When God Says, "Gotcha!"

You may be familiar with the true story from 2005 about a radio show listener who thought she'd won $100,000 in a radio contest. She called in at the correct time and was told she'd won "100 grand." After she exploded with joy and eventually calmed down enough from her excitement to listen, the DJ informed her that she had, indeed, won the prize -- a "100 Grand candy bar." Gotcha!

The DJ was sued.

Then there's the similarly-zany account of the Hummer that a listener won in another contest. When the caller gave the correct answer in the contest and went to pick up her brand-new Hummer H2, she unpleasantly found that it was a toy. Gotcha!

She sued the radio station.

How many times have you heard it said, "You'd better not ask God for patience because He might just give you what you ask for"? The implication is that we'll be thrown into trials during which God will prolong difficult situations, cause our children to go astray, make it impossible for us to pay our bills, or any of a number of circumstances which will teach us to be patient.

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gratuitous goggles?

Saturday's yard work was filled with parallels (and not just the awesomely straight and parallel lines that my wife was cutting with the mower).

As I noted in a post yesterday, during the process of string-trimming I successfully saved my hearing from almost certain peril. Who'd have thought that my eyes might be in imminent danger, as well? In the back of my mind I hate to say that I've always thought that protective yard-working accouterments are the stuff of old people. That opinion was dashed to pieces as I mercilessly attacked the tall grass behind our storage shed. Small scintillas of wet grass (that seemed to have the impact of small baseballs) assaulted my face, with at least one bit lodging itself in my eye.

Realizing that I'm not old (like I'd always thought I had to be in order to wear protective clothing), I reasoned that silly things like goggles just might be useful for us young whipper-snappers in this circumstance.

So I stopped the motor, went inside, and after extracting turf from my eye, found and equipped myself with my son's clear airsoft gun glasses, hoping that they would serve to protect my eyes against airborne Bermuda grass particles just as well as they would from rubber pellets.

It turns out that I didn't need to wear them at all, because no more grass got in my eyes that day.

Have you ever prayed over something (maybe a safe trip, a surgery that was uncomplicated, for peace in the family, or anything like that), seen your specific request come to pass, and completely ignored God in your realization that the worst didn't happen and you were probably just paranoid to start with?

It's like saying, "Okay, ah, thanks and all, God, but looks like You didn't even need to bother with this one after all." It's like me putting on my goggles and thinking, "Well, that was dumb. I didn't need these things. No grass got into my eyes."

It's worth noting that after I had finished trimming the grass, I took the goggles off and saw tiny flecks of grass all over the front of them; flecks that weren't visible while I was wearing the goggles.

I have a sneaking suspicion that this happens in life far more often than we'd think.

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electives?

The other day my beautiful and perfect wife was cleaning the house. It needed to be done because we were going to have a guest over. I was working on things for the upcoming worship service on Sunday. I wasn't doing any manual labor, and I probably could have taken care of some of my tasks earlier in the week.

(But I didn't, and because of that I have blog fodder.)

So after a bit of that, I looked up at her and said, "@callielusk (I actually said her real name, because not only do I not speak Twitter stuff aloud, but it makes me think of The Artist Formerly Known As Prince, and I don't want to give her REAL name out in a post...), I'm going to pray about helping you."

And we both smirked that goofy and knowing smirk that happens when your spouse says, "Spouse, I'm going to pray about helping you."

But before I knew it, which, I hate to say, was more than a few minutes, she was done!

I'm having trouble finding a spiritual parallel. Say, one that relates to followers of Christ doing things that all followers of Christ should do. Any help would be appreciated.

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save me from myself?

This morning I set my coffee cup on top of a three-ring binder that was on a table in the den (or whatever the proper word is for that room). It wasn't one of those with the huge 2" or 3" spine, but there was an incline to it, so my coffee cup was sitting there at an angle. As I stood next to it and put my houseshoes on, I said a short, silent prayer: "Lord, please don't allow that coffee cup to fall." I knew that if it fell it would wake my daughter, who'd slept on the pull-out bed in the den thingy room.

