Wrestles with God

Lord, please help us to pray now, and teach us how to pray.

Lord, we think you may be telling us as a church that we need to repent: to turn away from wrong things we are doing.

Some of us here may have a very clear idea of things we personally are doing wrong that we need to turn away from. For those of us who are trapped in habitual sins, or in cycles of harming someone else, or in harmful patterns of thought towards others, we pray that you would make repentance possible. Through that repentance we ask you to bring about real change and healing in our lives.

Some of us may not be clear about what sin we need to turn away from, either as individuals or as a church. We pray that you would reveal to us where we need to change. Particularly as a church, we ask that if this idea we have that you may be asking us to repent is right then please show us very clearly what we have been doing wrong, and give us the courage to speak about it, and to turn away from it.

In all this we know we need to trust in you with all our hearts, and not lean on our own understanding. Please cut through our rationalisations and excuses and reveal to us what is important to you.

Let’s take a moment to ask God to help us turn away from wrong things we are doing.

Lord Jesus, we are painfully aware of how far we fall short of your perfect plans for our lives. We throw ourselves on your mercy, and we take comfort in the promise that you speak to the Father in our defence. As we realise the depth of forgiveness we are asking from you, we see the need to forgive others in response.

Some of us here may need to forgive people who have hurt us. Some of us may need to forgive things that seem unforgiveable. Some of us may be caught in deep cycles of not forgiving. Some of us may be fooling ourselves that there is nothing to forgive. In each of those cases we are aware that without your help we can’t begin to forgive. Be generous with your help, Lord – what we ask is impossible, yet you can do it.

As a church, we also may need to forgive. Within the church there may be hurts or grudges we need to give up. We may need to forgive those who attack or scorn us for being Christians. Please help us to trust you to deliver justice for wrongs against you and us, and to follow your example of answering hate with love.

Let’s take a moment to ask God to help us forgive.

Lord, not only as individuals, but also as a country, we have sinned against you. We are sorry for the indifferent and the malicious hurts we have inflicted on countries and people. We turn away from this sin, and we determine, with your help, to try to be part of honouring you as a country. We want the UK to set an example in generosity, loving action, and peace-making. We want to bring glory to your name.

We also see the need for our nation to forgive those who have harmed us. Whether through war, terrorism, scorn or propaganda, we ask for your help in forgiving our enemies. May we demonstrate your character by loving those who hurt us.

Let’s take a moment to pray for our country.

[Prayed at my church on 2008-07-05.]

Lord, please help us to pray now, and teach us how to pray.

We thank you for the way our playgroup spreads the good news of your love to so many people who don’t get to hear it in other places. We thank you so much for answering our prayers as a church to provide opportunities to tell people about you through this group. We thank you for the many people who have recently come forward to help with the group, and we ask you to prompt those you want to step forward now. We ask you to help the leaders find a way to fit in a time of prayer and welcoming new leaders before each session, despite all the other calls on their time at that moment. We pray for the cream tea afternoon a week on Friday. We pray that we would be able to make the most of the opportunity you provide us through that playgroup. We ask you to prompt more church families with kids to be part of it so that it can be more effective in spreading the word about you. If there are social or practical issues making this difficult, we pray that you would solve them, so that this group can be as effective as possible at telling people about you.

As we take a moment of silence, please show us if you want us to be involved with our playgroup.

We also thank you for the many students who are part of our family here. As they set off home for the summer holidays we want to say thank you for the energy, vibrancy and practical love they provide in our church. Whether we are saying goodbye for good, or just for the summer, we want to thank you for them, and ask you to guide every step they take in the future. Please encourage and strengthen those of us here who work with students, and move this work on from strength to strength next year.

As we take a moment of silence, please show us if you want us do something for one of our students.

We pray for Sri Lanka. After 30 years of civil war, we ask for peace. After thousands of deaths, we ask for a new life together. After division and hate, we ask for unity and love.

We are aware that what we ask looks difficult or even impossible. We know that the only hope for such a miracle is through your love. We pray for your love to flow into Sri Lanka through its Christians. Under 10% of Sri Lankans are Christians, but Christianity offers hope because it is the only faith there that embraces both Sinhalese and Tamil people. We pray for the 2 Anglican Bishops of Sri Lanka as they work with the Buddhist, Hindu and Muslim leaders and the politicians in the work of rebuilding destroyed areas. Much of their work at the moment involves caring for displaced Tamil people. We know that they need water, bedding, medicines and other physical help, and we pray they will get it. We also pray they they will be known for their total integrity. We pray that your Holy Spirit will work powerfully to make them successful in their work of caring, and in their wider task of working towards forgiveness and reconciliation. Lord, we pray that you would break the cycle of hatred and violence. We pray that parents would teach their children forgiveness.

