Category Archives: Prayer

Desperate Times and Desperate Measures

A swarm of people were following Jesus, crowding in on him. 25 A woman was there who had been bleeding for twelve years. 26 She had suffered a lot under the care of many doctors, and had spent everything she had without getting any better. In fact, she had gotten worse. 27 Because she had heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his clothes. 28 She was thinking, If I can just touch his clothes, I’ll be healed. 29 Her bleeding stopped immediately, and she sensed in her body that her illness had been healed.

30 At that very moment, Jesus recognized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?” (Mark 5:24b-30, CEB)

Imagine the incredible desperation, faith, and strength it took for that woman to make her way that day. It wasn’t just finding strength to get to a church and find a seat. It was to drag herself through a crowd just to get the opportunity to touch Jesus in some way.

And when she did touch him, the power left Jesus. He knew something had happened.

It’s not a matter of “touching Jesus,” it seems. It is how we touch Jesus.

May we be given to a holy pursuit… a desperate pursuit… in our lives!

Sometimes Prayer is Work

Sometimes?

Well, if you’re Elijah, it may seem like a shock. He could pray for rain to stop and it happened. He could pray for fire to fall on the altar and BAM!

But then it came time for rain to fall again and it wasn’t as instant.

41 Elijah then said to Ahab, “Get up! Celebrate with food and drink because I hear the sound of a rainstorm coming.” 42 So Ahab got up to celebrate with food and drink. But Elijah went up to the top of Mount Carmel. He bowed down to the ground and put his face between his knees. 43 He said to his assistant, “Please get up and look toward the sea.”

   So the assistant did so. He said, “I don’t see anything.”

   Seven times Elijah said, “Do it again.”

44 The seventh time the assistant said, “I see a small cloud the size of a human hand coming up from the sea.” (1 Kings 18:41-44, CEB)

I find prayer is work most of the time. But it is the effort Elijah gives that calls out as an example. Elijah labored in prayer. The position he took was one of a birthing position. Seven times he had to send his servant to look for a sign. He was not going to give up.

We need prevailing prayer in our lives again. This is a place where my Pentecostal heritage really speaks to a particular subject of the Christian life. Pentecostals were people of the altar. There was a phrase called “tarrying in prayer.” You didn’t stop until the answer came.

When I was growing up in Kansas there was an elderly couple who took me under their wing. Her dad had pastored my home church in the 1950s. Back in the Depression he had pastored out in western Kansas. A young family called him to their farm home one night because their newborn baby son was sick with fever. Hospitals were few and far between. They needed a miracle.

Brother Shelton (Christians were called “brother” and “sister” in those days) took the baby up in his arms and began to pray. He went outside and all night long he walked the farmyard with that baby in his arms. He called out to God as he paced between the barn and the farmhouse. As the sun came up the fever broke. Brother Shelton tarried. He birthed a miracle in prayer.

James reminds us, “Elijah was human just like us.”

He prevailed in prayer. So can we.

The God Who Answers By Fire

22 Elijah said to the people, “I am the last of the LORD’s prophets, but Baal’s prophets number four hundred fifty. 23 Give us two bulls. Let Baal’s prophets choose one. Let them cut it apart and set it on the wood, but don’t add fire. I’ll prepare the other bull, put it on the wood, but won’t add fire. 24 Then all of you will call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the LORD. The god who answers with fire—that’s the real God!”

   All the people answered, “That’s an excellent idea.” (1 Kings 18:22-24, CEB)

In some ways, when the people answer, “That’s an excellent idea,” you want to mutter under your breath, “Suckers.”

But for Elijah, one could easily mutter, “Are you an idiot?”

Yesterday I posted on my Facebook status: “Faith – Go out on a limb, then saw off the limb.”

One response was, “That’s not faith. It’s presumption.”

Good point.

This is where Elijah lived. Now he may have heard from God… but WE don’t know that. So it’s easy for us to stand back and think two things: “What a man of God!” or “What an idiot.”

We do not know. So, we can easily think the prophets of Baal have just taken a sucker bet because we see the end of the story.

But what about living where Elijah lived. To stand in that moment, confronted with a situation, and you “call your shot” in a way that just seems impossible.

“What a man of God!”

Or…

“What an idiot.”

There are those moments we should live in where we put ourselves out there, put God on the line and honestly in our spirits pray, “I sure hope I heard from God on this one.”

May God answer by fire.

The Mantle of Elijah

17 Elijah was a person just like us. When he earnestly prayed that it wouldn’t rain, no rain fell for three and a half years. 18 He prayed again, God sent rain, and the earth produced its fruit. (James 5:17-18, CEB)

Elijah was a man just like us? Really? I mean… yes, he was a human being. But like me? Or, more appropriately, am I like Elijah?

In some ways, I probably am like him. He struggled with emotional swings. I identify with that.

But that’s not what James is saying. James is talking about the prayer of Elijah. He prayed and the rain stopped. He prayed again and the rains returned. And Elijah was just a man. Like me.

How is my prayer life doing?

My Name is Legion, Pt. 2

Mark 5:1-20 is the story of Jesus delivering the demoniac. The first challenge out of this story I posted here.

The second challenge I have is the response of the people.

