Confidence at Table

I have observed our grandchildren at the dinner table for many years. We have grandchildren from four to twenty years old. Over time I’ve watched a pattern of wanting to pray and being too shy to say a prayer through their lives:

there is a time of eagerness to pray due to the newness of understanding or sometimes an older one will pray to thank our Lord for the provision of food. 

It is a mixture of age that reflects newness to have the opportunity to pray, the opportunity to have the responsible privilege to pray, and shyness to pray as others listen.

Adults seem to be similar, they often hold back from or forget about prayer. Doing so is how the opportunity to deepen our relationship with God slips away.  More often, than not, we pray out of necessity, when things go wrong – health, finances, personal issues, disaster, etc. – we remember to pray. We live in a faith of response to need, not in a relationship where needs are met. We miss out on a lot of goodness of God’s presence and helping us in life before our issues occur. Prayer is much more enriching when not exercised as an afterthought.

It is good to peek, observe prayer.

A child will have a simple prayer at meal time, “God is great, God is good, we thank you for the food, amen” and we as adults hesitate to be that simple, that humble. Do we prefer to miss out? We hesitate to pray and to invite others to our table and pray with us.  I’m reminded of Jesus’ invitation for all who have a chair at the table for him, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me” (Rev. 3:20). I wonder, would you, me, anyone answer the door and enjoy a meal together with Jesus? Yes, of course.  Now, who is going to say the meal's thanksgiving blessing? The guest or host? Be a gracious host and thankfully pray. When you pray you may be surprised at simple little things that change in your life … those little things, my friend, are miracles.  

I need to pray,

Owen

“Devotion to God and devotion to prayer are one and the same thing.” ~ E. M. Bounds

Ask the Obvious

We, as a local community of believers, often want many things. Sometimes those wants and what God wants seems to be a weird mystery to solve. This reminds me of a story when Jesus was in the middle of a crowd in a town called Jericho. A blind man kept calling out loud to Jesus, “have mercy on me!” But, the crowd wanted him to shut-up. Then God intervened. Jesus stopped walking and told the believers with him, “Call him.” When Jesus’ followers went bring the blind man to Jesus, he became excited and “jumped to his feet and came to Jesus.”

Then Jesus asked the obvious question, “What do you want me to do for you?” 

At no surprise the obvious answer was given by the blind man, “Rabbi, I want to see.” 

Jesus, in his usual easy-going way, replied, “Go, your faith has healed you.” In an instant the “man” was no longer the “blind man.” 

The miracle gave him sight and he “followed Jesus along the road.” When he gained his “sight” he saw Jesus’ face and he saw Christ his Savior – by faith he believed, then followed the Lord.   

Faith In The Unseen: 2 Corinthians 4:18

When Christ is obvious in our life, then, who we are becomes transparent. All humanity is looking for an answer, a miracle that will fill their emptiness. That is what brings validity to who God is, all because the obvious answer to the deepest question within our being has one answer, Christ. 

In the same way a community of believers reveal the obvious answer as to who the Healer is, who the lover of our being is, and who the God of eternity is.

To understand the answer of people’s want is to understand the question, “What do you want me to do for you?”

Being obvious,

Owen <><

See: Mark 10:46-52

Following the Crowd

From last Sunday, Palm Sunday, until next Sunday, Easter, is Holy Week.  The week began when Jesus entered Jerusalem on a borrowed donkey.  A crowd gathered along the roadway and symbolically waved palm branches as a king entered Jerusalem.  That crowd “went out to meet him, shouting, ‘Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the King of Israel!’” (John 12:13).  A crowd also gathered early Friday morning, without a doubt most of the same people from last Sunday were in this crowd, but they exhibited a demeanor with a radical change.  The Friday crowd gathered and shouted, over-and-over again, “Crucify him!  Crucify him!” (Luke 23:21). 

How can a crowd welcome the King of kings one day and a few days later want to free the rebellion criminal named Barabbas and have Jesus executed in his place?  To which the Roman governor, Pilate asked, “Why? What crime has he committed?” (Matt. 27:23). 

But, “the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have Pilate release Barabbas” (Mark 15:11) and the crowd shouted back at Pilate, “Give us Barabbas!” (John 18:40).  Pilate, in political correctness, followed the crowd’s desire.  Such is the craziness of following a crowd, a deceived crowd.  But, isn’t that the point?  Jesus had “been tempted in every way, just as we are — yet was without sin” (Hebrews 4:15) and the “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor 15:3).  Similarly, we are under the judgment of eternal death, but Christ Jesus took our sins on himself and took them to the grave and left them there when He rose from the grave, in turn, all who follow Christ are freed from death to eternal life with our Lord.

The clamor of deceivers stirs us up, we follow the crowd, and become deaf to truth in midst of all the noise.  We have always questioned what the truth is throughout our human history (see Gen. 3:1-10), and with deaf ears follow the crowd that is deceived by the lie of satan and chant the lie together.  Truth can be hard to accept, but following the crowd is easy.  There is an emptiness in us that we desire to be filled, mistakenly we think that comes by recognition in the crowd.  We’re all that way to some extent – we just follow the crowd, which is why Jesus warns us to “watch out that no one deceives you” (Mark 13:5).

Following Jesus, not the crowd,

Owen <><