listening

Opening Prayer: Help me to listen to you this day, O Lord.  For yours is the voice of love; yours is the voice of truth; yours is the only voice that can set me free.  Amen.

Scripture: Luke 8:16-18

Journal: Who or what do you really listen to?  Is what you are hearing true?  What effect does it have on you?  How do you make time and space to listen to God?  What is he saying to you these days?  How is that setting you free?

Reflection: “For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open.  Therefore consider carefully how you listen.” (Luke 8:17-18)

Listening is so important in the spiritual life.  But, unfortunately, it is a bit of a lost art.  That’s probably because, in our day and age, silence and solitude have been replaced by noise and hurry and busyness.  Listening requires time and space.  It requires stillness and silence and solitude.  How can we ever hope to hear anything from God if we never stop, shut up, and pay attention to him? 

The reason listening is so important is because how we listen and what we hear have so much bearing on what we believe and how we live.  What we truly believe determines how we act; and who and what we listen to almost always determines what we really believe.  Living falsely is almost always the result of believing things that are not true.

Thus, if we are really listening, then things will be disclosed, made know, and brought out into the open, no matter how hard we try to deny or escape them.  No matter how hard we try to hide and conceal them.  Listening is the place where we open ourselves up to the voice of God—the voice of truth.  And abiding in his truth is how we are set free.

Prayer

Closing Prayer: So many voices, Lord, so many voices—both around and within.  It gets really confusing.  Sometimes it’s hard to tell who is really telling me the truth; and even harder to tell where I have come to believe things that are just not true.  Help me, O Lord, to listen to your voice.  Help me to pay careful attention to how I listen to you, so that I can know the truth that will set me free.  Amen.

deceit

Opening Prayer: Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.  Blessed is the man whose iniquity the Lord does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit. (Psalm 32:1-2)

Scripture: Psalm 32:1-2

Journal: How is deceit present in your life?  Where are you living falsely?  How are you trying to make yourself look better than you are?  Where are you hiding, posing, jockeying, or posturing?

Reflection: Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.  Blessed is the man whose iniquity the Lord does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit. (Psalm 32:1-2) We are indeed blessed when we come to realize that our transgression are forgiven, our sins are covered, and the Lord no longer counts our iniquity against us.  The cross has taken care of all of that once and for all—past, present, and future.  But what about the part that says we are blessed when we have no more deceit in our spirits?  That’s a little more difficult.  I mean, how in the world do we rid our spirits of deceit?  That seems like a tall order. 

The essence of deceit (rᵊmîyâ) is living falsely.  It isn’t just about telling a lie; it’s about living one.  It’s about presenting a false front.  It’s about trying to make people believe we are better, or different, than we really are.  It is about manufacturing an appearance that is not true.  We do it all the time; every minute of every day.  We do it when we posture and pose.  We do it when we hide and conceal.  We do it when we conform and camouflage.  And we do it when we masquerade and pretend.  We do it when we jockey and perform.  Trying to create ourselves, rather than become ourselves is a great temptation.  And it can become so subtle, so second-nature to us, that we do not even notice it.

That’s why the words to this ancient prayer are so helpful.  Only God can rid our hearts and lives of deceit.  Only God can show us when we are being false rather than true, fake rather than real.  Only God can help us to become who he made us to be, but it takes a relentless openness and attentiveness to his word and his Spirit in the silence and solitude of our won hearts and souls.  It takes constant prayer and reflection and confession and repentance.  It is an ongoing battle, but one that is worth the time and effort, because at the end of it all lies a life that he calls blessed.

Prayer

Closing Prayer: What bliss belongs to the one whose rebellion has been forgiven, those whose sins are covered by blood.  What bliss belongs to those who have confessed their corruption to God! For he wipes their slates clean and removes hypocrisy from their hearts. (Psalm 32:1-2, TPT)

taking possession of the land

Opening Prayer:  Lord God, give us the courage and the strength and the grace to fight for the life you want for us.  Help us to never, out of fear or discouragement or apathy, settle for less than the life and the love you made us for.  Amen.

Scripture: Joshua 1:1-9

Journal:  Where and how are you failing to take possession of the land of promise?  In what ways do you need to fight to take possession of the life God made you for?  Will you?  How? 

Reflection: A large part of the spiritual journey, it seems, is learning what it means to take possession of that which we have already been promised. God promised a land to the people of Israel.  It was a land that was beautiful and abundant and fruitful.  It was a land that represented his goodness and his peace and his presence.  It was a land where they could grow and flourish and prosper.  And yet, for so many years, and for so many reasons, they simply failed to take possession of it.

