TILL HE COMES Blog

Yesterday I introduced you to my “life prayer.” After I wrote that post, I went and read the other blogs that I read (68 of them), and found another prayer that I want to start praying daily. It comes from my church planting coach who doesn’t know me: Vince Antonucci. (I’m coached by reading his blog every day). Here is what he wrote yesterday:

God, I want more. I want to love, cry, smile. I want to be a radical. I want to pray. I want to sweat blood. I want to feel. I want intimacy. I want passion. I want power, resurrection power. I want to see You. I want to touch Heaven. I want to hurt, to suffer. I want to walk, run, and fly. I want to scream. I want to rejoice. I want to laugh till I ache. I want to ache. I want to care. I want to be in the rebellion. I want to lead the rebellion. I want to be the rebellion. I want to live with reckless abandon. I want to be astonished and afraid. I want to dream. I want to see visions. I want to hear the clatter of dry bones coming together. I want good friends. I want to love my enemies. I want holiness. I want to experience the sacred, the divine. I want to hallow Your name. I want to walk on water. I want to dance on water. I want to touch the sick, I want to experience their pain, I want to heal them. I want truth. I want to be set free. I want to be hungry, and I want to be full. I want the Spirit. I want to drink the Spirit. I want to be falling down drunk on the Spirit. I want guidance, direction, discernment, wisdom. I want to be a warrior. I want to never look back, turn back, or go back. I want to attack. I want to cause trouble. I want to induce fear. I want to turn the world upside down. I want to pour myself out and pour myself into today like there’s no tomorrow. I want to be comforted. I want to thirst for righteousness. I want to be an agent of justice. I want to shine. I want to blaze. I want to bathe in grace. I want beauty from my ashes. I want to seek first the Kingdom, I want to bring the Kingdom, I want the Kingdom to fill me up and spill out of me. I want to carry the cross till my legs burn and my shoulder bleeds. I want to see that the tomb is empty. I want Jesus. Lifted up, easy to see, leading my life, overwhelming my life with His life. I want Jesus. I want Jesus.

Thanks, Vince! I want that too. Thanks for being someone who can help show me the way.

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Yesterday I made a post about how God is a stripper, meaning that He strips things out of our life to make us more usable for Him. I’ve been going through some trying times in my life recently, and amidst all of the frustration and questions of “Why, God?” it was as if God said to me, “Jeremy, it’s because you’ve been praying for it! I’m only answering your prayers.”

You see, one of my prayers while in seminary has been for God to make me into the kind of person He can use to reach the kind of people that many churches cannot or will not reach. More on that in future posts…  I guess that to make me into that kind of person, God has has to strip me of some things.

So the anwer to “Why God?” is “He’s answering my prayers.” 

In fact, He’s answering my “life prayer.” The prayer of my life is not found in the Bible. Oh sure, I pray the prayers in the Bible, and I pray Scripture, but the prayer I pray most frequently was penned by my favorite poet, John Donne. If I had realized how painful the answer to this prayer would be, I’m not sure I would have ever started praying it. 

Anyway, here is my prayer, as prayed first by John Donne in Holy Sonnet XIV.

Holy Sonnet XIV 

Batter my heart, three-personed God; for, you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, overthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn and make me new.
I, like an usurped town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but Oh, to no end,
Reason your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captive, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betrothed unto your enemy:
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

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At the GlocalNet Church Planting conference last week, Bob Roberts made the following shocking statement:

“I think all Christians need to pray less. Instead, we need to just shut up and play ball.”

At first, I was shocked, because we so often hear that we need to pray more, and that the kingdom of God advances on our knees.

But then I got to thinking about it. I think that most of us substitute prayer for obedience. We know what we are supposed to do, and instead of doing it, we pray about it. I mean, every single one of knows that we are supposed to share Christ with our friends, coworkers, family members, and neighbors. But instead of actually doing that, most of us pray about it instead: “Dear God, please allow my unsaved boss to come to Jesus. Please save my neighbor. I’ve been praying so long for my father, God. Please draw him unto You.”

Does that prayer sound familiar? Listen to the prayer time in your church this Sunday, or in the Bible Study you attend. I guarantee that in most of these prayer times, someone will pray that God will help the people in your community to believe the Gospel, and have faith in Jesus. Then ask yourself, “What are we as a church, what am I as a Christian, actually doing to share the Gospel, and tell people why and how they can believe in Jesus?”

