Seriously, Father.

Good morning, Father.

Oh, that you have watched us through the night. Watched over us, not sleeping or dozing or nodding off--no, you do not sleep. I cannot fathom this. Even the best and most wonderful of mothers nod off during the watch of a child. But you, Father, you never do. And I thank you.

Father, thank you for your good faithfulness and your faithful goodness. Thank you that nothing we can do or not do can negate or change either. You remain constant. It is our perception and vantage point that changes. Father, I pray we would trust this faithful goodness. I pray we would invest time and prayer and energy in learning and embracing and experiencing this faithful goodness.

Father, your word says you loved us first. First. Before we were bathed. Before our ratty hair was combed. Before our dirty finger nails were cleaned and clipped. You loved us when we were still covered in the grime of sin, when we still carried the odor of death and decay. You loved us first.

You loved us before. If we really believe this to be true, then we will understand that you love us still. If you loved us before we even acknowledged you, then how can we live as if you have pulled back on that love? You do not hold it in reserve as we often do. We hold love back and mete and dole it out as it benefits us. If we believe we are going to receive a good return we are generous. If we believe the love we give will be absorbed and nothing will return on the wake for us, then we tend to be reserved and stingy with love.

Father, according to your beloved John, then this is not love at all. Love that demands its own way, selfishly obtaining for only its own benefit and desiring to be seen--this is not love.

Father, through John, you have told us that we who believe and belong to you have been anointed by Christ. And that anointing tells us everything we should know. It teaches us. Father, I am praying that today we love as you do. I am asking that today you would speak to your people, to your beloved children and through the power of the Spirit that we would love--not in word, but in deed. When we see someone hurting today I ask that you would give us words and actions to help salve that wound. When we see someone depressed today I ask that you would give us the courage to help face the darkness with them and let them know there is light. When we see someone depleted today, may you show us how to be a source of replenishment for them.

Father, show us how to really love. Seriously, Father. We want to really love. You loved us first. And this truth should compel us to want to share, to want to be a distributor of this truth--because it changes people. Knowing that we were honestly loved BEFORE transforms us. It gives us the courage to love others well. Deeply.

So, Father, help us today to not just talk about love. But to live it. To flesh it out. To embody it.

In the name of Jesus.   Amen

Churning Sea

Oh, Father.

Oh, intervene into this day! How I pray you would take the chaos of unanswerable things, that you would take the burdens and the worries and hold them in the palm of you hand. Father, there is so much. So much that suddenly appears. But it is as if there has been a storm out at sea, and the choppy waves are stirring up the bottom. Stirring up the silt and the debris embedded in the floor of my ocean. Of others' oceans.

We drop it all in this vast waste of water hoping it will sink into oblivion. Praying it will disappear. Wishing it might remain buried forever.

Father, we ask today that you would plumb the depths of us. Fathom the cubits of water of us. Show us what is on the bottom. Reveal to us what is shifting in the sands.

Father, we need you. It's the bottom line. We are a needy people. I am needy.

Father, I see evidence of the enemy's thievery and destruction everywhere I turn. Ships run aground. Boats flipped. Father, please come and still this ocean of us. Speak your words of healing back out across the waters. I pray your words would move far deeper than the surface, oh to the depths. To the bottom where the pressure of the vast amounts of water threaten to crush us.

Father, this morning I ask for you to come. I am asking for your sweetness and grace to be evident--to cast aside the horrible feelings that come in the wake of the enemy's thieving.

Father, we need you. Your little children need you. We are floating on a blow-up duck inflatable on this vast sea. Please come and save us.

Amen and amen.

Sticks and River Beds

Oh Father!

I come to you this morning…You are good. You are good. And there is none like you. No not one.

You are good.

And we are not.

Father, show us how to be like your Son. To have his mindset in all things. To think of others more highly than ourselves. To consider others before we do ourselves.

Father, I ask you would guide every thought today. Every direction of thinking. I pray that you would remove things from the road that would cause us to stumble or change the direction we are traveling with you. Father, even the smallest stick can change the course of a river’s current. Remove sticks. Remove stones. Let the water of us flow in the river bed of your design.

Father, speak to us. What we believe to be your vision—hone, change and transform it until it truly is.

Thank you today. Thank you. Thank you.

Amen and amen.

Monday Morning

Father,

Sometimes we fail miserably. Sometimes we fail just enough for everything to seem off kilter just a hair, but that hair can seem as wide as a chasm. Only you can bridge the chasm.

Father, help us. We are a frail people who wake up on Monday mornings already missing the weekend and dreading the week…

But the only way Monday morning can be on kilter again is to begin with you. To begin in your Presence—knowing your Presence helps and changes everything and all things. Your Presence cleanses. Your Presence heals. Your Presence fortifies. Your Presence steadies. Your Presence transforms.