It struck me pretty much instantly that if I do something that intentionally invokes the results of the law of gravity in a bad way, it's a little silly to ask God to adjust the laws of nature for a few minutes while I put my shoes on.

To be sure, I thought there was a pretty good chance that the coffee cup wouldn't slide off and crash to the floor. Otherwise I wouldn't have put it there. But I thought it was a pretty good insurance policy to ask God to take up the slack.

Here's where I think that we Christians are prone to take verses out of context. "This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us." (1 John 5:14, NASB) Could I have confidence that God would hear my prayer and respond the way I asked Him to?

Maybe you've offered such prayers as, "Lord, I'm so late because I had to change clothes because I didn't like that other shirt. Please help me get there on time," or "Please don't let the computer lock up on me before I send this e-mail, even though I don't run antivirus software and haven't defragged in three years." Things like this and my goofy coffee-cup prayer are instances in which we ask God to take up the slack of our own stupidity or lack of planning and preparation.

I'm talking about the things that are obviously nuts, but it goes even deeper than this. Very often we will do things a certain way, out of the will of God or without so much as a thought about Christ, and then ask God to make the results turn out in an unlikely way.

If we've spent the whole day living outside of God's will, it's a misconception to think that He will wrap all of the day's events up in a way that glosses over our intentional wrong actions and say to us, "No problem. Well done, my good and faithful servant!"

Many times, praise God, He is merciful and gracious in these situations. But remember the resounding words of the psalmists and prophets like Jeremiah (I paraphrase from many different passages): I have been faithful to walk in Your ways, Lord. Please remember your servant and protect me from calamity and those who would harm me. (have a look at Psalm 58 and Psalm 91, for instance.) Looking at Scripture, I don't believe we can hope for the latter without having done the former.

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Prayer Wars

It's jaw-dropping and energizing to see Satan lose battles. That amazement is doubled when you've been praying over a situation and God says "yes" in an instant way rather than incrementally. (Humans are so limited by linear thinking.)

I was looking at God in amazement last night because of the way He'd seen fit to address several things I'd been praying over, and I woke up this morning and saw that another great thing had happened while I slept. I'm wide-eyed at how God has powerfully moved for His own fame and glory in response to prayer. My devotional this morning was called "Prayer Wars" and was based on Ephesians 6:10-24; a passage about equipping ourselves with the whole armor of God and spiritual warfare.

I can't help thinking that someone at InterVarsity Press is diligently following God. A couple of months ago I found their morning devotionals and instantly liked them because they're inductive. They use large passages of Scripture, there are no scripted answers to the many questions that are posed within the daily studies, and mercifully, there are usually no cute stories or illustrations that potentially distract from the point.

I bring up these particular devotionals because they uncannily seem to go step-for-step along with what's happening in my life from one day to the next. It's really eerie.

Have to admit, yesterday it was so good to see God at work around me that I'm slightly paranoid that today couldn't possibly match up to it. But then there's this passage...

Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen.
- Ephesians 3:20-21 (NLT)

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Prayer Exercise Revisited

"Church speak" is that vernacular in which we who are used to churchy things speak, particularly when we're around others of our ilk. It's also the way we talk to God most of the time. Quite a long time ago, I wrote about how changing the language of my prayers had a deep, positive impact on my life. I'm offering a refresher here.

When was the last time you used "pray" in a sentence (to someone other than God) where you were requesting something of another person or telling them something? Maybe if we were in the 1600's, we'd say something like, "I pray thee, O my wife, tell me where the Altoids are." (I think they've been making them for that long...)

