DAILY BYTE
Yesterday, we talked about the importance of spending time in prayer, which can sometimes feel very pressured and guilt-ridden in our busy lives. But God’s desire for us in teaching us to spend time in prayer is not for us to be overwhelmed with the guilt of failing but for us to be overwhelmed by the presence of God with us in every moment of the day.
It is very important to spend time in quiet with prayer. But when we do that, we are soaking in the presence and power of Jesus so that we take it everywhere with us.
The Eastern Orthodox tradition of Christianity has a concept called theosis, which means “assimilating the presence of God” – like “a cloth soaks up water by osmosis, we are saturated with God...” when we pray, as the Eastern Orthodox author, Frederica Mathews-Green says. In her book, The Jesus Prayer: The Ancient Desert Prayer that Tunes the Heart to God, she comments that “this indwelling presence heals, restores, and completes us, preparing each of us to take up the role in his kingdom that we alone can fill.”
And she describes this process of allowing Jesus to take over our lives – as a “gift of God, not won by any effort.” But, we can make ourselves available to receive it when we we practice spiritual disciplines like prayer – like praying the Lord’s prayer or the ‘Jesus Prayer’ that she discusses.
She says, “The purpose of this earthly life is to be saturated with the life of Christ.”
That is our deepest need, and we need to be disciplined about seeking to fill it because it changes the way we encounter the world. We become more loving, more joyful, more peaceful, more patient, more kind, good, faithful, gentle, and more full of self-control – more full of the gifts of the spirit and more able to accept those gifts from others.
Mathewes-Green does ask the practical question, though – “how can you think about the words of the Prayer all the time, when there are so many other things you have to think about? In the same way that you can have a meal, go on a trip, or visit a museum with a friend. You could do all of those things alone, but if you take a friend with you.... You may even get more out of it because your friend’s presence heightens your awareness, and you see things through his eyes as well. When you see everything alongside that best of friends, Jesus Christ, your encounters with the world and everyone and everything in it are transformed.”
This is the gift of Jesus. Our Easter basket. Filled with the kind of gift that doesn’t just make our lives sweet and sugary but makes our lives full of the love of God for us and for others.
In the passage from Luke 11 that we’ve looked at this week, we do read all those familiar lines about “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.” And we find at the end of the passage that God does provide for us and fill our earthly needs, but through the movement of the Holy Spirit in us – in our community. The passage says, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
God promises to fill our greatest need – the need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. The need to be filled with the presence of Jesus.
As we think back again on our needs and desires this week – do you want God to fill this need in you? Do you want to be like and be filled with Jesus? If so, perhaps spend some time in prayer this weekend, asking God to fill that particular need.
PRAY AS YOU GO
Try praying the Jesus Prayer over and over, opening yourself to the Spirit, power, and compassion of God:
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
Friday, 30 July 2010
Thursday, 29 July 2010
Teach us to pray
DAILY BYTE
We’ve been talking this week about the deep need that we have for others to see Jesus in us and for us to live lives that look like his.
Well, if that is our deepest need, how do we go about filling it? How do we spend our lives becoming more like Jesus?
We look first at how the disciples in scripture searched for the same kind of life. And we find that it was through asking God to teach them how to pray.
When we pray, we create space within ourselves for Jesus to sit, make himself at home, and spend time transforming our wills our desires our needs into his.
As you read last week in the story of Mary and Martha, we are often distracted by many things – we are overwhelmed by demands on our time, energy, and attention, and when we hear this call to praying, I think it’s often loaded with a big dose of guilt.
In pretty much every conversation I’ve ever had with groups about prayer where we’re asked to go around and chat about how we’re doing with our prayer lives, most people started dodging each others’ glances, talking about how they try to fit in five minutes in the mornings but usually get distracted by the washing or the toaster or their late alarms. And a sense of helplessness descends, as everyone seems to be thinking – i know I need to be better about praying, but sheesh – how am I ever going to do it better and fit everything else I need to do in??...
And therein lies precisely the point. The prayer that Jesus teaches the disciples to pray in Luke is one that is very familiar to us. “Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial.”
It is a prayer (with a few other words that we’ve sewn together from other parts of scripture) that we now call the Lord’s Prayer. It’s a prayer that says God your name is holy, and we look to you with awe. Your kingdom is here and your kingdom is still to come, and that’s what we desire. And because of these things we know we can trust you when we ask you humbly for what we need each day. Forgive us when we fail to be like you, as we will forgive others who don’t treat us like you would. And save us from all temptations and desires that might draw us further away from you.
