New Life, Nausea and Answered Prayer

 Tuesday, April 14th, just after supper, my wife had a miscarriage.  

The pain of a miscarriage was deep for the two of us and such a strange thing.  Strange is an odd adjective but somehow for me it fits.  We spent quite a while not knowing how to feel.  We didn't know if we should feel as bad as we did at times and at other times we felt ashamed at our feeling normal.  

One of the worst parts of the miscarriage was that my poor wife had to be reminded of it every time she used the bathroom.  I only saw that red, lifeless, blood a few times and it turned my soul inside out.  My wife had a gruesome reminder of loss for days.

For the last ten and a half weeks Christine has been pregnant again.

The discovery of new life within my wife excited me and terrified me.  This Spring I had learned intimately the reality of my utter helplessness is sustaining new life.  The lines on the stick brought a commingling of immense joy and fathoms of deep paranoia. 

When Christine had the miscarriage I wrote out a prayer to keep.  And when my joy and fear collided with this new pregnancy I wrote another prayer.

"Dad,
I'm not afraid that you won't do the right thing or the best thing; I'm afraid that the best thing might hurt.  God, please don't hurt me.  Love my kids."

God has answered my prayer in the way I would want, so far.  I'm happy about that.  God also gave us a cruel blessing: nausea.

Christine has not had nausea with our other kids.  She's had "easy" pregnancies (I type "easy" nervously as a man).  But this time she has been nauseous most times of the day.  This nausea is hard on Christine, but it also is a blessing.  Nausea means the baby lives.  Until she can feel the baby move, nausea is our sign from God that our child's life is being sustained.  I know that my wife wants to stop being nauseous and we know that if she does stop that the worry will restart.

So, we thank God now for nausea.  We thank Him for answered prayer.  We thank God for trusting us with another life.  We thank Him for being the Creator and Sustainer of all life.  

Thank Him with us today.

The Discipline of Wonder

 What do you do in your small group?  What do you in your personal quiet time?  What do you do in your worship service?

I'm guessing in your small group you spend lots of time chatting, lots of time catching up, lots of time answering each others' questions about the passage.  I'm guessing your personal quiet time is filled with brisk reading while your phone lights up next to you and you struggle to ignore it.  I bet your worship service is filled with music, preaching and praying.  

I'm guessing you're a lot like me and your church is a lot like mine.  The things listed above are not bad, but the list is incomplete.

"It seems to me that some of us value information over wonder, and noise over silence.  And I feel that we need a lot more wonder and a lot more silence in our lives." -Fred Rogers

This quote hit me last night as I found myself in a labyrinth of old Mr. Rogers interviews, and yes that happens more than it should.  I'd heard this quote before but it hit me between the eyes last night and I had to write it down and let it sit in my notebook a night.

Do I care more about getting the right answers when I read my Bible or about being in wonder at the God that the Bible reveals to me?  Do I come to small group to stand in shared awe like I did when I went with my family to the Grand Canyon?  Do I expect to spend any time in wonder at a WORSHIP service or do I just plan on getting more answers to the next theological debate I enter?

When my family and I went to the south rim of the Grand Canyon, I was in wonder, but I didn't stay that way long.  We stopped first at Mather Point and it was breathtaking, but it was so crowded.  I was in awe of the Grand Canyon but something was missing.  Silence.  So, I helped convince my entire family to get on a bus and go to the furthest stop called Yaki Point.  Yaki Point wasn't any more grand than Mather Point, but it was silent.  That silence so enhanced my wonder and appreciation of the Grand Canyon.

Do I plan enough quiet space in which to truly wonder?  Do I surround myself with people that allow wonder to happen at all?  Or do I simply feel the need to fill the space with noise?  

Do I view my faith journey as a quest for the right answers to a test or as a wondrous pursuit of a wonderful, saving God?  

We need more wonder.  So, how can we do this?  How can we pursue wonder and not simply correct answers?  How can we use silence in our worship and small groups?  What quiet can we build into our quiet time?  What physical space can we go to in order to achieve this?

I'm not going to answer these questions because your answer may differ from mine, but I simply ask you to ask these questions to yourself today.

"Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus..." Hebrews 3:1

 

Little Big Prayers: Praying with Kids

In my last post I mentioned that praying with my children is one of the most important things I do as a dad.  That post is better than this one, but in this one I want to look at a few practical ways to pray with your children.

