Prayer Notes #3
A Prayer
Reflecting on Acts 2:38
I confess, Lord, that I’m not sure that I’m willing to repent. Well, but I don’t want not to repent. The price of that is far too great. But the complete change of life, of direction, of behavior seems so hard; and I love my ease and comfort and convenience. My heart and mind are so cumbersome and hard to manage. Yet, I truly cannot bear the thought of going my own way without you. I want to go your way with you. But I think you will have to do it in me for me.
Pastor Notes #10
Our Sacramental Bible
The Bible is a very obliging book in at least one particular respect, and that is that the Bible explains in fairly straightforward terms what it is. That fact hasn’t caused scholars and others to refrain from arguing about the matter. That argument has been going on for centuries, off and on. But especially in the past few hundred years, scholars, church people, and others have carried on a vigorous argument about just what the Bible really is.
There will always be lots of debate and discussion about what the Bible says and what it means by what it says. But that is really a different matter. The discussion about what the Bible says and means is not the same as the argument about what the Bible is. They are really two different matters. They are related to each other, but they are not the same topic.
I want to draw your attention to what the Bible says about what it (the Bible) is. One of the key passages on this topic is 2 Timothy 3:16,17. There the Bible is called the “breath of God.” Literally, verse 16 says that all Scripture is “God-breathed.”
Now, that phrase may seem a strange way to describe a book. But it becomes less strange when we realize that to call something “God-breathed” is just a way of saying that that thing is “spoken by God” or that it is the “words of God.” Since we’re talking about a book that is full of words, this description, “God-breathed,” is not at all strange. The Bible is God’s communication to his people.
That fact is point number one. The Bible is God’s words communicated to his people (and others for that matter). But point number one is not point number last. We might well recognize the Bible as being God’s communication and yet think of it as a past tense sort of communication. It is, after all, a very ancient book. Some parts of it are over 3000 years old. Maybe when we read the Bible, we are simply overhearing an ancient communication from God to people who were long ago dead and gone. Maybe when we read the Bible, we are simply reading words that are way past their expiration date. In other words, maybe the Bible is words that God spoke not words that God speaks.
If that is all the Bible is – an out of date past tense conversation remembered and repeated from long ago, then the Bible might be interesting as a sort of historical document, and it may even contain some general wisdom. But it would never be a place to go in order to hear God communicate to us here and now.
But here again the Bible is very obliging. It tells us directly that it is not merely a collection of old, remembered conversations of God. The Bible defines itself as a present tense communication from God to people here and now – always present tense, never merely past tense.
Hebrews 4:12, “For the Word of God is living and active, sharper than a two-edged sword, piercing the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (ESV) We see here from what the writer of the letter to the Hebrews says that the Bible is a book like no other book that has ever existed or will ever exist. It never becomes merely a past tense communication. It is always present tense. It is the breath of God, the active present moving of his breath – the Holy Spirit. Henry Blackaby in his study, Experiencing God, says the Bible is the only book whose author is always literally present with us in the room whenever we read it.
So, whenever we read the Bible in faith, we have an encounter with the living God. That is God’s intention for the Bible – it is to be one of the primary means by which we meet Him in the here and now present.
The Bible is not a magical book. The Bible is not God. The Bible, as an object, has no power. But God has all power, and what God says he will do, that he does. God has promised to meet us in the reading of his word. He has bound himself voluntarily to his word, the Bible. And God is true to his promises. When we read the Bible, God is literally present there with us, spiritually, speaking to us and making his words present and addressed to us here and now.
The Bible is not a magical book, but it is a sacramental book. A sacrament is a visible act in, under, and behind which God is really, literally, and spiritually present and active. It isn’t magical. It isn’t a thing we make God do. He voluntarily promises to do it. He willingly, even eagerly, binds himself to it. That’s what a sacrament is.
We don’t call Bible-reading a sacrament, but we do believe it to be sacramental. We believe that, because we know that God has promised himself to us through the words of Scripture, as we have seen in the passages I mentioned earlier. In reading the words of Scripture we meet with God in the present moment.