My recommendation is simple, really. Instead of saying to God, "Lord, I pray that you would be with Jethro in his surgery," a sentence that would make this more meaningful to us would be something like, "Lord, please draw Jethro closer to you as a result of the surgery he's having this morning on his right eyelash (or whatever)." Or maybe this: "Father, Jethro is having eyelash surgery this morning. Please give the doctors incredible skill, foresight, and deft hands as they operate, and physically strengthen Jethro so that the results of the surgery honor You."

To be honest, I don't even really have to know what I mean when I say, "I pray for this person." For me, the word "pray" had gotten so ambiguous in my prayers that it became a catch-all word.

While that word may not be a catch-all for you, the expansion of prayer-speak into phrases that are comprehensible and meaningful in modern English (or your native language and dialect) serve to actually help us grow closer to God. We take Him out of the cultivated religion box and are able to express ourselves and our prayers more accurately.

It also serves to help us to care about and love the people we're praying over. It pushes us to be specific, whether in our thanks or requests to God.

Don't shoot this post down until you've put it into practice for a few days. I'm interested in knowing about your results.

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For the Sake of Your Reputation

I haven't forgotten about the rest of the church slogans. More coming up. I'll also be following up on the Agnosticism and the Church post soon. Greatly appreciate the comments there; I wish that there were more who were willing to get involved in that sort of thing. But on to today's post...

For the sake of your reputation, Lord, do not abandon us.
    Do not disgrace your own glorious throne.
Please remember us,
    and do not break your covenant with us.
- Jeremiah 14:21 (NLT) [emphasis mine]

I've found that this is a really difficult type of prayer to pray with a genuine heart. Most of the time, I think, our prayers asking for good stuff to happen are mostly centered in the fact that we want to experience good stuff -- not because we want to see God's fame increased.

Or maybe I'm just speaking from my own perspective and you've never had this problem.

Taking the correct perspective on this has been eye-opening for me, focusing on my real intentions and forcing me to change my thoughts and motives sometimes. "Lord, please give me the money to get that new plasma TV. Err... so that You will be glorified among the nations forevermore, amen." That kind of prayer doesn't get said anymore (not that I've ever prayed anything quite like that). I think that we'll find that, when we're focused on making the whole of our lives revolve around Jesus Christ, we will be unable to deeply desire "stuff" for ourselves.

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From the Archives - Opposable Thumbs

Simultaneously doing different tasks with each of my hands today reminded me of the following post, originally made in January of this year.

I suppose my cat is good for something. Occasionally my son, in his own particular idiom, will remark of Jesse the cat, "He would help [in doing whatever task it is that needs to be done], but he doesn't have opposable thumbs." (Thumbs are "opposable" in that they can turn in the opposite direction of the other fingers.)

Not too far afield from the line of thought that Tony mentioned under Saturday's post, do you ever thank God for the mundane? Most of us let that sort of praying fall by the wayside after we got out of kindergarten. "Thank You for the trees," and "Thank You for the birds," were pretty popular prayers in Sunday School around that time, as I recall. Now that we're older, wiser, and far more skilled at being callous, we probably have a tendency to smirk and think, "Isn't that cute?" when we hear a child pray along those lines.

Again, do you ever marvel at the things we consider to be little? You may think this weird, but are you ever thankful for the fact that you don't simply fall over when you try to walk on those two stalks known as "legs"? (Psalm 139:14) Do you ever look up and tell God, "That's beautiful!" when you take in the sheer beauty and depth of color of a blue sky? (Psalm 104:3)

Constantly meditating on and thanking God for the fact that He has created us and the world around us in a wholly miraculous manner will go quite a long way in keeping our minds continually fixed on Him. After reading Psalm 104, it's hard to think of His creation as ordinary.

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Bless Me, God

Doesn't it seem self-serving to directly ask God to bless you? David didn't think so. He specifically asks for blessings, but keeps his honor and thanks focused on God, both before and after. If we take our blessings and let them consume us, allowing them to take a higher place in our lives than the God Who's given them to us, then yes, those prayers are self-serving.

