40 Day Fast

End of Week 2 of our all-church 40-day fast. What am I learning?

Prayer changes me.
Amid the huge ups and downs in the stock market in these last two weeks, prayer has calmed me. It has forced me to seek  a greater perspective, rather than confine my point of view to the day’s gains and losses.

I am learning to look for the quiet places and wait in the long silences where I can listen for God in my head and in my heart.

After I put out the fires in my life (those are easy), I eagerly run to the prayer closet in my mind where I shut the door to everything else that nags me.

I am becoming a better listener – of God and others, not jumping immediately into the conversation but processing conversations at the gut level as well as the head.

I am learning the value of waiting, waiting for God so that we can move forward together.

I am learning to call upon the Holy Spirit to help me understand my own thoughts, to process with the mind of God and take one step at a time.

I am learning restraint in others’ lives, holding back personally guided, well-intended but perhaps unhelpful advice so that they have the privilege of doing the right thing rather than being "told" the right thing.

I’m learning how to make decisions with greater objectivity and less subjectivity. I am discovering the merits of forcing myself to step back and try to put selfish desires in check. When I do, I often find that God has either filled or taken away my need.

I am developing a greater sense of humor and an enlarged attitude of gratitude. I am minding less getting wet when my boat gets rocked.

I am learning to appreciate myself more – the way God made me.

I am learning to accept the differences in others better, working to understand them better and judge them less.

I am developing a new theology about money and eternity – that money is best spent on others and that relationships are the treasures of heaven.

I am reveling more in the pleasure of simply being with God.

I am growing more sensitive to His presence, His nearness, His goodness and faithfulness.

I am learning to talk to God about my heart’s desires, and then give them up to Him.

I am learning to release those I love most to God so that He take them on a journey far beyond my capabilities.

I am feeling a constitutional change that I hope is transforming me into someone who speaks Jesus without saying anything.

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Tonight a friend’s husband who is a semi-practicing Jew but who more honestly calls himself an agnostic — asked Dan and I to pray for him. Here’s his deal, something he’s stated openly for the last year: If God heals me of my chronic health condition, I will become a faithful believer and member of your church touting all its merits.

So we prayed for him — openly, in a public restaurant, eyes closed, hands held. No one could mistaken we were praying. And that’s the interesting thing.

Jake (I’ll call him Jake for anonymity’s purpose) asked US to pray for him. He brought it up. We talked no religion the two and a half hours previous, but now after coffee and dessert, he laid it out.

He reiterated that he acknowledges that God possibly exists because there is no other logical explanation for the creation of the universe. But outside of that he concedes nothing. A Jew, he cannot understand why God, if he really does exist, would allow the atrocities of the Holocaust and many of the other horrors of world history. However, this chronic condition has plagued him since childhood and IF God healed him, Jake would concede everything.

What did I say yesterday (Day 11) about tests? As much as this sounds like a test of God, it really is not so much a test as a request. A request with a familiar ring, a New Testament ring.

Many people came to Jesus because they were at the ends of their ropes. In Matthew 9 we see in succession: a paralytic, the father of a dead daughter, a woman with the 12-year hemorrhage, two blind men, and a demon possessed man. They sought out Jesus because he offered the possibility of hope when all else had failed. These were not tests of God’s existence or power. They were real cries for help. Just like Jake’s.

So we prayed for him. Nothing has happened yet. Maybe when he wakes up tomorrow something will have happened – maybe not. I don’t know if or when God will heal Jake of his physical condition. Yet I know God wants to heal Jake of his spiritual condition, and I think God will because I  see in Jake’s eyes the hope that he can make good on his pact. He wants to be healed, and if he is healed, that’s enough for him to follow Jesus. It would be a good thing.

I think Jake is a seeker. He would like to believe but he doesn’t have a reason. He’s witnessed his believing wife’s experience but he seeks an experience of his own. Don’t we all?

Jake doesn’t want to believe because people told him to, or because it’s smart or fashionable. He doesn’t want to believe by default, or because it seems like a good idea. Jake wants a reason to believe, something he can give first-hand testimony about and attest to down to the core of his being..

