Category Archives: Prayer

Serenity Prayer

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Serenity in Winter

I have always been a great fan of the Serenity Prayer:

“God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change,
courage to change the things we can,
and wisdom to know the difference.” 

It is used not only at AA meeting, but throughout the church.  The author of the prayer was Reinhold Niebuhr, an American pastor and theologian of the last century.  His original prayer continued

“Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.”

I am one who believes in the power of prayer, but that prayer is not some magic bullet that offers instant results.  Prayer is always based on the ongoing relationship we have with God, and God’s expectations for us.  There are things we are meant to change and we need to discern what they are and our role in the change. Whether at home, at work, or in our congregation, there are attitudes and behaviors that we can change.  Asking for God’s guidance in our relationships and daily life is critical to healthy change.

 Which brings us to those things that we can not change, like the weather.   This winter started early and will probably be around at least two more months.  I know that I can complain about it, but I am asking for serenity to enjoy this day as a gift from God.   I believe there might be some wisdom in that.

How has prayer shaped your life this winter?

Seek or Wait?

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Pastor John hiking in Cascade Mountains of Washington

Tomorrow Psalm 27 will be read in worship.    Psalm 27 begins with a powerful insight, “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”  God is a light to our path, but the path can be difficult, strenuous, challenging.  We fear what is ahead so we try to make our own way.   Our fear leads us a way from God, like a backpacker who leaves the trail for what he thinks is a short-cut, only to discover that he is lost and alone. 

That lost, alone person needs to get back on God’s path, but how?  The psalmist gives us two hints in how to retrace our steps.  In Psalm 27:8 the psalmist writes,  “Come,” my heart says, “seek his face!” Your face, Lord, do I seek.  When we have gotten off trail and are lost, we need to admit that we are lost and we need God’s direction.   To seek God’s face is to seek intimacy with God, to have a direct face-to-face conversation with our creator and savior.  This is an action of the heart, more than the mind.

But then the psalmist gives wisdom on how to seek God’s face.  In verse 14,  Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!  This can be difficult in our instant response world.   We expect God to immediately answer our requests.   Waiting can be so difficult.  Lost backpackers are instructed to find a safe place and wait for the rescue team to find them.  Their inclination is to go thrashing about in the woods, but that only makes rescue more difficult. 

Seek the Lord’s face.  Wait on the Lord.  Still wise words for us to heed in our daily walk with God. 

How do you seek or wait on the Lord?

Quarks and Prayers

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Quarks: sub-atomic particles

This morning I listened to a podcast of an interview with John Polkinghorne, an English physicist and theologian.  He described how his understanding of sub-atomic quarks helped him to understand prayer. http://being.publicradio.org/programs/2011/quarks-creation/   In the past science explained the world in mechanistic terms as fixed and determined, like a carefully made watch that is ticking away.  But now physicists realize that things are not quite so pre-determined. Quarks are the tiniest participles of matter, smaller than atoms, that scientist cannot exactly locate nor predict.  Quarks are sort of “cloudy,” fluid, chaotic.

For Polkinghorne this changed his understanding of prayer.  In a mechanical, pre-determined world, prayer did not make much sense.  Everything was locked into a set pattern of laws that God had established at creation.  But in the world of quarks, where it is much more fluid and unknown, prayer becomes an interaction with God and creation. 

In old science, God was simply a watchmaker who created the world, wound it up and then step back to observe the watch from a distance. And yes, there are some strong physical laws that guide our days.  The sun will rise in the east, not the west.  If you jump off a roof, you will not fly, but fall to earth.   Yet, in the field of quarks, God is also like a conductor, constantly interacting with the musicians who are making music together.  With quarks Polkinghorne found beauty, wonder and awe, like a good jazz improvisation. 

This makes sense to me. For example I do not pray that the January cold-snap in Minnesota will suddenly become a July heat-wave.  The seasons are fixed.  Yet the chaotic, fluid nature of weather could be influence by the prayers of God’s people.  The prophet Elijah’s prayers for a drought in I Kings 17-18 is indicative of this.  The same is true for prayers of healing; there is an interplay between our body, mind and spirit that truly affects the body’s healing.  Prayer is an invitation for God to participate in our body’s healing, in a deep elemental way.  When we pray for someone to be healed of cancer, we are asking God to allow the healthy cells in the body to replace/remove the cancer cells at the most basic biological level.

