Praying Colossians 6
July 2, 2009
Praying Colossians 1:13-14
Affirming (what we know from Scripture) the identity we know God to be is a form of prayer. Repeating to a person (face-to-face) their qualities as as person is affirming, edifying, pleasing, and honoring. Although Paul speaks of the person of Christ in the third person, changing his compliments of Christ to a direct address to Christ makes it a prayer of adoration or praise. “O how I love him, how I adore him” becomes “you are the one I love, you are the one I adore…” Here are Paul’s words from the ESV.
1:13 He delivered us from the power of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of the Son he loves, 1:14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
Jesus, your powerful light-life is able to overcome any darkness-life in me and your church. Our hope is in you for a daily exchange of kingdoms. We give you our darkness; we receive your light. Day by day, minute by minute, your presence is a light unto our feet, the sun of life unto our path. Thank you for this exchange, the best deal we have ever had. Jesus we also love what our Father did in you and what you did in him to bring us back to you from that kingdom of evil. We are not alone. We are billions strong. We couldn’t have made it back on our own, that’s for sure. You lived in that kingdom, you suffered in that kingdom, you remained devoted to God, our Father, then you died in that kingdom. Now my sins are forgiven, separated from me, beyond your sight, hidden deep in the cross of your death and life. How vast is that life of yours to absorb all sin! You deserve all the praise. Amen. Lord, have mercy.
Praying Colossians 4
May 19, 2009
Praying Scripture is a rewarding experience. Using Holy Spirit inspired words (their attendant meanings and referents) that have been comforting believers for millennia is an edifying experience. Praying Scripture also assures us that we are praying according to the will of God which instructs us to be fully prepared to serve him faithfully.
Today, we pray with Paul and the Church from Colossians 1: 7-8.
1:7 You learned the gospel from Epaphras, our dear fellow slave - a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf – 1:8 who also told us of your love in the Spirit.
Paul continues to commend the Colossians in a spirit of gratitude to God for receiving the gospel, for living the gospel, and for loving God and one another in the Spirit according to the gospel teachings.
Prayer: So today, Jesus, I pray with gratitude for those who have been faithful like Epaphras to bring the gospel to me. I name Kathy, Billie, Paul, Dan, Dianne and others. I also thank you, O Revealer of all truth, for opening my eyes to see, and moving me to enter into the kingdom of light in Christ Jesus. This is no personal achivement by sheer grace. I confess before you and before the world of my inability to live the gospel but for your strong presence in my weakness. I also pray, lover of my soul, that the world may see me and your church and marvel at the love we have for you, and for the world. Glorify your name in all the earth through your church. Amen, Christ have mercy.
CDP 2
May 8, 2009
Celtic Daily Prayer has been our chosen way at Missional Order to order our days. We have chosen to order our days around four spiritual pauses to focus our hearts, souls, and minds on the only Ground of our being: father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is a valuable way to help us be intentional about growing in grace. Experience tells us that without intention it is impossible to accomplish the vision of Christ likeness we so desire as those intent on doing life with God. A garden untended grows wild. A life untended grows stale.
Today’s readings from CDP are all about intention. Here they are:
Psalm 42:11 Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God.
A conversation with ourselves is an essential way of attending to our inner thoughts, feelings, and attitudes. Whatever that conversation yields is placed in hope into the hands of God. By default, O Lord, make me to always hope in you.
Jeremiah 21:8 Furthermore, tell the people, This is what the LORD says: See, I am setting before you the way of life and the way of death.
We come to forks in the road daily, hourly, even more often. Choosing the way of life must be a deliberate action. The inner voice always cries out for the right choice unless the cares of this world have choked it out. Our baser parts heed the wrong voice for a wrong choice leading to interrupted relationality with the Lord. A moment of decision sets the course of a day, even a life. You bid me, my Lord, to tell the people. So I tell, first my soul, then the soul of others: Mind the little decisions.
2 Corinthians 11:3–4 But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. 4 For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough.
Deception is constant. It is as constant as our wills are determined on devotion to Christ. The cosmic forces that seek to thwart our attention away from God, Jesus, and the gospel are not only real but also disguised. It takes the wisdom of Solomon and the patience of Job to be discerning. Lord Jesus Christ make me discerning of anything that would come between us and merciless in eliminating it from my life.
