, and another thing to do it.

It’s one thing to say you are going to be more patient with your kids and another thing to show them patience and grace.

Life is filled with regrets, missed opportunities, and a laundry list of shoulds and coulds.

Pay attention to wise counsel.

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3. When you feel like God is speaking…act. 

This leads to the last part.

Act.

Do it.

Don’t stand on the sideline.

Have you ever noticed that God is moving in the lives of people who act? I don’t know if he speaks more to them, but they seem to listen more and work more.

Now it is time to move on to what God has said and not look back.

3 ways to hear the voice of God.

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The Goal of Spiritual Rhythms

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Sunday I started a new series at CCC called Summer Reset: Reevaluating our Spiritual Rhythms. 

When new year’s goals and resolutions roll around almost every year, millions of people make a goal connected to their spiritual life. It might be reading their Bible more, praying more, or being more generous, which is fantastic. But often we fail to move the needle in those places, or at least to the degree we’d like to see.

Many times we get frustrated with ourselves, think something is wrong with us, and then fail to reengage with God.

Have you ever asked why that is? There are many reasons this happens, but I think one of them centers on our spiritual rhythms.

Have you ever asked yourself: What is the goal of spiritual rhythms or practices? When I read my Bible, pray, give, fast, or any other spiritual practice, what am I hoping will happen?

What is the goal of spiritual practices?

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I like the word rhythm and practice because it helps me see life as a rhythm. Rhythms get the idea of movement, timing, seasons, and life in that way. Practices help me to know that I am practicing, I have not arrived. Every time I fast, feast, pray, sit in silence or join in community, I am practicing. And, if I don’t get it right (which is often) or if things feel stale (which happens), I am practicing. 

Why I like to use the words spiritual rhythms or spiritual practices.

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What is your goal when it comes to spiritual practices? To your spiritual rhythms?

If you think about the question, you will start to think of things like growing close to Jesus, growing in my faith, and learning about Jesus. And those are good answers. 

Spiritual practices are how we connect with God and relate to God. But spiritual practices also do something else; they are how we become more present to God, others, and ourselves. They reorient our hearts and lives around the things of God, which is crucial in our world that is so loud and easily distracts us. 

Spiritual practices are the ways that we become more present to God, others, and ourselves.

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This is why the goal of spiritual practices is so important. If we don’t know the purpose, we won’t understand why we need to practice them or what we are trying to experience or accomplish when we practice them. We will also miss what God is trying to do in us, around us, and in those practices. We can read our Bible, pray, take a sabbath, and miss all that it could be.

While spiritual practices do many things, I think they bring about two important things:

  1. They are about our formation, becoming more like Christ, and how we walk with Christ as his disciples, as his apprentices, alongside him.
  2. They help us to be present with God, ourselves, and others. They help us be aware of what is happening in us, what is going on in others, and what God is doing. They help us not to miss things.

As we practice them, we look for how God is forming us. As we experience difficulty or struggle through practice, we look for what God is doing in us, how we are being shaped, and who we are being shaped into. 

How God shapes you.

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Prayer is Helplessness in Action

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Paul Miller in his book A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World said: “Prayer is bringing our helplessness to God.”

Prayer is bringing our helplessness to God. -Paul Miller

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In many ways, prayer is helplessness in action.

Prayer is helplessness in action.

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But that’s the difficulty.

For us to pray, we must admit our helplessness. We must acknowledge that we don’t have it all together, that on our own we are weak, lost, helpless. 

For some of us, this is easy to do, but for many of us, this gets to the core of who we are.

We are raised to be self-sufficient. We have been taught from a young age that you can’t trust anyone, count on anyone. Why? We’ve been betrayed, cheated on, hurt, abandoned. So, when we pray and talk about our faith in God, this is in the back of our minds.

It makes sense.

But Jesus tells us to pray to God our Father like a child, to ask like a child.

If you think about a child, a few things come to mind: they are relentless in their asking. They are focused on the present, not the past or the future. They have confidence that the person they are asking can come through for them.

But we don’t do this.

Have you ever stopped to ask why?

Recently a friend of mine gave a great talk on prayer to pastors on five reasons pastors struggle with prayer, but I think it applies to everyone:

1. We think we should be better at this. We should be able to handle it. We should be able to figure it out. We think we should be able to get through the day without asking for help.

And we don’t pray because we think we should be better at praying, so we beat ourselves up about how bad we are at praying.

2. We’re afraid of vulnerability. We’re okay with social media vulnerability, “I’m the worst mom ever, well that happened, here’s my pile of laundry, here’s my messy garage, here’s my failure.” As long as we decide the vulnerability, we’re okay with it, but to be known we have to vulnerable.