May our sons flourish in their youth
    like well-nurtured plants.
May our daughters be like graceful pillars,
    carved to beautify a palace.
May our barns be filled
    with crops of every kind.
May the flocks in our fields multiply by the thousands,
    even tens of thousands,
    and may our oxen be loaded down with produce.
May there be no enemy breaking through our walls,
    no going into captivity,
    no cries of alarm in our town squares.
Yes, joyful are those who live like this!
    Joyful indeed are those whose God is the Lord.
Psalm 144:12-15 (NLT)

This topic and "Appreciation Into Idolatry" (which has received some more in-depth commentary than many posts lately) both lean toward a subject I intend to address next week: personal notariety (fame) and the Christ-follower.

Have a great and blessed weekend!

(The photo above links to the Cubicle Congregation blog, where I found the image. Neat idea for a blog! Since I've not read it yet, I cannot throw my substantial theological weight behind it (cough! cough!). The guy in the "About Me" at the blog looks like Christian Slater, so it is sort of "Christian" in that way... Just wanted to give credit where it was due.)

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Digging Into the Archives

Lately I feel like I've been neglecting my time with the Lord in the mornings because of this stupid blog. I spend more time trying to nail down what He's taught me and put it into a post than I do concentrating on His word and spending time in prayer, which is a flip-flop of the reason this blog exists -- to simply relay what God is teaching me. Therefore, today I'm digging back into the archives and re-posting an older post. I'll do this as necessary.

The following was originally written on September 28, 2007, and was called "Church Speak."

A couple of months ago I was talking with my friend Jonathan about the words that Church people tend to use when they're talking to other Church people. Some of the words we use in those conversations are never used elsewhere. Like "encourage." Right now I can't remember the last time I used that word in a conversation outside of a connection with church.

Now, some words don't really have a counterpart outside of words we use when referring to Christ or God's work in believers, like "grace" and "mercy." I understand that fully, and am not suggesting that these words are somehow obsolete. On the contrary, we need to remember these words and their meaning, and be sure that others know what we're talking about when we use them.

I just want to note something that's really had a positive impact on my prayer life, in particular. After my conversation with Jonathan, I've intentionally avoided using the word "pray" in my prayers, for instance. Yes, of course God knows what I mean when I say that word, but I've found that I'm almost forced to explain myself and the real intention of what I'm asking or saying to God when I don't use it.

For instance, it's pretty customary to say something like, "I pray for John Doe today, that he would be encouraged as he deals with his situation." But it makes me really get to the bottom of what I mean when I say something more along the lines of, "John Doe is dealing with a boss who constantly runs him down verbally, and I ask You to open his eyes to see You at work around him, and that his outlook will be changed to see the positive things in the situation." More specific, slightly different wording, and the latter is more along the lines of the everyday speech I use. I find myself expanding words like "encourage" to say exactly what I mean: "I ask you to remind John Doe of Your words, and to send someone to him to be Your voice and Your hands and feet."

I challenge you to talk to God each day in that way, or at least experiment with it. I've found that the deliberate avoidance of some of the habit-forming Church words has really taken my interaction with God to another level. It forces me to be very specific, since some religious-sounding words can have a bunch of stuff rolled up in them, and we can actually wind up using them as a crutch or a catch-all.

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Prayer Request

My wife's uncle (a Christ-follower) passed away in the wee hours of the morning. His family is a closely-knit one, and this will be difficult. Please pray for the family, that they will know peace and rejoicing and that Jesus Christ will be lifted up through this situation.

I own a BlackBerry Pearl, and I recently set it up with a fairly non-obtrusive computer-sounding blip for e-mail notification. Within minutes of my sending the above information to our church fellowship's e-mail group, my Pearl began to make fairly non-obtrusive blips, and seemed to go on forever. I can't tell you how encouraging it is to see one simple reply saying something like "We're praying. Let us know what we can do. Seriously." When you get a large number of those replies, it's a huge understatement to say that it's seriously touching and encouraging.