[May] I find Thee enthroned in my heart,
my Lord Jesus.
It is enough.
I know that Thou art throned
in heaven.
[May} My heart and heaven are [be] one.
Alistair Maclean
Shaped by the Story
April 17, 2009
What happens when we read Scripture as God’s Story and with great determination figure out how to insert our lives into that Story, rather than trying to figure out when and where we can fit God into our busy lives?
In his book, Shaped by the Story, Michael Novelli provides the following summary of God’s story with the thread of kingdom running throughout.
“From the very beginning’s of the story, God expresses a desire to live in close harmony with God’s creation and for God’s creation to enjoy his kingdom rule. God created humans as image-bearers of the divine, continuing God’s creativity and care of creation on earth. Then humans decided to create their own kingdoms, where they could live according to their own desires.
So God set in motion a kingdom agenda to restore creation to wholeness. Story after Bible story describes the amazing lengths God went to in order to extend grace to us-to give humans opportunities to reconnect our broken relationship with him. God even came and dwelled with the Jewish nation-a community God chose to distinctly live while reflecting the ways of God the King.
The apex of the kingdom storyline is found in Jesus. Jesus announced the kingdom of God breaking into history, displaying God’s restorative power in his life, miracles, and words. At the cross Jesus gained decisive victory over evil for us, liberating us from the power of sin. Then Jesus entered as the firstborn into the -resurrection life of restored creation. God’s Spirit was sent to continue the restorative work, empowering a global community of people called the church to embody God’s kingdom, join in God’s actions, and tell God’s Story. to the world.
How is your faith community emodying God’s kingdom in your community? How do you see your church fitting into God’s redemptive story? What “part” or “role” will you “act out” today?
Rule of Benedict 16
March 3, 2009
Rule of Benedict, Chapter 2:11-15
Therefore, when anyone receives the name of abbot he is to govern his disciples by a twofold teaching: that is he must show forth all that is good and holy more by deeds than by words; declaring to receptive disciples the commandments of the Lord with words, but demonstrating the divine precepts to the stubborn and the simple-minded by the example of his deeds. And it should be seen in his teaching and in his actions that those things contrary to the law of God are not to be done, lest while preaching to others he himself be found reprobate (1 Cor 9:27); and God say to him in his sin: How is it that you receive my justice and declare my covenant with your mouth, when you hate discipline and cast my words behind you (Ps 50:16-17)? And also this: How is it that you can see a speck in your brother’s eye, and not notice the plank in your own (Matt 7:3)?
Lectio: This passage reminds me of Paul’s words when he said in 1 Cor 11:1 “Be imitators of me as I am of Christ Jesus.” Leading the people we serve by modeling imitation of Christ is the cry of the heart. Paul, the abbot of Christ’s followers in Corinth, is confident not in his own model of ministry, or one which is borrowed from somewhere, but the model he believes is Christ’s model of being and doing. Surely until I have imitated Christ I cannot truly model discipleship to him.
Dallas Willard insists on asking us: Who is your teacher? If you are a disciple, who teaches you the life of a disciple? Who’s your model, whom do you imitate? What do you think of this statement: The main task of a leader, pastor, abbot, is to become like Christ so others may also become Christ-like. That’s the first calling.
Have we made calling the ministries we do such as preaching, or teaching? while neglecting the higher calling of imitation of him?
Do you ever struggle with the question? Or not? What do you consider to be your main role as a leader of the people of God?
Prayer: Lord, make me like you. Train like you, live like you did, relate the way you did, love as you did, live for others as you did. Till others see Jesus in me, Lord make me faithful be to thee. Amen. Christ, have mercy.
Rule of Benedict 13
February 27, 2009
In chapter one of the Rule of Benedict we are treated to the Saint’s preference of the kind of monk and monastery he wishes to have. In this chapter he names 4 types of monks: The cenobites, the anchorites, the sarabaites, and in today’s verses (10-13) he names the last, the gyrovagues. I quote the verses:
The fourth kind of monks are those called gyrovagues, who spend their whole lives seeking hospitality in province after province, monastery after monastery, staying three or four days at a time; always wandering and never stable, they are slaves to self-will and the snares of appetite: they are in all things worse than the sarabaites.