How about when someone is hurting, or sick, or in financial need? Do you pray about it, or do you actually help them? What do you think God wants you to do?

I am constantly haunted by a conversation I witnessed about five years ago between a father and his son. (The father was a pastor, by the way.) I was working at a Bible camp, and we needed some staff for the following week. The son asked the father if he could stay and help out. The father answered, “I’ll pray about it” and walked away. The son turned to me and said, “That means ‘No.’”

The son had his dad figured out. His dad was using prayer (and God) as a way to spiritualize his own decisions to not grant his son’s requests.

I wonder how often we treat the commands of God this way? Instead of just telling God “No” we tell him “I’ll pray about it.” Prayer, when used in such a way, is a spiritual way of stalling so we don’t have to obey God. The next time you catch yourself saying (or writing) to someone, “I’ll pray for you” stop and ask yourself if there is something you can actually do for the person instead.  

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Every man must brag about his wife from time to time. My wife, Wendy, does not know I am doing this, so keep it “hush-hush.”

All Christians from time to time struggle with how to know God more intimately. There is a wide segment of Christianity which says that if you really want to know God and experience Him, you need to speak in tongues, dream dreams, and have visions. The chills and the thrills prove that God is really caring about you.

My wife has some friends who have been telling her this very thing. They are some of the most Godly women we have ever known, and I do not doubt their sincerity, or their genuine love for God and desire to be used by Him. But Wendy had started to get confused because some of them were implying that Wendy was missing out on all that God had for her, and that if she really wanted to experience God and have the close, intimate relationship with God that they did, she would have to pray for God to give to her all that He had for her (i.e., tongues). She and I talked and talked about this. 

Finally, I told her to keep praying and seeking God’s face in Scripture, and see what He reveals. A few days later, she called me at work. She was so excited. She realized that knowing Christ intimately is not found only in “knowing Scripture” but in going along with Christ in what He is doing in your day. As you read the Gospels, the disciples just followed Him around, listening to His teaching, observing what He was doing, and then helping out where they could. So Wendy set out to do the same thing.

Three days later, (the day before Thanksgiving) she was in our local Tom Thumb Supermarket (the Southern Safeway). As she pushed her cart around, she noticed a little girl asking an older man, probably her grandfather, for a stuffed bear. The grandfather responded a little gruffly, “I told you no! No put it back.” The little girl obeyed and little reluctantly, and as they walked away, kept glancing back over her shoulder at the bear.

Wendy thought, “I wonder if I should buy that bear for that girl.” She walked over to the bear and looked at the price. It was only $4.99. But she thought, “She probably has many toys at home, and all little girls like stuffed animals. What does she need one more for?” So Wendy walked away.

But she couldn’t shake the idea, and just as she was about to check out, she saw the grandfather and little girl headed toward the check out line as well. So Wendy grabbed the bear, and bought it with her other groceries. Then she went over to the grandfather and introduced herself and explained that she had saw the girl ask for the bear, and had overheard him tell her no. “God has been so generous with us, and I really felt God wanted me to buy this bear for her. I hope that is okay.”

Wendy said that the man’s face, which seemed to be somewhat angry and worried, melted into joy and disbelief. He said, “This is my granddaughter. She wanted the bear for her mother, my daughter, who is in the hospital. When we got here, I told her she could either buy flowers or a stuffed animal for her mother. She chose flowers first, but then wanted the bear as well, so that her mother would have a friend on Thanksgiving day tomorrow after the surgery. You have made her very happy. Thank you.” Indeed, the little girl was beaming and hugging the bear.

This is my wife…the close friend of Jesus.

Tonight she is taking a Pumpkin Pie over to our neighbors. We have been trying to develop a relationship with them, which has been difficult since they don’t speak very good English and we don’t speak Spanish. Wendy had been giving free English tutoring to their girls on Thursday nights. Anyway, they have never had a pumpkin pie before, so she made one for them. We hope to invite them to church soon. Please keep them in prayer!

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Learn what our Secret Weapon is and why it is so important for Spiritual Warfare by listening to my new sermon, The Secret Weapon: Prayer (Ephesians 6:18). If you prefer, you may read it here or download the audio to your computer by right-clicking here and selecting “Save file as…

Also, to download these automatically, you may subscribe to the free podcast.

After listening to it, or reading it, post your comments or questions here so I can interact with you on them.

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