My Prayer Distractions

As is my usual routine, I woke up early this morning, made some coffee, read a couple of chapters in my Bible, and then set out for a walk—hoping to spend some quiet time in prayer with the Lord. My intentions were strong, and my expectations were high. But as soon as I stepped outside into the cold, still morning, my mind became more of a marketplace than a sanctuary.

First, I noticed the leaves that still needed raking, which somehow led me to think about needing gas for the chainsaw to cut firewood (don’t ask me how that connection happened). Then, I remembered I should order gravel for the driveway. Just as I was finally getting to the “Good morning, Lord” part of my prayer, it hit me—I needed to send out our monthly update, start preparing sermons for my trip to Cameroon, apologize to my daughter for eating the chocolate candies she left on the counter, make some phone calls, and, of course, clean up the dog poop in the front yard. Talk about distractions.

The good news? I eventually set those thoughts aside and spent some time in prayer. But it was a battle to keep my focus on the Lord instead of my endless to-do list. Even as I walked another mile or two, trying to pray for my family, friends, and ministry, my mind kept drifting—to finances, relationships, personal struggles, and a mix of both important and trivial thoughts.

By the time I finished my walk and stepped back inside, I wondered if my so-called “prayer walk” had even been worthwhile. I considered heading back out to try again, this time with a more disciplined approach. But then it dawned on me—distractions are part of life.  In fact, sometimes they are life.  And since life is what we pray about, maybe distractions aren’t interruptions to prayer at all. Maybe they’re prayer requests in disguise—things God actually wants me to talk to Him about.

When I have conversations with my wife, they don’t become more meaningful just because I show up with a list and an agenda. Often, the best conversations happen when we talk about all the things that interrupted our plans and derailed our schedules. Maybe prayer is the same way. Paul tells us to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17) and to bring everything to God in prayer (Phil. 4:6). How could we possibly do that without including our distractions?

So, I didn't go back out on the road to "re-pray" my prayers. I simply thanked the Lord for listening to me as I talked to Him and for listening in on me as I talked to myself. Then I committed all my distractions to Him.

Why Every Believer Should Watch Violent War Movies

Ok, let me backtrack just a moment and say that I really don't think we should all watch violent war movies.....but it did get your attention didn't it?!

And here's my point.  I don't think most of us who profess Christ as our Lord (read: Commander-in-Chief) and Savior truly understand the spiritual war we are in and especially how violently our enemies oppose and desire to severely damage and if possible destroy our very souls.  Now my use of the plural form of enemy is not a typo.  I am referring to the dark threesome of our sinful flesh, the world, and Satan himself.  This is a devastatingly powerful alliance which, has committed itself to the total destruction of our souls.  These three are as committed as they can possibly be to fighting a full-scale, take no prisoners, brutally savage, all-out, merciless, and spiritually toxic war against our very souls with the intent to, at the very least render us inoperative and no longer effective as combatants in battle.  More desirable than this however, to this unholy alliance, is to so damage our souls through a barrage of effective, soul-crippling, spiritual-life-sapping, and collaterally damaging attacks that we look, live, and feel more like our enemy than we do our King.

Some of you don't need a war movie to help you envision the destruction of war because you were there.  You've seen what war does.  You've heard the cries, felt the darkness, and captured the destruction in your memories never ever to be forgotten.  Others have experienced the carnage of war as a result of its collaterally damaging affects which with precise potency can be even more savage than the first-strike itself.  For those who have never seen or felt war there are war movies.  And I'm not talking about the sounds of bombs off in the distance, bases still intact, no blood, no screams, non-terrifying movies of a generation ago with actors still wearing unsoiled, unspoiled, untouched, unmarred, and still gleaming uniforms.  No, I'm talking about movies like We Were Soldiers,  Black Hawk Down and Hacksaw Ridge in which the watchers are shocked, sickened, and may even find themselves forced to turn away from the carnage depicted on the screen.