As we take a moment of silence, please show us if you want us to do anything to help the people of Sri Lanka.

We pray for the work President Obama has started in attempting to bring reconciliation between Muslims and The West. We pray for determination and focus on this task even when domestic issues make heavy demands on his administration’s time. We pray for success – for peace and stability in the Middle East, and love and understanding between Christians and Muslims. It sounds crazy even to pray for such things, but we know all things are possible with you. We ask you to work through Christians in high places and low to bring about your will. We ask you to show yourself through their actions. We ask that the countries that are called Christian would bring glory to your name through their actions and words.

As we take a moment of silence, please show us if you want us to do anything to show your love to people from a different culture or religion.

[Prayed at my church on 2008-06-07]

Lord, we ask you to help us pray now, and to be teaching us how to pray through our whole lives. We ask that you take our ambition to become a house of prayer and make it a reality: inspire us and encourage us in our prayer, and please show us now where you want us to change things in our lives or do something new.

Dear Lord, we pray for the people of Zimbabwe. The leaders of the Anglican church in Zimbabwe have asked us to make today a day of prayer for their country.
We ask that the good news about Jesus would be known to and accepted by everyone there. We pray that there would be a just and good outcome to the elections: please turn anyone who is tempted to seize power through violence or oppression away from that path. We don’t know what your plans for the country are, Lord, but we ask that your will would be done. We ask that there would be peace, that the law would be upheld, and that there would be enough food for everyone who needs it. As we take a moment of silence to pray for Zimbabwe, please speak to us if you want us to take action to help its people.

Lord, we know that you urgently love everyone in the world. It is with that in mind that we pray for the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We ask that the hope that comes from knowing you would be spread all over the country. We cry out to you Lord and ask you in your mercy to stop the evil practices of murder, torture and rape that are going on there. Lord, when we hear the stories of people who have been raped and tortured as if they had no value, we are tempted to lose hope. But we know their value to you. Please act – as you must long to do – to bring about justice. Please bring punishment for those who commit these acts, and bring them to repentance. We pray for healing for those who are victims – let them understand your love for them, and let your love drive out their fear. We pray for courage for those who are trying to enforce the law in the Congo. As we take a moment of silence to pray for that country, please speak to us if you want us to take action to help its people.

Lord we pray for people in our church who are divorced or separated. We ask for healing where they have been hurt, and guidance about what to do next. We pray that we would notice and act to show your love for the many divorced and separated people in our community. As we take a moment of silence to pray for those we know whose marriages have broken down, please speak to us if you want us to take action to help them.

We pray for healing for the people we know who are ill. We know that the most important healing we all need is healing in our relationship with you. We ask for that as well as asking for physical healing. As we take a moment of silence to pray for people we know who are ill, please speak to us if you want us to take action to help them.

We pray for our friends and family who aren’t Christians. Please reveal yourself to them again and again, and never stop giving them chances to turn to you. Please use us in our weakness to show clearly your love and forgiveness to them. As we take a moment of silence to pray for the people we know who aren’t Christians, please speak to us about how we can show your love to them.

[Prayed at my church on 2008-04-27.]

God, where are you in Congo? Were you there in Luvungi when 242 people were raped last month? Were you there in Uvira when 21 children were raped? Were you crying with them? God, please help them. We beg you to step in. Have we not prayed enough? Don’t we have enough faith? Were we crying with them? Did we notice? Please forgive us our indifference, change us, give us faith. And Lord God, don’t let our failings prevent you from acting.

We pray for everyone in Congo working for peace and governance. We pray for soldiers and rebels tempted to abuse their power: strengthen them. We pray for those grieving for lost people and lost innocence: protect them from revenge – reward their perseverance with wisdom. We pray for those with blood on their hands: bring justice and punishment, and conviction and repentance. We pray for the ordinary people living in their towns and villages: please stop the attacks. Lord we know you have power to do these things: will you do them?

We pray for the foreign governments’ influence on Congo. For our own leaders we ask for insight and wisdom about how to spend aid money. We ask in particular for understanding of how and whether to support the Rwandan and Congolese governments. We pray that our government would be wholly innocent of accepting injustice in exchange for profit.