Therefore he came to us—not, I think, because Dan’s a pastor, but because he feels he can trust us. That's risky business. Somehow, he feels he can trust us with his weaknesses. He feels safe expressing his doubts. And (I would like to think) he perhaps sees in us an authentic, ongoing experience of Jesus Christ that could fit into his life.

That’s a compliment. That’s the kind of pray-er I am wanting to become more like —someone people feel okay bringing their worst and not just their best. Not just complaints but honest, deep in the hole, help-me-if-you-can-Lord, requests —the ones that say, “Change me.” There's no better prayer.

If you read this, no matter what, no matter when, would you pray with me for Jake? God wants to change all of us, inside and out. I’ll let you know what happens.

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Test or Testament
Is your underwear showing?

Today’s 1st Prez E-100 devotional, written by Drew Hulse, was on Gideon [online at http://fpchawaii.posterous.com/first-prez-e100-day-28]. I love Drew’s observation: Gideon had grown up in a land of unfaithfulness.

He explains in full: Most of us tend to pick up the story of Gideon with him hiding in a winepress, threshing wheat, and hoping the Midianites don’t see him and take his crop. [Judges 6:1-7:25] We see Gideon as weak and afraid, and he might be. The question is, why? What put him in the winepress? Gideon had grown up in a land of unfaithfulness. God had delivered the Children of Israel out of Egypt, given them the land and a future, and had called them to worship Him as God alone. They proceeded to fall in love with the gods of the Amorites and to abandon the One True God who had given them life. God, whom Gideon had only heard about but never seen at work (due to the lack of faithfulness of his elders), was now the one calling Gideon to faithfulness.

We often question “nature versus nurture” in considering just how the heck we got to be the way we are. Nurtured by family and friends who had acted unfaithful towards God, Gideon grew up in an environment where no faith was demonstrated. The result was that Gideon himself was not so much unfaithful as faithless.

He had heard old stories, but seen no evidence of God. Everyone around him had abandoned God. So when the angel comes and tells Gideon that God is going to use him and act through him, Gideon puts God to the test.

People still put God to the test with, “If you really exist, God, give me a car, help me pass that test, find me a spouse, get me out of trouble, make my life easier.”

The problem with that, however, is the test. Those tests are not so much about proving The Man but getting The Stuff, and The Stuff will always get in the way of seeing The Man.

That being the case, instead of answering a test, God more often uses a testament. God won’t perform upon command, but he will point to evidence of his existence—our lives.

What will people then see? What are we willing to show? It depends. When we are new at it, faith feels like a garment we have to put on. We're not used to wearing it. It's clothes we wear when we remember, when we decide, when it’s convenient, expected or commanded.

The more familiar and comfortable we become with God, the less we see him as “dress clothes,” ill-fitting special occasion apparel that make us look good but which we can’t wait to get off when we get home.

The more at home we are with God, the more he feels like a favorite shirt, well-worn sweater, nubby socks, that we want to change into and not take off.

God becomes the thing we feel naked without—our underwear. He becomes the first layer, close to the skin, that we put everything else over. And that’s what we want to show: God whom we wear under all.

That becomes or most powerful testament. Beyond what we preach or pray, do or say, our underwear is the truest evidence of God’s existence.

Are we ready to show it, though?

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Tonight I am contemplating the age-old question: Does prayer change things?

I started scanning the web for insights and was reminded that Philip Yancey wrote on book on that very topic. Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference? I’ll have to borrow that one from Dan’s library if he has it.

If nothing else, praying changes me . My praying – the act of prayer – changes ME. Whether I am praying for someone else or praying for myself, whether long or short, public or personal, I come away from the space that prayer creates as a changed person.

Maybe in our prayers. That is the starting point. Our attitude, understanding, and response when transformed by leaning into God shapes our interactions with others. We are the beginning of their chain reaction, or should I say “change” reaction.

James writes in his epistle (James 5:13-16):
Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

James' instructions are about taking the initiative and responding in prayer whatever our current condition. Prayer is about taking steps in God’s direction. Maybe when we open the door a smudge wider, others get a wider view of the other side, and that then changes them.