Notice that I say "with" and not "for".  We, no doubt, must pray for our kids but sometimes we have a hard time praying with our kids.  The difficulty can come when they have trouble focusing or when they don't seem to understand what's going on.  I encourage you not to worry too much about that.  They will eventually understand more about how to pray, but praying with your children, or in front of your children, will deeply impact their prayer life.

When you pray with your kids is up to you.  I suggest meal times and bed times because they are easy markers in the day to remind us to pray.  But I also encourage you to pray, as Deuteronomy 6:7 says, "as you sit at home and as you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up."  Walks and car rides are great moments to pray with your kids.

So, here are a few types of prayers to do with your kids:

Thank You Prayers

These prayers are easy for kids to participate in.  Thank you for this food, thank you for being able to play with friends, thank you for the beautiful day, thank you for Mommy, thank you for the park, etc.  These prayers are easy prayers for your kids and teach them that God is the Giver of all good gifts.

Help Prayers

For most of us this is the type of praying we remember doing as a kid.  God help Grandma, God help our sick neighbor, God help my school friends, God help me not have bad dreams, etc.  These types of prayers will help them know that caring about others is important.  These types of prayers will reinforce that God is their Helper.  And these types of prayers, even from little lips, work.

Ambulance Prayers

Kids love sirens.  They often notice them before you do.  When you hear ambulance sirens, stop what you're doing and simply say, "God, help whoever that ambulance is going toward and thank you for the people that work with you to help others."  These prayers help your kids learn to pray for those they don't know.  This prayer reminds them that prayer is to be done more often than dinner and bedtime.  These prayers, like the others, help you in the same way.

Steeple Prayers

As you walk by a church building, pray for that church.  Pray that they reach people with the Gospel of Christ, pray that they stay faithful, pray that they do good in the community, etc.  These prayers develop an ecumenical spirit in your child.  These prayers help them be cheerleaders for the Church and not simply their local church.  These prayers encourage your kids to seek first the Kingdom of God (Matthew 6:33).

Shema Prayer

This prayer is one that you do aloud over them.  I've begun ending my prayers with my kids each night with the Shema prayer.  The Shema is the ordinance God gave the Israelites to "love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your strength" (Deuteronomy 6:5).  Jesus said the two greatest commands are, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind... and... love your neighbor as yourself"(Matthew 22:37-40). 

So each night I pray, "Help Anna love you with all her heart, soul, mind and strength, and love her neighbor as herself."  With this prayer I am asking God to enable my children to do their greatest task.  And, by praying this nightly, I am highlighting for my children their purpose in the world.  My prayer shows them they are not aimless beings but people with a particular and massive purpose.

Pray with your children.  If you are already, I hope these little big prayers are able to be added to your toolbox.  If you aren't praying with your kids, then start today.

Hallowing Our Heavenly Father's Name

The below is the manuscript to the sermonette I was able to give at church Sunday. 

One of the most important things I do as a father is pray with my children.  My dad did this and I knew I needed to when I became a father.  I want my kids to catch how I pray, what I pray for and most importantly to whom I pray.

 

In our passage Jesus modeled prayer for His disciples.  Jesus no doubt prayed many prayers with or near Matthew, but this is the prayer Matthew recorded for us.  This is the prayer Jesus gave His disciples during this speedy, master class in prayer.  This prayer is not magic words, though it is always good to pray the words of Scripture, rather, this prayer is a model for us to use.

 

Jesus begins what we call the Lord’s prayer like this.

 

“Our Father in Heaven, hallowed by your name.”  Matthew 6:9

 

This is all I’m going to look at today.  Our Father in Heaven, hallowed by your name.  Just the ‘WHO’ and the first ‘WHAT’ of the prayer.

 

This morning we will talk about the HOW of prayer but to get the H-O-W we start with the W-H-O of prayer.  The WHO of prayer is far more important than the HOW of prayer.  The most excellent part of any prayer is the destination of the prayer, the One on the other side of the line, not the words being said or the length of the prayer.  Remember last week?  The prophets of Baal had some varsity level praying going on from morning to evening and Elijah prayed a short, simple prayer.  What was the difference?  It was the WHO of prayer.  If you’re not praying to the Living God you’re wasting your breath. 

 

“Our Father in Heaven”

 

Jesus taught us to say Father.  In Greek this is ‘Pater’, but Jesus spoke Aramaic and that word is ‘Abba’.  Romans 8:15 says Christians receive the Spirit of sonship and by that Spirit we cry out “Abba, Father.”

