Jim Pace not only is a clone of Scott Van Pelt from ESPN but he's also a pastor and lead navigator at [nlcf] in Blacksburg, VA and author of Should We Fire God? to be released April 8, 2010
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As I shared earlier, I am getting in on this Lent bandwagon. I am actually very excited about the chance to focus the next
several weeks on reflection, generosity, and increased scripture reading and prayer. How can that be bad?
One thing that I am using to go through this season is a book that I also mentioned yesterday. It is called by Stanley Hauerwas. I will be reading these prayers, in addition to scripture, and reflecting on them throughout the day.
I want to share something that he wrote on the book-flap.
If anything, these prayers are plain. They are so because I discovered I could not pray differently than I speak. In other words, I thought it would be a mistake to try to assume a different identity when I prayed. I figured… that God could take it, because God did not need to be protected. I think I leaned this over the yearsby praying the Psalms in church. God does not want us to come to the altar differently from how we live therest of our lives. Therefore I do not try to be pious or use pious language in these prayers. I try to speak plainly, yet I hope with some eloquence, since nothing is more eloquent than simplicity.” Stanley Hauerwas
Here is today’s prayer…
“MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE, you have made us your servants, kings and queens in your world. We confess we do not feel much like rulers: we are not only incapable of doing what we want, we are not even sure what we should or do want. We, in short, do not even seem to rule ourselves. As a result we fail you, our brothers and sisters in Christ, our brothers and sisters who are in the world, and ourselves. Give us the enthusiasm of your Spirit, that we may be so filled with your love that others will be attracted to your rule. AMEN.” Stanley Hauerwas
Peace, Jim
As I shared earlier, I am getting in on this Lent bandwagon. I am actually very excited about the chance to focus the next several weeks on reflection, generosity, and increased scripture reading and prayer. How can that be bad?
One thing that I am using to go through this season is a book that I also mentioned yesterday. It is called by Stanley Hauerwas. I will be reading these prayers, in addition to scripture, and reflecting on them throughout the day.
I want to share something that he wrote on the book-flap.
If anything, these prayers are plain. They are so because I discovered I could not pray differently than I speak. In other words, I thought it would be a mistake to try to assume a different identity when I prayed. I figured… that God could take it, because God did not need to be protected. I think I leaned this over the years by praying the Psalms in church. God does not want us to come to the altar differently from how we live the rest of our lives. Therefore I do not try to be pious or use pious language in these prayers. I try to speak plainly, yet I hope with some eloquence, since nothing is more eloquent than simplicity.” Stanley Hauerwas
Here is today’s prayer…
LORD ALMIGHTY, we say we want to serve you, we saw we want to help others less fortunate than ourselves, we say we want justice. but the truth is, we want power and status because we so desperately need to be loved. Free us from our self-fascination and the anxious activity it breeds, so that we might be what we say we want to be — loved by you and thus capable of unselfish service. AMEN.” Stanley Hauerwas
As I shared earlier, I am getting in on this Lent bandwagon. I am actually very excited about the chance to focus the next several weeks on reflection, generosity, and increased scripture reading and prayer. How can that be bad?
One thing that I am using to go through this season is a book that I also mentioned yesterday. It is called by Stanley Hauerwas. I will be reading these prayers, in addition to scripture, and reflecting on them throughout the day.
I want to share something that he wrote on the book-flap.
If anything, these prayers are plain. They are so because I discovered I could not pray differently than I speak. In other words, I thought it would be a mistake to try to assume a different identity when I prayed. I figured… that God could take it, because God did not need to be protected. I think I leaned this over the yearsby praying the Psalms in church. God does not want us to come to the altar differently from how we live therest of our lives. Therefore I do not try to be pious or use pious language in these prayers. I try to speak plainly, yet I hope with some eloquence, since nothing is more eloquent than simplicity.” Stanley Hauerwas
Here is today’s prayer…
ZEALOUS GOD, we confess, like your people Israel, that we tire of being “the chosen.” Could you not just leave us alone every once in a while? Sometimes this “Christian stuff” gets a bit much. Life goes on and we have lives to live. Yet, unrelenting, you refuse to leave us alone. You are, after all, a zealous God. You startle us from our reveries by gathering us into your dream time, into your church. May we, thus gathered, be so inspired by your Spirit that our lives never tire, that we have the energy now to wait, to rest, in the goodness and beauty of your truth. AMEN.” Stanley Hauerwas
Peace, Jim
As I shared earlier, I am getting in on this Lent bandwagon. I am actually very excited about the chance to focus the next
several weeks on reflection, generosity, and increased scripture reading and prayer. How can that be bad?