You see, war destroys.  That is what it is designed to do.  Wars are fought to destroy the enemy as ferociously fast and effectively as possible.  Wars are all about crushing and terrorizing the enemy so as to make him give up the fight, surrender the cause, and never rise up in arms again.  And this is what our three-fold enemies have in mind for us.  Don't believe me?  Take a look at 1 Peter 2:11.  Peter does not use the word "war" for its attention grabbing value.  Rather, when he tells us that our fleshly lusts are waging war against our souls think about those really violent scenes in those war movies you have watched lately and then come to grips with the fact that this is no movie.  This is the real thing.  What your fleshly lusts are doing to your soul are for the intent of so severely damaging your soul that you surrender the fight, are taken prisoner, and lost to the cause.  This is spiritual warfare and it is deadly to the soul that is unprepared or unwilling to fight (Rom. 8:13).

That's the bad news.  The good news, however, is that no matter how critically wounded the soul, it can be restored.  No matter how devastating the damage, our souls can be revived and renewed.  Psalm 19:7 gives us this hope.  But you need to look it up and read it to find the hope.  No one else can do this for you.  Its your soul, your battle, and your duty.  Read it and you will see.  Then read verses 8-11.  There is indeed hope for even the most severely damaged souls who will give their attention to God's Word and fight.  It is possible to restore the soul, reengage the enemy, and win the war!  Don't Quit.  Don't Give-In.

The Church--And Can She Be?

One of the questions I am often asked in my travels overseas, training pastors, is what would our vision for the local church be, if we used scriptural parameters rather than those of our own cultural and denominational making.  Here is the answer I give them.

The church would be a healthy, vibrant, fruitful body of regenerate (born again) believers that brings honor to Christ whether gathered on Sundays for worship or scattered throughout the week for evangelism, ministry in the community, or life at home.  She would be a church after Christ's own heart so that He can look at His sufferings--embraced and endured on the cross--and rejoice that they were well worth it.  She would be a church that makes much of Christ by making much of the Gospel, by believing it and preaching it to herself for her progress in holiness and to the lost for their salvation.  Risk-taking for the sake of adorning and sharing the Gospel would be the norm rather than the exception.  And since the desire of every heart would be to see Christ receive the reward of His sufferings--evangelism, discipleship, church-planting, and missions would not take second place to the color of the carpet, new comfortable chairs, or repaved parking lots.  Of course, doctrine, the ordinances of baptism and communion, and church discipline would matter.

When gathered, there would be a feeling of humble reverence as well as an air of joyous familial informality, where each esteems others better than himself, where everyone is important but no one jockeys to become important, and where all recognize Christ as Head.  Among believers would be a beautiful simplicity and a radiant Christian love that makes no room nor provision for gossip, talebearing, and discord. Spiritual gifts would be exercised not discussed; prophecies heard not despised; people served not used; and the Spirit set free not quenched. 

Childlike candor without duplicity, dishonesty, or disharmony would mark Christ’s church.  Power struggles and power plays would have no place within this Body.  Safe, humble, and honest conversations would happen as we learn to disagree agreeably about the things we don't see eye to eye upon. Sin would be confessed because it could be confessed without fear of condemnation, becoming an outcast, or reprisal. In this church, there'd be no large scarlet letter "A's" sewed on your clothes for all to see and shun. The seeking and the granting of forgiveness would be as common as eating, drinking, and sleeping.   And at all costs and as much as is possible, strained and broken relationships would be repaired and restored for the sake of Christ’s honor.

Men and women alike would be respected, honored, and expected to fulfill their God-ordained, biblical, and  complementary roles not allowing these sacred roles to be confused or compromised by the satanic and demonic influences of the world. Marriage would be held in honor as the picture it is of Christ's love for His bride and His bride's loving respectful submission to Him. Children, born and unborn, would be cherished, loved, protected, and taught the Scriptures which are able to provide them with "the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus".