This is a prayer that has the power to turn our priorities upside down – or rightside up. To change who we are and what we think we need so that we learn not to cram our lives full of activities and things that don’t actually fill us. Instead, through such a prayer, we learn to reorder our lives and hearts to make us more full of Jesus. More full of God’s desires for us and for others.
Do you want to reorder your life? Do you want God to help you prioritize your needs and wants? Consider praying the Lord’s Prayer today, and letting it sit inside of you, simmering and working within you all day long.
PRAY AS YOU GO
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy Name;
thy kingdom come;
thy will be done;
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation;
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.
Amen.
We’ve been talking this week about the deep need that we have for others to see Jesus in us and for us to live lives that look like his.
Well, if that is our deepest need, how do we go about filling it? How do we spend our lives becoming more like Jesus?
We look first at how the disciples in scripture searched for the same kind of life. And we find that it was through asking God to teach them how to pray.
When we pray, we create space within ourselves for Jesus to sit, make himself at home, and spend time transforming our wills our desires our needs into his.
As you read last week in the story of Mary and Martha, we are often distracted by many things – we are overwhelmed by demands on our time, energy, and attention, and when we hear this call to praying, I think it’s often loaded with a big dose of guilt.
In pretty much every conversation I’ve ever had with groups about prayer where we’re asked to go around and chat about how we’re doing with our prayer lives, most people started dodging each others’ glances, talking about how they try to fit in five minutes in the mornings but usually get distracted by the washing or the toaster or their late alarms. And a sense of helplessness descends, as everyone seems to be thinking – i know I need to be better about praying, but sheesh – how am I ever going to do it better and fit everything else I need to do in??...
And therein lies precisely the point. The prayer that Jesus teaches the disciples to pray in Luke is one that is very familiar to us. “Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial.”
It is a prayer (with a few other words that we’ve sewn together from other parts of scripture) that we now call the Lord’s Prayer. It’s a prayer that says God your name is holy, and we look to you with awe. Your kingdom is here and your kingdom is still to come, and that’s what we desire. And because of these things we know we can trust you when we ask you humbly for what we need each day. Forgive us when we fail to be like you, as we will forgive others who don’t treat us like you would. And save us from all temptations and desires that might draw us further away from you.
This is a prayer that has the power to turn our priorities upside down – or rightside up. To change who we are and what we think we need so that we learn not to cram our lives full of activities and things that don’t actually fill us. Instead, through such a prayer, we learn to reorder our lives and hearts to make us more full of Jesus. More full of God’s desires for us and for others.
Do you want to reorder your life? Do you want God to help you prioritize your needs and wants? Consider praying the Lord’s Prayer today, and letting it sit inside of you, simmering and working within you all day long.
PRAY AS YOU GO
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy Name;
thy kingdom come;
thy will be done;
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation;
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.
Amen.
Wednesday, 28 July 2010
I see Jesus
DAILY BYTE
When I was about 17 years old, I went to a Christian summer camp called Greene Hills, run by a Methodist minister named Stephen. He was someone who knew my family well because of my minister mom and my older brother, who was also quite involved in the church. And he was a passionate, prayerful, slightly zany guy, who had a gift for working with young people, and he led us on a week’s journey of campfire moments, challenging us to hear the powerful truth of the gospel that Christ died and lives for and with all of us.
It was a challenging week of navigating a whole new social scene, too… One of raging hormones and all of the uphill battles young people and all people face of trying to be liked and known and heard.
And it was a wonderful place to be, if not a bit intimidating at times... kind of like church...
But one day toward the end of the week, I got a message from Stephen that he wanted to see me. And I thought – oh great – he heard about the girl’s sleeping bag we sewed up with leaves stuffed inside...
But no, he hadn’t gotten wind of such escapades. He simply sat me down at a picnic table, acting very serious, and said, “I feel that it’s very important for you to know that apart from your family – your mom, your brother – anyone else, I see Jesus in you. And I needed for you to know that.”
Wow.
Talk about jaw-dropping. What do you say after that? Thank you?
I think I said something articulate like – oh, wow, ok. Thanks. Um, should I go to the pool now?
Based on my reaction at the time, I don’t think Stephen knows what a pivotal moment that was in my life. It was completely life-altering and life-defining to realize that Jesus lived in me, and I had a special life, a special unique calling and purpose and way of relating to other people that was just mine – but was empowered and beautiful because of the room there was for Jesus inside.
As a 17-year-old, my concerns were usually friends, what people thought of me, making sure my family was ok, getting good grades - I could never have articulated then that hearing those words actually filled my deepest need.