We praise you. We praise you this morning for your goodness. Your faithfulness. Your holiness. Your kindness. Thank you for your covenant love extended to us. Over and over and over.

Father, draw us into your Presence on this Monday morning. Help us to lay aside the blunders and the failures of the weekend. Help us to put into your hands the hours of the coming week.

Father, we need you.

In the name of Jesus.

Amen

The Chisel

Father, Our Master Craftsman, Our Master Sculptor—

Oh, how we praise you this morning. You are not confined to one title, one definition or one description. You are beyond them all. You are worthy! So worthy to be worshiped. To be followed. To be surrendered to…

This morning, Father, I thank you for friends who pray for us. Who bring us to the throne room and ask for hard, but beautiful things. Oh, I thank you for friends who ask for you to use your tools gently to shape us. To sculpt us. Thank you for friends who know that the moment of uncomfortableness or pain is worth it all to be who you created us to be. I thank you for interceders. Thank you for those who lead, guide and carry us to the throne room of your grace this morning.

Thank you for this friend’s prayer for me this morning:

Lord chisel away at us and bring out the women You know are there hidden in the stoniness of our humanness. Lord thank you that You keep removing even when we bring it back, even when we fall over the same stone again and again. Lord some faults in the marble of our heats run deep but we still desire for them to be removed.

http://itsmelaurab.wordpress.com/2013/06/14/bring-out-the-chisel/

Oh, my God! I agree. I agree with her prayer. We ask this morning for you to bring forth the woman you see etched in the depths of the marble. Only you can sculpt in stone and it always be right. You never remove more than needed. You work around the flaws—the faulted seams that run through us—and anyone else would deem the stone useless. But not you. You are not deterred by cracks or faults. They become the very things that add to the ultimate beauty you bring out in us. These weaknesses become showcases for your beauty.

Thank you, Father. Please help us to not be afraid of your chisel. Help us to not shy away from the cuts it will make. The cuts your chisel makes are washed continuously by the water of your grace and mercy.

Help us to trust the skill of you hand, the compassion of your heart, the sharpness of  your edge and the wisdom of your knowledge.

In Jesus’ name. Amen

 

Let It Rain

Oh Father,

It is raining here—a steady pouring of water. It beat on the roof this morning—a steady rhythm. And this self of mine became attuned to it.

Father, we need rain. It is inconvenient. It is annoying. It is uncomfortable. But we need rain. Rain to replenish what has been depleted by heat and pressure. Rain to rehydrate what is dry and barren. Rain to soften the hard and crusty places in us—the cracks and ruts and ravines.

Father, help us to allow your rain to saturate us. Let us sit like the earth and absorb. Let our soil be moistened to deep places—so that new vegetation might grow. New foliage might emerge and fruit would begin.

Let the fruit begin, Father. Fruit takes time to form and mature and ripen. We ask that you would grow fruit in us…that the result of this rain would be luscious, rich and full fruit. Father, we want the boughs of us to be laden heavy with this fruit of the Spirit. Fruit only you can grow. Only you can grow these in us.

Father, let it rain. Let it rain.

In the name of Jesus.

Amen

 

Tabernacles and Tents

Father,

Oh, that I would meet with you. That you would come to my tent and fellowship with me. This tent is frail and fragile...whether it can hold you I am not convinced.

But you are.

Father, I ask this morning you come and abide in our tents. That we would eat with you and drink with you...that our conversations would be full with light. Father, I ask that you would enlarge our tents. Increase the capacity that we might hold more of you...that you would pull out our tent pegs and set them further out so that square footage of us would be multiplied.

We are tents, Father. You have told us this...and you Son came and tabernacled and tented among and with us.

We are temporary places. We are the tent housing for your Spirit. Father, shake us out. Unfold us. Increase our capacity to hold more.

Father, thank you that you meet us. That by our invitation you will flip back the tent door and enter in and stay with us. Father, clean these tents out. Rid them of the excessive baggage that takes up too much room. We want room made for you.

Father, I praise you. I worship you this morning. Enable me to do so in spirit and in truth.

Stretch this tent. Stretch it, Lord.

Amen

Manifested Glory

Oh my God, my God!

How worthy of praise you are this morning. How worthy of being lifted up and exalted above all else in our lives. Show us how to lift you up so others can see. Enable us to lift you high so everyone sees only you first—that we might decrease and you would increase in visibility.

Father, thank you for manifesting your glory before us. Your glory, your weight and your value, is made apparent if we are willing to see.

Oh, Father! That we, like Isaiah, might see your glory—the train of your Presence as it wends and winds through our lives—shows us the treasures in the folds of this train.

Father, teach us to see your Presence in the green of a blade of grass,

In the swift flying of a bird,

In the ruffle of leaves lifted by the breeze,

From the belly laugh of a child,

In the bend of a bloomed flower,

In the rapid fire movement of a bee’s wings.

