Prayer for our nation

Happy birthday, America! How thankful I am to live in this nation and to enjoy all the freedoms and blessings won for us by the blood, sweat, and tears of countless men and women before us. Forgive us, Lord, for how easily we can take these priceless gifts for granted. Yesterday, our pastor encouraged us to join him (and a number of other churches) in committing to praying every single day for our nation, as well as our families and churches, from July 4 through election day November 2nd. If anyone is reading this, I hope you will join me in praying for our nation (and families and churches, of course!) through election day. How our nation needs revival and restoration. The news seems to be all bad--from our rejection of the Lord in nearly every public arena to our decline in moral values to our frightening economic situation to the seemingly impossible wars we are waging against those who wish to destroy us. One could be tempted to despair.

But with God, we can never ever despair for with Him, all things are possible. As Winston Churchill urged in what was surely the shortest but most powerful commencement address ever given and delivered right in the midst of the dark days of World War II: "Never give up. Never give up. Never, never, never give up." I am reminded of a verse I read not long ago in Numbers 11:23 where God asks an anxious Moses, "Is the Lord's arm too short?" No! If in God's extravagant grace and mercy, He chooses to forgive and restore this nation, then He can and will do it. And that is my prayer. Below is Peter Marshall's prayer for America. It is even more appropriate today than when he penned these words over 60 years ago:

Our Father, we pray for this land. We need Thy help in this time of testing and uncertainty, when men who could fight together on the field of battle seem strangely unable to work together around conference tables for peace.

May we begin to see that all true Americanism beings in being Christian; that it can have no other foundation, as it has no other roots.

To Thy glory was this Republic established. For the advancement of the Christian faith did the Founding Fathers give their life's heritage, passed down to us.

We would pray that all over this land there may be a return to the faith of those men and women who trusted in God as they faced the perils and dangers of the frontier, not alone in crossing the continent, in building their cabins, in rearing their families in eking out a livelihood, but in raising a standard of faith to which men have been willing to repair down through the years.

Thou didst bless their efforts. Thou didst bless America. Thou hast made her rich. Wilt Thou also make her good?

Make us, the citizens of this land, want to do the right things. Make us long to have right attitudes. Help us to be Christian in our attitudes. Let all that we do and say spring out of understanding hearts.

Make us willing to seek moral objectives together, that in united action this nation may be as resolute for righteousness and peace as she has been for war.

Bless those who bear responsibility. May they be led by Thee to do that which is right rather than that which is expedient or politically wise. Save us from politicians who seek only their own selfish interests. Illumine the minds of management as well as labor, that there may be an end to selfishness and greed, to the stupidity of men who are unable to find in reasonable agreement solutions to the problems that plague us.

Bless this land that we love so much, our Father, and help her to deposit her trust, not in armies and navies, in wealth and material resources, or in achievements of the human mind, but in that righteousness which alone exalteth any nation, and by which alone peace can finally come to us. This we ask in that name that is above every name, Thy Son, Jesus Christ, our Redeemer. Amen.

Amen, Lord, and to be all the glory!

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!

Are you living by "what if" or "what is?"

Jennifer Rothschild lost her sight when she was 15 years old. She was a normal, active, healthy teenager who especially loved art and wanted to draw and paint when she grew up. One day she and a friend were painting on a large new white sheet for a field day event at school, and she noticed a lot of gray dust in one of the corners of the sheet. She tried to brush it away, but it wouldn't budge. Then she noticed some black marks in another corner of the sheet. When she complained to the friend about all the dirt and dust on this new sheet, her friend responded, "Jennifer, I don't know what you are talking about. She sheet is white." That was her first indication that something was wrong. Not long after this, her parents took her to an eye hospital where they did a number of tests that revealed that she had a disease of the retinas that would leave her completely blind.

Jennifer said that she and her parents drove home in stunned and devestated silence from the hospital that day. When she got home, there sat the upright piano her family had purchased several years earlier. She had taken piano lessons on and off so her ability was pretty limited. But though she could no longer see to read the music she sat down and began playing she had never played and never memorized. The song that flowed from her heart through her fingers is the song that still reverberates through her life and the dark places she goes through: the old protestant hymn "It is Well with my Soul."

When people asks her if she prays for healing, she responds that there are days where she cries out to God, "Lord, take it away." But generally she doesn't pray for healing. She knows that God is sovereign and He can do it if He chooses, but what she really prays for and what she needs most is contentment, "because if I don't learn contentment in the midst of these circumstances, then if in the mercy of God, He delivers me from it, I'll be grumpy about something else." How true that so many of us fail to redeem the difficulty in our lives, because we assume that we'd be content if our circumstances changed. If my finances improved, if my husband improved, if my children improved, if my job improved, if my home improved, if my health improved... But as Jennifer declared, "True contentment only comes in the midst of the difficult circumstances. Because God makes it well with your soul--not always with your circumstances."

