"I, the Lord, am the maker of all things, Stretching out the heavens by Myself. . . .”
Isaiah 44:24 (NAS)
If you look carefully, the sky can be incredibly revealing and richly interactive. Once I saw a sun dog on a blustery winter day—two bright smears of light flanking the sun, caused by blowing ice particles reflecting its rays.
Out watching a lunar eclipse one evening, my neighbor and I waved at the moon in a teasing attempt to see our own shadows there! How humbling it was to see earth’s curve creep across the moon’s face.
After reading a story about a “dream pillow” cloud, my grandchildren and I had great fun selecting our favorite clouds for dreaming on.
When an Alaskan June midnight sun set on my daughter’s birthday, I congratulated the glowing pink clouds, calling “It’s a girl!”
How mesmerizing to watch the northern lights flash emerald across the Alaskan arctic night and imagine that emerald rainbow around God’s throne (Revelation 4:3).
God has sunk His wealth in the sky, there to see 24/7. But something is not there yet. Jesus said of His return, “Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory” (Luke 21:27, NAS). The sky will one day dazzle us with God’s richest treasure: Jesus, our Majestic Savior, Bright Morning Star, Redeemer and Friend. He’s the best reason to keep looking up.
“O beautiful, for spacious skies,” Lord, the backdrop for my interaction with You and the panorama for Your triumphant return!
Saturday, June 26, 2010
MASTURBATION AND ME.
I KNOW ONE CAN HELP ONE STOP MASTURBATION. SO I WILL LIKE THOSE WHO ARE REALLY OUT TO SAVE A SOUL TO POST THEIR COMMENT ON HOW ONE WHO IS A VICTIM BE LIBERATED.
READERS COMMENTS AND CONTRIBUTIONS ARE WELCOMED.
THANK YOU. HAPPY PEOPLE.
READERS COMMENTS AND CONTRIBUTIONS ARE WELCOMED.
THANK YOU. HAPPY PEOPLE.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
FIVE WAY TO PRAY
1. Answered Prayer
The Psalms are models of the sort of praying Jesus recommended to his disciples, in which one believes that one’s prayer has already been answered. Select a psalm to use as a model for your own about some problem in your own life. Substitute your own worries and complaints for those of the psalmist and search your life for your own evidence that your prayer has already been answered. Be as concrete as you can both in describing your issue and in affirming God’s attention to the matter.
2. Give Thanks
In downtown Dallas, on a little triangle of public space called Thanks-Giving Square, sits the beautiful little Chapel of Thanksgiving, a coiled concrete building topped with an ascending spiral of stained glass that serves as an interfaith shrine to the universal human urge to give thanks. I learned about the chapel’s existence after a depressed and religion-hostile friend, overwhelmed with thankfulness for finally finding a good job after a multiyear search, happened upon it and deposited in the chapel’s glass Prayer Bowl a card expressing her gratitude and relief. Set out your own prayer bowl—perhaps to celebrate a birthday or anniversary or Thanksgiving—in which to collect you and your guests’ thanks and thereby invite God into your collective company.
3. Make It a Ritual
When my daughter Charlotte was little and I used to clean her room, I often found under her pillow or on her desk little scraps of paper rolled up into tiny scrolls and tied with bits of colored thread. I should have honored her privacy, probably, but I couldn’t resist unrolling and reading them. Sometimes they were little scriptural passages with which she was admonishing herself, like “Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go” (Joshua 1:9). Other times they were prayer requests in her own words. What always impressed me was the pomp with which she offered up these prayers: the careful handwriting, usually in a colored pen that matched the thread; the rolling up of the paper; the tininess of the scroll, which made it seem the more precious. Make a small formal ritual of your own for offering up prayer in a special way. Alternatively, incorporate scripture into some routine record you regularly keep, such as a dietary or exercise account or a desk calendar.
4. Use Variety
Experiment with different types of prayer than the ones you usually employ. If you are in the habit of freeform prayer, try out various forms of composed prayer. Use the Internet to find composed prayers—perhaps of another denomination or even another faith—that might house your own thoughts. Pray the prayer of someone in scripture, such as the father in Mark 9:24 NRSV, who wanted Jesus to heal his son’s seizures but struggled to believe Jesus really could and prayed, “Help my unbelief!” Pray forth a passage of scripture that has meaning for you. Try repeating just one line of a longer prayer, such as “Thy will be done.” Alternatively, write down and memorize your own prayers to use and reuse on specific occasions.
