Prayer: The Gate

 My friend Chrissy took this photo last summer.  I wish the door to change was always friendly looking and fun like this.  Often in my mind change, is the dark scary cave with spider webs and bone fragments on the floor, or a step off of a 1500 foot cliff.

Isaiah 40:8 The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of God stands forever.

Heavenly Father, I pray that you guide us through the changes that come each day.  Help us to accept that life is change, and yet you are the constant in our lives.  You get us through, help us embrace the changes and thrive.  You are the center point, our rock and our redeemer. 

I pray for our soldiers, especially those overseas and who find themselves in the path of danger.  Protect them and bring them all home safely.  Help them and comfort them.

I pray for children everywhere this summer.  Let this be a time of joy for children everywhere, with lives filled with love and your protection.  May they all have enough to eat and the care they need from all of us. 

I pray for churches.  Help the church to grow, to nurture and teach; to show the love of Christ to each other and to the world!  Amen

This blog site is also going to experience some change in the next couple of weeks.  It will have a new look and the blog will not be the front page.  But embrace the change and enjoy the journey.  Blessings,  Erin

It is that time of year when Youth Groups from churches all over the country hit the open road.  They do various things when they travel from singing in other churches across the country to painting projects at Boys and Girls clubs, and helping with a spirit of service.

A couple of years ago I got to go on a trip with the youth from our church on a bus for a week.  We went to Wilmore Kentucky and attended a musical event called Ichthus. The locals call it Mud Fest because it often rains or snows and the event is held in a large field containing fine Kentucky soil so famous for growing tobacco, or grazing light, fast Thoroughbred horses.

Wilmore is a lovely place and traveling with the youth of our church was a great experience.

Father God, I would like to pray for the Youth Groups who are traveling this summer.  I ask that you would be with them always.  Open the way for them to enjoy the fellowship they experience within their own group and the places they visit along the way.  Bless them and bless the work of their hands.  Keep them tenderly in your care and bring them all home safely.  Amen

You know the weight and body mass of the bee, is in scientific theory too large and heavy to fly with the wing span the bee is given.  But it flies anyway.  It doesn’t know it can’t fly. 

(This is no longer true.  Science has proved the bumble bee can fly by changing the model to include “flexible” wings.  Thanks to reader Brian W. for keeping me from repeating false information from a story that started in the 1930’s and has now been updated.) My point of the example, was that not everything is simple or easily explained.  Life is full of wonder and miracles.  It is a shame if there is no mystery or wonder in our lives. 

Every single one of us is a cherished spiritual being.  Every one of us is a radiant child of God.  I believe this to be true.

So many people of different backgrounds and spiritual awareness visit this site each year.  I have had comments, prayer requests and emails from Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, Atheists, Agnostics and Buddhists.  I ponder often how we come to the belief we carry with us.  I have not had mean or hateful comments or email.  Most visit here with love and grace and it is awesome.  This is a site where we look for what we have in common, not for what separates us.

Our intellect has a journey, we read, we take classes, we grow.  Our body has a journey  and we must care for our eyes, hearing, muscles, bones, teeth and health over the course of our life.  Our spirit has a journey as well.  If your spirit is not on a journey, I ask “Why Not?  Why would you neglect this very important part of you?”

I have shared with you in the past, that I have several friend who are atheists,  There have been times I have been made aware they do no understand my faith.  They think I appear normal except for this crazy, old fashioned, unsophisticated area of faith.  Their grandparents went to church, but they didn’t know any better.  So people of Engineering, Science, Physics, Women’s Studies, and Math have outgrown the need to feed the spirit.  Prayer is an activity for less sophisticated people.  Baby boomers; people of the atomic age know things and control their own destiny.

This is what I think about it.  If the atheist believed in a supreme being, it would conflict with principles they believe to be true.  Principles of Science, math, engineering.  It is all or nothing thinking.  If there is science, there cannot be God.  The process of Creation in Genesis and the process outlined by Darwin follow the same path.  There is light, and there is darkness, and they become night and day.  There is water and there is land and they separate.  There are fish in the water and there are animals on the land and it is good.  There is man.  So the steps are the same.  Christians believe God did it.

There are many theories.  There is the Big Bang theory.  There is evolution.  There is random chaos.  Creation and creativity are chaotic.  God certainly has his own time frame.  He created it all in six days and then he rested.  His day might be a year to  you and me, or maybe it is longer.  Maybe a day is a day.  We must not get bogged down in the details.  We all know that the devil is in the details.  We start focusing on that and loose track of the main thing.   What is important is the journey.

I also know this to be true.  If you want to know if God is there you have to look for him.  God does knock on your door.  You are witness to miracles every day, but if you are not looking for them; you won’t see them.  You have to invite and enter.  You invite God to be with you, as you would anyone you hold in respect.  You enter into his presence.  That is where you find God and all are welcome at his table.

