prayer coach

God wants so much more for you than merely freedom from sin. All sin is just symptoms of deeper issues going on. Even if you are able to contain the act, some other sin will pop up in another area of your life if the heart is not addressed. That is why you see alcoholics trading alcohol for anger or overeaters trading food for exercise. If the heart is not healed, you will find new ways to soothe the pain.

Maturity is not measured by outward expressions or overcoming sin. Maturity in the Lord happens in the heart. Remember God’s rebuke to Samuel:

But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” – 1 Samuel 16:7

Focusing on the sin also hinders you from celebrating the successes you do have. Thankfulness cannot happen if you are too focused on what you don’t have.

Try to imagine building a house. You clear the ground, grade it, dig the footers, pour the foundation, and start making good progress. Then comes the framing. In the early days of construction things move very quickly and progress is easily seen. After the outside is in place, work goes on within the walls and each step is not as visible. You get the wiring done and the insulation put up. The steps are no longer drastic and you start to long for the finished product. But, each step is necessary. If you don’t get the flashing put around the windows you would have high energy bills and water damage, but flashing does not appear to be progress.

design courtesy of Lisa Samartino Atelier

The greatest way to grow in faith in God’s goodness is to thank Him for everything that comes at you. It is God’s will for your first response to any circumstance be thanksgiving (1 Thessalonians 5:18). Here are some of the benefits of being thankful:

1. Prepares you to experience God. We enter God’s presence with thanksgiving (Psalm 100:4).

2. Prepares you for more blessing from God. As you complain about what you are going through, it will stagnate your growth (Philippians 2:14-18).

3. Prepares you for the peace of God. It removes our focus on the situation and on the anxiety (Philippians 4:6-7).

4. Prepares you for God’s joy. Thanksgiving and joy go hand and hand (Psalm 100). Giving thanks changes our perspective and gives us hope.

5. Prepares you to hear from God. As you hold onto your negative interpretations of events, you will not hear what God is saying. The disciples heard Jesus plans of death and resurrection, but when it happened they were clueless because they could not see it as being good (Matthew 16:21-23).

Are you going through a hard time? Are you struggling with depression and anxiety? Try to take steps of faith and thank God for everything that has happened to you. Choose to believe in God’s goodness for you. He sees you and love you.

image courtesy of The Money Pit

So far 2011 has been for me the year of nothing working out. At first it was merely frustrations – things that had been easy were becoming stubborn headaches. For instance, I was denied health insurance. My wife and I are relatively young and both are in good health, yet they found random items to deny us. Then slowly and surely expenses started increasing. Randomly I forgot to pay a bill which added late fees. I almost lost a $200 check. It felt as if our finances were being attacked.

Then I got into a car accident which was my fault. Nobody was injured; again it was a financial headache. After the cars involved were fixed, my car started having more problems in the spot it was hit. And, that same day I got a $460 traffic ticket for the accident and found out how much insurance would now go up. Ugh!

I believe this relates to the last post on Are You Happy. Each event led to increased stress, worry, and frustration. WHY LORD? But in reality I was believing a lie that God wasn’t taking care of me and these events were proving it. My stress over the circumstances was preventing (or at least hindering) God from bringing His provisions. I know my God will meet all my needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19). He has more than enough to overcome each of these financial setbacks.

image courtesy of Jean Keaton

“Joy is the flag that flies over the castle of our hearts
that says the King resides in us today.”
- Walter B. Knight

Much of the world views Christianity by what they can’t do. Christians don’t drink, smoke, chew, or date girls that do. All that the world sees is the rules that Christians have imposed for fear of becoming like the world. What they don’t see is our creative, exciting, adventuresome, and fun God. Unfortunately what the world sees in Christians is the same reality they are living. We may try to convince ourselves differently, but our hearts are oftentimes weighed down just as much as the world.

The church is nearly deplete of happy people. If joy is in the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23), if the joy of the Lord is our strength (Nehemiah 8:10), and if God has anointed us with the oil of gladness (Psalm 45:7), then why is joy, happiness, and laughter not characteristics of the church?

I believe the major fault is a lack of faith in God’s goodness and willingness to come to our aid.