One thing that I am using to go through this season is a book that I also mentioned yesterday. It is called by Stanley Hauerwas. I will be reading these prayers, in addition to scripture, and reflecting on them throughout the day.
Here is today’s prayer…
“LIGHT OF THE TRUE LIGHT, true God from true God, give us clear sight, courage to see your sinful, rebellious, dreadful world as it is, not as we want it to be. Save us from narcissistic fascinations that cloud our understanding with our unknowings. Give us clear and innocent sight, the sight of children, capable of seeing beauty in a common rock. Your creation glows with your fiery glory. Draw us to the fire, consume us with your glory, that we may glow with your salvation, your light for the world. AMEN.” Stanley Hauerwas
Peace, Jim
This post is a continuation of a series for those who, like me, would like to engage the season of Lent in a meaningful way,
but who, like me, also benefit from the encouragement of others while we do that. We all realize that the blogosphere cannot grant us the true community that Christ taught us to live in. But it does afford us the opportunity to learn together, to share our thoughts and experiences, and then take those into our day to day lives.
Here is today’s prayer.
“LORD OF ALL LIFE, we come before you not knowing who we are. We strut our stuff, trying to impress others with our self-confidence. In the process we hope to be what we pretend. Save us fro such pretense, that we might lean who we are through trust in you to make us more than we can imagine. Help us, Augustine-like, to reread our lives as confessions of sin made possible by your live. Bind up our wounds and our joys so that our lives finally make sense only as a prayer to you. AMEN.”
Peace, Jim
This post is a continuation of a series for those who, like me, would like to engage the season of Lent in a meaningful way, but who, like me, also benefit from the encouragement of others while we do that. We all realize that the blogosphere cannot grant us the true community that Christ taught us to live in. But it does afford us the opportunity to learn together, to share our thoughts and experiences, and then take those into our day to day lives.
These posts are from the book, by Stanley Hauerwas. If you take some scripture that you are reading and reflecting on and add to it these prayers, my prayer will be that the Holy Spirit speaks his love into your soul.
“Spirit of Truth, direct our attention to the life of Jesus so that we might see what you would have us be. Make us, like him, teachers of your good law. Make us, like him, performers of miraculous cures. Make us, like him, loving of the poor, the outcast, children. Make us, like him, silent when the world tempts us to respond in the world’s terms. Make us, like him, ready to suffer. We know we cannot be like Jesus except as Jesus was unlike us, being your Son. Make us cherish that unlikeness, that we may grow into the likeness made possible by Jesus’ resurrection. AMEN.” Stanley Hauerwas
Peace, Jim
This is part three of a three part posting on processing when God doesn’t do what we ask him to do. Posts one and two are below.
When we do that, we can start to do what Nouwen describes here.
“Dear God, I am so afraid to open my clenched fists!
Who will I be when I have nothing left to hold on to? Who will I be when I stand before you with empty hands?
Please help me to gradually open my hands and to discover that I am not what I own, but what you want to give me.
And what you want to give me is love, unconditional, everlasting love. Amen.”
— Henri Nouwen (The Only Necessary Thing: Living a Prayerful Life)
Nouwen’s point is that we hold things with an open hand. That we trust God enough to relax and instead of grasping or feeling the need to grasp, we relax. It doesn’t mean we don’t work or that effort isn’t needed. It certainly doesn’t mean we don’t ask for specifics, if anything, this has drawn me into asking for more than I did before. It gets to our heart in the midst of that work and effort.
When we are able to see God’s presence in our everyday lives and experiences, and when we can realize that he is more deeply committed to our good and us than we are ever to his. Then our faith, which is the promise of that which is unseen and that which is hoped for, begins to truly come alive.
So, my friend continues to pray for his job. Yes, he would prefer predictability, but what inspires me is his willingness to hang in there for the ride. To pray, to trust, and to remember that he is not alone in this, and he hasn’t been from the start of it.