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Oswald Chambers’ reading yesterday (October 26) for My Utmost for His Highest  - read one day late, caught my eye this morning. It says:

WHAT IS A MISSIONARY?
"As My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you." John 20:21

A missionary is one sent by Jesus Christ as He was sent by God. The great dominant note is not the needs of men, but the command of Jesus. The source of our inspiration in work for God is behind, not before. The tendency to-day is to put the inspiration ahead, to sweep everything in front of us and bring it all out to our conception of success. In the New Testament the inspiration is put behind us, the Lord Jesus. The ideal is to be true to Him, to carry out His enterprises.

Personal attachment to the Lord Jesus and His point of view is the one thing that must not be overlooked. In missionary enterprise the great danger is that God's call is effaced by the needs of the people until human sympathy absolutely overwhelms the meaning of being sent by Jesus. The needs are so enormous, the conditions so perplexing, that every power of mind falters and fails. We forget that the one great reason underneath all missionary enterprise is not first the elevation of the people, nor the education of the people, nor their needs; but first and foremost the command of Jesus Christ - "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations."

When looking back on the lives of men and women of God the tendency is to say - What wonderfully astute wisdom they had! How perfectly they understood all God wanted! The astute mind behind is the Mind of God, not human wisdom at all. We give credit to human wisdom when we should give credit to the Divine guidance of God through childlike people who were foolish enough to trust God's wisdom and the supernatural equipment of God.

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I translated and reinterpreted that into “What is an Intercessor?”  - the second line striking a chord:

“The great dominant note is not the needs of men but the command of Jesus .”

I realized that in praying for others, we can so easily get caught up in their needs rather than God’s answer. Mercy, or maybe more accurately human sympathy, makes the best of us and we want their prayers to be answered just as they requested it.

Today in our staff meeting, Jenny who is 9 months minus 2 weeks pregnant (she’s due Nov 13) asked, “Pray that my labor starts right after I drop Grant off at preschool in the morning. That way I’ll be all dressed, Grant will be taken care of while I’m in labor, and basing it on Grant’s 8-hour labor, I should have the baby just in time for Carl to pick up Grant from school and then visit me in the hospital.”

Jenny was kidding – okay, only half kidding because it would be really convenient for it to work out that way – but she was honest enough with her friends to share her specific request with God, and we loved her for it.

God doesn’t mind; but he also doesn’t always answer in those specific ways. Because then Who would be God? Who would be in control and without knowledge and understanding of how all the other pieces of the puzzle fit. As Oswald writes, we want the answer to be “our conception of success.”

Now it’s one thing to request that of God – and that’s totally okay because we are limited in our perception of the possibilities out there, so we plan and ask for what is possible.

But an intercessor, if we want to truly pray the best for those for whom we intercede, we need to lay down the request and ask for the even more that is God’s answer to prayer.

There is no way that we can anticipate God’s better, fuller, more complex, elegant, indescribable solution. I am learning that the best we can do is anticipate a semblance of what that might look like but leave the details up to God.

As intercessors, we must cultivate a playfulness, a willingness to change the rules, the rewards, the winner. It’s what Chambers says in the last line: [we must be] childlike people who were foolish enough to trust God's wisdom and the supernatural equipment of God.

That says to me that we can delight in God’s answers if we trust him.

The other thought I have been playing with today came up in my Sunday small group as we talked yesterday about Predestination and being chosen – or in non Presbyterian terms, knowing that we have an eternal life with God. We know the end story. We know what will happen at the end of this earthly life, and we know that God will make a new heaven and earth at the end of the world’s story.

If we know the end, then, perhaps our concern should be not what happens at the end but our journey there. How will we spend that journey? God has given us extreme freedom in getting to the end, and we can choose how will we work through the process. Will it be with Him or without Him? Will it be alone or with others? We can choose to fight God and others all the way. Or we can choose to appreciate the company God’s given us and laugh, cry, learn together. We can choose to disagree with God and act the distasteful contrarian. Or we can indulge ourselves in the myriad of experiences that God wants to see us through.

Who would have thought this 40  Day Fast would hold so much? At the outset, I thought of it as a desert, a deprivation, a getting through. But I am learning so much. It's like discovering every cactus has a flower, every desert an oasis, and learning to walk without fear in the cool and dark of night.

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Day 8
As God would have it, Day 8 was a Sunday and spent in the active practice of prayer at our church. Interesting, huh?

