Snare, Prayer, Take Care

Matterofprayer: A Year of Everyday Prayers – Thursday, January 7, 2016

Snare, Prayer, Take Care

Anyone can get tripped up. Fall on their face, sometimes. Tripped up in my thought life, my words, or my actions. It can happen to anyone.

For example: when I try to stay on the beam in any particular behavior or activity, I often need help from my friends. If I end up isolated or alone, that is not a good scenario for me. Thank God I have friends and family who can rally around.

I realize some people don’t have many healthy relationships. However, God can assist, and bring certain people into our lives to remedy those kinds of lacks and losses. And, we can end up with families of choice. Good friends, too.

Dear Lord, thank You for Your gift of relationships. Build up our relationships with our significant others; our families, our friends, our spouses. Draw me close to those people I love. You have promised to deliver us from the evils in this world—those things that are physical, emotional, psychological, or spiritual evils.

Protect me with Your power, and remain a refuge for me to run to when I am isolated, filled with anxiety, or bedeviled. Gracious God, You are my stronghold. You can help all of us avoid harm, distress, temptation and evil. You are faithful, and for that I am so grateful. Thankful. Thank You, God.

@chaplaineliza

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Why not visit my sister blogs, “the best of” A Year of Being Kind.   @chaplaineliza And, read my sermons from Pastor, Preacher Pray-er

A Reckoning at Year’s End

Matterofprayer: A Year of Everyday Prayers – Thursday, December 31, 2015

A Reckoning at Year’s End

Romans 8:28. Yes, I’ve heard it quoted from time to time. I have purposely not taught it in bible study, or preached on this verse. And, from time to time, I have had serious problems with this verse of Paul’s. Not so much the context, but this specific verse.

Except—Dietrich Bonhoeffer gives me a different way of looking at it.

Many times before, all I could see in Romans 8:28 was either bright, shiny pie-in-the-sky proof text, or dogged, blind belief in a mysterious God who never could be understood. I don’t know quite why, but Bonhoeffer may have given me a way in to the understanding of this verse. He mentions, “I believe that God will give us all the strength we need to help us to resist [greatest evil] in all times of distress. But He never gives it in advance, lest we should rely on ourselves and not on Him alone.” [1]

I appreciate that. I appreciate that kind of God, who respects me as a person, who doesn’t baby or coddle me. And yet, God expects me to use my oar and do my part as part of a team. Sort of like in a yoke of oxen, where one ox cannot do it all.

Bonhoeffer wrote this at the end of 1942. It was more than just a reckoning of the past year, as he sent this letter to several of his closest friends at Christmas. Yet, the snippet I’ve quoted from this moving and powerful letter serves well to close out this year of prayer. This year of journeying through different modes and ways of prayer.

I come to the end of my daily prayer blog for 2015, #matterofprayer. I pray that the various kinds of prayer and meditation I’ve done during each of the past twelve months may have strengthened and encouraged not only my heart, but the hearts of my readers, as well. God bless us all in 2016.

@chaplaineliza

Like what you read? Disagree? Share your thoughts with your loved ones and continue the conversation.

Why not visit my sister blogs, “the best of” A Year of Being Kind.   @chaplaineliza And, read my sermons from Pastor, Preacher Pray-er

[1] God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, trans. O.C. Dean, Jr., compiled and edited, Jana Riess (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2010), 79.

Earnest Prayer of a Soldier

Matterofprayer: A Year of Everyday Prayers – Wednesday, October 21, 2015

A relief showing Confederate soldiers heading off to war, part of the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery.

Earnest Prayer of a Soldier

The October days roll by, and the sections of the Lord’s Prayer pass me by, as well. The prayer I chose for today from The Oxford Book of Prayer concerns “Lead Us Not into Temptation.” (Prayer 395, page 119) [1] The prayer is in a section entitled Right Living.

O, Lord, I need all the help I can get.

The subtitle on this specific prayer is “Prayer of an unknown Confederate soldier.” I quote it in its entirety.

I asked God for strength, that I might achieve.
I was made weak, that I might learn humbly to obey.
I asked for health, that I might do greater things,
I was given infirmity, that I might do better things.

I asked for riches, that I might be happy.
I was given poverty, that I might be wise.
I asked for power, that I might have the praise of men.
I was given weakness, that I might feel the need of God.

I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life.
I was given life, that I might enjoy all things.
I got nothing that I asked for – but everything that I had hoped for.
Almost despite myself, my unspoiled prayers were answered.
I am among all men, most richly blessed.

Poignant. Moving. Heart-breaking. All of these descriptive words, and so many more. Strength, contrasted with weakness. Health and infirmity, riches and poverty. Weakness as opposed to power? Life, and that abundantly. Truly, this earnest and worthy man was indeed richly blessed. May I be one quarter as blessed as this man.

A brief postscript: the Book of Prayer describes the author of this prayer as a Confederate soldier. Yes, that is a descriptor. However, it does not tell me what I really want to know. Was the man young? Old? Did he smile often, or was he serious? Was he married? Did he have children? What did he do before the war? Did he have a sense of humor? Was he scared at the thought of going into battle? Did he miss his hometown? What about brothers and sisters, other family members, friends, comrades?

In other words, who was this man? I know he was someone’s son. I suspect he was a faithful believer in God, since these words were probably not penned by a skeptic.

Like all others in this Book of Prayer, the author of this prayer was a child of God. Dear Lord, just as You heard this dear one’s prayer, written one hundred fifty years ago, hear mine. Hear me—hear others as we repeat his words. Lord, in Your mercy, hear our prayers.

@chaplaineliza

Like what you read? Disagree? Share your thoughts with your loved ones and continue the conversation.

Why not visit my sister blogs, “the best of” A Year of Being Kind.   @chaplaineliza And, read my sermons from Pastor, Preacher Pray-er

[1] The Oxford Book of Prayer, edited by George Appleton. (New York: Oxford University Press, reissued 2009), 119.

Blessing, Blessing, Everywhere. In Prayer.

Matterofprayer: A Year of Everyday Prayers – Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Blessing, Blessing, Everywhere. In Prayer.

It’s a new month, and I have a new focus for this blog. In July, I am going to concentrate on an intriguing book named Praying the New Testament as Psalms. Desmond O’Donnel and Maureen Mohen wrote the book, and I thought I’d sample some chapters. I mean, psalms.

O’Donnell and Mohen did do an excellent job. We’ll lead off the month with Blessing.

Gracious God, You indeed have blessed us with every spiritual blessing. Help us—help me to to something similar. Please allow my friends gifts they will appreciate. I sometimes feel scared and aware something is going to be coming. Please, God, give me the strength to be kind to those who are against me and the things I feel so strongly.

Dear God, You have concentrated on giving good things to me. (Me, are you sure?) Help me love You more nearly, more dearly. I would exchange so much that I have for more knowledge and understanding of You.

In Jesus’ precious, powerful name I pray, Amen.

@chaplaineliza

Like what you read? Disagree? Share your thoughts with your loved ones and continue the conversation.

Why not visit my sister blogs, “the best of” A Year of Being Kind.   @chaplaineliza And, read my sermons from Pastor, Preacher Pray-er .