So, to me, that is what faith is. It isn’t greater predictability, it isn’t a lack of confusion at times or often. It isn’t ceasing asking for specifics out of frustration or confusion. Faith means asking the Father you are convinced loves you for the things that matter to you, and then trusting him, whatever the response. It means holding everything with an open hand, and relaxing. Often he will respond in ways that make sense to us. But that honestly isn’t the point anymore. What matters more than getting what I want is the confidence that I will get what he thinks is best.
More and more, that is enough.
To me, that is the assurance of things unseen, the promise of things hoped for.
Peace, Jim
As I shared yesterday, I am getting in on this Lent bandwagon. I am actually very excited about the chance to focus the
next several weeks on reflection, generosity, and increased scripture reading and prayer. How can that be bad?
One thing that I am using to go through this season is a book that I also mentioned yesterday. It is called by Stanley Hauerwas. I will be reading these prayers, in addition to scripture, and reflecting on them throughout the day.
I want to share something that he wrote on the book-flap.
If anything, these prayers are plain. They are so because I discovered I could not pray differently than I speak. In other words, I thought it would be a mistake to try to assume a different identity when I prayed. I figured… that God could take it, because God did not need to be protected. I think I leaned this over the yearsby praying the Psalms in church. God does not want us to come to the altar differently from how we live therest of our lives. Therefore I do not try to be pious or use pious language in these prayers. I try to speak plainly, yet I hope with some eloquence, since nothing is more eloquent than simplicity.” Stanley Hauerwas
So, I pray this prayer is an encouragement to you to reflect on today.
Peace, Jim
“Gracious God, we thank you for the gift of prayer. What an extraordinary thing that we can pray to you, unburden ourselves before you, place our cares, woes and joys before you. I confess I find praying an awkward business. I keep thinking, Who am I to pray? But I know that to be false humility, hiding my prideful desire to be my own creator. So we pray a prayer of joy in prayer, asking that we become your prayers for one another. AMEN.”
I have been aware of the season of Lent for as long as I can remember. As a child I remember people talking about it being the time that you gave up chocolate before Easter. In my mind, you wouldn’t eat it so that when you got all the candy on Easter morning, you wouldn’t gain too much weight.
Over the years I have come to understand the whole deal a bit better. 
I have come to understand the 40-day period of fasting, prayer, generosity and scripture reading as something that is much more robust than something that keeps us trim. A period that was symbolically set at the 40 days prior to Easter after the period of time that Jesus was in the wilderness fasting and preparing for his earthly ministry to begin. Simply put,and likely overly simply put, we take these days to reflect and consider what Christ did in his life, death and resurecttion. We prepare our hearts for what needs to be the biggest day on a follow of Christ’s calendar, the day he phyically showed that even death wasn’t strong enough to hold him. Even death has been overcome.
But I cannot think of the last time that I felt led by the Lord to give anything up for it. I don’t belong to a denomination or group of churches that mandates engaging in this process. So, while most years I would spend time to prepare for the resurrection of Jesus, I never fully engaged the season. I just never sensed that God would telling me to and so I chose not to.
This year is different. And I cannot fully tell you why. (more…)
This post is a part of a three part posting that started here… Welcome to the conversation!
We clearly live in a Westernized culture that has been deeply impacted by both the scientific and industrial revolutions. Both of those have been unbelievably helpful to our culture and the world. We are now able to break down complex systems (organic and inorganic) into smaller parts, study them, and in many cases reproduce or replicate them. These processes are sometimes called systematic deconstruction, we organize something, break it down to its component parts, sort it out then begin to rebuild it. How many advances in medicine can be traced back to those processes?. How many developments in the industrial sector (that we likely appreciate in our economy all the more now) as well?
One of the issues that has come with these advances, though, is that they can tend to be overused and applied in areas where they are less helpful, or even misguided. James Watson, often called the father of Behaviorism, famously stated,
“Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select – doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors. I am going beyond my facts and I admit it, but so have the advocates of the contrary and they have been doing it for many thousands of years.”
Even though Watson isn’t as radical as some might think him to be, he applied a deconstructionist model to parenting and most of us would say that was a misuse. (more…)