So God spoke to Joshua and encouraged him to lead the people of God into the land he had promised them. (Joshua 1:1-9) He told him three separate times to “be strong and courageous” and not let anything, or anyone, deter or dissuade him.  Because taking possession of this land, even though God had promised it to them, would be no easy matter.  In fact, it would not happen without a fight.

Which sounds a little odd to me, that they would have to fight in order to take possession of something God had promised them.  But that’s just the way life with God is.  As Richard Foster so beautifully reminded us, “It will not just fall on our heads.”  We will have to arrange our lives in certain ways, if we ever hope to experience the depth and the fullness and the richness and the wholeness of the life God made us for. 

The question is, are we up for it?  Are we willing to fight for that life?  Are we willing to do whatever it takes to experience the love and the joy and the peace and the presence God made us for?  It will not come easy, but it will definitely be worth it.

Prayer

Closing Prayer:  Help us, O Lord, to truly be strong and courageous, whatever that may mean.  Help us to not be afraid and not be discouraged, for you are with us, and go before us, wherever we go.  Amen.

Advent 2021 is coming

 

Advent 2021 begins on Sunday, November 29.  If you are looking for a good companion for yourself, your family, your small group, your staff, your church, your volunteers, or your friends then Watch and Wait might be just what you are looking for.  Don't wait till the last minute.  

pray first

Opening Prayer: May our first movement, O Lord, always be toward you in prayer.  For you alone are able to save and to rescue.  Lord, have mercy!

Scripture: Genesis 18:16-33

Journal: What would it look like if the first movement of your life was prayer?  Do you really believe that’s how it should be?  How will you make prayer the main work of you life?

Reflection: Sometimes we forget, in the midst of the pain and chaos and need of the world around us, that our primary role is to pray—to stand in the gap between God and men, and beg for his mercy.  Sadly, all too often prayer is the last thing we do, instead of the first.  I guess that’s pretty telling.

If the lives of the saints have taught us anything, it’s that the first movement of ministry is always toward God, not toward man.  He alone can save, we cannot.

Prayer

Closing Prayer: O Lord, apart from you, we can do nothing.  And apart from you, this world has no hope.  Help us to be willing to stand in the gap and beg for your mercy.  Amen.

open doors

Opening Prayer: Help me, Lord Jesus, to not get so consumed trying to force open the closed doors that I miss the open ones.  Help me to be prayerful, alert, and attentive to the movement of your Spirit within and around me.

Scripture: Colossians 4:2-4

Journal: Where in your life or ministry are you trying to force doors open?  Where in your life or ministry is God opening doors?  Are there open doors you might not be recognizing?  How will you pray?

Reflection: “Always maintain a habit of prayer: be both alert and thankful as you pray.  Include us in your prayers, please, that God may open for us a door for the entrance of the mystery of Christ (for which I am at present in chains), and that I may make that mystery plain to men, which I know is my duty.” (Colossians 4:2-4, JBP)

More and more, it seems, I’m finding that our main role in life and ministry is just to pray and pay attention.  To look for, and pray for, open doors, and to walk through them, however God leads.  A part of that process is to realize that we can’t open the closed doors, but we can certainly miss the open ones if we are not paying attention.  Personally, I find it amazing to consider how much time and energy I have wasted through the years trying to force open closed doors, while open ones are standing right in front of me.

Help me, Lord Jesus, to not get so consumed trying to force open the closed doors that I miss the open ones.  Help me to be prayerful, alert, and attentive to the movement of your Spirit within and around me.

Prayer

Closing Prayer: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his doors to us.  We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God’s grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise. (Romans 5:1-2, MSG)

true confession

Opening Prayer: When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.  For day and night your hand was heavy upon me.; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.  Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity.  I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord—“ and you forgave the guilt of my sin. (Psalm 32:3-5)

Scripture: Psalm 32:3-5

Journal: What do you need to confess to the Lord today?  What is getting in the way of your relationship with him?  What is hindering you from living fully and freely in Christ?  What attitudes or beliefs are fueling that sinful, dysfunctional behavior?

Reflection:

true confession

do not let us

o Lord

stop too near the surface

in our confession

for if we do

we never really

get to the source

of our problem

we merely chop the weeds

off at the surface

only to see them

grow right back again

instead of pulling them

up by the roots

for apart from you

we don’t really even

know what to confess

we deal only with symptoms

rather than the disease

so show us

o Lord

what we really need to see

and give us the courage

to confess it

so that we might be free

Prayer

Closing Prayer: Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.  See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139:23-24)