When you pray over someone's situation, don't neglect to let them know you're doing so.

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The Choice to Turn

Sorry, kids, no unusual analogies today, although I'm typing this on a laptop with freshly-replaced hinges, and there are probably two kabillion lessons and stories I could draw from that. The title of the post today isn't even catchy. This is just self-reflection that I'll bet you'll be able to cut-and-paste right into your own life; if not now, at some point in the past or future.

As I ask God for widsom and knowledge in areas over which I've been placed at my church fellowship, I ask Him to remove my preconceived ideas about what songs, programs, ministries, techniques, etc., are effective (actually, "I like the most," may be more appropriate than "are effective"), and ask Him to instead show me what is best.

When I pray that prayer, I'm deeply disturbed by the fact that I can't seem to let go of some remnants of my old attitudes toward other things -- "regular, non-church" things (actually, it's all Church; the Christ-follower carries the "Church" title with him) -- and I wonder how, if I'm not able to set Dean's prejudices aside in those areas, why do I expect to be able to do so in this other area of my life?

There is a balance between beginning again with a blank slate and retaining the wisdom that we've been given by God in life. There are lessons that He's taught us throughout life that we should obviously hold onto and use. However, peppered throughout are reactions and attitudes of our own that are not part of what He's taught us.

As we live life with Christ, it should become pretty apparent which ones are which. As I've mentioned in the past, knowledge and conviction of sin do not equal repentance. Saying, "I know now that I have a problem with such-and-such an attitude (or person or situation)" is fairly worthless if I'm not willing to adjust my life based upon that perspective that God's given me.

The words Moses spoke to Israel thousands of years ago still ring true to the Christ-follower today:

"But if your heart turns away and you refuse to listen, and if you are drawn away to serve and worship other gods, then I warn you now that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live a long, good life in the land you are crossing the Jordan to occupy.

"Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live! You can make this choice by loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and committing yourself firmly to him. This is the key to your life. And if you love and obey the Lord, you will live long in the land the Lord swore to give your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."

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New Links

Not long ago I added Pam to my daily prayer list. This morning I've added her blog to my list of links. Have a look, and please add yourself to the number of those praying over her situation.

She likes the Lord of the Rings movies and The Chronicles of Narnia (hurry up and be May 16 already!), so I'm predisposed to think she's a very cool person all around.

I've also added a link to infant Tori Wilhoit's CaringBridge.org site. Tori is a little over four months old and she and her family have been on my prayer list since slightly before Tori was born. I should have added this link a long time ago! The Wilhoits are close friends, and it has been both difficult and uplifting (repeat these two things over and over) to see the situation unfold and to see what God has done and what He is still doing. Offer praise!

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Opposable Thumbs

I suppose my cat is good for something. Occasionally my son, in his own particular idiom, will remark of Jesse the cat, "He would help [in doing whatever task it is that needs to be done], but he doesn't have opposable thumbs." (Thumbs are "opposable" in that they can turn in the opposite direction of the other fingers.)

Not too far afield from the line of thought that Tony mentioned under Saturday's post, do you ever thank God for the mundane? Most of us let that sort of praying fall by the wayside after we got out of kindergarten. "Thank You for the trees," and "Thank You for the birds," were pretty popular prayers in Sunday School around that time, as I recall. Now that we're older, wiser, and far more skilled at being callous, we probably have a tendency to smirk and think, "Isn't that cute?" when we hear a child pray along those lines.

Again, do you ever marvel at the things we consider to be little? You may think this weird, but are you ever thankful for the fact that you don't simply fall over when you try to walk on those two stalks known as "legs"? (Psalm 139:14) Do you ever look up and tell God, "That's beautiful!" when you take in the sheer beauty and depth of color of a blue sky? (Psalm 104:3)

Constantly meditating on and thanking God for the fact that He has created us and the world around us in a wholly miraculous manner will go quite a long way in keeping our minds continually fixed on Him. After reading Psalm 104, it's hard to think of His creation as ordinary.