One of the things Jennifer said she has learned as a woman navigating through the darkness of faith and blindness is that it doesn't have to be well with your circumstances for it to be well with your soul. We don't wait for our circumstances to change so that we can experience some level of contentment in our faith. Rather, we ask God to change us in the midst of our circumstances.

Boy that is a lesson I needed to be reminded of--I must daily ask God to teach me contentment right smack in the midst of whatever circumstances I am enduring or enjoying. I cannot choose my circumstances, but I can always choose my response. I can choose gratitude or grumpiness. I can choose faith or fear. I can choose resting in God's sovereignity or restlessness and anxiety. I can choose joy or joylessness. I can choose to enjoy the present, irreplaceable moments of my life each day or I can choose to be looking ahead in worry or behind in regret. O how many of those priceless moments have I missed, because I was mired in preoccupation with my circumstances or about ruminating over other moments that have already passed or that are yet to be!

Jennifer explained that as a blind young woman graduating from high school, the thing she most desperately craved was independence. Independence had been striped away from her at every level as a result of her blindness. So she decided to go to a college about 90 miles away from her house. On August 15 of 1982 she would be a college freshman, and "this seemed like the best idea ever--until August 14 at 3 in the afternoon." As she stood in the front yard of her house, she suddenly was filled with fear at the realization she would be away from home, away from help of any kind, away from all security. She didn't know anybody and wondered who would help her, how would she cross the busy streets--and on and on the fears assailed her. Her mom cried with her and told her she had to go, but she only needed to try it for 2 weeks. If she couldn't handle it, her mom and dad would come pick her up. Well, she loved it and she met her future husband in those first 2 weeks!

"For some of you, it's August 14th." We are looking at our future and it looks uncertain or frightening. "Much of the reason we hover in the front yard of our lives and it's always August 14th is because we are so dominated by our feelings...Fear is a legitimate emotion. But you should allow it to become for you an intuitive detective that holds the hand of God and walks you to Him." We don't walk by our feelings; we walk by faith.

How many of us are daily living our August 14's and saying, "what if?" What if my husband loses his job? What if my child can't handle college? What if our family can't handle this health crisis? What if..... You fill in the blank. What if I really do trust God more than my feelings? As Jennifer declared, "What if is the language of fear and speculation." If we want to be people who truly follow God and walk by faith, we need to stop speaking "what if" and start speaking "what is." And here's "what is: God who called you is faithful, the God who in Isaiah 45 says I will give you treasures in darkness."

The bottom line: I want to be a woman who stops saying "what if" and starts saying "what is--God is faithful and I choose to trust Him more than I trust my feelings." How we all need to remind ourselves daily of this truth! We have to counsel our hearts, for our feelings are such variable, unreliable, wobbly things! But God is changeless and eternal and true and good and great, and I can trust Him with my families lives and with my friends lives and with all in this world that can seem so hopeless.

So today, when those "what if's" assail you, choose to counsel your heart to say "what is" and remind yourselves of the faithfulness of Your almighty, all sovereign, all glorious Lord! He has brought you this far--He will not let you down now...or next week...or next year. Even when we don't understand what He's doing, we can trust His heart and choose to speak the truth of "what is" as we walk by faith and not by feelings. To Him be all the glory.

We will remember what we've forgotten!

"Everything we need to learn is what we've already forgotten... The Church doesn't need to reinvent, but to remember." Dave Owens (one of our church's ministers).

We will remember, we will remember

We will remember, the works of Your hands

We will stop and give You praise

For great is Your faithfulness

So goes the chorus of one of my favorite songs, "We will Remember." Such a simple truth and yet so profound. I know that I have the memory of a gnat. I can't remember names. I struggle even with faces! I forget to take my children to birthday parties or to attend school events, even though they are written on my calendar... because I forget to look at my calendar! There is so much that I forget, but when I forget who God is and what He has done, then discouragement and disillusionment and despair and distraction will set in and take over.

Just the other day, my husband and I grew very discouraged over something one of our children was dealing with. Suddenly, our minds were filled with all the worst case scenarios, and we felt defeated and anxious. Note the word, "felt." It was all about feelings rather than Truth. Somehow in all our dire calculations, God had been left utterly out of the equation! And He is the equation! We had forgotten who our Almighty God is, what He has done, and that He is still on the throne and is still in the business of doing "immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine..." But we needed to remember!

We all need to stop in the midst of whatever crisis or challenge we are facing and choose to remember who our God is and what He can do and remember that His Holy Spirit dwells within us and can enable us to face whatever life hands us and to do whatever He's called us to do. But it all has to start with a conscious choice to remember and then to ask Him to enable us in the power of the Holy Spirit to act upon the Truth we know rather than the emotions we feel.

During a very difficult time in Martin Luther's life, he was carrying a number of heavy burdens and fighting many difficult battles. Though usually jovial and light hearted, Luther was depressed and anxious and very discouraged. His wife, Katherine, endured this for some time until one day when he returned home, she met him at the door wearing a black mourning dress and veil.

"Who died?" he asked her.

"God, " his wife responded.

"You foolish thing!" said Luther. "Why this foolishness?"