When we get serious about asking you such huge things, we realise how serious you are. Maybe it was one of us who was supposed to be your servant in Congo, and we didn’t listen? Maybe you were asking us to influence our government, or provide some money?

God, where are you in our lives? Are you our master? Are we your slaves? We turn, now, from our quiet rebellion. We confess there are no areas of our lives that are off-limits for you: there are no decisions that belong to us. If you send us to some place or some person, we will go. We are ready to do what you ask. Only tell us in a way we can understand – leave us no excuse that we’re not sure of your will. We want to obey you Lord – change us, transform our disobedience.

Giving all of ourselves to our God, whom we call “Lord,” would include giving our everything. To me, my devotions would be my job, my girlfriend, my extended family, my friendships, my songwriting, my blog, my habits…everything. This would include my finances.

Of course, my devotion and dedication to God changes moment by moment, as we all have seen in our own lives, but my desire is to be 100% sacrificial with my life, for the sake of Jesus and His way of life. It’s my longing (usually, almost always) to give everything I have, own, and do to the cause and purposes of Jesus.

I do not go to a church, however…mostly by choice. I don’t see myself being involved with just one church, but more of a networker/discipler between believers from different churches (including the unchurched). Due to my circumstances, I’m held back from doing so, but it doesn’t mean I haven’t started to prepare for Cyndi and my house group, hosting parties and sleepovers at our home, or an online community, not unlike the blog that I keep.

Even though I do not attend a “traditional” church, which is usually a meeting that looks nothing like what I believe that Jesus had intended, I do contribute to parachurch organizations, international relief ministries, friends going on mission trips, and to the local homeless people looking for a meal.

“But that’s not to your local, community church,” some would often say.

First, let me assure you that I’m not one of those postmodern believers that use the emerging church, Gen-Y excuses to avoid furthering the Kingdom of Heaven, neglecting spiritual responsibilities. Everything, if I’m interpreting Scripture right, is God’s; He’s entrusted me with what I have. How I use/give what I have reflects my motivations.

A little theology: Tithing in Malachi is the Old Covenant. The 10% thing is overshadowed by the cross. Paul writes that for those who wish to keep a section/fragment of the Written Law is then required to keep all of it (including the sacrifices and stonings in the Torah, if I’m interpreting Scripture right).

Okay, what does the New Covenant say about tithing? Acts 2 says that in the stated community of believers, they sold all that they had, so that what they had could be distributed among themselves. Perhaps, things were different in other underground, house/city churches, but I assume that they did things quite similar in order to just survive and thrive. It was a matter of practicality and simplicity. And Scripture says no one was in need; nobody did without.

Simplicity. Generosity. These are characteristics of a compassionate believer. Mercy towards the needy, justice toward the broken. These are marks of a Christlike servant. How I treat the needy, broken, incarcerated, homeless, fatherless, persecuted, single mom, infected, etc. is how I’m subsequently treating Jesus. These are the ones He cares for and has a special place in His heart (if I’m reading Scripture as it should be read), and neglecting these people with my finances would be like neglecting Jesus’ needs.

If the “local, community church” is having a hard time finding the time or budgets to do these deeds of caring for the needy, broken & forgotten, then I have to either find groups or people that are, or step out into the real world and give to these people myself.

I believe it’s my responsibility to see to it that the money that’s been entrusted to me is a blessing to others, advancing a Kingdom of love, simplicity, practicality, compassion and sacrifice. If that means that the “local, community church” will not receive my “tithe,” then so be it. I’m sure these churches have well-meaning pastors, attendees and routines, and I’m sure God’s interests are their desire, but I believe these rituals, traditions and habits need to be rethought.

Showing love through my finances is important to me, even to the point of being un-traditional.

My relationship with God has been sinking for a while now. Nothing dramatic – just more of my usual dread of prayer, and more of a dead feeling when I do try to pray, and less relief of the feeling that there is nothing there.

I’ve been somewhat at a loss as to what to do about it. I’ve tried regular, disciplined prayer for a few weeks at a time, but in terms of my feelings* I haven’t seen anything change.

Our church group decided that we wanted to spend some time trying to work out what our “calling”s were, or at least what God wanted us to do at the moment, and this fitted quite nicely into the fact that I/we are thinking about our future: my job, where we live etc. We assigned each other a couple of names each to pray for, and one of the friends who was praying for me felt that God was telling her to read the book of Joshua in the Bible, and asked me to read it too in case something came out of it for me.