Of the most wretched life of all these it is better to remain silent than to speak. Leaving these behind us, therefore, let us proceed, with the help of God, to make provision for the cenobites–the strong kind of monks.
Lectio: With nothing good to say about the wretched existence of the gyrovagues, Benedict prefers silence to speech; grace and love, to condemnation. Benedict is a discerning leader.
This is what I heard and am meditating on: You have nothing to say? Say nothing. You don’t think your words edify? It is best to keep them inside and not sound like a clanging cymbal and a noisy gong. Jesus kept silence when his life and ours hung in the balance and I am sure many other times. That takes training of the will. Our tendency is unbridled speech. Too much to say if only some will listen. Say little and many will listen when you have something to say. I don’t have to say everything that comes into the mind. Too much talk is a human luxury no one could afford.
Experience also taught gracious Benedict that stability, staying put in one place for a long time, if not until death, provides a grounding in God, and helps overcome a life governed by self-will rather than by the will of God. Stability is one of the vows Benedictines take, if my memory serves me well. Doing life together with a few other people for life is a feat not many accomplish. Loving the same people, foibles and all is no easy thing. Serving God with others in the same congregation for life for life. Is that ever a consideration when better job opportunities come knocking? Heck, 50% or more of us can’t do it with a wife/husband! Mobility has its drawbacks. By raising all these questions I am becoming aware that stability is no longer a core value to us as a society or perhaps as a society of Jesus.
Is this true in your experience? What do you think we gain by stability? What do you think we lose without it?
Prayer: It is good for brothers to dwell together in harmony in your presence, dear Lord. Amen. Lord, have mercy.
The imitation of Christ
February 20, 2009
To be truly redeemed by Christ is, therefore, to impose on oneself the task of imitating him; As man Jesus is my model because as God he is my Redeemer; Christianity can be defined as a faith together with a corresponding way of life. - Kierkegaard
I for one, find it extremely difficult to live the way Jesus lived. I continually fall short. I am a sinner. I am completely dependent upon God’s grace in my quest to love others the way Jesus does. But that is my hope, that I would become more and more like Jesus and because of that hope I continue to work and strive (1 Timothy 4:10)….
I am part of faith community committed to three basic rhythm’s (”rules” for you Benedictines out there). Our desire is to be an intensive fellowship of friends ignited by the missio Dei. Together we are seeking to live our lives in the way of Jesus by…
- Listening to the Father
- Loving one another and
- Living as agents of redemption in the world.
These three basic practices are our attempt at working and striving because of the hope we have in God.
What are some of the common rhythm’s or rules of your faith community?
What practices do you find most helpful in your “training” to become more like Jesus?
Faith is caught
February 13, 2009
So this week I’ve been reading 2 Timothy, following the Daily Lectionary in the BCP. The phrase that stopped my reading was, “…how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures…”. Before long my mind was back at the beginning of Paul’s letter, which stated, ” I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and am persuaded, now lives in you also.”
I am convinced that God intends families to be the primary environment where the seeds of faith are planted and nurtured. God has given the privilege and responsibility of “spiritual guide” to parents. But lately us parents (especially pastors) handed that responsibility to “church programing” and “paid experts.” Today our families and churches are suffering because of this fatal mistake. Children are left spiritually bankrupt, youth are bored with church programs and parents are left standing in the midst of a family in chaos, wondering what happened and who to turn to.
Ivy Beckwith explains the current state this way, “At the end of the 20th century, churches were seduced by the sirens of consumerism. They came to believe that providing Disneyesque children’s programs constituted the path to larger adult attendance numbers. In doing so they disregarded and lost a sense of what it means to spiritually form children and help children know and love God and live in the way of Jesus. they lost a sense of what children need spiritually from the adults in their lives.
What does your faith community do to resource and encourage parents as “spiritual guides”?
Am I way off suggesting something needs to change in our approach to children/youth ministry?
Canticle
December 21, 2008
Christ, as a light
illumine and guide me.
Christ, as a shield
overshadow me.
Christ under me;
Christ over me;
Christ beside me
on my left and my right.
