Quote of the Day

The only way we move beyond "self-centered prayer" is by going through it, not by making a detour around it.
Richard J Foster Prayer-Finding the Heart's True Home

Quote of the Day

There are dangers on the right road. We must move with some caution but not turn back.
Joseph Schmidt

Quote for the Day

The truth of the matter is, we all come to prayer with a tangled mess of motives--altruistic and selfish, merciful and hateful, loving and bitter.  ...God is big enough to receive us with all our mixture.
Richard J Foster Prayer-Finding the Heart's True Home

Quote for the Day

Lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be.
C.S. Lewis

Quote for the Day

The movement inward comes first because without interior transformation the movement up into God's glory would overwhelm us and the movement out into ministry would destroy us.
Richard J Foster Prayer-Finding the Heart's True Home

Faulty Wiring

In the study guide for Celebration of Discipline by Richard J Foster in the chapter on the discipline of prayer, he talks 5 misconceptions about prayer. Here’s a summarized list:

1.       Prayer mainly involves asking things from God. (It’s okay, ask away!)

2.       Prayer must always be a struggle. (Let it be however it is between you and God)

3.       The idea that we live in a closed universe, that everything is fixed. (Nothing is impossible with God and he uses what we do for Him)

4.       The idea that our faith will crumble if our prayers are not answered the first time. (Persistence is an attribute of God that we must cultivate in ourselves)

5.       Prayer only needs to be done once. (Keep praying for whatever it is until God responds and be open to hearing and seeing God’s response)

 

He gave a good analogy about the 4^th misconception. It’s like walking into a room, turning on the light and it doesn’t come on. You would assume something may be wrong like a burnt out bulb or a faulty wiring connection. When we pray to God and the answer doesn’t come right away, it is not an indication of God not answering our prayer. He is God and will do it in His time and in His way. If you think your prayer should be answered in your time and your way, you probably have some faulty wiring that needs some fixing.

 

So in a nutshell, ask for anything, ask for everything, just talk to Him, be patient and persistent and listen.

Notes on the Nose

Warning: This may ruffle your sensibilities.

Everyone has to pick their nose. You cannot say you have never done it or ever will again. It is not the picking the nose part that is the issue. It is the “what you do with the booger once you’ve dug it out of your nose” that is the concern. Some of us will take the booger and lead it into our mouth to get rid of it. Others will nonchalantly try to do something in a natural way as they get rid of it, like rub it on the bottom of the chair they are sitting on. Still others, will excuse themselves and go get a tissue to deposit the little or big booger into. Where am I going with this? The nose is like the outward demonstration of the condition of our heart and soul. Those boogers are the sins and negatives like anger or fear in our hearts that are clogging things up. They are not allowing your heart to shine with God’s glory. If you deposit the booger somewhere else like under your chair; it is like a person who is attempting to hide their sins. If you put the booger back into your mouth; it is like a person who is denying their sins and burying them back inside themselves. If you get up and put the booger in a tissue which goes to the garbage; it is like a person who goes to the Lord with their sin, asking the Holy Spirit to put it in the dumpster. Jesus comes and hauls out the trash of our lives, all those tissues with boogers inside.

Our nose has a way of clogging up with snout when the seasons change and allergens are in the air. Like those boogers, that snout has to go somewhere too. You may swallow it in a not so pleasant way. You may sneeze a sneeze and out it comes whether you want it to or not (funny side story: my daughter has a tendency to sneeze when we are somewhere without a tissue. She sneezed once and out came a foot long glob of snout that just hung there. Ahhh, no tissue. Another mom at the bus stop saved the day.) Or you may voluntarily go to the bathroom and blow your nose. This snout is representative of the busyness of our lives. We can get so bogged down with stuff that needs to be done that we forget that we have to feed our souls too. We have to stop and blow our noses. This clears our minds and hearts opening them up to listening to God, to breathing in the spirit of truth through His Word and feeding our souls with all the fruits of the Spirit.

When we get sick with a cold or the flu our noses and the stuffiness or runniness is what we tend to focus on. They are only symptoms of the cold. Our hearts are the same way in that they can be darkened by sin, guilt and shame. They are sick and the symptoms will show in us with our behavior like our moodiness, angry outbursts, depression, etc. These are just signs of a bigger issue with the condition of our souls. Have we accepted Jesus as our Savior? Do we have a relationship with God? Are we feeding our souls consistently with prayer, worship, study, meditation and so on? Or have we let the sins of our past and/or our anger and fears build up inside of us so much so that it starts to show on the outside in our noses and other physical ailments?

What is the health status of my nose/heart/soul? I remember my mom telling me to go blow my nose. I would let it drip and sniff it up over and over again. Having a heart and soul at peace takes some effort on our part. The relationship with the Lord needs to be fostered. We need to blow our nose, clean out the boogers and deposit them in a tissue and we need to exam our hearts and souls when we are showing the symptoms of heart/souls being sick so we can get our noses cleared out and our souls in balance with our spirit and body and especially with God.