Just A Thought...
When I was a child we prayed the same prayer before every meal:
Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest. Let this food to us be blessed. This we ask in Jesus name. Amen.
It was a simple prayer which could be said in three different speeds. If the food was really good, we would speed through the prayer. If we weren't as excited, but not too bummed, about what was for dinner we would speak the prayer at normal speed. But if the food was was less than our favorite, we spoke the prayer slowly and with greater hope, hoping when we opened our eyes the food would be miraculously changed. No matter how fast or slow we prayed, the food set before us was always the same, and no matter what we thought of it the expectation was the same: eat it without complaining.
It didn't take long for our parents to realize what my sisters and I were doing. We were told a number of times to slow down when we prayed, and sometimes told to try it again. We thought it was punishment, after all why else would they make us repeat what we've already said? In reality our parents were teaching a discipline.
Now that I'm a parent, praying before a meal is something we do. The temptation is for our children to rush to the table, especially when they're hungry or when the food is the favorite, and begin nibbling. "Can I just..." is the beginning of many questions pre-dinner prayer. And yes, there has been occasion for us to repeat a prayer or start over. Not because I'm trying to be mean, nor because it's just what my parents did to me, but because I truly believe there is something holy and beautiful about taking time to acknowledge both our need and our gratitude.

As You Prepare...

There's a lot of questions we have about prayer. What is prayer? How does prayer work? Are some of the common questions we might have. There's nothing wrong with these questions, they simply reveal our inquisitive human nature, and I'm certain there have been many who have come before us who have asked the same questions. But we do have to be carefully aware. While these questions can help us to understand prayer in a more powerful way, they can also be the same questions which lead us to avoid praying altogether.
Both Matthew and Luke's Gospel tell of the time when Jesus' disciples ask Him to teach them to pray. His response, in Luke's Gospel, begins in a way which is familiar to many:
"When you pray, say: 'Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come.'"
While a familiar prayer, this can easily become a rote prayer due to our familiarity without our understanding. The truth is that this one sentence is filled with power-filled words and requests.
First, hallowed be your name. The term hallowed is not a term we often use in our language today. In its simplest form it means set apart. It comes from the same root word as holy.As we've discussed a number of times, Jesus and His disciples are living in a polytheistic world, meaning there are many gods who are being acknowledged and worshipped on a daily basis. So as Jesus is teaching His disciples to pray, He begins by identifying there is only one God and He is the holy One, Yahweh.
The second immediate thing Jesus speaks about in His prayer is the Kingdom of God. In the same way we don't use the word hallowed on a daily basis in our world today, we also don't speak much about kingdoms. But kingdoms in the Old and New Testament times meant everything. If you wanted to demonstrate your power and your worth, you built your kingdom. And how did you build your kingdom? By overpowering other kingdoms. And the Jewish people knew about kingdoms, they spent centuries under the brutal oppression of kingdoms: The Egyptians, Persians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Greeks and Romans. This is also why so many wanted Jesus to be a king who will liberate them. But Jesus comes to establish a new kingdom, the Kingdom of God, here on the earth. His Kingdom is different. Instead of oppression it brings freedom. Instead of brutality it has at its center love. So after Jesus proclaims there is but one God, Yahweh, He says may the things of your Kingdom be experienced here on this earth.
This is important for us to know for three reasons. One, we too live in a polytheistic world. We made not make idols with our hands to directly worship them, but we do have other idols in our lives which demand more of our time than we devote to God. If you don't think that's true, just look at your cell phone usage over the past week as compared to the time you've spent with God. Which is greater? The second is that we do live in a kingdom-driven world, but fail to acknowledge it. A kingdom-driven world asks the question, "how does this ultimately benefit me?" Another way of asking that question is, "how does this increase my value?" Very few people spend their life thinking they want to be a nobody, and that's not entirely a bad thing. But we must consider what it means to be valuable and from where and how do we get our value. The final thing this teaches us is that prayer is not our way of getting God to fulfill our agenda, but asking God to be a part of His. The theologian Bruce Ware once wrote:
"The relationship between divine sovereignty and petitionary prayer can be stated by this word: participation."
So as we pray, we do not do so as a child rushing to eat what he knows will satisfy his hunger, but as image-bearers of the Living God who desire to be a part of their Father's work.