This day be within and without me,
lowly and meek, yet all-powerful.
Be in the heart of each to whom I speak;
in the mouth of each who speaks unto me.
This day be within and without me,
lowly and meek, yet all-powerful.
Christ as a light;
Christ as a shield;
Christ beside me
on my left and my right.
I find this prayer deeply meaningful. I cannot simply recite it without going deeply into myself and appreciate its work in me. It reflects a ton of biblical images and concepts that are familiar to the Bible reader. That’s the most endearing thing about it. I am going to write a few posts on this canticle of worship. Reading these words is one thing, reading them and letting them read us spiritually is another. I read them slowly, meditatively, prayerfully, and restfully allow them to settle down deep within (by the way this kind of reading is called lectio divina).
The canticle begins appropriately with Christ: Christ as a light, illumine and guide me. The form is prayerful. It is the asking for direction, for wisdom, for understanding of everything in life and of the things of God. Jesus said “I am the light of the world, he who comes to me will not live in darkness”. And this world of darkness needs the light of Christ, and in my world of darkness I need the light who is Christ. Daily I make numerous decisions, some of them are big, most are small, but cumulatively, they shape my future life. How I need The Light!
Christ as a light means to me that Christ reveals God, no small thing. Christ as a light reveals life and reveals me to me. Equally no small thing. Christ as a light reveals the way of life in the kingdom of God. I rest in the thought that I am his and he is mine and that he wants to show me himself and show me myself and the ways of the kingdom of light. He is ever so gentle in his pointing the light. Sometimes the light floods over me and sometimes it comes with laser precision. He knows which I need. I rest in that knowledge of being known and accepted.
Christ as a light, illumine and guide me. Amen.
Good Shoes
December 3, 2008
I was recently discussing the value of fixed hour prayer with a class of Bible college students. The concept of praying the office, in whatever form, was an oddity for all of these students most of whom had grown up in non-liturgical backgrounds.
One objection raised was one that I had wrestled with myself. Roughly quoting Matthew 6:7, a student expressed concern about what seemed to him to be “vain repetition” when praying the same phrases, psalms and prayers every day. The verse, in it’s entirety and in the NASB, is quoted below:
“And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words.”
I was quick to point out that the problem was not repetition itself but the “meaningless” form of repetition which Jesus was contrasting with the pagan prayer activities of Gentiles. If repetition alone was the problem then many contemporary praise and worship songs would be in violation of Jesus’ command. The student appreciated the distinction which was made and it led me to think back to my earliest experiences with CDP.
When I first committed to pray the office through Celtic Daily Prayer I was concerned that my attention would drift and my interest dissipate when praying the same words every day of the week. The morning, midday and evening offices in CDP are identical from day to day. The only changes are the addition of daily Scripture readings, along with a brief meditation, in the morning and evening prayer times. Otherwise the prayers are the same.
It took only a week or so before I discovered that the same prayers, prayed day after day, had a positive impact upon me. Rather than being dulled by what I thought would be a mechanical, rote memorization of prayer I was enlivened by entering into and praying words that I had prayed before. I was further inspired knowing that many others, I have no way of knowing how many, would pray the same words with me in spite of the fact that we were dispersed around the globe. The familiarity with the words didn’t breed contempt in nor indifference. Instead it instilled within me the ability to be present to the words, present to the prayer, and most importantly present to God via the words of the office.
“A good shoe is a shoe you don’t notice. Good reading becomes possible when you need not consciously think about eyes, or light, or print, or spelling.”
While discussing the changes that were occurring within the worship of the Anglican church, C.S. Lewis made the point that the best worship service “would be one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God.” (from Letters to Malcolm, pg. 4) Rather than instill novelty into our prayer life, routine is in order. A regular routine, a sacred routine, allows the pray-er, to be present. No longer focused on saying the right words or saying the words right, the one praying is allowed, through the words of the office, to be present to God.
A Lament to Amen
November 23, 2008
“Do I hear an amen?” “Give me an Amen!” shouts the preacher. And I often wondered if this was an admission of insecurity. Once I heard this: “I am preaching better than you’re amening.”