And that is why reading the Bible is a crucial, necessary, and indispensable part of all true worship. It is impossible to fully and truly worship God without the use of the Bible. Just as we can’t really worship apart from the use of the Bible, neither are we wise to follow spiritual experiences if those experiences are leading away from the God we meet in the Bible. In that way, the Bible serves as a mooring line that keeps us close to God and safe from drifting away on every current or gust of cultural wind.
Soak your heart and mind in the Bible, and you will be led deep into the heart and mind of God. The reality and power of the Bible are not found merely in an intellectual understanding of the words. It is a deeper, richer, relational kind of understanding. I’m not saying that this deeper, richer, relational kind of understanding ever contradicts the meaning of the words. Still, God leads us to a kind of knowledge of himself that less like the knowledge we gain of a person from reading a that person’s biography, and more like the knowledge we gain of a person from reading a personal letter that that person has written to us.
And that, really, is what the Bible is, incomprehensible as it may seem. It is a personal letter written by God to each of us personally and to all of us together. It’s one of the most important ways that God gives us for getting to know him. A great gift indeed!
Pastor Notes #9
[The following is a letter I wrote to a forty-something parishioner who had been raised in a nominal Roman Catholic home and had given her life to Christ while she was in college. This letter was written on the occasion of her nominally Catholic mother's death. As you will also see, the circumstances of my pastoral relationship to the recipient of this letter was rather complicated.]
Dear B.,
It made me quite sad to hear that your mother died over this past weekend. Her situation has weighed heavily on you especially over the past year. But I know, however, that her death has not entirely relieved you of your burden but has, in fact, heightened it.
I know that you have prayed fervently for your mother’s salvation. A. E. [another member of the church] told me about how you shared with her your anguish over the matter just last week. So, I assume that your mother died without leaving you any peace of heart on this matter. That is a heavy burden, but not, I think, one that you have any business bearing. It’s God’s burden not yours.
Your mother’s salvation was, and even more now is, a matter that must be between God and her. Her salvation is not and never was your responsibility. In word and action, you bore faithful witness to Christ before your mother. In that you fully discharged your responsibility. None of us can ever be responsible for whether another person accepts Christ. Ours is to bear witness. Outcomes belong to God alone.
Of course, I realize that the anguish you feel over your mother’s salvation is not simply about whether you did all you could. I know that you feel such sadness because you genuinely care about her eternal destiny. And that is as it should be. I wish more people cared about the salvation of their family. I know that my own zeal on that point falls far short. Your zeal is a challenge and an exhortation to me.
But I want to caution you about presuming upon the prerogative of God. It is not for you to decide whether your mother should be saved. I think you know me well enough to know that I am not suggesting that God will save people apart from a genuine faith in Jesus Christ. What I am suggesting is that you must be very careful about presuming to judge the adequacy of your mother’s faith.
This matter is much simpler, of course, in cases where the person has openly rejected Christ and his atoning work or in cases where the person has openly embraced a clear, biblical profession of faith. But in cases like your mother’s we must be much more cautious.
Even those of us who hold a more biblical and evangelical profession of faith have to admit that our own profession is imperfect. Yet we can still be confident of our salvation. This, then, raises the question, Is it possible for a person who holds flawed beliefs and still be saved? Yes, absolutely, and thanks be to God for it, otherwise none of us could hope to be saved. Is there a limit beyond which a person’s beliefs are simply too flawed to make a saving faith possible? Yes, probably. But is it possible for mere human observers to draw that line on the spectrum of belief with any confidence? Do we dare say of any individual human being who has called out to Christ is some fashion that the content of their profession has nullified their cry to Christ? I don’t, and I urge you not to either.
In the Institutes (4.i.3), Calvin writes, “To distinguish between the elect and the reprobate — this belongs not to us but to God only.” Your mother, perhaps, gave you reasons for being less than perfectly confident about her salvation. But, I suggest to you that you do not have adequate cause to despair of her salvation.
You must leave the matter in the realm of the mystery of God’s sovereignty. You cannot know, nor can you any longer influence the matter. You must — though it may be hard — you must leave your mother in the hands of our good and wise heavenly Father. He will most certainly do what is good and right and gracious.