What is done within Christ’s church would be done “in the Spirit” rather than “in the flesh” and if this is the case the presence of Christ would be felt by His beloved.  Sunday’s worship would be entered into, experienced, celebrated, and enjoyed because Christ has been entered into, experienced, celebrated, and enjoyed Monday through Saturday.  The singing of praise would be passionate because Christ is worthy of our passion.  The reading of God’s Word would be honored and done honorably for the honor of God’s Name.   And the sermon would be anticipated as that time when our Lord speaks to us through His Word utilizing the sincere simplicity of a man He has called to be “a fool for Him”.  Prayers offered before the Throne of Grace would be sincere, simple, and straightforward realizing God is not only able to answer but willing.  Prayers would be offered and answered so regularly that it is understood as normal rather than abnormal.   And when necessary, miracles would not be uncommon but worldly frivolity and entertainment would be. 

Is all this, in the light of Scripture, unreasonable to expect in and of a church? . . . Is this impossible?  Is anything impossible with God?  Is anything impossible where the Lord Jesus Christ is on the throne and His people live like it?  Is this unscriptural?  No!  The only thing that is unscriptural about this vision, is that as biblical as it is—it is not yet BIG enough.  The scriptural standards are higher still.  God not only is able, but desires to do far more abundantly beyond all that we could ever ask or imagine, according to the power of the Spirit that works within His church and He desires to do this so that He would be glorified in and through His church (Ephesians 3:20-21).  

If you believe in this vision for the church— if you would like to see this kind of reformation, this change for the better, this recapturing of the ancient power of God in the souls of His people, then there must be a radical restructuring in our minds and hearts as to whose vision for the church we should embrace--our's or God's.  The Church--and could she be?  

Making Decisions About The Future Without Knowing The Future

Decisions, especially those major, life-changing decisions about the future, are challenging, to say the least.  What makes them particularly difficult, at least for me, is just the simple fact that I'm trying to make a decision about the future, that will affect my family's and my future, without being privy to what the future even looks like.  This can cause me as well as probably many of you some stress.  So, let me share with you some things I have learned and am learning right now as my wife and I are thinking through what life and ministry could look like for us now that we are on the verge of being "empty nesters".

The big issue for us when making decisions about the future is risk.  We simply don't want to risk making a bad or the wrong decision because we do not know which decision is the best one to make. So, in order to alleviate as much risk as possible we want to know as many details about the future as possible, which for us as believers means asking God to give us clear leading as to what to do because He does know the future we don't know.  But, God doesn't usually work this way.  The future is His to know and ours to find out by experiencing it when it comes (Deuteronomy 29:29).  

As Kevin DeYoung puts it:

"Obsessing over the future is not how God wants us to live, because showing us the future is not God's way.  His way is to speak to us in the Scriptures and transform us by the renewing of our minds.  His way is not a crystal ball.  His way is wisdom.  We should stop looking for God to reveal the future to us and remove all risk from our lives.  We should start looking to God--His character and promises--and thereby have confidence to take risks for His name's sake." 

Our big problem in decision making is not so much a lack of trust as much as it is misplaced trust.  We get wrapped around the axle of trusting God to lead us to make the perfect decision, which will bring about the best possible results whereas, we should be asking God to help us make the wisest, most biblically informed, most gospel-impacting, and most spiritually healthy decision and then trust God with the results--resting in the fact that because of God's sovereignty--all of our decisions will end up being used by Him to accomplish His will for us.  Like, Scotty Smith writes, "Life isn't primarily about making the right decisions but, trusting the right Lord.  

Practically speaking, this means reaching the point in our decision-making process where we desire God's wisdom rather than His omniscience. Certainly, we should research our options and consider all our choices wisely.  But when, what we really want to know is every step, every turn, every possibility, and every outcome of God's plan for our lives we’re no longer seeking understanding, were wanting omniscience.  And quite frankly, the biblical way to making decisions isn’t found in grasping for God’s omniscience, but in grasping God’s hand as we trust that He has been leading and guiding us all along.

