Something to HELP you pray
November 16th 2009
One of the best things I have read on prayer in a long, long time:
"Prayer is essential for the Christian, as much for what it says about us as for what it can do through God. The simple act of getting on our knees (or faces or feet or whatever) for 5 or 50 minutes every day is the surest sign of our humility and dependence on our Father in heaven. There may be many reasons for our prayerlessness—time management, busyness, lack of concentration—but most fundamentally, we ask not because we think we need not. or we think God can give not. Deep down we feel secure when we have money in the bank, a healthy report from the doctor, and powerful people on our side. We do not trust in God alone. Prayerlessness is an expression of our meager confidence in God’s ability to provide and of our strong confidence in our ability to take care of ourselves without God’s help.
Too often when we struggle with prayer we focus on the wrong things. We focus on praying better instead of focusing on knowing better the one to whom we pray. We focus on our need for discipline rather than our need for God. Almost all of us want to pray more frequently, and yet our lives seem too disordered. But in God’s mind our messy, chaotic lives are an impetus to prayer instead of an obstacle to prayer.
You don’t need to work and work at discipline nearly as much as you need faith. You don’t need an ordered life to enable prayer, you need a messy life to drive you to prayer. You don’t need to have everything in order before you can pray. You need to know you’re disordered so you will pray. You don’t need your life to be fixed up. You need a broken heart. You need to think to yourself: “Tomorrow is another day that I need God. I need to know him. I need forgiveness. I need help. I need protection. I need deliverance. I need patience. I need courage. Therefore, I need prayer.”
If you know you are needy and believe that God helps the needy, you will pray. Conversely, if we seldom pray, the problem goes much deeper than a lack of organization and follow through. The heart that never talks to God is the heart that trusts in itself and not in the power of God. Prayerlessness is unbelief.
Prayerfulness, on the other hand is an evidence of humility and faith, which is why God loves it when we pray."
Kevin De Young
http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevindeyoung/2009/11/06/prayerlessness-is-unbelief/
Help with young children
November 5th 2009
Have a look at this blog post here
http://takeyourvitaminz.blogspot.com/2009/11/how-do-you-manage-your-life.html
Some wise advice for those going insane with busyness, it's a bit American but if you translate it then there is some good stuff.
New mission website with a difference
July 6th 2009
Have a look at this site
http://anthonyadams.wordpress.com/
A friend set it up and he describes it like this "This blog, going global, was set up out of a desire to promote interest in global needs and to raise awareness of all that God is doing around the world. It’s all about mission."
Death and life at the British Museum
April 11th 2009
Last week Carol and I went to London for a few days to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary. We had a great time just roaming around old haunts together but for a few hours Carol went to Liberty's and I dived off to the British Museum with my Day One guide. To be honest I wasn't sure whether it was going to be very good but it turned out to be brilliant. I didn't see as much as I'd like, I just roamed around the Persian area and saw stuff from Nebuchadnezzar and Xerxes era. Then I went to Ur around the time of Abraham. One exhibit that stuck in my mind were the artefacts from a tomb in Ur. Rather like Pharaoh, when an important man died, he was laid to rest in a big tomb. All that he needed for the afterlife was put with him and then some favourite servants and women were entombed with him. I think they were kind enought to smash their skulls in first but it got me thinking.
The lives of these men and women were linked to that of the important man. If he did well, they did well. If he was shamed they were shamed. If he was successful, they were successful. If he lived, they lived. When he died, they died. How insecure their lives were. And yet are our lives very different? OK we might not be entombed with someone but often we link our lives with the success or failure of others whether that be our spouse or the company we work for. Sometimes people chose to link their lives with a celebrity or a house or a holiday. The result are lives as insecure as those who lived in Ur.
On Good Friday it's worth asking the question are Christians lives any more secure? As the women and the disciples saw their Jesus die they must have thought their lives were ending too, that it was all over. But fast forward to Easter morning and it's quite different. He is risen! Glorious! Victorious! Death and sin and Satan defeated. How secure and happy are those who are 'in Christ'. For that is what Christians are - in Christ. No longer do we live in anything or anyone else, we are in Christ. From now on our lives are wrapped in his. Yes he died and we will have to die too - buried with him through baptism into death. But in Romans 6:4-5 Paul goes on -
'in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. If we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.'
Happy Easter!
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