Poor word, you don’t stand a chance! With friends like that, who needs enemies? A few more layers of bad use and meaning and you will be buried for good. Do you cry dear word?
Amen, in other places, you are just one of those functional words we drag kicking and screaming into its proper slot at the end of a prayer. “There, I finished my prayer properly.” Are you happy being used in this way, my word? Do you object? Do you wonder if you will ever come into your own?
Some composers have played on your inherent lyrical abilities. AAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaAAAAAAAAaaaaAAmen! You’ve been stretched on musical score sheets for pages on end. By the time the second measure drones on singers have already forgotten what you’re about. Stretched to the point of snapping. Toyed with until you’ve become a discarded rag doll.
Somehow, against all odds, you have survived. Victim of abuse, you have remained strong. Today I want to respect and honor you. I offer you an ode. Be honored my word by being a God-chosen word teaching us to agree that God is faithful. Faithful is your name, faithful you remain. Hats off.
Resolution in honor of Amen: I resolve that every time I encounter you in the written pages of Scripture and in other writings, to honor you by lingering with good thoughts. I resolve every time I see you in Celtic Daily Prayer, and I will see you often, to salute you and welcome you as a reminder from God that I too am called to remain faithful to my call as you have remained faithful to your call in the midst of a trying life. Amen! So help me God.
The Community
November 16, 2008
A couple of Sundays ago I spoke the word to a few people in Hamilton, Kansas. I spoke about the healing of the paralytic by Jesus in Mark 2:1-12. I have probably spoken on this passage 25 times or more. It never gets old for me. Every time I speak this word, it seems as if the one whose experience this was in the first place honors my love of it with deeper understanding. It is said that familiarity breeds contempt. False. Not necessarily. Familiarity with an open heart and mind is never contemptible.
This time around (probably my 26th time) I saw three distinct communities in this text. First there is the community of faith (first identified as “They” and then as “four of them”) which is responsible for bringing the paralytic to Jesus (when Jesus saw their faith–verse 5). Pieces of their imaginations collided into one holy action, they dismantle part of a roof, they struggle together, they have compassion together, they are concerned for the welfare of the paralyzed among them together, and each of them was responsible for a corner of the stretcher. Mission accomplished.
This enacted repentance and expression of confidence in the power of God are two motivators of this community. Following their example the community of faith continued to develop in repentance and trust throughout the ages until our very day. It is the kind of community missional order seeks to be. Community is held together by its rhythm of life, by shared experiences, by intimate self-revelation, by formative activities, by being missional.
Our common commitments of praying together, of being transformed together, of being on mission with God together, like the common commitment of the community of faith in Mark 2: 1-12 is one that is built on compassion for others. Praying with others the same text, the same liturgy, the same prayers, sharing the same intentions of being Christ-like in our God-life, will enable us to create a community of faith. Our hope is that this community of faith will find local expressions of the the common commitment we have made, and multiply ad infinitum.
When I pray the closing blessing in CDP’s morning prayer I imagine the many of us who are heading into the world of work or school or vacation, or wherever. Perhaps some are heading into a storm without knowing it. Perhaps there is a wilderness experience custom-made by the Holy Spirit (in imitation of Christ’s custom wilderness journey). What a gift we can give each other when we say those words:
Blessing
May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you,
wherever He may send you.
May He guide you through the wilderness,
protect you through the storm.
May He bring you home rejoicing
at the wonders He has shown you.
May He bring you home rejoicing
once again into our doors.
Lord, hear us and answer our prayers in your mercy.
By the way, the other two communities are the communities of disbelief (2:6), the ones that began to question in their hearts and the community of celbration, the ones that glorify God for what Jesus did (2:12-13.
Do You Hear What God Says?
November 9, 2008
Listening to the voice of God joins our 3 common commitments at missional order into one way of doing life with God and with others. I am in the middle of reading Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read The Bible (Scot McKnight) and got to thinking about his 3 levels of listening to the voice of God.
Level one is attention grabbing speaking and attention paying listening. We hear the message and we bring our spiritual faculties to attend to it. We hear the voice of God and the voice arrests us.
