Month: August 2005

The Little Things: Unkept Prayer Promises

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It is one of the small scourges of American Christendom, but it occurs thousands of times a week across the country. This is how it usually plays out:

    Greg: "I just found out today that I'll be losing my job in a month. My company's outsourcing my entire department to Malaysia. I really need prayer."Steve: "That's terrible. I'll pray for that, Greg."

    Greg: "Hey, thanks! That means a lot to me."

    Steve: "Well, see ya later!"

And we all know what happens: Steve goes home and promptly forgets to pray for Greg—ever.

Magnifying GlassI used to be like Steve. After about the thousandth time of having a promise to pray for someone vanish into the ether that is my mind, I decided that I was dishonoring God and all the people who requested prayer from me. What's worse, there were times that my promise to pray was the equivalent of saying, "Fine!" whenever anyone asked me how I was doing. It was something to say, even if I didn't truly mean it.

There is a silver lining to the cloud, at least for me. I changed. I stopped telling people I would pray for them after the fact.

"But, Dan," you say, "what kind of barbaric response is that? What a heathen you are!"

Say what you will. I just told people that I knew myself too well and that I had a better idea: I'd drop everything I was doing and pray with them right then and there.

So that's what I do now.

See, there's one thing people who need help and request prayer want to know in their heart of hearts, and that's the reassurance that you actually did pray for them. By dropping everything I'm doing in the moment to pray with someone, I accomplish three things:

  • They see, and therefore know, that they have been prayed for.
  • Both of us enjoy the face-to-face relational aspect that prayer builds in both the one receiving prayer and the one praying.
  • God is honored in that faithfulness to pray and hears that prayer.

For me, I know that I have never failed to forget to pray for someone who asked me to pray for them—because I did it right then. Do I remember to pray a second time or more after that initial prayer? Sure. But even if I do fail to remember to continue to pray, I know that I did at least once, and so does the person I prayed for. That makes them more likely to come to me for prayer in the future, as well.

I don't claim to do everything right, but this one I learned the hard way.

This is such a little thing, but it makes all the difference. If we honestly believe God moves through prayer, then it is my prayer that we all consider keeping prayer promises to people by just sitting down with them and praying right off. Anything that happens later is a bonus.

Now if I could just remember to get back with people I prayed for to see what the results of that prayer were! (That's just as important, but I'll have to leave that little thing for a later post.)

Have a great week.

The Little Things: Excuses

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One of the societal trends I have noticed in the last ten years is that people increasingly make excuses. Everyone has an excuse as to why the work I’m paying them to do hasn’t been done, why they can’t fix my car right in four tries, Magnifying Glasswhy the pictures came out fuzzy, why they burned my meal at the restaurant, and on and on and on.

What baffles me about this trend is that the reason for that failure to execute never is “I made a mistake.” It’s always something more along the lines of “My distributor can’t…,” “My manager won’t…,” “The service center we use isn’t…,” and the ubiquitous “It’s their fault, not mine.” I’m convinced that the next time I actually hear a person say, “I messed up,” I’m going to hand him $20 and say, “Thank you for taking responsibility for the problem.”

Honestly, it’s that bad.

What makes it worse is that there is no greater source for excuses than in our churches. Nowhere else summons up the patter of random deflections than in the group we meet with on Sundays.

The curious thing about this, though, is that it is usually not the church entity itself that is making excuses for itself, but individual Christians within those churches. It is the nature of any volunteer organization, which a church primarily is, to have somewhat more slack rules of operation, but what makes us Christians so unwilling to take the blame when something goes wrong?

“We were supposed to have a prayer meeting on Wednesday, but Steve couldn’t…,” “Someone was going to visit our elderly shut-ins this week, but…,” “It’s not my fault that no one put together the youth group program until the last second and…”—well, it just gets tiring.

The grace of God is cheapened when we use it as an excuse for not doing what we say we will do. Jesus didn’t take too kindly to us making excuses:

Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.
—Matthew 25:41-46 ESV

The Church in America needs to dump excuses. We’re using them to excuse ourselves from taking responsibility for our actions (or inactions, as the case usually is.) We need to own up when we make mistakes. We need to stop acting like grace is there to excuse us from doing what we need to do.

Excuses may seem like little things, but they break the heart of God when He sees His Church so ready to spout them and so unwilling to own up to our responsibilities as ambassadors for Christ. For every witness we bear, our anti-witness through excuses only undoes that work.

It’s time to be more responsible. Or as the word of God says:

One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much….
—Luke 16:10a ESV

If we wonder why the Church in our country seems so lackluster, perhaps this is the place to start.

Lord, To Whom Shall We Go?

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White cross on a hillRob Wilkerson of Miscellanies on the Gospel (latest winner of a Warnie Award, I might add) burns up the Internet with the question of why Christians aren’t satisfied with Christ and have to go to other sources for their spiritual fulfillment:

In closing, might I add a more practical way that we can lurch backwards into the simplicity of the gospel message of Christ and Him crucified? It involves a ‘put off’ and a ‘put on.’ First, let’s put off Hollywood. It offers nothing but a mirage. Too many Christians, including myself, watch movies in order to gain some redemptive element which we can use as common ground to share the gospel with others. That works sometimes. But I’m beginning to think that when that is used as common ground, generally their perception of Christianity, priests, and preachers is just what Hollywood has told them it is. So if we start with Hollywood, we’re already starting with a broken tool…a severely broken tool. I say let’s ditch the whole thing. Ironically, it’s filled with nothing but emptiness. There’s no gospel in Hollywood, so let’s stop allowing it to seep into our minds, hearts, and homes.

Second, let’s put on the Lord Jesus Christ as He’s already revealed Himself in the Bible. He hasn’t revealed anything of Himself in Hollywood. If we read our Bibles as much as we watched Hollywood’s products, or better yet, if we read our Bible as much as we watched Hollywood’s products and instead of Hollywood’s products, what kind of Christians do you think we would be?

Amen, Rob.

A few years ago, I came to the stunning revelation that nothing ultimately satisfies but Jesus. I stopped giving my time and effort to things that accomplished nothing but satisfying my own craving to be entertained. So much of Christianity has turned into entertainment! Seymour over at The Light Is Sweet posted this perfect commentary from one of my personal faves, Leonard Ravenhill:

Entertainment is the devil’s substitute for Joy; the less joy of the Lord you have, the more entertainment you need.

How eerily true.

Too many want to justify their entertainment fixation by saying that one can find truth in films. My answer? You can pan for flecks of gold in vast fields of manure, but why do it when Christ can fill you up with an infinitely more satisfying treasure: Himself.

Anyway, my journey into the revelation that only Jesus is needed came about because of a passage that has always been one of my favorites, but which I did not fully understand until two years ago:

After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”
—John 6:66-69 ESV

Lord Jesus Christ, to whom shall we go? There is no truth apart from You. There is nothing that satisfies forever like You do. There is nothing worth possessing more than You. There is no one worth knowing more than You.

And yet how easily so many go careening from one cheap, throwaway thrill to the next. Even people who call themselves by Christ’s name. How desperately sad.

That’s not me anymore. I hope it’s not you, either.