One friend told me once that if there were a God, the terrible things in the world would not happen.  My answer is God is not a magic button, or cosmic bell hop.  We are responsible for service in the world.  We are to take care of each other.  God gave us redemption through his son.  God gives us guidance (if we ask).  He gives us comfort, peace, strength, wisdom, health, … anything we ask for.  He doesn’t force Himself on us. We pray for others, and for ourselves.  We have to love each other.  That is how the world will know we are of Him.  We have to enter and invite.

I asked my friend if he had ever tried to talk to God.  He said no, never.  “How do you know He is there?” he asked.  “How do you know He is not?”  I asked. 

I have lingered in God’s presences.  He is there.  He is here.  No doubt in my mind.

“You never know who God is gonna use, a princess or a baby.  Maybe even me or you.” song lyric by Rich Mullens.

I have a couple of very dear friends who are atheists.  I don’t know why.  Perhaps my purpose is to pray for them, and of course to share my faith with them.   I have attempted on several occasions to discuss faith, God, Jesus, salvation and spiritual awareness with them.  They think I am completely wrong to have faith in something I cannot prove to them.  They don’t understand my faith.  I don’t understand their lack of faith.

One friend was over for dinner this weekend.  His son is dating a lovely young woman who has been raised in the Catholic church and a private parochial school.  She knows her church doctrine, and biblical teachings, as well as the theology she has been taught since she was four. 

My friend wants a wonderful relationship with his son and the girlfriend.  I find they frequently engage in spiritual discussions, and he is listening to her.  She is confident in her delivery when sharing her beliefs.  I love it.  She is able to share thoughts I have not been able to with him.  I believe she is getting through to him.  I am praying for her.  I want her to persuade my friend to give God a chance to transform his heart and his life.  It seems easier for her.  She is not worried that he will think she is simple or stupid.  Does that hold me back?  My friend cares very much about his son and this young woman, so he cares what she has to say.  I don’t know that she is fully aware of this, but she is using it to evangelize.  She is gentle, and loving about sharing her faith.  It is awesome.

I think evangelism has become a really bad word, synomomous with obnoxious, over zealous, “don’t confuse me with the facts”,  my way or the highway, fundamentalist and intollerant thinking.  I will beat you with my bible until you get it and morale improves, kind of thinking.  Terrible things have been done in God’s name or followed by the words, “God wills it!”  I personally want no part of that.

My own conversion was brought about with grace and love.  I am always hoping salvation comes to each of us in a gentle and grace filled way.  I am always believing there is room religion for progressive thought. (Spoken like a true protestant), Luther, Wesley, and Calvin all founded new churches with reform and new thought.

Let us pray today that God will utilize our gifts.  That we let people know we are children of the most high God by our actions, our love and our grace.  If we see someone God is using to do wonderful things for his kingdom, let us pray for them.  You never know who God is going to use, maybe you or me!

Psalm 34:1 – 34:10

I will bless the LORD at all times;
His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
My soul shall make its boast in the LORD;
The humble shall hear it and rejoice.
O Magnify the LORD with me and let us exalt His name together.
I sought the LORD, and He answered me,
And delivered me from all my fears.
They looked to Him and were radiant,
And their faces shall never be ashamed.
This poor man cried and the LORD heard him.
And saved him out of all his troubles.
The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear Him,
And rescues them.
O taste and see that the LORD is good;
How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!
O fear the LORD, you his saints;
For to those who fear Him, there is no want.
The young lions do lack and suffer hunger,
But they who seek the LORD shall not be in want of any good thing.

Life has an ebb and flow.  There are definite seasons.  When I am overwhelmed or not in good spirits, I read the Psalms.  They bring great comfort.  Seek God, and call on him.  He is there for all of us.

Most gracious and Holy God.  You are my rock and my strength.  I stand in awe and in fear of the maker of heaven and earth; the most high God. 

I pray for those who feel they are without hope.  I pray they will seek you even in their despair.  I seek you now.   Fill me with grace and wisdom.  Your word says if I seek you I shall not want for any good thing.   I seek you, LORD.  Hear my prayer. 

Instead of taking a whole plateful, or making a long term commitment; taking a little sample can be a good way to decide if you like something.

Psalm 34:8 “Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.”

Sometimes when churches get a person who says, “I can help with …(nursery, youth ministry, hospitality, finance committee, choir…) they plunge into a black hole from which they may never return.  Half a century later they receive an award for 47 years of continuous service with the finance committee.  They may have felt that after a year or two, they wanted to do something else.  Perhaps they were even “called” to do something else, but they were trapped and felt they couldn’t let people down. “Who would take over where they had been?”

Ecclesiastes 3:1 “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven.”

It is important to find our place, to find where we want to help out and serve.  It is good to do something we love in service to God.

Listen in your prayers and you will know the season.  Let volunteers follow that nudge in their spirit from God.  There is a rhythm to the seasons of our lives.  Often times we have different things to share and give at different seasons of our lives.  Be willing to make a change.  Pray for your replacement, it could be someone is waiting to be called to take your place and you should not rob them of the opportunity to serve with their best as well.