And now, I want to raise one more matter with both you and L. [her husband]. I am not entirely comfortable with this. But you deserve my best care, and so I want to suggest that this might not now be the best circumstances for you to be looking for a new church. I don’t want even to appear to be trying to use your mother’s death for my own advantage or that of G. Church [my congregation at the time]. That is why I hesitate even to mention this.
But I do want your choice of a new church to be one that will serve you well over the long-term. I want you to be clear headed and dispassionate as you evaluate your various options. You will know better than I do whether you will be able to do that in this time of grieving and coming to terms with your mother’s death.
You might do well to impose a sort of waiting period, a sort of season of mourning, during which time you will make no decision to join any church. During that time you might intentionally visit a good number of churches, even some that you know ahead of time you would never join. Sometimes the contrast can be very helpful in clarifying what you want in a church.
As I say, you will know better than I do whether this suggestion is a good one for you. But do keep in mind that a church might seem warm and comforting in your time of mourning but turn out to be less than ideal when, in the years to come, you look for ways to involve yourself in ministry there. God will no doubt make the matter clear to you as he leads you to the place where he wants you to be.
Prayer Notes #1
A Prayer about Prayer
This stained glass window is in North Presbyterian Church in Elmira, NY. It is the work of Elmira stained glass artist Pat Saxe and was installed in 2008.
Lord, I struggle so much to force myself to be still and to concentrate on anything, but especially on prayer. I really do hate
this about myself. Do I have to be this way? Please, Lord, if I could simply be still and concentrate better mentally, I believe I would be much happier and much more fruitful for your kingdom.
I feel as if I am missing out on one of your greatest blessings — to sink down deep and steady in prayer. I don’t want to be whiny, but I am so much less than I could be, if I were able to settle myself into you and seek your mind. All of what I just said to you is subjunctive, hypothetical thinking. I cannot, of course, know if there is any truth in it at all. But because I believe it is true, it stirs up longing and envy(?) in me.
Well, when I put it that way, Lord, I realize that it can’t be a good sort of response from my heart — not the envious part, that is. It is hard to understand the proper balance between contentment and gratitude to you and longing for more nearness to you and a deeper, richer, fuller, outpouring of your Spirit.
Help me to stay on track today, to use the day for your kingdom, and not to squander it on things that neither serve you nor really even serve my base nature but that merely discard precious time to no real purpose at all.
Backyard Notes #3
A Prayer
Today, my generous Lord, you have allowed me to enjoy the use of my body out in lovely spring weather. I mowed the backyard, pushing the mower up and down the yard, around obstacles , across the wide, flat section. I felt the strength of my legs and arms as I used my own muscle to cut the grass — no motors, just me.
I climbed the step ladder up into and among the tangled branches of the apple trees, and with loppers and pruners I dressed the trees. I gathered the trimmed branches. Bending to pick them up, I felt my leg muscles tiring. But it was a good sort of tiredness.
I felt, Lord, the strength, though limited, that you have given me. I felt it with pleasure, a pleasure of enjoying a gift given to me by you.
Pastor Notes #8 (9/11/2001)
[The following is from several entries into my journal about the events of the evening of September 11, 2001. I was at that time the pastor of Central Presbyterian Church in the heart of downtown Columbus, Ohio. There are several large, high-end hotels in the immediate vicinity of the church.]
Tuesday, September 11, 2001
7:30 P.M.
A horrifying day! Words all but fail me. I watched (several times replayed) as some several thousand people died in fire and an immense crumbling of steel, concrete, and glass.
Such indescribable evil, such vicious, poisonous hatred! What barbarism has been loosed in the world!
And what terror and what bottomless sorrow! What utterly pointless loss of life and potential!
And now will we see a blossoming of hatred and vengeance among our neighbors? Will we too want to see blood let? Will we demand to see vengeance meted out in double measure? Will we lust to see little Afghani children lying dead in the dust? God save us now from ourselves.
My but the panicky rumors are flying! From the desk clerk at the Holiday Inn around the corner, I learned that the Hyatt across the street from the church has received a bomb threat. Apparently, no one at the Hyatt is aware of that since their doorman and valet parkers are calmly greeting guests and seeing guests into their cars, helping carry luggage in, and doing all their usual tasks. Neither did the Columbus Police or Fire Departments seem to be aware of the bomb threat, since they were nowhere to be seen.