Just A Thought...
Last week my wife and I joined two friends for a backpacking adventure in the Ouachita Mountains in Arkansas. We left early Thursday morning and were on the trails with our packs by 1:30 PM. Our goal: 26.5 miles over 6 mountains in 48 hours with 20-something pound backpacks.
The first day wasn't too bad, just 7 miles. As we started our trek our conversations were fun and light-hearted while the trail was fairly mild and no mountains to climb. The trails maneuvered through the tall trees which provided great shade from the sun, a brief rain cooled us off before we got to a waterfall and spent some time relaxing in the river. We capped off the first time by setting up camp next to the river under the trees.
Day two began a little different. Before I could even step out of my tent I could feel the soreness of day one in my muscles. Day two was also the day of the mountains. The winding trails of day one turned into straight lines up one side and down the other. The soreness of day one turned into cramping muscles with each new step. We'd take a break at the top, and another at the bottom, setting our backpacks down for a few minutes. Of course for every time you set your backpack down, it meant you had to pick it up again, an act in which your muscles reminded you how much they hated you at the moment. But alas, after 12 hours we arrived at our campsite by the river for night number two.
Our final day was much like the first, but with the soreness of day two. Each step was a reminder of how close we were to the end and the reminder of what had already been accomplished. And as we arrived at our car and set our packs down for the final time, the satisfaction of accomplishing something that sounded good in words, but was challenging in action. And if asked if I'd do it again, the answer would be Absolutely! Just not today though.

Reflection...
Jesus gives us pretty clear instructions on what it means to follow Him:
"Whoever wants to be My disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow Me."
Let's be honest, that's a hard pill to swallow. And not just the denying part, or the just the take up the cross part, or even just the follow Me part, but knowing this is not just one moment of our lives, but all these things, everyday of our lives. It's even more difficult to do so in a world consumed with the elevation of self. It's not that everything surrounding one's self is a bad thing. After all, we should take time for things like self-care and self-awareness. But what we must carefully consider is the fine line between the denial of self which Jesus calls us to, and self-denial which the world would call us to.
To understand the differences we have to differentiate between the two. In it's simplest form, the outcome of self-denial is for the benefit of one's self. Think of it this way. If a person wanted to lose weight, the deny themselves of specific foods or beverages. The goal is to change their exterior appearance or their overall health. Neither of these is bad, but the emphasis can be placed on the individual's own ability to create the desired outcome. On the other hand, to deny one's self is to glorify God in one's life. One way of thinking about this is to consider if you've ever wanted more hours in the day in order that you can have time to spend one-on-one with God, or if your day is built around your time with Him. Meaning, denying self means everything about who we are and what we do revolves around our intimacy with God. Another way of thinking about this is to consider what are the negotiable and non-negotiable moments of your every day. Not just considering which list you would place God on, but also would you be willing to let go of your non-negotiables for the sake of Christ.
Charles Spurgeon, a Baptist preacher from the 1800's, once wrote:
"The greatest enemy to human souls is the self-righteous spirit which makes men look to themselves for salvation."
If self-denial is an act of self-glorification, then in doing so we make our self not only the recipient, but also the source of any transformation which might take place. If denying self is an act of God-glorification, then we acknowledge that transformation which takes place can only be experienced through God, and not only do we become the recipient, but also the participant. Self-denial leads to a me-centered mentality, denying self leads to a God-centered heart.
Not only are Jesus' instructions to deny oneself a hard pill to swallow, but learning to do this on a daily basis can be just as difficult. Taking care of oneself can be very healthy and holy, but we must be very mindful not to elevate oneself in the process.

Grace & peace,
Brandon