Stop Wasting the Sirens

I was so convicted recently when I read an article by Jonathan Parnell entitled, "Don't Waste the Sound of Sirens." He noted that because we hear the sound of sirens so frequently, we typically just ignore them and go on about our daily activities. "But wait, that sound means something! It means that there is an emergency. Someone is in need, and that's not something to ignore. Sirens come into our day loaded with significance. Whether they are heard faintly in the distance or close enough to disturb our ears, they come into our day as an invitation to get out of our bubble of self and remember that there are 6.8 billion people in the world. They invite us to remember that the world is in need and that opportunities are emerging everywhere for God to glorify His name and make His goodness known. Next time there is the sound of a siren, we don't want to waste it. Would you consider a simple prayer for the person in need? Would you pray for the driver and team who are rushing to help? Would you pray that Jesus be embraced and that God be glorified, somehow at some point? And would you pray that the day be hastened when the sound of sirens will be no more?"

Amen! How often I have simply tuned out that sound. But it should always remind us that somewhere, somehow, someone is hurting or in danger or in desperate need of God's miraculous intervention. We need to break out of our selfish little bubbles and pray! There is a hurting, lost world out there, and we need to stop worrying about the tiny inconveniences in our lives that all too often steal our joy and peace and start praying. Lord forgive me for my shallowness and selfishness and help me to pray to the One who has all power and can transform and bring good and glory out of even the worst of circumstances.

I've just learned of a "siren" for a friend of one of my sons. He was in a diving accident and is in surgery right now. Suddenly all the little piddily things I was concerned with, all the things on my to do list seem utterly ridiculous, for our friend Chase needs the miraculous, the omnipotent healing touch of our Redeemer and Sustainer. So Lord I lift him up to You right now and pray earnestly on his behalf.

And for every siren sounding on this day, we trust that You know. And You can do immeasurably more than all we can even think to ask or imagine. So we pray for Your presence, Your healing, Your peace, Your wisdom, Your miraculous intervention, Your strength and all to Your glory.

Pray and work

Just a quote I reread the other day that I really love: "Here is the secret of great success: Work with all your might, but don't trust in the least in your work. Pray with all your might for the blessing of God, but work at the same time with all diligence, all patience, and all perseverance. Pray then and work. Work and pray. And still again pray, and then work. And so on all the days of your life. The result will surely be abundant blessing." George Mueller

So convicting and so true! Work and pray. Pray and work. But the prayer must always come first and foremost. John Bunyan put it this way: "You can do more than pray after you've prayed, but you can't do more than pray until you've prayed." How often we do the complete antithesis of this--get busy, get frenetic, get focused on every possible solution we can think of and then, eventually, we remember to pray. Or we pray after everything else seems to be failing. The result invariably is burnout, frustration, exhaustion, or irritation. Again, it comes back to remembering! We've got to train ourselves to stop and pray first. We have to remember to seek the Lord's guidance and enabling before we get busy with all our efforts and ideas. But then we go after it with all our hearts and trust the results up to Him.

Okay, waaaaaaaay easier said than done! But nobody ever said the Christian life would be a cakewalk. G. K. Chesteron once wrote that "Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; rather it has been tried and found difficult." Are we willing to do the hard thing or do we just want to float along in the world's easy current? Are we willing to roll up the sleeves of our minds and choose to renew our minds in God's Word daily and then act upon what we are reading or do we just want to drift along, absorbed in our supercharged schedules and oftentimes mindless activity? I've learned I can be awfully busy without being one bit fruitful. I can look and feel like I'm getting a lot accomplished and crossed off my to-do list, but all the while, like Martha, I'm missing out on the "one thing needful" with the result that my soul feels malnourished and listless.

Help me, Lord, to seek You first and foremost; to pray, to continually feast and graze on Your Word, but then to get busy with wherever You have placed me and whatever You have given me to do. To pray with all my heart and then work with all my heart--and all to Your glory. Then the laundry, the cooking, the carpooling, the cleaning become infused with the sacred and the eternal. Brother Lawrence, the monk in a monastery's kitchen many years ago, explained that whatever he was doing, he would do it to the glory of God. If he was peeling potatoes, he would do it to the glory of God and while doing it, he would "practice the presence" of knowing God was right there with him. What a difference when I know that God is with me as I straighten up my messy house for the thousandth time and that I can do it to His glory to the best of my ability. Work and pray; pray and work--and He is pleased. All to His glory alone.

Remembering...again!

Just some very brief ramblings: I am struck anew by the importance of remembering. I have been so convicted about daily speaking "what is" rather than "what if." But I need to remember "what is!" And we (or at least I) are so prone to amnesia when it comes to God's faithfulness! I can read my Bible in the morning, but come late afternoon when my schedule goes crazy and one of my teenagers displays very unbecoming ingratitude (a nice way to put it!) and my nerves start to fray... I simply forget what and who my Almighty God is. I view everything through lenses of doubt and irritation and shortsighted selfishness. I need to put on those 100 year glasses and remember Who is in control, how important this "crisis" will be 100 years from now, and what God wants to teach me and my loved ones through this. I tend to get focused on "why" rather than "who," "how," and "what." I forget to pray rather than plot. I forget to worship rather than worry. I forget to choose faith and trust rather than strain and anxiety.

I am trying to read the Bible in 90 days this summer. So far, I am hanging in there (barely), and it's been great. But recently I've been reading about the Israelites wandering through the desert after Moses led them out of slavery in Egypt. How striking is their spiritual amnesia! God miraculously delivers them from slavery in Egypt, and a few days later the appearance of the Egyptian army terrifies them and causes them to look back with laughable longing at the good old days of slavery and deprivation. God parts the Red Sea and the next minute they are whining and complaining about the lack of water. God sends manna every morning to provide for their sustenance, and they start complaining about the lack of variety in their diets.

When you read so many chapters in one day, the juxtaposition of God's faithfulness and the Israelites grumbling, complaining, and doubting is really startling. How on earth could they forget God's goodness to them so quickly? How could they forget the miraculous ways He has moved in their lives over and over again? How could they be so ungrateful and untrusting? What is wrong with those people that every little setback that comes along seems to cause them to forget everything they should know about who God is and what He has done and what He can do?!

And here I am, sitting in a comfortable house I did not build, typing on a computer I did not make, using fingers and a mind I did not create, writing about family and friends I do not deserve, and relying on grace I could never earn. God has shown His faithfulness to me and those I love in myriad ways. And yet how quickly I forget! I start complaining and worrying and griping just like the Israelites. Reminds me of the time a London newspaper asked G.K. Chesterton what was the problem with the world. "I am," he responded. Amen to that!

So right now I am choosing to remember and to be thankful. My oldest son graduated from High School today. Last night I felt such sadness that neither of my parents were alive to see him graduate. These big events in my children's lives always seem to make me feel their loss more keenly. As I looked at his purple graduation robe, the reality that our children are growing up and moving out and that life is changing (and I don't like change) really hit me hard. How easily we can slide into "the slough of despond" when we start focusing on what we are losing, what we lack, what we have that we don't want or want that we don't have.

But I have to keep learning the lesson that when God is in the equation, everything changes! I have to focus on "what is" rather than "what if." I have to keep remembering God's faithfulness and power and greatness and goodness. I choose to thank the Lord for allowing my son to graduate and move on rather than focus on my own little selfish point of view that he is leaving our home and I will miss him. Boy, when I get all wrapped up in myself, I make a mighty small package! But when I look up rather than around or in, the view is so expansive, so breathtaking. So today, I choose, again, to remember and to be thankful and to give Him all the glory!