I’ve heard from the clerk at he Adams Mark Hotel that gasoline is now selling for $4.00/gallon and will be $5.00/gallon tomorrow. R.K. called Meg [my wife] to say that it would be $4.00 /gallon tomorrow. When I passed the two stations at the entrance to the freeway, both were festooned with long lines of cars, but I did not notice what price they wanted for their gasoline.
I am sitting in the church’s sanctuary as I write this. A member of the Hyatt’s management called this afternoon to inquire if we might be open for their stranded guests. (All the airports in the country are closed.) I decided to open the sanctuary this evening from 7:00 to 10:00 P.M. I called most of the other downtown hotels to let them know. Some seemed interested, other barely listened to the details and gave me a perfunctory, “Thank you, Pastor.”
Oh, well, so much of what we do these days seems to be a sort of ministry of presence. I have all the lights on, the front doors open, and I’ve put signs up on the front of the building:
OPEN FOR
PRAYER, MEDITATION, OR COMPANY
7:00 to 10:00 P.M.
So far (it’s now 8:25) one person has stopped in, a guy looking for help. He’s a resident in a substance abuse halfway house. The program is losing its house, and so he must now find a place to stay on his $330/month disability payment. A tough job — I might say impossible. He wanted a COTA [Central Ohio Transit Authority] pass for the bus and a sack lunch. [Part of our ministry was to make and distribute sack lunches every weekday.] I gave him a lunch, but I couldn’t find the COTA passes. Vicky [our secretary] has apparently moved them. I told him to come by tomorrow. He said he would. His name is Derrick.
Anyway, we look open to anyone who passes by.
Aha! A well-dressed middle-aged man has just come in. I said, “Hello.” He said, “Good evening.” I said, “How are you?” He said, “Fine, thank you.” And went in to sit at a pew. He doesn’t seem to want to talk.
He sat for a bit and then left, thanking me as he went out.
So, who are I to judge whether this evening is an effective use of the electricity and my time? This is what Central Church ought to be doing this evening. And this is what the gospel compels me to do. God will have to tend to the matter of effectiveness. I’m here with the lights ablaze doing my part.
I do seem to remember reading somewhere that immediately after news of the attack on Pearl Harbor, some sixty years ago, people flocked into the churches to pray. That may, of course, not be true. But it seems somehow right. There may be people flocking to churches somewhere else this evening. I hope so. But somehow, I suspect that “flocking” is probably too strong a term for whatever people are doing.
Things are different in America after sixty years — sixty years of rather extraordinary domestic peace and prosperity. Yes, there have been some disturbances in the peace and disruptions of the prosperity. But for the overwhelming bulk of Americans, their troubles and trials have all been personal and private. Very few people living today have experienced any sort of interruption in their lives due to some large-scale social upheaval or widespread communal violence.
Now, something almost like that seems to have struck our sheltered, pampered lives. Time will tell whether the events of this day will herald such a breach of our peaceful, comfortable lives. But if expensive gasoline is the main thing occupying people’s minds this evening, I’m not surprised that they aren’t flocking in here. They’ve gone to worship at the temple of their petroleum idols.
11:40 P.M. [Written later in the evening]
As I wrote the last line above, a stocky guy about 40 came into the sanctuary. He was walking in a very unsteady way in the narthex, but what really made me sense that something wasn’t quite right was the fact that just inside the sanctuary at the beginning of the aisle he genuflected with a thud and then said to me in a slurred sort of way, “May I enter?” Being caught a bit off guard, I came out with this eloquent welcome, “Uh, yeah, sure.”
He swerved up the long aisle (75 feet) and knelt heavily on the kneelers I had put in front of the communion table. He began to pray in a loud emphatic mutter, mixed with what sounded very much like sobs.
I began to pray for him. But I was very unsure what to think about him. As I prayed, I began to feel convinced that there was a very real spiritual struggle taking place, that there was a very real and very evil presence at work in and on this man, though I really had no strong sense of what that might be.