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My Cat is Useless for Illustrations

I always prefer to use real-world illustrations in the things I write here, and I've been wishing my cat would do something profound so that I could spin that into some sort of analogy. But doing so would potentially alienate the half of you who probably can't stand cats (plus, the cat doesn't seem to be too good at doing profound things). I'll work on it and see what I can come up with, though.

Lately I've been talking with a few people about the importance of prayer. I realize that nothing that I write here can really motivate you to do something that you've not set your mind to do. That's why illustrations usually work so well -- executed correctly, they can make us think about things and situations in ways that we haven't before. (I'm avoiding use of the well-known-from-sermons analogy that a marriage in which the husband and wife don't speak is one in which their affection for one another will probably not grow. )

So, I want to simply and directly let you know (or remind you) that sincere, diligent prayer is an absolutely necessary part of life for the Christ-follower.

Come and listen, all you who fear God,
     and I will tell you what he did for me.
For I cried out to him for help,
     praising him as I spoke.
If I had not confessed the sin in my heart,
     the Lord would not have listened.
But God did listen!
     He paid attention to my prayer.
Praise God, who did not ignore my prayer
     or withdraw his unfailing love from me.
(Psalm 66:16-20, NLT)

As it is with our whole life -- the things that we think on, do, and say -- when we make the decision to follow Christ, being diligent about prayer will require an act of our will and most likely an adjustment to our lifestyle. For my part, I've found that prayer is not a practice that I can neatly plug into "business as usual."

To close with a question that will certainly not apply to everyone reading this, but will likely apply to some (and as such isn't accusatory), why do you not pray?

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Request for Prayer

Before you go about reading anything else, I'd like for you to stop what you're doing and take a moment to lift up the baby daughter of my friends Josh and Melissa Wilhoit (and the granddaughter of our pastor and his wife) in prayer. Tori was born prematurely and is only a couple of months old. She is in desparate need of physical healing right now. Please pray directly for that and for the emotional needs of the family. Above all, I pray that God will be glorified.

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Church Speak

A couple of months ago I was talking with my friend Jonathan about the words that Church people tend to use when they're talking to other Church people. Some of the words we use in those conversations are never used elsewhere. Like "encourage." Right now I can't remember the last time I used that word in a conversation outside of a connection with church.

Now, some words don't really have a counterpart outside of words we use when referring to Christ or God's work in believers, like "grace" and "mercy." I understand that fully, and am not suggesting that these words are somehow obsolete. On the contrary, we need to remember these words and their meaning, and be sure that others know what we're talking about when we use them.

I just want to note something that's really had a positive impact on my prayer life, in particular. After my conversation with Jonathan, I've intentionally avoided using the word "pray" in my prayers, for instance. Yes, of course God knows what I mean when I say that word, but I've found that I'm almost forced to explain myself and the real intention of what I'm asking or saying to God when I don't use it.

For instance, it's pretty customary to say something like, "I pray for John Doe today, that he would be encouraged as he deals with his situation." But it makes me really get to the bottom of what I mean when I say something more along the lines of, "John Doe is dealing with a boss who constantly runs him down verbally, and I ask You to open his eyes to see You at work around him, and that his outlook will be changed to see the positive things in the situation." More specific, slightly different wording, and the latter is more along the lines of the everyday speech I use. I find myself expanding words like "encourage" to say exactly what I mean: "I ask you to remind John Doe of Your words, and to send someone to him to be Your voice and Your hands and feet."

I challenge you to talk to God each day in that way, or at least experiment with it. I've found that the deliberate avoidance of some of the habit-forming Church words has really taken my interaction with God to another level. It forces me to be very specific, since some religious-sounding words can have a bunch of stuff rolled up in them, and we can actually wind up using them as a crutch or a catch-all.

Read more »