When it comes to non-moral choices about specific and perhaps major life-changing decisions, too often, too many of us, approach God's leading as something we just, with the onset of this decision, discovered we needed, rather than assuming that God has been leading us all along as Psalm 23 teaches us.  In other words, instead of assuming we need God's leading in choosing which fork in the road to take, perhaps we should assume that God has been leading us all along and the two options before us are the result of God's leading.  The assumption that God has already been leading us and therefore, has led us to this fork in the road means that either option would be a fine and perfectly good option to pursue since God cannot and would not tempt us to do that which is wrong (James 1:13).  

Looking at our arrival at a junction in life where a major decision is required as a divine appointment and then seeing the choices before us as the good options God has led us to consider and choose from removes the sting of fear from our decision making.  This perspective on decision making leads us to freely and responsibly choose between good, God provided, and God-engineered options so as to experience freedom rather than fear in our decision making.  

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells us not to worry about the future, which obviously encompasses the decisions we have made and will make about the future—not because we have access to the information God only has in His omniscience or because an unknown future isn’t scary, but because our Heavenly Father cares for us:  "Do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?" (Matt. 6:25–26)

The idea of our Heavenly Father caring for us is not merely isolated to providing for our material needs of food and clothing, but also to those multiple and important decisions we must make that end up providing definition to our lives.  Again, the assumption is that as we are seeking God's Kingdom and God's righteousness, He is leading us, and thus the choices He is leading us to are good options to freely choose from.  

But don't make the mistake of thinking that this freedom to choose--promises that our choices will always prove successful or safe.  Freedom has never been a synonym for safety.  In fact, most of the time, freedom is risky, at least from our perspective, because when we do grasp his hand and decide to trust him, we don’t know what he’ll do.  As Elisabeth Elliot writes:

"Our prayers for guidance (or for anything else) really begin here: I trust him. This requires abandonment. We are no longer saying, “If I trust him, he’ll give me such and such,” but, “I trust him. Let him give me or withhold from me what he chooses.”

You see, at the end of the day, assuming God has already been and is continuing to lead us as a result of His providential and sovereign care, as we seek his kingdom and righteousness, means we can freely live life by making the "risky" decisions that will define our lives without overanalyzing every decision or being paralyzed by fear or the prospect of failure.

  

Pastor Tim Keller once shared that when he first came to Manhattan to start Redeemer Presbyterian Church, people asked him, “Are you sure God has called you to start this church in New York City?” His answer surprised most of them and maybe it'll surprise you too.

I think He did. I see an opportunity. I don’t see anybody else taking the opportunity. I feel an obligation to come. I think it’s a good idea. I think God’s calling me. But I can’t be absolutely sure. I can be sure that I must not lie; it’s in the Bible. I can be sure that I must not bow down to idols; it’s in the Bible. I’m sure of a lot of things that are God’s will. But as far as I know, I won’t be sure that I’m called to plant a church until it happens.

And then when these same people would persist, incredulously asking him,  “But, didn’t you have a peace about it?” he replied:

No, it was too hard of a decision. It was too scary. But I know this: guidance is as much something God does as it is something he gives. Therefore, I knew that by selling my house and moving up here and signing a three-year lease that, if I failed to plant a church, God was preparing me for something I couldn’t envision.

In other words, Keller believed God had led him to the decisions and the options he needed to, freely and responsibly, choose between so as to grasp God's hand rather than trying to grasp His omniscience.  And this enabled him to rise above fear in making a life-changing decision and enjoy freedom.  In this, he followed the early Church Father, Augustine's advice, who, simply and succinctly, wrote in a sermon from 1 John 4:4-12, "Love God and do [choose] whatever you please."

We're Either Moving Forward Or We're Wandering In Retreat!