Teach us to see your Presence in the mundane things. Teach us to find you. Regardless.

Father, make us aware of your holiness. Allow us to feel the punch of how different you are—an epiphany in the revelation of you.

Father, change our perspective. Change the viewpoint of our observation. Change the angle of our seeing.

In the name of Jesus.

Amen

Hearing Silence

Father,

It’s Monday and I’m hearing silence. I feel like your voice has been on mute for a while now. I can’t hear you and it unnerves me.

I know you have not moved. I know you have not shifted.

So, perhaps that means I have. Have I leaned in the wrong way? Away from the sound of your voice? Have I meandered to the edge of the path and your voice is muted by the foliage and brush between us? Father, I don’t like silence, and yet silence moves me to seek you. To call your name. To look for you. To seek you.

Father, I can’t see you today. I can’t hear you today. But as the sun still shines behind the cloud cover I know you are there.

Please today remove whatever is inhibiting me from hearing. Dig out my ears that I might hear you. Or enable me to interpret the silence, to seek you even more. To be desperate for you. To thirst for you. To hunger for you even more.

Father, I know the silence will not last forever. And I know my parched tongue will taste fresh water. I know the twisting of my hunger will be assuaged, but until then I pray you would help me to be faithful in the silence. Help me to trust what I cannot see—you.

My God, my God! Forgive me. Forgive me. Let your forgiveness roll over me like a river in flood season—overflowing its banks. Whatever hindrances are present I pray for their removal. For walls to be torn down. For barriers to be breached.

Father, please help me to find that sweet spot with you again…that place where your mercy dwells.

Oh, you and your mercy. How beautiful. How good.

Oh, you and your grace. How incredible. How deep.

Oh, you and your forgiveness. How encompassing. How complete.

Oh, you and your holiness. How powerful. How prevailing.

Oh, you and your love. How deep. How wide. How high. How long.

I praise you for it all. Glory to you, Father God! Glory to you. You are good. You are good. And worthy of praise. Worthy of being lifted up. Worthy of adoration. And I thank you. I thank you. I thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Amen

The Cleft and the Storm

Father, in  the quiet darkness this morning I hear the thunder rumbling. Lightning sparks and momentarily lights this dim room. And while the storm brews and simmers I sit in the cleft of the Rock--protected. You are the Rock which is higher than I. The solid rock on which I stand and hide.

Father, how often have you protected me in the granite curtains of your rock? How often have I slipped behind the stone veil and waited until the storm passed?

And this morning I am watching--standing at the cusp and edge and aperture of my safe place.

I'm waiting. Anticipating. I am waiting for the whisper. Attempting to hush myself down to silence--of which I am poorly equipped to do. Only You can hush me. Only you can soothe the distraught child in me.

Yes, I am waiting for the whisper. Father, help me. Help others. Help us to listen for your whisper.

What are you saying to us in the midst of our storms today? What are the words that come to us on the winds?  What revelation of You will be given to us today? Like Elijah? What will we see? What will we hear?

Prepare us. Make us ready. Please.

We want to see your face. Perhaps, all we can see, like Moses, is your back. I want to see you face, Lord. But more than anything I want to be aware that you have passed by.

I want to be aware of your whisper...and I want to hear it not only with my ears, but in my spirit. In the marrow of me. At the center of me. And I ask that just as the thunder rumbles and I can feel in to the core of my body...I pray that your voice would do that in my spirit.

In the name of Jesus whose blood has hidden me in the cleft of the rock,

Amen and amen

The Fourth Day

Oh God,

It's Monday morning. The Monday morning after the celebration of your Son's Resurrection.

I wanted yesterday to extend...for the sun to shine a little longer, for the ease of the day to continue, for the worship of the day to continue to soar. I didn't want yesterday to end.

But it's Monday. And the world has taken off their Easter finery. Slipped it back on a hanger and put it in the closet. The eggs are cracked and spilt. And there are aluminum foil candy wrappers strewn across lawns and living rooms...

But Father, the Resurrection isn't just about one day for us--your people. This is life for us: the fact that your Son not only died for us, but you raised him from the dead. Brought him up out of the dark tomb of spiritual and physical death. And I know he endured both for us...otherwise he would not have had to ask, "My God. My God why have you forsaken me?" from the cross.

Father, today is the day after the Resurrection. It is the fourth day.

Teach us to live on the fourth day. Show us how to live like resurrected people. We are to die to sin and ourselves, yes. But we are to live as people brought back to life. People who have been called out of the tomb, out of the decay and out of the smothering tendrils of death. Father, you have called us to live as children of light. Children of the day. Children of promise.

Father, help us to live out the hope of the Resurrection on the fourth day. On the fifth day. On the sixth.

Amen

Resurrection

Oh, Glorious Father,

Glory to your name. You have risen!