It came in two parts. Dan’s sermon was on Samson and his misuse of his gifts. He challenged us to consider whether we were using the gifts God has given so generously to each of us for ourselves or for the kingdom. At the end of the worship service, Dan he an invitation to people to either make a first time commitment to following Jesus Christ.

Oh me of little faith, I was startled in the third service, the smallest of our services, to see people jumping out of their seats and streaming down the aisle until there was no room at the front. They came alone. They came hugging spouses and friends. And there were lots of tears.

Seeing that Dan did not have enough elders and prayer team members to pray with people, I went forward to help and ended up praying with two women. I never know exactly what to pray with these people, not knowing their stories and not wanting to assume anything. But it is always a privilege to welcome their further step into God’s arms.

I know that every step is part of the process of God unfolding our lives. Moments like these are markers – but I am always praying, hoping that they don’t become plateaus. Decisions to follow Christ are not accomplishments but opening a door. I asked the Holy Spirit to become even more real in the two people with whom I prayed. He really is the best teacher, and His powerful filling is the fastest way to discovering intimacy with God.

The second part was our healing service in the evening. I was disappointed that the two men, as it turned out, didn’t have an obvious health problems that we could test for healing right away. Instead, they had long-term issues, one a chronic health condition, the other a long separation from his children because of unresolvable marital difficulties. Those were hard. I had no answers, no wisdom. I felt no overwhelming passion or strong connection.

But I guess God just wanted me to pray with them and offer comfort. I’m hoping that God used my gift of a listening ear and a comforting word.

I’m learning that as a pray-er, I don’t have the answers. That’s not my job or responsibility. They thirst but I don’t have the contents, only the cup that I can carry to their lips.

I am learning to become detached and not be anxious for the answer they want.

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End of the first seven days and first week of our church fasting

What I’m Learning About Prayer
Most prayers aren’t answered the way we want them answered. We want our problems to go away immediately and without any residual aftereffects as if the need for prayer never existed. We want a miracle and we want it now.

But it just doesn’t happen that way. That’s a statistical fact. Few people are healed instantly, even less raised from the dead. Financial worries don’t disappear over night. That prodigal son or daughter returns home but with most of the same baggage. Traumas leave scars. Yet, prayers are still answered, and they are no less miraculous.

I’m learning there is always a cost—time, space, resources, emotions, strength. The answers to our prayers take time, not just the minutes, days or years ticking away, but time from others who sit down with us while the answer comes to completion. They require moving things around. They requires others to give. They task us, and tire us.

Couldn’t God just zap it!? He could, but what would we learn – about others and about ourselves? We develop patience because we have to wait. We become compassionate because we begin to feel deeply. We find wisdom when the answers are not easy. We love others when we walk slowly through their lives with them.

Prayer is a gift. That we could talk to the Creator and know that He is listening, that we could pour out our feelings to Someone who can absorb all the pain and frustration and helplessness that wracks our bodies, that we can know that when we have reached our human limitations we can reach toward the Divine — that and the even more of prayer is a continually unwrapping gift. We can never empty out the gift of prayer.

And intercessory prayer, I am learning, is not the onerous, laborious, heavily depressing task that it appears. Praying for others and their needs is helping me understand eternity and how long God’s arm is. Praying for my friends does not drop like a heavy stone into my life, as if the answers were my responsibility. Instead, praying for those whom God has called me feels like a gift because I can help them carry the weight. Carry the weight, not hold the weight – carry it to God.

How do I know God answers prayers? Because He has answered prayers in my life, few the way I demanded, but perfectly in the way He deconstructs them and reconstructs me.

Prayer does change me, and when I am changed I can do the thing I could not, would not do before. It enables me to give without thought of myself, to love others with the mirrors faced outward.


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On my prayer list
My financial advisor and his staff as they help clients be heavenly minded with our earthly treasures.
A young friend getting married next week whose job future is uncertain
A daughter whose mother has a critical heart problem in need of surgery
Friends whose employers have announced job cuts
A mom who learned recently that both her adult children have genetically based auto-immune disorders
Our country, the upcoming elections, the candidates and their families and staff
My family, my children, Dan my husband
The healing service at 1st Pres Honolulu at Koolau tomorrow (today), October 26, 2008

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Excerpt from “The Great Divorce” by C.S. Lewis, one of my very favorite books.

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