 

I have some friends who live in the Middle East.  In fact, one of them, Nate Munstermann, will be here next week.  They say the little boys and girls run to their fathers and say “Abba, Abba” or “Daddy, Daddy.”  Jesus taught us to pray using very intimate language when referring to the Almighty God.  This was a new concept when Jesus said it.  It was known that Yahweh was the Father of the universe as Alexander Graham Bell is the father of the telephone.  But Jesus told his disciples that Yahweh was their father, like their daddy.

 

But Jesus didn’t just say that God is father.  He said “He is Our Father in Heaven.”  God is in Heaven.  Meaning He is on the throne.  He is dwelling in the glory and majesty of Heaven right now.  God is the King of Heaven sitting on His very own throne.  Don’t miss the majesty and unapproachable holiness that the God of Heaven is described with throughout the Bible.

 

~To help us understand this truth of Our Father in Heaven we’re going to use our imaginations.  Some of you are going to think this is silly, but I want you to do it.  You’re going to close your eyes and fill your imagination with what I’m about to describe.  I’m going to compile some Scripture to help paint a picture in our minds that I hope will help the truth seep into our hearts using our God given imagination.  So, close your eyes and picture this.

 

Picture the throne room of Heaven.  The LORD is seated on a throne, high and exalted.  He’s way up above the eye level of every being in the room.  The train of His robe is so large that it fills the room.  A rainbow resembling emerald encircles the throne.  Above the LORD are seraphs, angels that are nearly indescribable in beauty and terror.  They have six wings, yet they are protecting their faces from the Almighty LORD because of His inapproachable light. With two wings they cover their faces like Moses in the cleft of the rock, with two they covered their feet and with two they fly in a circle about the throne.  They call out to one another, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty who was, and is and is to come; the whole earth is full of His glory.”   As they shout that, the doorposts and thresholds of the throne room shake and the room is filled with smoke.  Flashes of lightning and rolls of thunder come from the throne.  The elders in the room lay their crowns down before the LORD and praise Him loudly.

 

Are you seeing this?

 

Now you step into the back of the throne room and survey this awe inspiring scene and shout “Daddy” as you run and boldly approach the throne to talk to Our Father in Heaven.~

 

Open your eyes. 

 

This is how Jesus taught us to pray.  This is to whom we pray!

 

1 John 3:1 says, “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are.”

 

Brothers and sister, this is not a metaphor.  This is what we actually are.  We ARE children of God!

 

Understanding this will change our prayer life in a number of ways but I want to talk about two.

 

1)   OUR Father.

Not only does God adopt us into His family but He puts the lonely into a family.  You are never alone even though a quarantine or a widowing may make you feel alone.  This is why we pray with one another.  This is why we pray for one another.  This is why we rest knowing somebody’s praying for me.  This is why we trust that even if nobody in the church is praying for us that our Big Brother Jesus certainly is and the prayer of a righteous man availeth much!

 

2)   Our Great Father is Good to Us and Desires to Hear from Us.

Some of us pray like we’ve got to get a PowerPoint presentation ready to present to God to convince Him that He should be good to us.  We can trust that our Good, Good Father knows best and does best.  We can ask in the confidence that He will work all things together for good and that He’s a bread giving Father and not a serpent giving father. 

 

I invite you to think deeply about the wonderful attributes of our Heavenly Father and shout in your heart, “That’s my Dad!”  He is holy, self-existent, self-sufficient, eternal, infinite, unchanging, all-knowing, all-powerful, omnipresent, faithful, good, just, merciful, gracious, sovereign and loving.  That’s my Dad!  Is it yours?

 

He doesn’t need us to say magic words to get what we need.  We don’t have to say fellowship instead of get-together and talk about whatever a hedge of protection is to get Him to notice us.

He doesn’t need us to say millions of words or have millions of people praying for us.  See verses 7 and 8, “And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans for they think they will be heard because of their many words.  Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.”  So, if He knows what we need before we ask, why do we pray?   It’s because our Great Father is good to us and desires to hear from us. 

 

What are we waiting for?  Run to the throne, climb on His lap and talk to Him!

 

That’s the first half of verse 9.

 

“Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be your name.”

 

I read this verse incorrectly for years.  I read hallowed as part of the WHO of the Lord’s Prayer and not of the WHAT.  Our Father without a doubt is hallowed.  He is holy and set apart.  But this actually is the first thing Jesus teaches us to ask for in His model prayer.

 

In fact, I’ll argue that this is the main request of the entire prayer. 

 

So, we ask God to make His name hallowed.

 

But isn’t it already hallowed?  How can I ask an infinitely holy God to MAKE His name hallowed?  If you’re thinking that I can’t ask God to be any more holy than He is then you’re right.  You can’t increase an infinite.