You came to tabernacle with us. You became God With Us so you could finish your plan of salvation...you sent the sacrificial lamb and He was slaughtered on Friday, but Father, you did not just send any lamb, You sent Jesus.

He died once and for all. His blood better than sheep and goats and bulls. He became the scapegoat for us. He took our sins and iniquities on his shoulders. He absorbed the hostilities of the world from beginning to end and carried them to the cross. They were nailed there with Him...and WE bear them no more because of your sweet grace and beautiful mercy.

Good Friday was good because of what happened today! Father, your word says you complete and finish what you start and begin. You bring to completion all you planned to do. And Sunday you did. The Resurrection was the crown. Had you not raised your Son from the dead Good Friday would have been a moot point.

Father, I pray we live lives of people of the Resurrection. That we would be living proof of who Mary did not find at the tomb. Father, I pray that we would live lives given over to the power of that Resurrection. That we would understand that the very same power that lifted Jesus from the pale gray of death will life us. Will resurrect our dry bones.

Today is a day of finding empty things and the God who keeps his promises. Please enable your people to reflect this hope, this truth.

We praise you today. We glorify you today. We lift you up today. You are worthy. Worthy.

Holy. Holy. Holy. Is the Lord God Almighty. Who was. Who IS. Who is to come.

Amen and amen

 

Passion Thursday

Father,

On Thursday your heart began to break. You and your Son knew what was coming. You knew what lay in the hours ahead. You knew. And Jesus moved through the hours anyway. He had set his face. For You. For us.

There are many events and details about the Thursday of Holy Week that stand out to me. Judas’ betrayal. The squabbling of your inner twelve of who was the greatest. The bending of your Son to wash the men’s feet—the lowliest of servant’s job. The youngest servant in the house, or the one who had been in residence the shortest amount of years—this task fell to them.

Yet your Son stooped, bent and curved his body close to the floor and took their crusted, broken heels in his hands (hands that would later clench under the driving of the nails) and poured water and watched the eddies of dirt swim in the earthen bowl.

This moves me. Humbles me, Father.

But, there is another scene from this Thursday night that haunts me.

In the garden under the olive trees—bent and gnarled—your Son asked three of his closest friends to pray. To tarry with him in prayer. To beseech you on his behalf and on theirs. He asks them to pray.

Keep watch with me.

He moves a stone’s throw away. That detail catches my attention. Jesus removed himself so that they might not see his anguish up close. Removed himself that they might not see the sweaty blood that seeped and slid down his forehead. Matthew even tells us he fell with his face to the ground.

Can’t you pray just one hour for me?  This question of Jesus’ in the shadow of the olive press breaks my heart. Breaks my heart.

Jesus doesn’t just ask for prayer for himself. He tells them to pray for him and them. He knows the battles that await them only a short time away. He knows what awaits him.

Three times Jesus returned to these inner three.

Three times Jesus returned and requested them to pray with him.

But they did not. They slept.

Even today, Father, I hear Jesus ask this of me.

Tamera, would you keep watch with me?

Father, how often do your people come to us and ask us to pray for them? To pray with them. To tarry five minutes in prayer for them. To keep watch with them.

And we say we will. But we do not. We sleep.

Just like Peter, James and John we have good intentions. But we grow weary and fatigued and forgetful.

How often do we say we will pray and walk away?

Father, I ask you would help us to pray. Fortify us to tarry for a while and pray. Please help us not to fall asleep. Help us not to grow weary. Keep us awake.

Please, Father, help us to keep watch.

Help us not to fall asleep.  

In the precious name of Jesus.

Amen

 

Passion Wednesday

Oh Father,

This morning as I read about your Son’s days in this last week I kept thinking about the fig tree. It may not have happened on Wednesday, but this is what I am thinking about today.

Your Son passed by hungry. He needed to break his morning fast, and in the distance he sees a tree in full leaf. He expects figs; he expects fruit.

And there is none.

No fruit hung from the branches. Appearances said something should be there. Leaves indicated something substantial was hidden in the foliage. But there was nothing.     

Not a fig.

Father, oh my heart is breaking right now. I realized many times in my life I have been like that fig tree—full of appearances, but no fruit.

Father, I pray we would not be like the fig tree on that rocky road to Jerusalem. Father, often we have showy leaves that would indicate fruit. People come to us expecting fruit, expecting nourishment or at least a refreshment.

But there is not a fig on us.

Father, this is not how you want the people who are called by your name to be.

We are to be trees weighed down with fruit. Fruit that is the produce of being grafted into the vine of your Son. Fruit that comes because of time spent in your Presence.

Father, we do not want to be the fig trees of Passion Week: trees with signs of fruit, but none to be found.

Father, grow fruit on us. Let our branches be weighed down, bent over and drooping with the weight of ripe figs.

Let our foliage match our fruit.

Amen and amen.