14 Those who tended the pigs ran away and told the story in the city and in the countryside. People came to see what had happened. 15 They came to Jesus and saw the man who used to be demon-possessed. They saw the very man who had been filled with many demons sitting there fully dressed and completely sane, and they were filled with awe. 16Those who had actually seen what had happened to the demon-possessed man told the others about the pigs. 17 Then they pleaded with Jesus to leave their region. (Mark 5:14-17, CEB)

They begged Jesus to leave. The maniac who had made their lives miserable was well, but they asked Jesus to leave.

Loren Cunningham, founder of YWAM, had a great message I heard many years ago called, “Choosing Swine Over the Savior.” It was from this story, and I still think of that title every time I read this passage.

What is it that causes people to want a raving lunatic in their midst rather than the power of the Kingdom of God?

Perhaps it’s control. Even though the maniac was painful to deal with, they could manage that pain. With Jesus they came face to face with Someone they couldn’t manage. This Man had crushed demonic spirits. A lot of them.

What did that mean for them?

We often will tolerate a lot of pain in our lives. We will tolerate things that are often considered intolerable because we fear the pain of change. When the pain of change is less than the pain of staying the same, then we change.

The people of the area feared change. They feared what they could not control, or at least manage.

Setting people free is messy and it’s hard work. Often we’re just not up for it. We like the manageable God we have come up with and any sense of something new can really put a jolt in us.

But people are bound. The gospel sets them free. And we are the instruments of change.

God is Messed Up

We don’t like to say it in so many words. After all, he might actually exist and if that were true… he wouldn’t like it if we told him his ways were messed up.

So, we go with, “The Church is messed up. Christians are messed up. Religion is messed up.”

Ezekiel 18 pulls no punches. It’s not God. It’s you.

25 But you say, “My Lord’s way doesn’t measure up.” Listen, house of Israel, is it my ways that don’t measure up? Isn’t it your ways that don’t measure up? (Ez. 18:25, CEB)

Prophets can be so rude. How DARE someone say I am the one with problem!

The Word draws us to some very uncomfortable conclusions. No wonder we stay away from the prophets! We love to pick and chose our verses so we can focus on the God of love (and then use our definition of love rather than care about God’s view of love). But God’s view of love is for us to get the obstacles out of the way and step into true abundance. We think we know abundance, but we don’t. We think we know what is best for us… and we don’t.

But what does God know anyway?

31 Abandon all of your repeated sins. Make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. Why should you die, house of Israel? 32 I most certainly don’t want anyone to die! This is what the LORD God says. Change your ways, and live! (Ez. 18:31-32, CEB)

The Hole in Our Hearts

As I understand it, C.S. Lewis wrote A Grief Observed anonymously after his wife died of cancer. It was only years later that his name was attached to the lament that he penned in his wrestling with God.

Four years ago I could have done something like that… Well, not like that, because Lewis could actually write. But, our church had suffered a horrendous loss and I must confess that to this day I still have very raw conversations with God about it.

I can add one to the list. A kid right on our block, a kid we watched grow up, was killed last week. An accident. But, at 15, he is gone. And there is a hole in our hearts. Hundreds of kids from the high school mourn. The people on our block mourn. Our family mourns.

We know the hope of the resurrection. We know the hope of abiding in Christ… we know all those answers. But, as Lewis learned, it doesn’t lessen the deep pain we feel in the moment.

As I walked around the funeral chapel looking at the pictures of a great young man, the thought in my heart was, “There isn’t anything right about this.”

In the movie Shadowlands, Anthony Hopkins playing Lewis said, “It’s just a bloody mess and that’s all there is to it.”

And I agree tonight. Right now.

 If only you would tear open 
the heavens and come down!  (Isa. 64:1, CEB)
 

Triumphs and Tragedies of Life

We live in such wild swings of life. This week we welcomed in new life. Our youth pastor had her new baby, and they named the newborn after one of the older saints in our church. It was such a tremendous tribute.

Then, we suffered the loss of a neighborhood boy. A 15 year old we watched grow up died tragically in an accident two days after we welcomed new life into the world.

This is life. We swing wildly between the triumphs and tragedies. Sometimes they all happen in a week or less.

These are the times we cling tightly to the Lord.

11 You teach me the way of life.
In your presence is total celebration.
Beautiful things are always
in your right hand. (Psalm 16:11, CEB)

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Thoughts on Prayer

 There is a need for prayer eagles who will mount up in the full assurance of faith that they are indeed “seated with Christ in the heavenlies,” and then from this position move to resist the enemy and overcome him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony in the power of the Spirit of God. (R. Arthur Mathews –Born for Battle) 

Demons and Authority

In Mark 1 there is the story of Jesus casting out the demon in the synagogue. While we focus on the power encounter, Mark focuses on the authority. Twice in the same story he mentions the authority of Jesus to teach.

22 The people were amazed by his teaching, for he was teaching them with authority, not like the legal experts.

27 Everyone was shaken and questioned among themselves, “What’s this? A new teaching with authority! (Mark 1: 22,27, CEB)

When we walking in the authority of the Kingdom, the enemy recognizes it. Jesus never went hunting for a power encounter. Power encounters found him.

The apostles never went hunting for power encounters. So it is with us.

When we are walking in the authority of the Kingdom, our priority is Matt. 6:33. Whatever happens after that is something we are truly prepared for. We need not worry or fear. The tools have been given.

When the people of God show up and are walking in authority, just know that sometimes that means the spiritual waters stir. Don’t seek it out specifically. And don’t shy away from it when those waters stir.