Back on Track

Every once in awhile my devious self will want something badly, and it is usually something that is temporal.  Of course, the thing I’m craving will be used for “spiritual” purposes, don’t you know. 

So I approach God with different ways of requesting this something, explaining that it will be used to “glorify Him”, and used to help XYZ Christian Organization, and so on.

My request is always the last of a stream of requests for family, friends, and others, and it is worded so as to sound selfless and helpful for others. My reason for mentioning it last is so that it will be most prominent in His mind, so I think.

But after a few weeks of this routine, I get bold and just come out with it, “Lord, please I want this thing.” 

Who am I kidding with the nicey nice prayers anyway? Certainly God knows what I am up to, but I continue to persist until I get tired of silence. Then I put the request on the shelf and let it be as He wishes.

My deceitful prayers remind me of the mother of James and John who in the book of Matthew is recorded as coming to Jesus, “adoring Jesus wishing to ask something of him.” She boldly asks that her boys be given seats of power, the greatest seats of power mind you, when Jesus would begin his rule on the earth. 

“Bless you my Lord, bless you, oh by the way, can the boys have lots of power and influence when you set up your kingdom?” I can hear her say.

In response, Jesus told her she didn’t know what she was asking for and that he was not in charge of those assignments. When the other disciples got wind of this, they were pretty disgusted with James and John.  

But maybe the boys were trying to discourage their strong willed mother with, “Ma, please not now,” or maybe they were scheming together.  Who knows but God, who knows all hearts and intentions.

Getting caught in this trap of feigning worship in exchange for some favor from God is low and despicable. We are not on this earth to accumulate things, we are here to worship Him in everything we say, think, and do. 

For me, the quickest cure for this latest “gimme episode” was a few chapters in the book Tortured for Christ by Pastor R. Wurmbrand.  He tells story after story of Christians giving up everything for the Lord in Communist Romania over 50 years ago.  Not figuratively but literally life and limb.

So what am I doing asking for things so unimportant when my brothers and sisters on the other side of this world are, more than ever, suffering for their faith?

   

I thank God He loves me enough to gently wake me up and put my brain back on track. 

Victory in Jesus!

I found an interesting book at the local used clothing store recently. It’s by a very popular contemporary Christian author who used the pages to inform her readers how to live victorious lives.

It is a good read, but I tell you our Christian bookstores are overflowing with books of the same nature.  We all want to live victorious, joyful lives, and we all want new and enlightening answers that will give us those results.

For me there is something exhilarating about finding THE book at the local book store, paying for it, going home, and sitting down with a cup of coffee to start the journey to victorious living. 

While reading the book progress is made and, for a short time, after the book is done.  Then the search begins for the next book that will give me some more new and enlightening answers to jump start my journey to victorious living. 

But after many books read, I now have the perfect synopsis for every “how to live in freedom” book out there. (I also have the perfect centerfold photo idea for every women’s exercise magazine: a close-up of a push lawnmower sitting on about five acres of lawn stretching out into the horizon behind it.  Just thought I’d throw that in here.)

Anyway, here goes: You take a piece of paper and you write these phrases across the top:

Read and meditate the Scriptures

Pray every day

Go to church at least once a week

Say, do, and think only what would please God

And then along the side of the page you list the days of the week so that you can check each item off each day as you do them.

Now I’m not saying you literally have to do this, but I am saying that this is the basic prescription for a victorious, joyful life.  We don’t need to read long, albeit interesting, books to achieve it, we need to simply do what we already know we need to do. 

“But my problems are so complicated, this simple approach won’t do,” you might say. The Lord says, Seek first the Kingdom of God, and all the rest will be taken care of. 

When I let go of the complicated mess I have been trying to untangle and return to the simple to-do list above, the mess starts to get untangled because God is doing the untangling. 

Living a victorious life does not mean living a life of leisure and a life free of problems, it means having the strength to keep our eyes fixed on what is eternal while all else rages around us. That is victory!