Level two, Scot calls absorbing the voice. This is the level where the heart takes what it hears and drives it deep, deep, deep into the self. Make no mistake about it, listening by heart is not about self-feeding, or self absorption. It is rather absorbing the voice in a life transforming way but for the sake of others. It’s like Solomon prayed: God, give me a hearing heart. It’s like the famous Behold, I stand at the door and knock and if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, we will have intimate absorption.
The third level of listening is to practice or act on what we hear. It’s like Jesus said if anyone, any community, hears my message and acts on it, he will be a wise builder (Matt 7:24).
Listening to the voice of God helps us personally but the goal of listening cannot stop there. Christian spirituality is not about personally gorging ourselves on spiritual practices or disciplines. Our common commitments at missional order of prayer, formation, and serving God and others demand all three levels of listening. Our order is no self-feeding trough. We are an order that is Other-focused, i.e. loving God and loving others as expressed in missio dei. Our common commitments are the vehicles to get us at constantly experiencing loving God and others.
The multi-level listening to the voice of God is a good way of understanding the goals we have set for ourselves in missional order. It’s a good way of integrating our three common commitments. Sacred Rhythm is our attention getter. Continuous formation (level two listening) occurs as we give ourselves to the Holy Spirit through our praying, reading, serving one another, and our world.
CDP is our common way of listening to the Voice of God or to pay regular, daily, and frequent attention to our lives with God. Once our attention is grabbed we are open to formative and transformative listening. The readings, prayers, and Scriptures CDP provides are not artificially consumed. They are full listening courses ready for absorption. We savor them and properly absorb them into our lives so we can practice what we hear. Let the sacredness of the four times of prayer in the day become brief labs of listening to the Voice that speaks. If we let them, if we take time to be with God through them, we will be transformed, and get to act out our transformation. We will then carry paralyzed friends and dig roofs. We will tally the amount of money we don’t need at the end of the month and give it to the poor, or feed the hungry. We would take time out of our busy schedules to visit widows, minister in jails, and spiritually guide a friend. Our hands, our minds, our wallets, if we listen well, will be extensions of his love and our way of loving God and others.
There is a danger in any order to be about self-improvement and doing it for our own sake in our common commitments. It is also dangerous for our spirituality if we adopt a posture of non-listening. Another danger is to get stuck at the first level and listen informationally rather than formationally. Our order is not the point. The point is to live a life of loving God and loving others as ourselves. We see our common commitments as a way to get at that goal. We will stop at nothing in order to get to do our goal.
Do you see any danger (s) in missional order becoming self-focused versus God and others focused? How have you moved from a spirituality of self-improvement into one of serving and loving God and others?
Seeking 3
October 29, 2008
Celtic Daily Prayer’s third opening and arresting question asks:
Do you seek Him with all your soul? and answers with: Amen, Lord, have mercy!
Scot McKnight says that the soul is the seat of our spirituality in 40 Days of Living the Jesus Creed. I understand Christian (The only spirituality Missional Order promotes) spirituality as “The entirety of my lived relationship with God” (Brazos Introduction to Christian Spirituality, which is a fantastic resource to help us sort through terms like spiritual formation, spirituality, spiritual growth, discipleship, sanctification, religion, mysticism, etc…).
Every particular happening I live through with God, I process it through my soul. Better, God processes it with me through my soul. This means the seeking of God I do aims to discover God in every aspect of my lived relationship with God. Here I ask every time I go through an event or experience, God what is this about? What are showing me of you? The community in Psalm 60 couldn’t help but ask God to interpret their experience. This is seeking with the soul as I am coming to understand it.
There are patterns of lived relationship with God that are common to all God-life practitioners (e.g. prayer, Bible reading, sacred rhythm). But there are particulars that can only be true of each of us bespeaking the uniqueness of each soul design. The soul is deep, deeper than human knowledge can fathom. I enjoy expressing my relationality with God through playing the piano. When I do, say late at night, I experience a real sense of the presence of God touching my soul. But you may do so by jogging, writing, cooking, plumbing, blogging…
Seeking God with our soul, is seeking to understand the entirety of our lived relationship with God. In that sense our “spirituality is local and ordinary” (the phrase is often used by Eugene Petersen). The soul is a mystery. It stands in defiance of understanding life materially or with the lens of consumerism. The soul is THE seeking mechanism of our lives. It takes what our minds think and feel, what our hearts will and spirits experience, what our bodies do, integrating the whole life (The entirety of our lived relationship with God). When the soul is seeking the life is reflecting what is sought.
