Minors and Major - A Request for Prayer

This next week I go to be with my father who is having major open heart surgery. I am grateful that God has protected my father and I know that God is in absolute control of all that will transpire.

I have only had "minor surgery." Of course I have come to believe that the label "minor" is only given to the surgery that is done to someone else. But this is a "major" deal. No matter what kind of circumstance of life, major or minor, we need to always remember that God is still God. Nothing has taken Him by surprise and that His will is best.

I am most certainly not a fatalist, nor am I one to believe that life is only what I make of it. God has a plan, a purpose, a design for life. I fit into that framework and in my existence I affect and am effected by others.

My father has affected many lives in over 50 years of ministry. This is a surgery that will be prayed for in many different time zones and in different countries. I am sure of that. However, I am grateful that people are praying for it is to the One and only One God that we turn to in these "major" points of life with absolute confidence that He is the only one who can make the "no-matter-what-happens" of life work out for His glory and our good.

I hope we can also learn this in the "minors" of life as well. God is still the only one who can seam together the monotonous of our daily routine into a tapestry of effective and purposeful living.

Thanks for praying and may we remember that God is just as concerned with our minors and we are about our majors.

Obama comes down on DOMA (OneNewsNow.com)

President Obama is at it again. I know we are commanded in Scripture to pray for our leaders. As believers we need to be aware of the direction our government leaders are taking this nation. The Defense of Marriage Act is now our president's target. You can follow the link below to see a viewpoint on this. May we pray..."Even so come QUICKLY, Lord!"


Obama comes down on DOMA (OneNewsNow.com)

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We need it!

I was reading a blog that was passed along to me by a friend and on this blog he gave 10 things that I can pray for my pastor's preaching. I found it great!

I pass it along to you and will be passing it on to the church people to whom I minister. I need these things to prayed for me and in turn my people need to put thought into interacting with the messages. We have too many pew warmers and too many lifeless pulpit speakers. If we could get both sides to be vibrant and astute to the goings on each Sunday God just might visit our services with authority and power.

May we be more enthusiastic for prayer on both sides of the platform!

Having a Prayer

Recently I stopped by a local church in our area. Being new to this metropolitan area, I felt it good to meet some of the local ministers. We began with the usual greetings and searchings. In the midst of the conversation we found that we were pretty much on the same page in many respects. The churches we serve in are not of great size, but we are both concerned with reaching our perspective areas.

We shared some of the challenges we had faced in our respective ministries and how the Lord had used those times to refine and challenge our ministries for growth or to reveal areas of true need.

As we were closing our time, I heard one comment he made to me that sort of stopped me in my tracks. "I find that our people get turned off when I say we are going to have a 'prayer meeting.' They will not come if we say we are going to have a 'Prayer meeting.'" Christian people bored, scared, or unconcerned about prayer? Could it be possible? I am not sure if he realized the declaration of his statement. I know it seemed to be a moment of honesty and it did seem to bother him.

I took that thought to our people here. I shared that statement in a very similar generic way without names, but shared the concern it welled up within my heart. Here we are saying that we are concerned about reaching people and yet we grow stagnant in our prayers. We come to God with our "grocery list" style of prayer. "Lord I need to move quickly and get through this list today." "I don't have time to stay long, you know, got this list to accomplish and need to just get what I need from you."

I wonder if God just sits back and frowns. I wonder if HE just slumps HIS shoulders at our lack of enthusiasm to speak with HIM? I really imagine HE grows disappointed with our lack of dependence, our lack of urgency, our lack of humility.

I challenged our people, few though we may be, "Let us pray with all dependence!" We need God to do what only God can do. We need to know His heart and the only way we will know that is to be in His Word and communicating with Him in prayer. The only way we will reach this vast, liberal city is to see a working of God's Spirit.

I think it comes from an Ephesians 3:19 relationship, "filled up to all the fullness of God." As we come with that overflowing cup, then we find that HE is ABLE to DO! To do what? ABUNDANTLY BEYOND ALL that we could even begin to ask for or to even imagine HIM willing, nevertheless capable of doing.

Then the glory is HIS, the Person of our Glorious Christ, our wonderful Savior, is evident and seen. We no longer see us, but only HIM.



Get a handle on Prayer. We have a prayer. But do we come ready for the answer He has for us? Are we open to hear HIS plan, HIS Purpose? Throw out the "list mentality," get rid of your expectations and increase your faith to see what only faith can see, to hope in what God has already pre-determined.

Open the doors,CHURCH! Pray!