My favorite prayer of Jesus reflects such an attitude.  We pray, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as in heaven.”  As we pray this prayer we are opening ourselves to God’s activity in the world, seeking to be in the flow of  God’s Spirit.  The Spirit is not pre-determined, but more fluid and sometimes chaotic, like a dance. The will of God has fixed aspects, like the ten commandments.  Yet in our daily life, we seek to see the conductor’s baton and stay with God’s rhythm and beat.

How has your understanding of prayer changed overtime?

River Prayer

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St. Croix River

Yesterday I preached at Gary Bailey’s memorial service and I was struck with his love of rivers.  He grew up on the Mississippi River, went to school in Winona, MN and often recreated  on the St. Croix.  His daughter remembered a shared St. Croix canoe trip in the rain.   A friend told a story about camping on a St. Croix Island and how Gary tried to share a sleeping bag with him (by mistake!).  Rivers flowed through Gary’s life.

The psalmist writes, there is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High (Psalm 46:4).  God delights in rivers and the scripture is full of river images, from the Garden of Eden in Genesis to the river of life in Revelation 22.  I often visualize God’s grace and love as a river that flows all around us.  As a result rivers have flowed into my prayer life.

 My prayer has become, “Lord, lead me in your river of life.  Teach me to trust in your stream of grace and to work towards what you are doing.  I don’t want to fight your current, but rather flow with you.”  The Lord’s Prayer states, “your kingdom come, your will be done,” which means that I want to align my will and my activities with God’s will and activities.  Prayer is getting into God’s flow.  

Have you ever experience God’s grace flowing in your prayers?  Or had times of drought?

Finding Jesus in Jamaica

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Working Together to Meet Jesus

I am still thinking about the magi’s journey to Bethlehem to see baby Jesus. Preaching on a text sometimes hammers it deep into one’s psyche.   What strikes me is the investment the magi made.  They gave not only the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, but also the time and energy for the trip itself.   They entered a foreign culture to pay homage to an infant king who was not immediately their own. 

I see so many connections in this story to the value of short-term mission trips, especially to different cultures.   As one who has lead over a dozen mission trips to Jamaica, I see the investment and hopes that people make when they go on a “vacation with a purpose.”   A key element of that preparation is to recognize that they go to discover Jesus in that place, more than to bring Jesus to that place.   The Christian service or actions that the missionaries perform are important, but the relationships, conversations, and participation with the people of that new culture are what become holy and blessed.

Too often I can become fixated on the physical accomplishments of a trip.  When I have worked with Habitat for Humanity it brings me satisfaction that we have constructed a safe, secure, simple structure for a family in need.   And when a team runs out of building materials or out of time, I feel frustrated and disappointed.  

Still the bigger accomplishment in any trip is the network of relationships that develop in the community.  Worship, meals, conversations and play are just as significant as the work done on the house; we often meet Jesus, hidden in the smile of a child or in the song of an impromptu choir.  Those encounters with Jesus change and enlighten us, if we give them “homage.”    Time for reflection and prayer have been a key element in my mission journeys because they help us bring Jesus home after the trip.

I look forward to leading mission trips in the future.  I sense that Jesus is waiting.

Have you ever encountered Jesus in a different culture than your own?

Joseph’s Prayer

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Almighty God, your servant Joseph faithfully followed your command to take Mary as his wife, in spite of her scandalous pregnancy.  Grant us the courage and conviction to follow you in all circumstances and opportunities.  Let us not bow to cultural pressures, but seek you above everything else.  The gift of your son, Jesus, is sufficient for all our needs and desires.   In your holy name we pray.  Amen.

Sunday Prayer Dec 12 2010

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Almighty God, creator of heaven and earth, the brilliant sunrise this morning bears witness to the wonder and glory of your power.  Grant us the heart, mind and soul to praise your name and bear witness to your steadfast love.  As people dig out from yesterday’s snowfall, we remember those who have no home.  We pray for all who work in emergency shelters and for those who provide services to the homeless.   Grant them wisdom, compassion and perseverance as they seek to help.  We also thank you this day for all the men and women who clear our streets and roads and make it possible for us to travel.   We ask in the name of Jesus, our Savior and Lord.