1. We don’t believe that God can protect Himself. We feel we must be vigilant to make sure there is nobody who believes incorrect thoughts about God. When we hear something said that doesn’t agree with our view of God or Scripture, we attack and defend. We usually staff these positions with wise, intelligent men that we send out to college campuses and talk shows to debate our enemies. To have joy would be to let our defenses down. We must stand primed and ready to break our enemy.

One of the best things about Christmas is the sense of hope. There are songs about good tidings. Generosity seems to abound. Families and old friends reconnect. People are generally nicer and happier—unless you are Christmas shopping.

All of this seems to be built into the season. Even those without any strong religion gets sucked into the festivities. Movies abound that tug at the hearts strings to believe in the benefits of goodness.

I believe this is the intended purpose of Christmas. The birth of the Christ-child gave us hope (Ephesians 2:12). Hope marinates this time of year because it is the celebration of God in the world. Thank Him for His intervention. Christ has come!

May the love of Christ fill every part of your season that hope may abound.

Christmas and Easter are generally thought of as Christian holidays, but I think Thanksgiving is one of God’s favorites. Giving thanks seems to be the oil that enables you to be filled with the Spirit. It definitely is the overflow of the Spirit-filled life (Ephesians 5:18-20).

Today I wanted to emphasize the importance for us to learn to recognize and appreciate the sacrifice and investment of those who helped you grow. Paul encourages us to “‘Honor your father and mother’—which is the first commandment with a promise—’so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth (Ephesians 6:2-3).’” The obvious implication for this is to give honor to your parents, but there is a greater call to honor your fathers and mothers in the Lord.

It is too easy to pick faults with people and think we have grown beyond those who were a help earlier in our lives. We start seeing their faults and relocate them to a previous time in our lives or mentally move them into a non-essential role in our present lives. Most of these men and women gave sacrificially to your growth, and some put up with your immaturity to prepare soil for you to grow.

God desires us to continue to honor those who have gone before for our benefit. There is promised blessing for you in this honor—even if at worst they are no longer walking in the faith. Each of these people are wonderful in God’s eyes and were blessings from our Heavenly Father (James 1:17). As we honor these gifts, we are preparing the way for similar blessings to come.

More Thanksgiving Resources:

• Giving Thanks This Thanksgiving
• How to Give Thanks
• Why is Giving Thanks Important?

Each night I read the Bible and pray with each of my daughters before their bedtime. My youngest is 2 years old, and she sits on my lap, sucks her thumb, and listens. I know that she listens because if I accidentally skip a part of the prayers she lets me know. This tradition make the bedtime routine long, but it is also very rewarding having this one-on-one time with them after being gone at work all day.

For each daughter I have them tell me what they would like for me to pray for. The youngest will say the family members, some friends she has played with recently, and anything in the room she likes. For the longest time, I laughed only thinking about how she was practicing speaking, but the other night as she was going through her list, I realized how in some ways God wants us to be like this. He wants us to be thankful for all things (1 Thessalonians 5:18). He wants us to tell Him the things we like and speak to Him about everything. He enjoys the time with our attention focused on Him. He likes spending time with us.

I can’t fully know why my daughter names all that she names for me to pray about, but I do know I can be very grateful to God for her horse and cat that she sleeps with. These stuffed animals provide her with comfort and joy, and as a father I enjoy seeing her happy. And I know that every good gift comes from God (James 1:17).

One of the most interesting traditions that I enjoyed from the Episcopal Church is the Maundy Thursday service. This is the first service in the Holy Week where they have a foot washing, celebrate the Lord’s Supper, and strip the altar. Traditions like these gives us hints at what was going on for the first disciples.

While we are more congenial with authority, the foot washing service still attacks our views of authority to have the priest kneeling down and rubbing your feet. Even knowing the symbolism, it is humbling to allow someone who has been leading you in your relationship with God to come and touch your dirty feet.

The celebration of the Lord’s Supper is very common within the liturgical tradition. Having it on this Thursday gives it more meaning in relation to the other events and the celebration of the Holy Week.

Finally, the stripping of the altar is final part of the Maundy Thursday service. For those who have not gone to high church traditions, it may be hard to understand the meaning. Every other day of the year, there is an abundance of the symbolism to the altar that point to many attributed of Jesus. While many get distracted by the actual things, each symbol is placed there to help the church focus on Christ. At the end of the Maundy Thursday service these items are removed. Silently and methodically each our removed out of site. All of our understanding of who is Jesus is hidden from our understanding as He prepares to go to the cross.