Oh, God …

Each morning, even before I throw back the covers of my bed, I pray … not long prayers, not well-thought prayers, but still I pray. In those words, murmured in the first moments of consciousness, I thank God for a new day. I present myself to Him and ask that I will live in a way that He can use me for His purposes.

Then, there are those times of prayer when I bow my head and all that I can say is “Oh, God …” Either I do not know what to say, or perhaps I do not even know what I desire of Him, or I am too angry or sad to speak. What then?

IF I just walk away from prayer in those moments
it is likely that a distance will creep into my relationship with Him.

In years of Pastoral ministry, I have talked with hundreds (no exaggeration) of Christians who struggle with meaningful prayer.
Sometimes it is a misunderstanding of prayer as a one-sided conversation. It IS important to learn to ‘wait on the Lord’ focused and silent before Him.
Often it is a struggle of faith; an inner hidden conflict with one’s self that recognizes a gap between what is being prayed for and real faith to believe God will respond.
And sometimes there is just a sense that we want to express ourselves to Him more fully but lack the words.

That is when I learned to pray the Psalms.’  
Borrowing that ancient, inspired text, I speak aloud to the Lord and find my heart lifted, my mind changed. Who could improve on this prayer in times of disappointment? "As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” (Psalm 42:1-3, NIV) I have prayed those words dozens of times.

The worship of these lines can move me into my own time of praise. "I will praise you, O LORD, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonders. I will be glad and rejoice in you; I will sing praise to your name, O Most High." (Psalm 9:1-2, NIV)

In times of failure, these words of confession have been my prayer. "Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. … Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me." (Psalm 51:1-3, 10-12, NIV) What joy I have found in confessing both my sin and His grace to forgive!

In the 150 Psalms we find all kinds of prayers – worship and adoration, cries for help and rescue, and angry expressions of doubt and fear. So, use them as your prayer book! Let them teach you how to commune with God in a deeper, richer way. Let them lead you beyond fumbling and muttering into amazing worship.

It is my experience that praying the Psalms launches me into my own prayers, inspiring me to know God better. Christian, for us prayer is not an option. When we pray, we open up our lives to the power of God and, in ways that defy our understanding. In prayer we word WITH to build His Kingdom here on earth. How amazing is that?  

Pray first, not last.
Pray often, not seldom.
Pray boldly, not tentatively.
Pray faithfully, knowing that He is faithful, even when you cannot discern His ways or hear His voice.

Here’s the word from the Word, some prayers from the Psalms.
"But now, Lord, what do I look for? My hope is in you. Hear my prayer, O LORD, listen to my cry for help; be not deaf to my weeping. For I dwell with you as an alien, a stranger, as all my fathers were." (Psalm 39:12, NIV) "You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book." (Psalm 56:8, NLT)

"I will fulfill my vows to you, O God, and will offer a sacrifice of thanks for your help. For you have rescued me from death; you have kept my feet from slipping. So now I can walk in your presence, O God, in your life-giving light." (Psalm 56:12-13, NLT)
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The Prayers Of The Saints

Let these prayers of the saints
Be sweet smelling incense
Let these prayers of the saints
Be sweet smelling incense to Your heart

Matt Redman © 1998 Thankyou Music (Admin. by EMI Christian Music Publishing)

Amen.

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Video at https://www.youtube.com/@JerScott55

Stop picking at that scab!

Some of you will find my opening lines unpleasant but I hope you will hang in there for the point today. Our skin is an amazing thing, capable of repair, protective of our health, and filled with sensitive nerve ending. When damaged with a cut or abrasion, our skin forms a scab. Scabs might seem like a gross thing, but they are critically important to healing, protecting wounds against infections. Underneath that ugly, scaly thing the body is busy with a process of repair of skin cells and blood vessel restoration. There are white blood cells actively fighting off germs. So, stop picking at that scab! If you pull it off you risk infection and you most certainly delay healing, while risking development of a bigger scar.

In an age when we have become much more aware of our mental health, tending to be more thoughtful, and generally much more sensitive to being ‘hurt’ by others in so many ways, I am of the opinion that some of us delay healing with repetitive picking at our emotional wound. We are ready to recount, in detail, that wrong that was done to us a decade ago. We refuse to forgive the person who treated us cruelly, rehearsing the wrong, reminding ourselves of the ‘toxic’ treatment we received.

Let me pause to acknowledge that pain is real. Wounds can go deep. In another time we might have been encouraged to minimize those things. We may have been taught to ‘step over’ it or to just ‘get over it. That is not what I am encouraging today. Spending time with a good therapist who can help us gain perspective can be valuable. Praying through our pain with a trusted and wise friend offers the hope of real healing.

However, we must be willing to let the wound heal, to come to a place where we acknowledge the hurt but are ready to move on in life without a need to excuse our present by pointing at our past! We can learn to say things like this -
“It happened!
I learned from it!
I accept my part in it!
I am willing to forgive others who participated in it!
I am more than that trauma!”

Forty years ago, I went through an intense time of emotional trauma. I spare you the details, but it was truly awful. I did what I thought was the Christian thing to do at the time – excusing the wrong in myself and others, professing a forgiveness I did not truly feel, and carrying on with life in a busy way. A few years later, I became clinically depressed and it nearly cost me my life.

I finally acknowledged the incompleteness of my experience and with the loving care of some and the patient encouragement of my wife I found true healing. The scar remains but the wound is gone. The hurt turned into a source of genuine life change and a much more profound appreciation of the grace and love of Jesus!

