Talk to Him

 image courtesy of davidniblack.com

                                                                                 
If we are going to be about Jesus, how do we do it?  If you've been in church very long, you know the answers to most of the questions.  You wave your hands when the teacher asks the questions (literally or in your head), because the answer is almost always one of two things right?  1. Jesus (that's always a good answer - seriously, it is) and 2. Pray and read my Bible. We say or hear it so often, it starts to lose meaning.  Not because there isn't power in prayer and Bible study, but because we start to glaze over it.  When you've been in church a long time like me, it's so very easy to know the answers without actually doing any of it.  Or is it just me?

If we are going to be about Him, we've got to know Him.  I don't mean know about Him.  You can know the entire Bible and never know Him if your motives are in the wrong place.  Again, I'm speaking from experience.  God's really been breaking me over this very thing and I have more to say about spending time in His Word, but that's not what this post is about.

I feel the need to share about prayer and what God's showing me.  What is prayer?  Again, we church-goers know the pat answer: talking to God.  Is it really that simple?  Have we made it something harder?  Is there more to it?  I think there is one person in the Bible who can teach us so much about prayer.  You think I'm going to say Jesus, right? That would be a seriously good answer, but not this time.  I'm talking about David.  The guy who is called "a man after God's own heart."  Take a walk through the Psalms of David and we get a portrait of David pouring his heart out to God.  Have you ever read one of David's Psalms and thought "hey, he can't talk to God that way!"  Yet, he did and not only that, his cry made it into our Bible for God's people to continue to read and learn from for thousands of years.  I think it's because God wanted us to see that He desires us to talk to Him.  To get real with Him.  To lay bare before Him.  To praise Him.  To acknowledge His ways.  To pour our complaints out to Him.  To just be us and let Him be Him.

Psalms shows us that we can talk to God about anything and everything.  The intimacy between God and David leaps off our pages.  It's not because David was better or more loved, but because David was real and he never stops talking to his Father.  Some of the Psalms are full of praise and awe of our Creator.  Some are words of gratitude penned by an humble servant.  Others are full of anger and confusion wondering where is God.  Those are the ones where David almost seems disrespectful.  And maybe he is at times, but obviously God can handle it.

I struggle with prayer.  These days it doesn't come natural to me.  It hasn't always been this way.  There was a time in my life where I talked to God continuously and easily.  He was truly my Friend and my Savior.  What happened?  God hasn't changed, so why did I?  First of all, this time of intimacy was when I was 19. I was single.  I had no kids.  I was blessed with a job where I could literally read my Bible for hours while only stopping to answer the phone every once in awhile.  I told God about everything: my dreams, my struggles, my complaints, my love for Him, all of it.  To be honest, it was easy.  The sad part is that it stopped the second it got hard.  I switched jobs to a fast-paced, no break environment.  I was in college.  I got married. I got too busy for my relationship with God.  My desire has always been about Him and His will for me, but busyness and distraction took over and I justified that it was a season of my life. Then, I had kids.  Oh, those cute, little blessings and distractions I've been given.  Another season.  Another excuse. (Moms of little ones, please hear me, there is grace and lots of it. Don't be burdened.  Learn from me though and give Him what you can.  He is worth it even if it's only a few minutes here and there. You are worth it.)

Then, I woke up one day and realized that I rarely prayed.  I wasn't even really comfortable doing so anymore.  Me, the fixer and planner, went out and bought way too many books about prayer and dove in.  I was going to be "good" at this prayer thing.  I was going to figure it out.  As I started down this path, I started worrying more about doing it right than just talking with my Father.  I'm so grateful for the disciple who asked Jesus how should we pray.  Jesus answers with what we call the Lord's Prayer, or sometimes the Model Prayer.  We can learn so much from it, but what happens when you become so wrapped up in following that awesome model?  For me, two things happened,

1. My prayer life was still hit-and-miss at best.  If I couldn't do it "right", I wasn't doing it all.
and,
2. It became a facade.  I became more concerned with what words I was saying than with sharing my heart.