 

So, what is Jesus modeling us to ask for?

 

When we worship we often sing about magnifying God or glorifying God.  What do we mean in this?  To steal a metaphor from John Piper and to bore all the Pulse kids who have heard this a thousand times… do we magnify God like a telescope or a microscope?  Microscopes take small things and magnify them to appear larger than they actually are.  Telescopes take enormous things and make them look slightly less small than they appear without the aid of a telescope.  Jupiter looks much bigger in a telescope than it does with the naked eye, but we know that Jupiter is not the size of a half dollar.  In fact, more than 1,300 planet Earths can fit inside of Jupiter and Earth is so big that many of you haven’t been out of our own country.

 

We magnify God like a telescope.  When we pray that God would be hallowed we are asking Him to appear somewhat more like He actually is.  We’re asking Him to look like a half dollar instead of a speck to our mind’s eye and to the minds’ eye of those in this little planet.

 

Why does Jesus instruct us to make this request first?

I think it is because our Person is child of God and our Purpose is making much of Him.

 

Our Person:  J. I. Packer in Knowing God said, “What is a Christian?... a Christian is one who has God as Father.”

 

Our Purpose can be defined by the Westminister Shorter Catechism question one.

Q: What is the chief end of man?

A: Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

 

1 Corinthians 10:31 says, “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”

 

So, how do we hallow our Father’s name in prayer?

 

There are many ways but I will look quickly at two ways.

 

1)   We recognize our smallness and our need for our glorious Father.

Jesus teaches this in the Lord’s prayer.  We pray for our daily bread.  We pray for forgiveness of sins.  We pray that we would be forgivers.  We pray that we be led away from temptation.  We beg our Good Father to help us like my kids beg me for help; not because I have to be begged, but because they have to be helped.

 

2)   We enjoy His presence in prayer.

I love it when I come home and my kids run to me and shout “Daddy’s home!”  Tuesday I was meeting with Dan and Jim and when I got home Joshua was thrilled to see me. He asked if he could put on his frog boots and jump in the puddles as it rained.  And you know what?  I love that.  I love when my kids are so utterly satisfied just by holding my hand and jumping in puddles.  I secretly love it when they run to me instead of my wife and ask me to kiss the scrape.  I love when they’re thrilled with my presence and provision.

 

I’ll remind you of a Piper quote: “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.”

 

So, let me finish by asking two question.

 

1)   Do my prayers magnify the reputation of God? In what I pray for? In how I pray?  In how I wait? In how I approach Him?

2)   And, do I have God as my Father?  If you do, how can you pray like you do so that you experience this truth?  If you don’t, do you want God as your Father because His Son died to adopt you.

7 Lucky Years

 Today is the 7th anniversary of the day my beautiful bride walked down the aisle.  It was seven years ago today that my friend became my wife.  It was seven years ago that we swore to God that we would cling to one another until death did us part.

Over the last 2,557 days we have done a lot:

2 homes

infertility

2 births of kids

1 miscarriage

3 foster kids

6 funerals for family members

many weddings

some bad days

some ordinary days

some great days

1 pandemic

In the last 2,557 days my love for Christine Marie Ray has grown deeper and wider.  I've learned so much about the woman gifted to me.

Here are seven things I learned in seven years.

1) Christine is a great mother.  She is a great mother to our own children and to children invited into our home.

2) She is a constant friend.  I still like playing with her and talking with her.  She's still the first person I want to tell my stories even if she doesn't really care about them.

3) She knows nothing about pop culture or history.  I don't know what rock Steve and Karen raised her under, but it was effective.

4) I have to notice where she places things.  There will be a quiz later.

5) She's passionate about me.  I thought perhaps a woman could tolerate me, but I never thought a woman like Christine could be nuts over me.

6) I get nervous when she's the one driving and she doesn't like that.  Not sure why I feel like I need that drivers ed brake on the passenger side, but for some reason I can't get over that.

7) Life with her goes fast.  I hardly remember life before being her husband and yet it seems like she walked down the aisle of Grace Baptist Church a week ago.  Seven years has gone by in the blink of an eye.

Christine, I love you and I will be here with you until one of us dies.  I hope, even in the age of COVID-19, you feel that love and commitment today.

Present Good > Future Good

It was Saturday and I had a conundrum.  My in-laws were in town and we had church the next day.  Our church had been meeting in-person.  I knew my in-laws wouldn't feel comfortable going to an in-person service.  So, I wondered what we should do.  Should we stay home and watch online?  Or should we go?  I didn't want to put them in a position they didn't choose to be in with the virus.

