'Tis the Season--No, Not THAT One!

 Christmas? No. Halloween? No. Elections? No way! Remember that in November it will be Thanksgiving and it is all about that attitude of gratitude. I find it ironic that this season of gratitude falls right before the season of making lists of stuff we want.

In the past year I have been given a heightened awareness of prayer and many answered prayers have resulted in a renewed vision for prayer. This is not to say that I have successfully manipulated God to give me stuff. It is to say that I have been learning a few things from experience, participating in a study of the Lord’s Prayer and am currently reading a book about prayer called Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God by Timothy Keller. So I thought I would share some of the things I have learned about prayer.

Since Jesus gave an example of how we should pray, this will start with what he said. There are entire sermons written about just one of the lines of this prayer, however, it is the overall attitude that I see in the Lord’s Prayer that speaks to me the most. So each line will be followed by my own summarizing note about each phrase, emphasizing the attitude and focus.

Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. The focus of this prayer is God. Shift my focus to him.

Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Prayer should be about listening to God’s agenda, not the reverse.

Give us this day our daily bread. We should recognize our dependence on God for our physical existence.

And forgive us our trespasses… We should recognize our reliance on God for our spiritual existence because we are sinful and dependent on his grace.

…as we forgive those who trespass against us. We are expected to follow his example in our life.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. We have no control and depend on God for our protection for the very real forces of evil around us.

This is how Jesus said to pray. It is a humble prayer. I see the overall attitude of this prayer as reverence for the majesty of our creator and admission of our total dependence on him. This leads me to believe that the wrong way to pray is the opposite…with pride. So I must check my attitude before I jump in with a wish list for The Giver of All Life. And if I do this correctly, my wish list will vanish along with my pretense.

From the aforementioned book by Timothy Keller about prayer, I have discovered these important points about prayer. They resonated with me so I will share them here. They originated from John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion but they are my paraphrase of his points. He refers to them as prayer rules but I think of them as prayer attitudes.

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His first point is to approach God with joyful fear. It is my biggest challenge to retain my awe of God in a lifetime of familiarity. I like to think of this description: tremble with the privilege of speaking to the Creator of the Universe. This makes me think of a song by Lauren Daigle called Tremble. I will place the link here so you can go listen to it. This song expresses this point of view excellently.

 

Calvin’s second point is an attitude of spiritual insufficiency. This is described as being ruthlessly honest about my flaws and weaknesses. No grandiose facades. God knows.

In restful trust, let go and let God handle our issues. In Keller’s book it is suggested that we could say, “Here’s what I need–but You know best.”

The fourth attitude is to pray with confidence and hope, knowing that God will give us the best answer in his own time and it will be so much better than our ideas.

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So may we all remember in this season, that prayer is about a frame of mind of joyful reverence, honesty, trust and confident hope. ‘Tis the Season!

Tired of Being Watched?

 Ad nauseam, I hear an ad that asks if I am tired of Google tracking me. Well, it is not just Google, my friend. It seems like we are tracked everywhere we go, with every move we make.(The song is going through my head right now.) We miss the freedom of “Be back home before the street lights come on.” Recently I sat and talked with a group of ladies who quickly recited four or five ways their husbands could track them when they were shopping. I was amazed. Then when I thought about it, nothing they mentioned was out of the ordinary. Holy Cow! What kind of world do we live in? Well, we live in a super safe world. We maintain contact, minimize risk and reduce our worry load with all our devices. 

                         

As I thought about the motivation of these husbands tracking their wives, I realized it came from insecurity, fear, lack of trust as well as love. Our obvious knee jerk response to being tracked is to throw out all our devices and move off the grid. But that is not realistic. 

If you have ever been a parent of a teenager, you know this issue from the other side. We worry about what they are up to and if they are safe because normal teenagers usually don’t tell us what they are thinking or why they are thinking it. As a parent we have doubts about what our child is like when we are not around so we resort to tracking them with technology because this world IS a dangerous place. We wish we understood what motivates them and we do not intend this to be punitive. We only want the best for them and it is our job to protect them in this world.

So what if we did with our spouses and close family exactly what we wish our teenage kids would do? What if instead of becoming more sleuth and secretive, we become more transparent and leaned into it? By transparent I mean honest. What if we told our loved ones the moves we make before we make them? And what if we shared our motivation behind our choices in a conversation instead of forcing our loved ones to depend on technology to figure out what we are up to? Of course that would involve taking the time to sit and talk, which is a whole other subject. And to set an example for our kids we need to be transparent ourselves. Ouch!

Here are a few ideas to get us started. 

1. Post some not-so-flattering honest moments of your day on social media.
2. Tell a loved one about a really stupid thing that you did that makes you anxious when you think about it. 
3. Call or text your love one before every impromptu choice you make in your day.
4. Make sure your next of kin has access to ALL your accounts. 
5. Let your significant other know what you are buying and why before you make your purchases.(This is not the same as asking permission to do so.)

If this list makes you very uncomfortable, you are not alone. I believe that transparency is the key to freedom in our technologically advanced world. Take baby steps to be more transparent and I believe you will find that with honesty comes peace.