One of the things I have learned over the years both from Scripture as well as my own personal experience is that no matter how mature in Christ, how passionate about the gospel, how effective in ministry, and how greatly we may have sacrificed for the Faith, all of us are still very much prone to wander from the Lord we love.  And it doesn't take much to get us wandering.  For many of us its not as much an intentional walking away from Jesus or from His Word as much as it is an unintentional wandering resulting from the neglect of and inattentiveness to spiritual priorities and disciplines in our lives.  

One of the vivid examples the Bible gives us of such neglect is found in the Book of Nehemiah.  In this autobiographical report, Nehemiah gives us a “play by play” analysis of everything that took place when he traveled from the Persian city of Susa to Jerusalem to lead in the rebuilding of the wall around Jerusalem as well as be used by God to help ignite a spiritual revival.  The climax of this revival is seen in chapters 8-9 where the people, upon hearing the Word of God, read and taught, respond by confessing and repenting of their sins.   Then in chapter 10, they signed a covenant in which they promised to obey and honor the Lord from there on out.  

What a tremendous response to the preaching of the Word of God.  I’m sure Nehemiah was ecstatic.  What preacher wouldn’t be thrilled to have a whole nation respond to the Word of God in such powerful expressions of love and loyalty to the Lord?  

Well after his twelve year success in leading in this great work for God among his people, Nehemiah needed to return to his day job as the cupbearer to King Artexerxes back in Persia.  In preparation, he did what any good leader would do under the same circumstances.  He made sure the reforms he had set in motion would be carried on by qualified men.  Once theses arrangements were made, he then left to resume his service to the king.

Now, fast forward twenty some years and Nehemiah returns to Jerusalem, only to find that in the approximately two decades that he had been gone, the people had drifted back to the way they were before he had come the first time.  I’m sure he was shocked to hear about and actually see for himself that the mountaintop experience of twenty years ago had become a distant memory in the people’s minds and hearts.  And I’m certain, he was greatly saddened to find that the people’s zeal for God’s praise and glory, which burned hot twenty years ago, was now, cold as ice.

Nehemiah 13, is the record of how quickly and gradually God’s people can move from a spiritual high to spiritual decline.  Its a good reminder to all of us that even in our strongest and most vital  moments with God, we are still very “prone to wander from the God we love”.  

It appears, from reading chapter 13, that the people began their departure from Nehemiah’s reforms in very small and seemingly insignificant steps, that really could be described as inattentiveness to God’s Word.  More specifically, the people were guilty of a careless attitude toward corporate worship (13:4-21) while the spiritual leaders were guilty of a nonchalant attitude toward their spiritual leadership responsibilities, giving their time, energy, and influence to following popular, yet unbiblical, trends (13:22, 28-30).

Spiritual and Biblical reform is always an ongoing experience.  If not, it, very quickly, becomes “dis-reform”, which sometimes leads us back to square one in our walk with the Lord.  We must never forget that regardless of whatever progress we have made in Christ, whatever growth and maturity we are experiencing, and however intimate our walk with the Lord is today--we are still prone to wander. We must not forget, that until Heaven, when the presence of sin is completely removed from us, that our hearts are still prone to wander from the God we love.  Therefore, as Proverbs 4:23 commands: We must always “Watch over our hearts with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life.”

Just like the people of God in Nehemiah's day, we cannot afford to underestimate the destructive inclination and desires of our own sinful flesh which we carry with us until the day we die and finally experience freedom from any further influence and inclination toward sin.  Nor can we disregard the powerful pull of the world toward its fruitless, fragile, and fleeting pleasures.  Certainly, we dare not forget that the enemy of our souls, who is none other than the devil, is always prowling around seeking those, who are careless among us, whom he can devour.   Finally, we must always keep at the forefront of our minds, the truth, that we are either moving forward in our battle against sin, our flesh, the world, and the devil or we are in retreat, which is nothing less than wandering.