Vulnerable is sharing needs, but it is also sharing who you are and sharing weakness.

Tim Keller said, “To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.”

3. We like to look competent. If I have a prayer need, I don’t want to say it. I want people around me and God to think I’m qualified and have my act like together.

Remember: Prayer is helplessness in action. 

This is why our favorite prayer request in a group is “unspoken.”

4. We’re hurting, but don’t want to admit it. I don’t want to admit that I’m in pain or having difficulty. We don’t want to share that our marriage hurts, our kids don’t listen, and we have trouble forgiving or trusting God.

Have you noticed how praying about something, asking someone else to pray about something makes it real? It is the moment of truth because

5. We’re cynical. Deep down, many of us hedge our bets with prayer. We don’t believe that God will come through. This is why many of us aren’t generous and don’t give back to God. We need to hold on to some money just in case it rains, and God doesn’t show up with a big enough umbrella.

How do children pray? They are honest; they recognized that they are a mess, that they need help, and they didn’t stop. Have you ever noticed that children never stop asking? They are convinced they will wear you down. God invites us to pray like that, yet few of us do.

I came across this the other day that I think sums this up:

 

 

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Dependence. Repost @calvin.n.hops ・・・ #TimKeller

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One Reason You Don’t Reach Your Goals

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Depending on your personality or how you were brought up, you probably fall into one of two camps when it comes to your life and goals. You either plan everything out, taking away every possible surprise, thinking through every worst case scenario so that you are prepared for whatever life throws at you. Or, you fly by the seat of your pants.

Are You a Planner?

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If you still aren’t sure which one you are (or if you think, I’m both), imagine this scenario: You get in the passenger seat of a friend’s car and have no idea where you are going. How long does it take you to get stressed out? Some of you have hives just from the thought.

One isn’t necessarily right or wrong in all situations.

The reality is, we all have goals. We all have hopes and dreams for our lives and those around us.

I’ve been reading through Proverbs recently, and I’ve been blown away by how many verses talk about planning and thinking ahead or getting advice from others. Here are just a few:

  • Where there is no guidance, the people fall; but in abundance of counselors, there is victory. -Proverbs 11:14
  • A wise man thinks ahead; a fool doesn’t, and even brags about it. -Proverbs 13:16
  • Without consultation, plans are frustrated, but with many counselors, they succeed. -Proverbs 15:22
  • Make plans by seeking advice; if you wage war, obtain guidance. -Proverbs 20:18
  • The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty. -Proverbs 21:5
  • A prudent man foresees the difficulties ahead and prepares for them; the simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences. -Proverbs 22:3
  • Get the facts at any price, and hold on tightly to all the good sense you can get. -Proverbs 23:23
  • Any enterprise is built by wise planning, becomes strong through common sense, and profits wonderfully by keeping abreast of the facts. -Proverbs 24:3-4

Is it possible to plan God out of your life and future? Yes, and lots of people do it. We can make too many plans, think through every possibility so that we don’t need God’s guidance and power.

It is also possible to miss the work God wants to do because of poor planning.

Opportunities are missed because a budget wasn’t put together or stuck to. We miss out on opportunities or dreams because we didn’t have the money to take advantage of something or say yes to something.

Many marriages and relationships grow stale because we start going through the motions instead of planning the way we used to when we dated.

A wise person goes to God, has a plan, works from a plan, is willing to modify that plan as life unfolds. A wise person never walks into a situation unsure about what to do. They also live with the awareness that they may have to pivot when things don’t go as expected.

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Praying to the God Who Loves You

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If you’re like me, you often find yourself struggling to trust other people. Someone promises something, but deep within, you wonder if you can believe their promise.

Why?

We’ve been stabbed in the back by a close friend; a spouse cheated on you, a parent lied, again and again, you’ve watched an addict friend or family member say over and over, “this is the last time.”

In fact, the idea of choosing to trust anything or anyone seems like one of the worst decisions we could make. It opens us up to all kinds of hurt.

That is what makes prayer so hard for us, at least for me.

Prayer is difficult because it is hard to trust anyone.

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We think God has to be the same way.

We wonder, will God keep his promise? Will God hear me?

If prayer doesn’t get answered, we think God isn’t listening; God is holding out on us (because someone held out on you before), God isn’t listening because He’s disappointed in you (because someone in authority once said they were disgusted by you or disappointed in you).

Why does this matter?

What if one change, one change in how we see God and ourselves is the key to changing our prayer lives.

One change in how we see God and ourselves is the key to changing our prayer lives.