I thought, maybe he had lost someone close to him in New York or D.C. But that didn’t somehow seem right. In any case, as I began to plead with God to drive away that evil presence, the fellow’s muttering became more calm.
Eventually, he stood up and very unsteadily began to walk toward the choir room door in the front wall of the sanctuary (not an exit by any means). He somehow clambered over some folded risers belonging to a local choral group that were stacked in that corner of the sanctuary.
When he started off in that direction, I hurried down to him and met him coming around from behind the grand piano that was also in that corner of the sanctuary.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“I’m going to my room,” he said, as though that should have been obvious to me.
“You’re in a church,” I said. “Are you staying in a hotel here in town?”
“This is a church?” he asked, incredulous.
“Yes.”
“How did I get in here?”
“You just walked in.”
“I did?”
“Yeah.”
“This is a church?” he asked again, looking around.
“Yeah. What hotel are you staying in?”
“Hmm. I don’t know.” He tried to puzzle that out for a moment.
I walked him back to a pew near the back of the sanctuary so that he could pray some more . . . and, I hoped, sober up some. He did both. But I could see that he was obviously very distressed about something. So, finally, I went over and sat in the pew beside him and said, “So, what’s up?”
He was ready to talk. His ideas were still pretty garbled, but I eventually sorted out the basic facts. His name is Don. He is not here in town because of the attacks. He’s here for a conference that ends tomorrow. He’s an alcoholic. He’d been sober for a number of years but lost his sobriety about 2 and 1/2 years ago. He had been sober again since just after his last bout with drinking 2 and 1/2 years ago but started drinking again last Friday before he left home.
His family still thinks he’s sober. He’s afraid to “be honest” with them. He doesn’t want to drink. He doesn’t want to lose his family. I told him that I thought he was more likely to lose his family by not being honest with them than by being honest with them.
He said that he knows that he needs God’s help. But he feels unworthy. I explained that it is precisely that feeling of unworthiness that opens the way for God to come into his life. I offered to pray with him for God to forgive him and to come and help him. He said, “Okay.” And so, that’s what we did.
At ten o’clock, I closed up the church. I looked up the schedule for an AA meeting. There was one starting around that time at Godman Guild [a nonprofit social service center in a neighborhood just north of downtown]. I took him up there. We found the meeting. I introduced myself and Don to some of the folks standing around outside the door. There was not the least bit of awkwardness. I left Don in their warm, welcoming, and wise hands.
And so, the dramas and traumas of life come all together in big and small sizes. And we serve as we are called at any given moment. To God be the glory.
Pastor Notes #6
A pastoral note to an early, middle-aged widow who had just announce her engagement to be remarried, names and certain other details have been changed to protect confidentiality:
I’m sorry I didn’t respond as soon as I received you letter. I intended to, but it has been an unexpectly hectic week or so. I really do appreciate your writing to tell me about this difficulties that have arisen as folks have reacted to your engagement to Phil. It must be painful to you, and I expect you must feel more than a little isolated by the unsupportive responses of people so close to you.
For myself, I think it is a very wonderful thing that God is giving you and Phil. I am very happy for you. You’ve had more than enough hard things to deal with over the years. And although I’m sure God has used even those hard things in your life to work out his good purposes in you, I’m glad to see something so good and happy as your marriage to Phil come to you. I’m sad that your family (in which I would certainly include Donna [her former mother-in-law]) has not shared that happiness with you. I will be praying that they will express a more generous spirit toward you. And, as you say in your letter, I also am confident that they will in time. It does, I suppose, require something of an adjustment for them. Change in families is usually hard — even good changes.
I’m impressed by your ability to look beyond the initial negative reactions to your marriage to Phil. But I’m not really surprised. One of the things those past hard experiences have produced in you over the years is a very generous and charitable spirit. Be patient with your family, and in time they too will come to share your happiness.
Despite a bit of a wrong turn a little while back, you are on the right path — the path of God’s blessing. Tell me how I can be a help to you and Phil. I look forward to getting to know him better and to welcoming him into the family at the church.
Backyard Notes #2
Well, our little wood frog seems to have moved to his winter quarters to hibernate away the winter under a rock or in the brush pile or under a thick layer of leaf litter. He’s been a constant resident of our little backyard pond since he came to us a a tadpole in early summer.