Above everything else. To be like Jesus.
And at that same camp a few days later was when I first very timidly put up my hand to say that I was thinking about spending my life in full time ministry.
I think maybe I realized that if someone could see Jesus in me, maybe a lot more people could see Jesus if I spent my life trying to show what he looked like. Maybe I could be a part of communities that give people gifts like telling each other that their lives are beautiful and that they matter to the world. Maybe I could help fill peoples’ deepest needs – maybe that’s what I could help the church to be.
Maybe that’s what the church – the body of Christ – could be with you as a part of it... Do you see Jesus in others? Do you seen Jesus in yourself?
FOCUS READING
Colossians 2:6-7 (NRSV)
As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.
When I was about 17 years old, I went to a Christian summer camp called Greene Hills, run by a Methodist minister named Stephen. He was someone who knew my family well because of my minister mom and my older brother, who was also quite involved in the church. And he was a passionate, prayerful, slightly zany guy, who had a gift for working with young people, and he led us on a week’s journey of campfire moments, challenging us to hear the powerful truth of the gospel that Christ died and lives for and with all of us.
It was a challenging week of navigating a whole new social scene, too… One of raging hormones and all of the uphill battles young people and all people face of trying to be liked and known and heard.
And it was a wonderful place to be, if not a bit intimidating at times... kind of like church...
But one day toward the end of the week, I got a message from Stephen that he wanted to see me. And I thought – oh great – he heard about the girl’s sleeping bag we sewed up with leaves stuffed inside...
But no, he hadn’t gotten wind of such escapades. He simply sat me down at a picnic table, acting very serious, and said, “I feel that it’s very important for you to know that apart from your family – your mom, your brother – anyone else, I see Jesus in you. And I needed for you to know that.”
Wow.
Talk about jaw-dropping. What do you say after that? Thank you?
I think I said something articulate like – oh, wow, ok. Thanks. Um, should I go to the pool now?
Based on my reaction at the time, I don’t think Stephen knows what a pivotal moment that was in my life. It was completely life-altering and life-defining to realize that Jesus lived in me, and I had a special life, a special unique calling and purpose and way of relating to other people that was just mine – but was empowered and beautiful because of the room there was for Jesus inside.
As a 17-year-old, my concerns were usually friends, what people thought of me, making sure my family was ok, getting good grades - I could never have articulated then that hearing those words actually filled my deepest need.
Above everything else. To be like Jesus.
And at that same camp a few days later was when I first very timidly put up my hand to say that I was thinking about spending my life in full time ministry.
I think maybe I realized that if someone could see Jesus in me, maybe a lot more people could see Jesus if I spent my life trying to show what he looked like. Maybe I could be a part of communities that give people gifts like telling each other that their lives are beautiful and that they matter to the world. Maybe I could help fill peoples’ deepest needs – maybe that’s what I could help the church to be.
Maybe that’s what the church – the body of Christ – could be with you as a part of it... Do you see Jesus in others? Do you seen Jesus in yourself?
FOCUS READING
Colossians 2:6-7 (NRSV)
As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.
Tuesday, 27 July 2010
Our deepest need
DAILY BYTE
You were asked yesterday to think about your deepest needs – food, money, clothing, friends - there’s no doubt that all of those things and more are great needs, indeed. Through these needs, we remember we are human – vulnerable and in need of God’s provision and in need of one another.
But what if our deepest need undergirding all of those other needs is not to have certain kinds of things but to be a certain kind of people – people like – Jesus.
I think that’s what the scripture this week is all about. At the beginning of Luke 11, we find Jesus praying in a certain place. The Son of God was spending time in prayer, and the disciples see him, and they say to him – hey Jesus – whatcha doing...? Teach us to be like you – teach us to do the things you do – because that’s what we want – that’s what we need!
I grew up in the church – I don’t have a lightning bolt, dramatic conversion story - my story is one that is maybe like yours – a story of being taught and nurtured consistently to come to worship, to pray the prayers, to be saturated with the music, to be with people who could show me what Jesus was like.
Unfortunately, many people have experiences within the church that are not positive but are, in fact, deeply wounding. I experienced this later in my life, as well, in addition to the fact that I’m sure I’ve even caused some of this pain through my life and work in the church. And I think it’s important that we acknowledge this pain because it seems it most often occurs when we’re not allowing our lives to look like Jesus’ life.