God wants your heart.  He doesn't care about you using the right words. Jesus warned about repetitious words.  They become empty and prideful.  Do not get me wrong here.  We should come to God with reverence and ideally that means coming to Him out of a place of praise.  We should be concerned about our attitude and mindset when coming to Him.  Our prayers should not be filled with selfishness of "I need this" and "I want that." I'm not downplaying His holiness.  He is holy.  We are not.

But stop worrying about doing it right and just talk to Him. The more you do, the more your attitude will align with His.  The more natural it will become.  I'm living proof.  Praying is becoming easier again.  Not because I have more time.  I don't.  Not because I've figured it out.  I haven't.  Because I'm talking to Him again, my Friend, my Redeemer.

Let's learn from David.  If you have no idea where to start, open up your Bible and read Psalms (they are right in the middle if you don't know where to find them). Cry out to your Father.  Lay bare before Him.  Give Him everything you have. He's big enough for all your words, no matter if they are out of confusion or anger or praise.  He wants all of you!  Remember, He calls you friend.

Talk to Him.

Let's Be About Jesus

My first blog post back may be a bit of a soapbox rant, but there is something going on in the church today that is making me sick and worn out.  I am guilty of it so know my fingers are pointing right back at me, but this thing has to stop.  The church (and I'm talking the people, not a specific building or denomination) has to stop being known for what it's against. The world knows we are against the "BIG" sins as we like to categorize them, as if labeling them somehow makes someone else's sins worse than our own.  We can stop screaming it, arguing about it, and posting it on Facebook.  Honestly, if I hear one more argument about the difference between choosing a lifestyle of sin versus a Christian struggling with sin, I might just scream. Sin is sin and Jesus died for all of it.  If He didn't, then I'm certain I didn't make the cut. Last time I checked Romans says we are all sinners and Ephesians tells us we were all once an enemy of God (yes, an enemy - let that sink in for a minute).  Yes, we are called to speak truth in love but if we are only known for what we are are against, we will never get that opportunity.

Let's instead be LOUD about what we are for.  Let's be for people.  Let's be for justice.  Let's be for grace.  Let's be for freedom. In The Message, Galatians 5 says (emphasis mine),

But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.

Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way. Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good—crucified.

Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.

I've witnessed something miraculous happen when people let go of legalism and pointing out the wrongs of this world. We stop seeing the sin and we start seeing the person.  Fear goes away, or at least lessens. Walls begin to fall.  We are no longer scared to embrace someone different from us or someone who is struggling with something we don't understand.  We aren't worried our children might "catch" something (like you can catch sin) by being exposed to certain people.  We stop hanging out in our "Christian" huddles and start getting out into this world like Christ called us to do.  We stop worrying about being right or safe.  We start being the hands and feet of Jesus.

Before you start spouting the word discernment, I'm not telling you to march yourself or your child into a strip club (though God may call you to that very thing and I can tell you about an awesome ministry called Jesus Said Love - just one example of people loving people).  But please stop using discernment as an excuse.

Remember if we are only known for what we are against, we are Pharisees.  From my studies of the gospel, Jesus' anger is always aimed at those guys.  Why?  Because they were missing it.  They were missing Him.  And they were helping others do the same.  My biggest fear in this life is to spend all my time doing "good" and completely miss Jesus.  And even worse, I teach my children to do the same.  God's been messing me up, can you tell?

Let's be about love instead of law. Let's be about Jesus.

Be warned - So much I want to say

I used to love to blog and write and share my thoughts and what was going on in our lives.  But it became about me and a false image.  Unintentionally, my past blog became about putting forth a put together family who loves each other and Jesus.  Well, we do love each other (though don't always feel it and I've heard "I hate you" more times than I would like) and we do love Jesus, but we are far from "put-together" and far from perfect.  I was convicted about this image I was putting out there.  Not that I need to share all my junk with you but at least be open that there is junk and lots of it.  I was also often writing from a place of pride.  So, I shut up.  I've been quiet.

Well, not anymore.  I don't know how often I will post, but I feel like God has given me some things to share.  Out of humility may my words be used.  You've been warned.  It may get loud up in here.