 

 

Passion Tuesday

How sad it is to me that human nature has not changed a great deal in two thousand years. I read the accounts of your Son.

I see him overturn the tables in the temple. I see him reaching out his hand in your temple and healing the blind and the lame—making people whole. Making people alive again. Making people see again. He was an exact representation of Jehovah-rapha with all the signs and wonders to demonstrate the truth of it. And yet, Father, the religious people dismissed Jesus because they felt their authority was being threatened. The control they had in the religious boxes was knocked over by a carpenter boy from Galilee. This frightened them because this revealed the vanity and emptiness inside.

Father, they questioned your Son’s authority. And we still do today. We ask for his credentials; when he moves in our lives and it doesn’t fit our agenda we question him. When he pushes back the walls of our boxes we question him.

Father, we are in the midst of your mighty hand moving among your people. Instead of lifting our hands in praise and opening our lips in worship as the children shouted in the temple we are questioning you. Asking you what right you have, what authority do you have? We, too, are indignant.

OH Father, the religious rulers and leaders were so indignant about what your Son was doing. They felt so threatened by him. By his teaching. And they knew he had authority; they recognized it, but to acknowledge it they would be accountable to it. And they did not want to be accountable.

They knew.

Father, we know.

And often we act indignant. We behave religiously. We come to the temple blind and lame. We come insecure. We come fearful. And you want to heal us, but we are too busy attempting to look for a way to kill you. To shut down your voice.

Father, forgive us. Please forgive us.  

Amen.

 

 

 

Passion Monday

Glory Hallelujah!

Father, this morning may we lift our hearts in praise to you.

Yesterday on Palm Sunday we dropped our cloaks on the ground to make way for you. Show us how to lift the palm branches to declare your glory and your salvation. You said even the rocks would cry out if we didn't; we do not want rocks to do what we long to do. Show us how, Father.

We threw down our palm fronds, fanned them around you and lifted the air with hallelujahs. But we are often a frail and fickle people--forgetting.

As Palm Sunday rolls into Monday, as the gates closed behind you please, Father, let our temples be cleansed. I pray as we hear you teach we would have ears to hear and eyes to see.

We know at the end of the week we will change our minds if we do not keep our hearts and eyes fixed on you and your purpose and goal. Instead of glorifying and lifting you up in praise we will be mocking and crucifying you in contempt.

Father, please help us. Please help our  minds to not be swayed by persuasive arguments. Help our hearts to not be mesmerized by the gildings of this world.

Father, on Sunday we lifted you up, exalted you but even on Monday we begin to mutter. We are so paranoid you will come into our temple today and overthrow the tables. That you will tell us we are using these temples for what they were never intended for.

Father, at the end of the week I do not want to be shouting crucify him. I do not want to be in the middle of the mob, moved and pulled and screaming things I don't mean. 

Father, today change my heart so that on Friday I won't say things I will later regret. Renew my mind today, Father, so that on Friday I will understand I can't stand with the mob, I can't run away like the disciples.

Father, this is your Son's passion week. But it is ours too. Where do we find ourselves this week? With whom do we align? Are we falling asleep in the garden? Cutting off ears? Kissing our friends? Watching from afar? Denying any association?

Where are we this week?

Show us.

In the name of Jesus. Amen and amen.

Shadows and Realities

OH Father God,

Oh that we would learn that we are living in the shadow of the reality. The reality is in you. In your kingdom, your Heaven and in your Presence. Here we are shadows of that reality.

Father, help us to become reality. As C.S. Lewis discussed in The Great Divorce, I pray we would become more and more real the longer we know you and walk with you. That our spirits would continue to gain and become more substantial. Your Word says that our outer person is wasting away while our inner person continues to grow. Father, please help us to understand this and allow you to do your work in us.

This shadowed place we live in is not what it will be. This shadowy realm that we abide in will not be the place of light we arrive at someday. But until then, may your word be a light to our path. Let your Word be a lamp to our feet as we traverse this road. Father, may we learn the difference between shadow and reality. May we understand that who we are in you, the position we have in you, is because of what Jesus did. He traversed the road first.

Because of what he did we are offered the reality.

Father, I want to know more here and now. I want to know you more. I want more of you. More. To know you more…so much more that the shadows begin to dissipate. They begin to trail away leaving only tendrils and mist—unveiling the Reality.

Father, please. Enable my mind and spirit to absorb more of you. Oh, that I might be filled with you. Until the flesh of me is relegated to the outer edges of me, and your Brightness fills me instead.

Amen and amen

Your Temples

 Holy Father,

Let us see you in your temple...and Father, the temple now is us. We want to see evidence that you abide here in these earth bound places, that your mercy is extended to us. That you abide with your people and where your Presence abides is holy, sacred.