And we’re not alone in our ability to wound those that we should love. We hear about the disciples in Luke not long at all after they were sent out by Jesus to go be with people and heal them and proclaim the kingdom of God. This was their calling - their new way of life – and if ever there was a time to act like Jesus – that was it! There was only one of Jesus, but there were twelve and then 70 disciples. Out of their love and awe of Jesus, I bet their deepest desire as they went out in his name was to be like him.
But it seems, as human beings do – they sometimes failed. They doubted God’s provision in the feeding of the five thousand. They couldn’t cast out a demon in a boy with epilepsy. They argued about which one of them was the most awesome disciple... They even asked Jesus if they were allowed to rain fire down on a whole village and burn it up.
They sometimes missed the mark on who Jesus is, and I’m sure there were times when their behavior was deeply wounding to people around them. They certainly weren’t embodying the best versions of themselves...
But, they sat at Jesus’ feet, as he told stories like the Parable of the Good Samaritan, which reminds disciples then and now to love “your neighbour as yourself.”
And as you heard last week, they saw Mary being still and soaking up Jesus’ presence.
As they spent time with Jesus, it seems something within them was craving the need to become less like their often stumbling selves and more like him!
They would have known that the scriptures say all of us are made in the image of God, so maybe they were discovering that the way to come the best version of our unique selves is to allow ourselves to be filled with the way Jesus is – to develop our own special characteristics and callings but to be less wounding and more loving – less selfish and more generous. Less needy of things and more full of Jesus.
Do you want to become the best version of yourself? To create less hurt and carry out unique and beautiful purposes in the world? How might that require you to allow Jesus into your life? Is that really your deepest need?
FOCUS READING
Luke 11:1 (NRSV)
He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.”
You were asked yesterday to think about your deepest needs – food, money, clothing, friends - there’s no doubt that all of those things and more are great needs, indeed. Through these needs, we remember we are human – vulnerable and in need of God’s provision and in need of one another.
But what if our deepest need undergirding all of those other needs is not to have certain kinds of things but to be a certain kind of people – people like – Jesus.
I think that’s what the scripture this week is all about. At the beginning of Luke 11, we find Jesus praying in a certain place. The Son of God was spending time in prayer, and the disciples see him, and they say to him – hey Jesus – whatcha doing...? Teach us to be like you – teach us to do the things you do – because that’s what we want – that’s what we need!
I grew up in the church – I don’t have a lightning bolt, dramatic conversion story - my story is one that is maybe like yours – a story of being taught and nurtured consistently to come to worship, to pray the prayers, to be saturated with the music, to be with people who could show me what Jesus was like.
Unfortunately, many people have experiences within the church that are not positive but are, in fact, deeply wounding. I experienced this later in my life, as well, in addition to the fact that I’m sure I’ve even caused some of this pain through my life and work in the church. And I think it’s important that we acknowledge this pain because it seems it most often occurs when we’re not allowing our lives to look like Jesus’ life.
And we’re not alone in our ability to wound those that we should love. We hear about the disciples in Luke not long at all after they were sent out by Jesus to go be with people and heal them and proclaim the kingdom of God. This was their calling - their new way of life – and if ever there was a time to act like Jesus – that was it! There was only one of Jesus, but there were twelve and then 70 disciples. Out of their love and awe of Jesus, I bet their deepest desire as they went out in his name was to be like him.
But it seems, as human beings do – they sometimes failed. They doubted God’s provision in the feeding of the five thousand. They couldn’t cast out a demon in a boy with epilepsy. They argued about which one of them was the most awesome disciple... They even asked Jesus if they were allowed to rain fire down on a whole village and burn it up.
They sometimes missed the mark on who Jesus is, and I’m sure there were times when their behavior was deeply wounding to people around them. They certainly weren’t embodying the best versions of themselves...
But, they sat at Jesus’ feet, as he told stories like the Parable of the Good Samaritan, which reminds disciples then and now to love “your neighbour as yourself.”
And as you heard last week, they saw Mary being still and soaking up Jesus’ presence.
As they spent time with Jesus, it seems something within them was craving the need to become less like their often stumbling selves and more like him!
They would have known that the scriptures say all of us are made in the image of God, so maybe they were discovering that the way to come the best version of our unique selves is to allow ourselves to be filled with the way Jesus is – to develop our own special characteristics and callings but to be less wounding and more loving – less selfish and more generous. Less needy of things and more full of Jesus.
Do you want to become the best version of yourself? To create less hurt and carry out unique and beautiful purposes in the world? How might that require you to allow Jesus into your life? Is that really your deepest need?
FOCUS READING
Luke 11:1 (NRSV)
He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.”
