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