Let us be your temples today. Places of worship, of adoration, of utter gratefulness and praise. Let us lift holy hands and fall prostrate and dance in the streets because of what you have done. How you have saved us. How you pulled us out of the pit. Thank you for saving us from the ugliness that is in us. Thank you that you change it. You transform it.

Call us out, Father. Call us out into the places we need to be crying and making way for you. We are the Elijahs and the John the Baptists today.  Show us how to make the paths straight. Show us today how to build up the highways that others may find you.

We bless you today. We bless you for your salvation...for saving us from much we are not even aware of because you spared us. Thank you for saving us from the ugliness that is in us. Thank you that you change it. You transform it.

Call us out, Father. Call us out into the places we need to be crying and making way for you. We are the Elijahs and the John the Baptists today...show us how to make the paths straight. Show us today how to build up the highways that others may find you.

I praise you for we are fearfully and wonderfully made. Our temples are unique. One of a kind structures being erected to bring you glory. Oh, please do not allow us to inhibit in any way this process and progress. Help us to get out of the way...to make room and way for you.

Father, enable us to follow in your wake. Let us be filled with the urgency of the Gospel. This good news of Jesus; it’s the best news. The greatest news, and I pray we would speak it. Teach it. Live it. Pray it. Share it. Show us how. Teach us how to implement these gifts you have so generously given to the advancement of your kingdom. Father, there is nothing today I want more. Use our teaching, our writing, our encouraging, our praying and our loving and our failing and promote your kingdom...lift up your Son in us I pray this morning.

Amen and amen.

Harbinger

Father God,

Somewhere out in the dark of this early morning I hear a bird. Insistently twittering and trilling. What she sees in the dark I am not sure, but this morning this little bird is a harbinger. She tells me that eventually winter will give sway to spring.

Weeks ago I prayed about winter. I know you heard me, but the season didn’t immediately change. Actually it got a little worse. But the winter must ride out its course; it must finish its work readying us, preparing us for what is ahead.

We romanticize everything it seems. We look back and see selective memories and impressions through tinted glasses. We often forget that with spring comes the rains and the tornado warnings. And the mud. Yes, spring brings life and green, but then that life and green needs mowing and pruning.

Father, helps us live lives void of our warped romanticisms. Instead help us to embrace the true reality that is in you. Show us how to see our seasons. How to see backwards without sabotaging our forwards.

Your calling beckons us.

Sometimes we know what to do with that calling and other times we don’t. Sometimes we embrace it with fervor, sometimes we are sleepily apathetic and other times we run like hell is on our heels—scared to death of what this calling will require.

Father, this morning I pray for your people. Help us to wait out these last strands of winter. Enable us (me) to be patient as you unravel and untangle them. Let their last bit of work soften us. Father, I pray we would look for spring, but to realize that in every season you have a purpose—one to prosper us and not to harm us. Plans to give us hope.

Father, I pray for your people this morning as they struggle with the last ribbons of snow on the edges of their yards. I pray for your people as they battle with the cold that still hangs heavily in the air. Instead, just for a moment, help us hear the birds talking and chattering in the early morning dawn. For just a moment help us to translate their phrases and fragments of their lyrical language.

Spring is coming. A new season is about to arrive.

We want to be ready, Father.

Amen

How Great Thou Art

I woke this morning with this song on my heart. Sang it all through breakfast preparation. And it became my prayer.

 

Oh this, this is my prayer this morning:

 

OH, Lord My God.

When I in awesome wonder consider all the worlds thy hands have made.

I see the stars; I hear the rolling thunder

thy power throughout the universe displayed—

Then sings my soul, my Savior God to thee.

How great thou art. How great thou art.

How. Great. Thou. Art.

 

 

 

This is Monday

Father,

I hit the snooze far too many times this morning—wanting five more minutes. This is Monday, Father. Mondays are hard—either because the weekend was not long enough or full of too much good to leave behind.

But it is your Monday.

Today my list is way long, Lord. Way long of too many things to do and not enough time. But there is enough time…

If I stop and meet with you this morning, hear your voice and receive my instructions for the day then the day will be in order.

Order my day, Father. Order it according to your plans.

I pray you would open my eyes wide enough to see your plans. Open my ears wide enough to hear your plans, and soften my will enough to obey your plans.

Father, thank you that you enable us to take our Promised Lands. What you set before us, what you tell us is ours to take—you will equip us to take. You will prepare us to take. I pray you would make us strong and of good courage. I pray you would help us to be people of vision. I ask, Father, you would go before us. Go before us on this Monday.

Amen

We Want To Know

Father, I come to you this morning thinking about you being our Good Shepherd. We don't understand the full ramifications of this...but we are sheep. A mass and mess of bleating and bleeding sheep who need a good shepherd to guide us, to lead us where sometimes we just don't have enough sense to go or to stay.