- This is one of the tadpoles in transition. I don’t know if this is the one that grew up into our little wood frog. The grackles took a toll on the tadpoles until they grew up enough to evade the hungry birds.
We came home from vacation, and there was this little green frog among the weeds on a rock by the side of the little pond.
Notice lunch sitting on the blade of grass in the upper left.
He (or she) was a constant presence in our little pond all through the summer. Sometimes he would be hanging in the water with just his nose and eyes above the surface. Occasionally, he would sit on one of the lily pads. Most often he sat on one of the rocks that surround the pond.
I watched him once in a while hoping to see him catch a fly or a gnat with his tongue. But I never did see that. We did, however, several times see him suddenly leap into the air from his place on a rock, catch a flying insect in mid-air, and then splash down into the pond.
Over the course of the summer, he seemed to become accustomed to our presence. Only when we would walk up on him suddenly would he spring in a flash of green from his rock into the center of the pond and disappear into the dark water. But if we approached the pond slowly and without a lot of noise or extraneous motion, he would keep his place on the side of the pond, though I had the sense that he was alert to our presence and ready to make a quick dive if he needed to.
Keeping an eye of the giant with the camera, he lets the other eye drift over to the fly sitting on a blade of grass in the foreground
As the summer slid into fall, our little green friend seemed to spend more time in the water and less time on his rocks. Still, any hint of sunshine would always bring him up on the rocks to soak in some warmth.
Here our little frog neighbor hangs in the water.
As October wore on, I went out to the pond regularly to check on my little neighbor. Frost began to come on, starting as a light coating on the grass in the open areas of the lawn. By the time I got my last picture of our little friend, we had already had several hard frosts that required the use of scrappers before we could drive the cars. And still, by mid-day, our froggy neighbor could be see hanging in the water.
This was the last picture I took of our little green friend this year. I found him here lounging in the water. This was after a couple of hard frosts. But he remained active for another week or so after this picture.
In the second week of October, we had our first snow. Down here in the valley, where we live, the accumulation only amounted to about an inch, and by afternoon it was melted away. Up on the hills, there was more, and it lasted through the day. I went out late that day, a bit anxious that this time I would find a little frozen frog’s body floating in the pond. But I found no sign of him. I assumed he had finally gone to cover for the winter. Yet a day or so later, I walked briskly toward the back of the yard, and as I past the pond, I was startled to realize my little neighbor was perched on the rim of the pond liner sitting very upright. Before I could catch myself and slow down, I saw a quick blur of brown-green, and he was gone in a splash into the dark pond.
That was over a week ago. Since then, the nights and the days have gotten chillier and wetter. I haven’t been out to the pond every day, but I haven’t seen him at all since that last splash. I’m pretty sure that he has finally sought out a hidden, sheltered place to wait out the winter. I’ll wait now, with a little anxiety, for those first warm days in early spring, hoping suddenly to find him settled down on a flat rock by the side of the pond, catching some rays and some early bugs.
Pastor Notes #5
A Prayer
My Father, I want to be a man of discernment. I want to be a man thoroughly committed to acting on your will as I discern it. But I know that that means I must be committed to nurturing a spirit of patience and quietness in myself — a quietness that is not overridden by an undue sense of urgency.
I confess, Lord, that my foolish habit of procrastination causes me to operate very often out of an undue sense of urgency — an urgency of my own making. My own procrastination causes me to often to live too close to the time of decision, and so deprives me of real or perceived time for listening, reflecting, confirming, refining.
Please, forgive me for this foolish, unstewardly, and stubborn habit. Please, free me from it.
“Our friendship with God is sustained in prayer, and it is in prayer that we encounter the will and purposes of God and allow God to speak to our wills, our motives, our diseases, and our priorities.” Gordon T. Smith, Listening to God in Times of Choice: The Art of Discerning God’s Will, pg. 21.
“We must take steps to channel our interests, our passions, and our desires into paths of importance and ways of blessing. We should seek the kingdom [of God] — with passion.” Stuart Briscoe, Time Bandits: Putting First Things First, pg. 37.