I didn't have to make the decision.  Saturday we got an e-mail saying service was canceled due to a positive case of COVID-19 in a family and some contacts with that family made by both pastors.

That Sunday my in-laws were in town because Christine and I had a CPR and First Aid class that afternoon and they were going to watch the kids.  We were going to leave the house at 12:20.  A little before noon I got a call saying the instructor was sick and the class was canceled.

This is the life we live now.  Our plans are very unsure.  Will schools meet in-person all semester?  Will sports happen?  Will your family Christmas gathering happen? 

We know nothing.

This morning I was on the phone with a friend that I was about to interview.  He talked about how the business he worked at was waiting to unveil their plans for the Fall.  I said I feel like we're stuck in the verse in James.

"Now listen, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.'  Why, you don't even know what will happen tomorrow.  What is your life?  You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.  Instead you ought to say, 'If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that.'  As it is, you boast and brag.  All such boasting is evil.  Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins."  James 4:13-17

Let's use this time of uncertainty to learn. 

During this pandemic we are keenly aware that we can't predict the basic things of the future.  Our plans all have to be held onto loosely.  We all know that we can't know.

James told us this truth 2,000 years ago.  What is my life?  It is a mist.  My life is dictated by the will of the Lord.  Believing anything else is braggadocios.

So, what do we do when life is a constant flux?  What do we do when we can't know if our plans will go as we intend? 

We do the good in front of us.

"Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do, and doesn't do it, sins."  James 4:17

The lesson of this verse and of our uncertain times is don't plan on future good when present good is available.  Don't think, "When I have the money, I will be generous."  Be generous now.  Don't delay doing the good set before you now in order to do good later.  Don't exchange actual good for theoretical future good.

What good is there for you to do today?  What has been presented to your present? 

Do it, before it's too late, today.

Dear Worship Leaders

Music has been and continues to be an important part of Christian worship services.  Many of our fondest and deepest memories of corporate worship have to do with music. 

I've said this many times... when you leave a service do you more often have a line from the sermon stuck in your head or a line from a song?  For me, it's nearly always a song that has become looped in my brain.

The songs we sing are important.  Many music therapist have told me stories of people with dementia that can't remember the names of their grandchildren or even their children but can sing multiple verses of their favorite hymns. 

Music glues words to our brains in a way no other thing can.

A few weeks ago my wife and I were reading through 1 Chronicles.  When we read at night we don't do a study.  We simply read a chapter before bed.  Some chapters we read are thrilling and others, to be honest, are long, boring lists of names and boundary lines.  1 Chronicles 25 is one of those chapters, but it was this chapter that had a line jump out to me and it has everything to do with the songs we sing.

"David, together with the commanders of the army, set apart some of the sons of Asaph, Heman and Jeduthun for the ministry of prophesying, accompanied by harps, lyres and cymbals.  Here is the list of the men who performed this service:" 1 Chronicles 25:1

The chapter is all about King David's musicians.  This chapter is full of tongue tying names and is one of those chapters that are not the most fun to read, but that first verse spoke to me.

What were the musicians tasked to do?  Prophesy words set to music.

What is prophesy here?  First, it is not telling the future.  Much of the time the Bible doesn't mean doing the work of a seer when it says prophesy.  What prophesy means here is to speak as a mediator between God and man.  So, the musicians were tasks with singing God's Word to the people and singing the people's words to God.

Worship pastors/leaders, are you in the ministry of prophesying, accompanied by piano, organ, guitar, drums, bass and violin?  When you choose music for your corporate worship do you think about what sounds best first?  Do you consider what is on Christian radio?  Or do you most consider what lyrics best mediate God's Word to the people and the people's words to God?

I think there are all sorts of musical styles that can be God honoring.  From baroque to EDM, from orchestral to hip hop, all styles of music can honor God effectively.  Worship leaders must find styles of music that can speak to those in the congregation best.  But the lyrics should be of first importance.

What lyrics are long lasting?  What lyrics would Christ himself say accurately represent Him?  What lyrics help the congregation hear what Jesus has for them?  What lyrics help those assembled speak honoring words to God?

In 50 years when I'm in the nursing home with dementia will the lyrics sung on this coming Sunday at your church be worth being stuck in my head?

Worship pastors/leaders, your job is very important.  You are more than sing-a-long leaders.  You are tasked with the ministry of prophesy set to music.  Choose your lyrics wisely today.