Father, today I pray we would listen for your voice--we know it. We know the timbre and the tone. We know the difference between yours and others. Please, Father, help us to follow after you. To be led by you. Not just to green pastures, but even in the places where the shadow of death hovers.

Father, we know your love. We want to know it more. We know your goodness. We want to understand it more. We know your faithfulness. We want to trust it more. We have seen your power. We have felt the faint edges of it. But we want you to empower us. To equip us. To energize us to do and be the calling you have for us. We want to experience your power...help us not to be timid. Help us not to be hesitant or reluctant to ask you to use your power to lead people to you. To lead people to the Good Shepherd.

We want to see you. To know you.

Father, today speak to us. Help us to listen. Father, we love you. Oh, how we love you. Please help us love you more.

Amen and amen

Good Shepherd

Father,

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you today for salvation. This position you allowed us to be. We could not keep your ways. We could not follow hard after you, so you pursued us. Sent your Son to be the ransom for many. Sent your Son to be the physician to the diseased. Sent your Son to be the doctor to the wounded. Sent your Son to be the sacrifice to secure our salvation. Sent your Son to be the exact representation of you, so we might see you. Sent your Son to do what we could not.

Thank you that even though we are often sheep who have gone astray you are the Good Shepherd—you will come find us.

We know your voice, Good Shepherd. We know what it sounds like, but we get distracted. We get sullen. We get panicked. We get apathetic. And we turn our ear to someone else. Father. Oh, help us to not turn our ear to another. Instead help us follow your voice. Help us to follow it wherever it leads. Teach us to be submissive and obedient to the nudging of your staff. And let us be unafraid because your rod will protect us.

Thank you, Father.

Amen

You Are

Beautiful Father, oh how lovely you really are. How holy and just. How merciful. How strong and mighty.

Your arm is never too short. Never. You reach down to us, bend to us to hear us even when we whisper and whine. You stretch out our futures and plan not only to meet us, but to walk with us.

Father, there is not enough praise this morning. There are not enough words.

You are our strong tower—help us to run to you when life out flanks us.

You are our sweet shelter—help us to hide there when the elements are mean.

You are our hiding place—when we long to be invisible.

You are our shield—from the fiery darts of the enemy.

You are our rock—when we need an immovable, solid place to stand.  

Father, there is no other. There is no other place to go. None. Even when we fail, even when we sin, even when we choose willfully to disobey you there is no place else to go. You will cleanse and restore us.

Father, this morning I ask that we recognize you. That with our brother, Peter, we would see who you really are in our lives. Help us not to depend on who other people say you are. Help us to not rely on others’ experience of you. Help us to not know about you through a second or third party. I pray that you would reveal who you are to us today. Jesus told Peter that the confession he made could have only been revealed to him by you—reveal this truth to us, Father.

Father, truth is not meant to be just a theory to you. Truth is personified in your Son. Help us to follow your Son. When he says, “Come follow me.” I pray we would drop our nets and our water jars and leave them.

Amen and amen

More than the Hem

Father,

Might I ease into this day? Taking time to breathe in your Presence. Taking time to touch the hem of your garment if nothing else. Honestly, I want more. I know that your hem, because of who you are, will provide everything I need, but I want more of you.

This day I ask for you to direct every thought. Guide every train of thinking.

Direct and guide them to you. Make every bend in the road turn me toward you.

Your word says that you will make paths straight. It assures me that you will strengthen my ankles in order for me not to stumble in my way.

Father, we are engaged in something that if we do not have you and your power and your wisdom it will never happen. If you do not fill, if you are not present there would be no reason to engage in this activity. None.

Father, I ask that you would help me to draw closer than even your hem this morning. I want to sit in the sweetness of you. I want to be burned by the holiness of you.

There are times, Father that the swelling in my heart for you is just too great to contain. I am overwhelmed. And I am looking for an outlet—looking for a place to broadcast how good and faithful you are. I want others to know your transformation power—this energy that raises the dead, that heals the diseased, that binds up the wounded, that encourages the despaired, brings clarity to the confused and wisdom to the simple.

I love you this morning and I am eagerly awaiting your revelations for me today. I am anticipating seeing you.

Amen

Eternal Minutes

Father,

My days roll together with little to mark them. One rolls swiftly into the other and I lose track. Show me how to make sense of my days.

Only you can give me purpose. Only you can transform each hour into something far more than sixty minutes. Far more than sand dropping through the small aperture of pinched glass. Only you can show me how to make these hours filled with seconds count.

Show me how to pray unceasingly. Show me how to listen expectedly. Teach me to be quick to listen. Slow to speak. Slow to become angry. Show me what it means to truly be kind to someone—far more than simple courtesy.

Father, today help me to understand that eternity begins in the hour I am currently abiding. Enable me to comprehend that I don’t have to wait for eternity—your kingdom is here now. Right now. In each second that ticks past on the clock I am walking out into eternity. Help me to live in such a way that it makes a difference. We keep saying we want to make our lives count for eternity—we can do that if we live right now. In this minute make it count.