Cravings and needs
DAILY BYTE
For Easter when I was small, my parents used to fill baskets with all sorts of small gifts and hide them somewhere in the house for us to find. We, of course, would search the house from top to bottom for as long as it took to find them because we desperately wanted and OH – we even needed - the white chocolate candy and jelly beans that would inevitably be there… Never mind the story of the resurrection…the candy only came once a year. I still get a craving every Easter for white chocolate in the shape of a bunny rabbit. Somehow, strangely, it tastes better, if it’s shaped like that, and you can start feasting on it by morbidly biting the ears off…
But such silliness aside - think now, what is your white chocolate rabbit…? What is it that you want, that you crave, that you envision would taste so sweet and make life so rich and make you so full? What are your deepest needs right now?
Money, time, energy, family, a job, a home, food, that jazzy new piece of technology? Everyone’s got something that they crave.
We read in the passage from Luke for today these very familiar verses – “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.”
The Christian life seems like a pretty good deal! Ask for what you want, and you’ll get it! Seek out what you need, and you’ll find it! Where else on the planet are you ever told that? In our earthly lives there is always a cost for things – rarely is something simply an unselfishly given gift. But these verses can be quite a source of consternation when we ask, and we don’t receive, when we seek and we don’t find. Sometimes we never receive what we ask for, or we receive it waaay later than we ask for it, or we receive it in a way that surprises us with its creativity... Or, we receive something different – even something more than we ask for.
Well, unlike the Easter baskets of most American children, which are piled high with nothing but sweets, my mother, the minister, would put a few of those sweet treats in but then fill the rest of our baskets with things like short books on modern-day saints like Mother Teresa, prayers for children, family devotionals, and verses of scripture tattooed on various plaques and key chains for us to put on our shelves and carry with us.
The white chocolate craving has stayed with me, but more so than that, even if I didn’t realize it at the time, the beauty of those scriptures of Jesus and resurrection, the stories about people like Mother Teresa, who were filled with the Holy Spirit, and the importance of constant prayer. Those are the things that I truly needed, as a young person, learning who Jesus was and who I was to the world.
Is there a difference between what we want and crave and what we need? How might God be providing for your wants and needs in life? Is there a need for you to re-evaluate what you want?
FOCUS READING
Luke 11:9-10 (NRSV)
“So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.
For Easter when I was small, my parents used to fill baskets with all sorts of small gifts and hide them somewhere in the house for us to find. We, of course, would search the house from top to bottom for as long as it took to find them because we desperately wanted and OH – we even needed - the white chocolate candy and jelly beans that would inevitably be there… Never mind the story of the resurrection…the candy only came once a year. I still get a craving every Easter for white chocolate in the shape of a bunny rabbit. Somehow, strangely, it tastes better, if it’s shaped like that, and you can start feasting on it by morbidly biting the ears off…
But such silliness aside - think now, what is your white chocolate rabbit…? What is it that you want, that you crave, that you envision would taste so sweet and make life so rich and make you so full? What are your deepest needs right now?
Money, time, energy, family, a job, a home, food, that jazzy new piece of technology? Everyone’s got something that they crave.
We read in the passage from Luke for today these very familiar verses – “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.”
The Christian life seems like a pretty good deal! Ask for what you want, and you’ll get it! Seek out what you need, and you’ll find it! Where else on the planet are you ever told that? In our earthly lives there is always a cost for things – rarely is something simply an unselfishly given gift. But these verses can be quite a source of consternation when we ask, and we don’t receive, when we seek and we don’t find. Sometimes we never receive what we ask for, or we receive it waaay later than we ask for it, or we receive it in a way that surprises us with its creativity... Or, we receive something different – even something more than we ask for.
Well, unlike the Easter baskets of most American children, which are piled high with nothing but sweets, my mother, the minister, would put a few of those sweet treats in but then fill the rest of our baskets with things like short books on modern-day saints like Mother Teresa, prayers for children, family devotionals, and verses of scripture tattooed on various plaques and key chains for us to put on our shelves and carry with us.
The white chocolate craving has stayed with me, but more so than that, even if I didn’t realize it at the time, the beauty of those scriptures of Jesus and resurrection, the stories about people like Mother Teresa, who were filled with the Holy Spirit, and the importance of constant prayer. Those are the things that I truly needed, as a young person, learning who Jesus was and who I was to the world.
Is there a difference between what we want and crave and what we need? How might God be providing for your wants and needs in life? Is there a need for you to re-evaluate what you want?
FOCUS READING
Luke 11:9-10 (NRSV)
“So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.
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