5. Compose a Prayer in Another's Behalf
Intercessory prayer has always been difficult for me. I tend to forget others’ prayer needs and, deep down, not care about them as much as I do my own. I also struggle to see problems from others’ points of view. Serendipitously, solving a prayer problem in my advanced grammar course helped me experience prayer for others in a new way. Many students struggle academically in that class and some take great comfort in praying communally before important tests. Others, however, don’t like to lose a second of the allotted time. To address their conflicting needs on the final exam, I routinely compose a prayer on my students’ behalf and affix it to the test for them to read, or not, at their leisure. In this way, I pray long in advance of their need. Also, my prayer shapes the way I see the test while it’s still in the making. I always find myself newly aware of my students and their struggles when I pray in this way. My students not only appreciate the prayer but say it helps them see their own situation through my eyes. Try composing a written prayer for another in advance of an upcoming difficulty and then share it with that person.
The Psalms are models of the sort of praying Jesus recommended to his disciples, in which one believes that one’s prayer has already been answered. Select a psalm to use as a model for your own about some problem in your own life. Substitute your own worries and complaints for those of the psalmist and search your life for your own evidence that your prayer has already been answered. Be as concrete as you can both in describing your issue and in affirming God’s attention to the matter.
2. Give Thanks
In downtown Dallas, on a little triangle of public space called Thanks-Giving Square, sits the beautiful little Chapel of Thanksgiving, a coiled concrete building topped with an ascending spiral of stained glass that serves as an interfaith shrine to the universal human urge to give thanks. I learned about the chapel’s existence after a depressed and religion-hostile friend, overwhelmed with thankfulness for finally finding a good job after a multiyear search, happened upon it and deposited in the chapel’s glass Prayer Bowl a card expressing her gratitude and relief. Set out your own prayer bowl—perhaps to celebrate a birthday or anniversary or Thanksgiving—in which to collect you and your guests’ thanks and thereby invite God into your collective company.
3. Make It a Ritual
When my daughter Charlotte was little and I used to clean her room, I often found under her pillow or on her desk little scraps of paper rolled up into tiny scrolls and tied with bits of colored thread. I should have honored her privacy, probably, but I couldn’t resist unrolling and reading them. Sometimes they were little scriptural passages with which she was admonishing herself, like “Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go” (Joshua 1:9). Other times they were prayer requests in her own words. What always impressed me was the pomp with which she offered up these prayers: the careful handwriting, usually in a colored pen that matched the thread; the rolling up of the paper; the tininess of the scroll, which made it seem the more precious. Make a small formal ritual of your own for offering up prayer in a special way. Alternatively, incorporate scripture into some routine record you regularly keep, such as a dietary or exercise account or a desk calendar.
4. Use Variety
Experiment with different types of prayer than the ones you usually employ. If you are in the habit of freeform prayer, try out various forms of composed prayer. Use the Internet to find composed prayers—perhaps of another denomination or even another faith—that might house your own thoughts. Pray the prayer of someone in scripture, such as the father in Mark 9:24 NRSV, who wanted Jesus to heal his son’s seizures but struggled to believe Jesus really could and prayed, “Help my unbelief!” Pray forth a passage of scripture that has meaning for you. Try repeating just one line of a longer prayer, such as “Thy will be done.” Alternatively, write down and memorize your own prayers to use and reuse on specific occasions.
5. Compose a Prayer in Another's Behalf
Intercessory prayer has always been difficult for me. I tend to forget others’ prayer needs and, deep down, not care about them as much as I do my own. I also struggle to see problems from others’ points of view. Serendipitously, solving a prayer problem in my advanced grammar course helped me experience prayer for others in a new way. Many students struggle academically in that class and some take great comfort in praying communally before important tests. Others, however, don’t like to lose a second of the allotted time. To address their conflicting needs on the final exam, I routinely compose a prayer on my students’ behalf and affix it to the test for them to read, or not, at their leisure. In this way, I pray long in advance of their need. Also, my prayer shapes the way I see the test while it’s still in the making. I always find myself newly aware of my students and their struggles when I pray in this way. My students not only appreciate the prayer but say it helps them see their own situation through my eyes. Try composing a written prayer for another in advance of an upcoming difficulty and then share it with that person.
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