Father, remind me that today is made of minutes. Minutes to be spent and used for your glory. Often I waste them because I am perpetually looking toward the next hour or day. Please, Father, show me how to live in the moment—not for Hallmark purposes—but for yours.

Show me how to live the eternity that is mine right now.

Amen

Thou Art Mine

Father God,  

When the reflectors come on and I see an ugliness in me that I didn't expect it is a devastating feeling. Hidden feelings. Secret agendas. Wanting my own way. My own selfish desires.  

Please forgive us when these creep in, Father. Save us from the root of these--from regarding our will over your own. Pride that we regard our will above yours.  

Father, when we think we know better than others, when we think we are more apprised of a situation, when we think we have more inside information, more knowledge, more insight we are setting ourselves above your wisdom. 

I pray for protection from the enemy, but I also pray for your to protect us from the will of our flesh--the one who tells us to do what we do not want to do and prods us to not do what we want to do. Protect us from the temporary, finite, earthly desires that please only for the moment. Protect us from the urgency of our flesh and its desire to be stroked and filled.  

Instead, Father, fill our spirits. Fill us with the eternal. Fill us with the infinite. Fill us with vision that goes far beyond anything that our flesh wants or desires.  

Father, if you must (and I know with me you do) empty us. Empty us of what we have hoarded so that we might be filled with the grace and gifts you have intended. If we are full there will be no room for what you intend. Empty us of everything and all that would cause these clay jars of ours to be full of something other than you. 

This morning let us come to you house truly to see you. To hear you. To sit with you. I pray you would help us come not so much for what is in it for us, but how can we come and bless you this morning? How can we lift and exalt your precious name? 

Father, this morning you know where my heart is at...and you know the condition of it. You know the fleshy, blood-filled parts and you know the parts that are growing hard, filled instead with some type of gall. Flush our hearts, God. Flush these clean, so that the blood of Jesus might flow unimpeded.  

Father, I fear failing. I fear failing you. I pray for these feelings of being overwhelmed. Like a river swollen far too large for its banks...and I don't even know which issue to press or address or engage first.  

Please, Father, come today. Come and remind us that your word says the river will not overflow us. The fire will not tendered upon us. Remind us that our names are: Thou Art Mine. This is what you call us because of Jesus. We are not orphan. We are not prostitute. We are not harlot. We are not abandoned wife. We are not lost. Our names declare that we are yours.  

Please help us to remember and see. Help us to live in this place. Help us to remember that the reflections we see in the mirrors do not have to be our realities. You can transform even the ugliest of us into someone of extraordinary beauty if we surrender and are washed in the blood.  

Thank you. Thank you.

Amen and amen

An Impatient Bulb

Good Morning, Lord.

Every morning the sun rises, or the earth turns to greet the sun. Regardless light spills across the cracked cold earth. And for a few hours the warmth of the sun penetrates the layers. Winter still holds on like an old woman with gnarled and clawed hands—unwilling to give up so easily.

But light will break. Eventually winter will give way to spring. The rotation of the seasons will come. And I thank you. I have not understood this winter. I have not been able to fully embrace the dormancy and stillness you have beckoned me to entertain.

I am like a bulb in the ground waiting. Waiting for my thick skin to crack open and allow the slim green shoot to push upward through the cold, packed dirt. I am trying to force the bulb. Attempting to recreate warmth and light so that I will bloom sooner.

Bloom sooner.

But your timing is perfect, and lest I forget please remind me.

Your timing takes into account things and events and circumstances I cannot see. I cannot foretell. Some I can’t even imagine. If I push my tender shoot through the soil too early then there’s a chance I will succumb to late frost. I just don’t understand; I can’t see far enough ahead.

But you do, Lord. You are far ahead of me.

Help me to be still in this season. Help me to rest in this Sabbath just a little while longer. Enable me to have patience to finish the season. To allow you to do your work in me. To surrender to your tending hand.

I have grown impatient. And with impatience grows discontent. With discontent I fail to see the goodness. I fail to see the gifts. I fail to count as your servant, Ann, suggests. With impatience and discontent my spirit is no longer fallow soil for your to plant your seed. Father, may Your Holy Spirit cultivate patience and contentment in me—even in this season that seems so barren and bleak.

And so I count:

1.      Thank you for furnaces that run, and vents that produce heat.

2.      Thank you for the early morning light that spills across the kitchen floor.

3.      Thank you for dogs curled together in tight balls.

4.      Thank you for spooning and warm beds.

5.      Thank you for hot chocolate.

6.      Thank you for fireplaces in friends’ homes.

7.      Thank you for warm, red coats.

8.      Thank you for the stillness outside, and the stillness in me.

 

Amen and amen.