"It is true," she persisted. "God must have died, or Doctor Luther would not be so sorrowful."

Luther got the message, his perspective changed, and the depression lifted.

How often I live as if God has died! How quickly I lose perspective and grow discouraged or fearful or discontent--for I've forgotten that My God, the One who created the far flung galaxies, who sustains the world and causes the earth to turn and the sun to shine, who raises the dead to life, the One who renews and redeems and restores and reinvigorates--My glorious, omnipotent, gracious God is in control of everything and everyone and every moment!

In his old age, John Newton, in one of his last sermons, declared that he was a very old man and his memory was failing him. But two things he always remembered, "How great a sinner I am and how great a Savior Christ is." Amen!

How thankful I am that I don't have to get it all together to remember the greatness of my Savior and the infinite enormity of His resources! I am a helpless, hapless sinner...but he is a great Savior! I am exhausted and overwhelmed...but He never runs out or runs low. As Paul Miller put it: "Jesus opens His arms to His needy children and says, 'Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest' (Matthew 11:28). The criteria for coming to Jesus is weariness. Come overwhelmed with life. Come with your wandering mind. Come messy." Boy, now there's a standard I can meet: overwhelmed, wandering mind, messy. And Jesus bids me "come." Come weary and worn out and weak... but come remembering who He is and what He has done and what He can do.

We will remember, we will remember

We will remember, the works of YOur hands

We will stop and give you praise

For great is Thy faithfulness.

You're our Creator, our life sustainer

Delivered, our comfort, our joy

Throughout the ages You've been our shelter

Our peace in the midst of the storm

With signs and wonders You've shown Your power

With precious blood You showed us Your grace

And we will shout, our God is good

And He is the faithful One

We will remember, we will remember

We will remember the works of Your hands

We will stop and give You praise

For great is Thy faithfulness.

Our Lord never ever forgets us. May we stop forgetting Him. In the midst of the storms or the sunshine of our lives, in the mundane or the messy, in our sinfulness or our strengths, in our busyness or our barrenness, we must choose to remember. He is so worthy, so great and so good and to Him be all the glory forever and ever. Amen.

Fear the Lord, not the Future

Last night I awoke at 1:30 and was filled with dark condemnation and anxiety. As I lay in bed, a litany of worries engulfed me, and my exhausted mind poured over imagined dire possibilities as well as all my pitiful shortcomings. There is something about the late nighttime hours that seems to give birth to every frightful worry and care, and we feel oppressed and lonely and utterly inadequate.

I finally got up at 3 a.m. and went and poured out my heart to the Lord. I read in those quiet moments, "Ps.147:11 "The Lord delights in those who fear Him, who put their hope in His unfailing love." And Ps.145:19 "He fulfills the desires of those who fear Him; He hears their cry and saves them." What a reminder it was to me this morning that we are to fear God, not circumstances or possible senarios or failures. He is our Hope when life seems hopeless. He is our Way when we have no idea where to go. He is our wisdom in the midst of confusion. He is our abundant Life when we are empty and exhausted. He is our Victory when we are facing defeat. He is our Song when are joyless. He is our Light when we walk in utter darkness. He is our Peace when we are anxious. He is our Grace when we are completely unworthy.

And He is the source of every good thing in our lives. As I poured out my heart to Him, I started thanking Him for every blessing I could think of--and as the list grew longer, my anxiety grew weaker and weaker. Ps.136 commands us over and over: "Give thanks to the Lord for He is good; His steadfast love endures forever." Sometimes we cannot figure out what on earth He is doing. Sometimes His plans seem mystifyingly and dramatically different from our hopes and dreams. As Beth Moore wrote: "God's ways will always be higher than ours, but we don't have to understand Him to settle the matter in our hearts that we can trust Him." Amen! It really is true that you cannot be filled with gratitude and worry at the same time! We daily, hourly, have to choose to focus on Him--the awesome unchangeable One-- on His greatness, on His blessings or focus on our ever changing circumstances. I choose Him! And for all the tomorrows, when faced with the choice once more, I pray for His grace and mercy to choose Him again and again and again all the way to glory!

In the words of one of Peter Marshall's prayers:

Thou knowest, Father, the things of which we are afraid--the terror by night, the arrow by day that takes us unawares and often finds us without a vital, ready faith. We know that Thou hast not promised to surround us with immunity from all the ills to which flesh is heir. We only pray that when they come, if come they must, they shall find us unafraid and with adequate resources to meet them. Give us a constant faith and a steady courage, that we may neither whimper nor in peevish petulance complain before Thee. We thank Thee that Thou dost still rule over the worl that Thou hast made. Kings and emperors come and depart. All the shouting and the tumult, the screaming hurricanes of time have not deviated Thee from Thy path. Help us to remember, O Christ, that Thou art victorious--Christus Victor--reigning over all; that in due time, in Thine own good time, Thou wilt work all things together for good to them that love Thee, who are called according to Thy purpose. May we find our refuge in that regnant faith, and so face the future without fear. Give to us Thy peace, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.