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When it comes to prayer and trusting in God, we bring all of our hurt and baggage along with us.

We bring our past hurt, past sin, past messages and that is the lens we look at God through and often, that is the lens through which we pray.

As I’ve been preaching through the book of Daniel, it’s important to remember the theme: In spite of present appearances, no matter how things look, God is in control.

In spite of present appearances, no matter how things look, God is in control.

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Before getting to how Daniel prays (because Daniel is a man of prayer), we need to understand where prayer begins. 

It starts with the promises of God.

In Daniel 9:2 were told: In the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the books according to the word of the Lord to the prophet Jeremiah that the number of years for the desolation of Jerusalem would be seventy.

That promise found in Jeremiah 29:10 – 14: For this is what the Lord says: “When seventy years for Babylon are complete, I will attend to you and will confirm my promise concerning you to restore you to this place. For I know the plans I have for you”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“plans for your well-being, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. You will call to me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart. I will be found by you…

Daniel’s prayer starts from reading the promises of God found in the word of God.

Daniel is saying, “God you promised to rescue us after 70 years.” You promised to move.

Promises like this one and others like God promising to heal, promising not to leave us or forsake us, promising to provide for us, when we pray, we go to God with his promises.

God’s promises are the fuel for our prayers.

God’s promises are the fuel for our prayers.

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Prayer starts with the promises of God and those promises fuel our prayers.

Prayer starts with the promises of God and those promises fuel our prayers.

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One author said, “It is as if God’s promises have Velcro on them and our prayers are meant to ‘get stuck’ there.”

That is such a great way to think of prayer because we often feel like we’re talking to ourselves or think our prayers simply leave our mouth, hit the ceiling above us and drop back down.

But they don’t.

Let me make one last point on using Scripture in prayer; often when I talk with people who are struggling in their relationship with God, seeing prayer answered, hearing the voice of God, finding freedom from sin, they are often spending very little time reading God’s word.

To grow in your prayer life, you have to marry it to God’s word.

Because…it will show us our need and what we need to pray for.

What I find interesting (at least compared to my prayer life and most people’s), Daniel’s prayer starts in verse 4 with confession, not a request.

This is important because for many of us begin our prayers with what we want from God.

Our prayers sound like a shopping list. God if you could do this, provide this, make this happen.

Now, I want to be clear, that is part of praying, but many of us make that the only part of our prayer life and wonder why it stalls out.

Throughout scripture, an important part of prayer is the confession of sin.

God responds to Daniel by sending the angel Gabriel.

Now, here’s what you’re thinking, if God sent me an angel, I’d believe in Him more. I’d have more faith.

Here’s the funny thing, first, no you wouldn’t. You would wonder what you ate.

We have more access to God than Daniel did because of Jesus and God’s word and yet, Daniel exhibits more faith than we often have.

What is important about Daniel 9 is how God responds to Daniel.

God doesn’t start by telling Daniel what to do, how he failed, how he did something well, he doesn’t give him an assignment.

What does Gabriel tell Daniel in verse 23?

“You are greatly loved.”

I want us to stop here.

Being loved by God, This is the space we pray from.

Many times we believe that God is disappointed in us, yet there isn’t a verse that says. There are hundreds that say you are loved.

There isn’t a verse that says God is disappointed in you.

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If you are a Christian, you are praying to your heavenly father who loves you, who is pleased with you. A father who gives good gifts to his children. A father who disciplines yes, but because he loves you. We sheepishly come to God because we aren’t sure we belong, we aren’t sure he loves, he cares, yet he does. Notice, before Gabriel tells Daniel what God wants him to know or do, he says, you are loved.

There are hundreds of verses that say God loves you.

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The word “deeply loved” in Hebrew translates as preciousness.

Let me ask you if you believed this, do you think it would transform your faith? Your prayer life? If you believed God was for you instead of against you, would that change things? If you believed God loved you and was not disappointed in you, what does that change? If you believed God would never leave you or forsake you instead of thinking he’ll leave you the first chance he gets, what does that change.

Those are promises of God.

Often, people look to Daniel 9 to show us when Jesus will return or what the millennium looks like. For some help on that, check out Sam Storms great book Kingdom Come. 

I think we see those things in Daniel 9, but we have to look at those through the lens of prayer and answered prayer.

The 70 weeks in Daniel 9 represent the full picture of God’s redemption: the end of sin; atone for sin, everlasting righteousness, and a holy place. That holy place is the everlasting presence of God, full rest, and full redemption.

Gabriel is telling Daniel and us: one day, all prayers will be answered. One day, all things will be redeemed.