Yes, we can heal. Those real hurts from a divorce, a church split, a broken friendship, even abuse of many kinds can heal. They will leave a scar. But they need not stay open wounds for the rest of our lives because we keep picking the scab, ripping them open again and again.

How can we heal?

At the risk of over-simplification, I offer these thoughts today.

First, find a friend!
I love the work of Alcoholics Anonymous. Why? It provides a safe place for an alcoholic to find friends who share the addiction and encouragement to work for sobriety. Whatever your wound, a primary step in starting to heal is finding a place to talk about it with people who understand. How I pray that the Church will be more like AA and less like a country club!

Second, be honest!
Don’t offer excuses for yourself or those who hurt you. Dealing with the facts is important. Self-deception can trap us as we reframe the experience to fit our own needs. Commit to the truth.

Third, be prayerful!
The old hymn says, “take it to the Lord in prayer.”  In my experience decades ago, I took that terrible situation to the Lord so many times. I knelt in our church sanctuary alone and wept as I talked to Jesus. He began the healing by showing me His love and leading me to great people who loved me, prayed for me, and gave professional care that saved my life.

Fourth, be appropriately forgiving!
True forgiveness is not just ‘letting the other guy off the hook.’ It is not making an excuse for them such as, “well, they’re only human.’  We forgive when we release whatever debt we feel to God for His judgment. Some justice we desire is just out of reach in this world and we are wise to take Jesus’ word when He says, “forgive and you will be forgiven.”

Lastly, learn acceptance and grace!
People are imperfect, including me and you. Good people make awful decisions. Yes, some are truly evil and require removal from our circle, but most are just garden variety sinners who hurt without thinking, who say stupid or foolish things, who make an awful choice in a moment of weakness. Does it make the wound they inflict less real? Not at all, but IF we want to heal we need to say this often - "There but for the grace of God, go I."

Let’s grow into spiritual maturity, scarred from the battles of life, but courageous for the future and committed to the goodness of God.

The word from the Word says
"Christ’s love … has the first and last word in everything we do. Our firm decision is to work from this focused center: One man died for everyone. That puts everyone in the same boat. He included everyone in his death so that everyone could also be included in his life, a resurrection life, a far better life than people ever lived on their own.

Because of this decision we don’t evaluate people by what they have or how they look. We looked at the Messiah that way once and got it all wrong, as you know. We certainly don’t look at him that way anymore.

Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons! Look at it! All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other."  (2 Corinthians 5:14-18, The Message)

Amen.

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Video at https://www.youtube.com/@JerScott55

Love? Is it real?

Jesus Himself said that love is the mark of His genuine followers. “By this will all people know you are my disciples – that you love another.”  You’re nodding your head in agreement, right?  Yet, think about it.
We are capable of ripping each other to shreds over when our traditions are threatened, our comfort impeded, or our beliefs challenged.
When a Christian fails or falters, observe the cruel, loveless judgments that come flooding on social media.
I have been appalled by the public musings of so many conservative Christians about various subjects that show hearts and minds that are anything but loving!

Love can be fragile, too, can’t it? Everyone knows the pain of a failed friendship. An angry word is spoken, a misunderstanding blows in like a summer thunderstorm, offense takes hold and becomes a fortress wall. A friend becomes an enemy and the wound goes deep! The love once enjoyed mysteriously turns into a bitter hatred.

Even familial love fails! Sons and mothers do not speak over some insignificant slight. Lovers who once could not stand to be apart for a moment become enemies who actively desire the destruction of each other.

So, can we really love? Is love just a mirage or momentary emotion or is it a profound choice for life, a way we learn to live to know the highest and best of the promises of Jesus?

One of the best books I have ever read on the complicated subject of human relationships is titled – Bold Love- (Dr. Dan Allender, NavPress, 1993). One of his assertions is that 'love is not natural.'

Allender writes, "There is an enormous drive in the fallen human personality that impedes the process of learning to love and an equally powerful force outside of every person that labors to destroy every effort to love. ... Complacency and presumption work hand-in-hand to blind even Christians to the importance of love and inherent battle involved in learning to love. IF we are to learn to love, we must begin with an acknowledgment that love is not natural and that love's failure is not easy to admit."

Let me rephrase that paragraph!
Sin and selfishness work inside of us and the Devil works outside of us- conspiring against love's birth and/or survival. Then, too, there is the false belief that love does not need daily care. Neglect allows it to cool until it dies, all the while we live in denial of the truth!

The only way we learn to love and remain loving is to be renewed constantly in the love of Christ! "We love each other because he loved us first." (1 John 4:19, NLT) Authentic and deep love like that of Jesus requires dying to Self. He insists that "No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other." (Matthew 6:24, NLT) We cannot love God and ourselves at the same time. We cannot love others deeply while selfishly serving our own needs, either!

Is love challenged in your life?

Before you form a fist and attempt to force a change, go to your knees! Let the Lord of Love, love you!
Before you pray, "God make them change!" give the Holy Spirit full access to your heart and mind and let Him change you! Before you walk away, expressing hatred through cool contempt, ask God to help you love others - the same way that He loves you.

Love is a force for change that is more powerful than any weapon ever devised by human beings. At the same time, genuine Christ-like love often appears to be weak on the surface as we seek to understand others, when we are gentle and allow ourselves to be vulnerable. In fact, real love leaves us open to real HURT. C.S. Lewis wrote, “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken.”

The word from the Word- "Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged. It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance." … "There are three things that will endure—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love." (1 Corinthians 13:4-7,13, NLT)

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Video at https://www.youtube.com/@JerScott55