Amen, (May it be so) Lord, (possessor of my soul), have mercy (for truly I know little of whom I seek, and I seek in such little ways)!
Seeking 2
October 27, 2008
Celtic Daily Prayer begins with a reading from Psalm 27, which is followed by a series of pointed and arresting questions. The question about seeking God with all my mind arrested my attention the other day.
Here is the CDP opening:
One thing I have asked of the Lord,
this is what I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life;
to behold the beauty of the Lord
and to seek Him in His temple.
Then the call to seek God in the participant is put in relief:
Call: Who is it that you seek?
Response: We seek the Lord our God.
Call: Do you seek Him with all your heart?
Response: Amen. Lord, have mercy.
Call: Do you seek Him with all your soul?
Response: Amen. Lord, have mercy.
Call: Do you seek Him with all your mind?
Response: Amen. Lord, have mercy.
Call: Do you seek Him with all your strength?
Response: Amen. Christ, have mercy.
The pray-ers who graced the Church with CDP felt they could equate seeking with loving (a la Shema). A fine equation it is, I believe. We seek what we love and we love what (whom) we seek.
I know I desire to seek God with all my mind. Yet how can finitness seek infiniteness? How can what is limited seek the Limitless One? Answer: As best one could. Particular seeking is unique to each of us. Some seek by prayer only, others by reading Scripture, others by observing the actions of God in their lives, or by means of other disciplines. Yet all Christ followers are all one in our seeking.
The rational part of us, the things we have come to believe, what we think about, urges, images, impressions, what we know, what we feel, all of them are filtered through and some come to reside in our minds. The mind always seeks to make sense of things. This mind of ours has a lot of control over most of what we do. And one thing we are free to do is to seek God with the mind.
One thing I have to be careful about (how about you?) are things that impress themselves upon my mind, my mind like yours is impressionable. I am discovering that age and past wisdom are no guarantee against the onslaught of impressions. I am thinking it will always be that my mind is susceptible to impressions (even the bad ones) and that seeking God is the antidote.
One of the benefits from practicing sacred rhythm is the shaping of our minds in the likeness of Christ. Engaging in Sacred Rhythm is imitative of Christ’s behavior. It is the one of the means that the Holy Spirit uses to transform our minds. In comparison to the constant bombardment of impressions from evil elements in the world, the short times of punctuated prayers gains in importance. It is in this practice that we bring much needed balance to our minds. In Sacred Rhythm we are letting the holy Spirit through whatsoever is lovely, good, faithful, of good reputation etc… have a go at the renewing of our minds.
The arresting questions of CDP make the all-encompassing subject and object of our lives to be seeking God. It is good that each time our mouth engage in prayer for these questions of life to be foremost in our minds. We are born with a seeking mind, we live by a seeking mind, we hope and anticipate the future with a seeking mind, and we love Him with all our mind.
Hearing the Bible Missionally
September 25, 2008
Dallas Willard has said that our churches are full of converts who do not intend to become disciples. Another way to put it would be this: Our churches are full of people who are there to receive the benefits of grace without knowing that they are receiving such blessings “in order to be a blessing.”
In such congregations, mission tends to be one of many programs done by the community, rather than to define the very purpose and character of the community. Mission sermons are preached now and again in order to mobilize action or resources for a particular outreach. People know that mission is a theme of the Bible, and they expect to hear about it now and again. But discipling is rarely focused on mission. It is primarily understood, where it is talked about, as a process of personal spiritual growth. . . .
Where missional renewal is happening, different kinds of questions are brought to the Bible. Congregations are open to being challenged, to looking hard at their deeply ingrained attitudes and expectations.
The missional approach asks: How does God’s Word call, shape, transform, and send me . . . and us? Coupled with this openness is the awareness that biblical formation must mean change, and often conversion. Christian communities may discover that their discipling will require repentance and that their way of being church will have to change.
– Darrell Guder in Treasure in Clay Jars: Patterns in Missional Faithfulness
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