Of course, nothing came out of it for me.

Last night we had our meeting and she told me that the part of Joshua* that struck her as being about me was the part in Joshua 7 where a guy called Achan steals some of the plunder from destroying Jerico, instead of handing it over to be given to God. This was extremely brave of her since she must have been terrified that she’d be confronting some terrible (probably sexual) sin in my life and didn’t know how I would react.

I didn’t suddenly break down and confess to a propensity to place gerbils in any orifices. In fact, I didn’t know how to take it on board at all. I couldn’t see what the terrible sin in my life was: I knew there are pretty crippling sins of pride and greed going on, but not some nice specific thing I can stop doing.

A couple of weeks ago, I felt a little comforted by the idea that maybe what God wanted of me was just to try and follow his “ways” i.e. live our life as a family in a generous and kind way, and be gentle and attentive to my colleagues at work. I felt that I was doing that: on the big decisions we were trying to consult God (with little appearance of answers from him) and trying to do the right thing for our kids and for other people.

As we prayed last night, and prayed and talked and thought today, I have begun to think that what God is trying to say to me is that I am holding back something that belongs to God, like Achan (who, incidentally, was stoned to death along with his wife and daughters). What I am holding back is power over my life.

I think I sort-of knew this already, but I hadn’t considered it to be such a bad thing – one of the mini-sins that we all have a bit of and can’t do much about. The comparison with Achan is shocking, not just because of what happened to him, but mainly because what he did was seen as so wrong – disobeying a specific and direct order. But what am I doing when I hold back power over my life from God? I am making worthless the key thing that being a Christian is: you turn from your sin, and you “follow” God – you submit to God, you “accept” him as your master. So suddenly the idea that this is some grievous sin makes more sense.

What I am left with, then is what to do about this? It is difficult to make a plan of action about something as woolly as giving power back to God. This evening we were praying about our future and I was saying all I’ve written above, and I felt a sense of release. I’ve been extremely tense (my sleep has been utterly shot) as we have been thinking about the future, and some of that tension seemed to be released. Not all of it, by the way, or I would be asleep now instead of writing this.

I realised we have been trying to force it: to bend life to the way we want it to be. When I became a Christian* I turned to God, submitted to him: promised to follow him. How do I do that? I don’t really know, but I think I need to stop having areas that are reserved for me – that may be influenced by him, but it’s my final call.

Having the final call is too stressful anyway. I sort of long for relief.

The title of this post is what someone said to me today, as a pointed accusation that I am secretly intolerant.

I changed the subject and felt hurt that they wanted to do this, and now I feel guilty I didn’t respond properly, so I’m going to try and make myself feel better by writing here what I should have said.

Presumably you think it’s wrong to cheat on your wife? Why is it such a stretch then to want to avoid “pre-emptively” cheating on her?

Should I bring it up tomorrow?

Because it seems true.

Why don’t you believe in God? Because it seems untrue.

Where do we go from here?

[Another post from ~]

My wrestle with God is about how I find it difficult to do the one thing he asks me to do; Spend time with Him.

There are no doubt many reasons for my neglect of God but I just don’t know where one is expected to find the time. And I don’t even have kids!

My fairly limited understanding of my situation is that if I don’t attempt to involve God in my daily activities then I don’t let him get involved much with my life. The biggest problem I have with this is that God is offensive or I’m too proud.

So now I have a problem different from the one I initially started with. But let me try to get back to the issue of time. I guess I want to enjoy spending time with God. This means I would want to spend time with Him. What I find is that it is very hard to talk/love/walk with someone who does not respond in human ways. More over as I get older in my faith I find myself making more decisions without God and involving him less in my day to day life.

So is this the biblical way? Am I supposed to be given less support and more responsibility over time by the Almighty God? Where is the helpline when you want to call up and check that you are still in favour? Where do you go to find time with an invisible God? More importantly where can I find time to actually wrestle with Him?

[This article was emailed to me by ~]

This is my very real question.

There are times when you seek family or friends and there is time when you seek God. My question is when you have tried all known routes and still things appear not to work – where do you go then?

Is life just hard work? Am I being silly to expect that life can be fun?

What is wrong with hoping life to be full and rich?

Will you share biblical pointers or personal experiences?