Below is a portion of a prayer from a book that sits on my desk--right next to my Bible.  The book is, A Diary of Private Prayer by John Baillie.  In the book are written prayers for the morning and evening of every day of the month.  God wants us to pray.  I don't know about you, but prayer is something that I need in my life and it is something that doesn't come easy.  It is ok to read prayers to God.  Sometimes I read Psalms aloud as a form of prayer and other times I read from Baillie's little book on prayer.  Prayers are amazing things--they are what we need to say to God and oftentimes they encompass what we need to hear from God too. 

Here is a portion of the prayer that I read (prayed) and "heard" this morning.

"O Thou who alone knowest what lies before me this day, grant that in every hour of it I may stay close to Thee.  Let me be in the world, yet not of it.  Let me use this world without abusing it.  If I buy, let me be as though I possessed not.  If I have nothing, let me be as though possessing all things.  Let me to-day embark on no undertaking that is not in line with Thy will for my life, nor shrink from any sacrifice which Thy will may demand.  Suggest, direct, control every movement of my mind; for my Lord Christ's sake.  Amen."

We never know how things will turn out.

If you are looking ahead to 2012 and worrying or wondering about the future, you are wasting your time.  You would do well to stop ruminating over the unknown and start remembering the work of God in your life over this past year.

God is constantly imploring his followers to remember...

"Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm." Deuteronomy 5:15

"Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years,..."  Deuteronomy 8:2

“Remember the law of my servant Moses, the decrees and laws I gave him at Horeb for all Israel." Malachi 4:4

[Jesus says] "Do you still not understand? Don’t you remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered?" Matthew 16:9

"Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel,..." 2 Timothy 2:8

"And he [Jesus] took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” Luke 22:19

Sitting here at my cluttered desk on New Year's Eve 2011 I am remembering...

...that my sister has a new kidney.

...that God has done the impossible at our school (TCIS).

...that I have lived another year with my precious wife and two wonderful daughters.

...that I have enjoyed a year of good health.

...that I have friends and family who are growing in their walk with the Lord.

I can't do justice to these rememberings.  In print they look so clean, simple and easy, but you know as well as I do that life is messy.  With the good comes the bad and amazingly, in God's economy, out of the bad God brings good.  This is where remembering really makes a difference.

We never know how things will turn out, but that is ok.  We don't need to know the future. We just need to remember how God has worked over the days and months of 2011.  We need to allow his faithfulness in the past to speak words of hope into our future.

Remember...God loves you.

Happy New Year

"Who we choose to become and how we choose to live every day creates a trajectory for everything else."  --Jerry Sittser

The New Year, with all of its opportunities, questions, joys and challenges, is right around the corner.  These waning days of 2011 are rife with plans, resolutions and prayerful pleas for a glimpse of God's will.  In charting a course for a desired target on December 31, 2012 we would do well to remember that the path (trajectory) is made up of 366  (Leap Year) points along the way.  Each point is a day and each point along the way is important.  (My mathematical friends tell me that each point along a trajectory is critical to arrival at the desired target or destination.)

I am convinced that each day of my life is important to God. 

So... no New Year's Resolutions for me this year.  I am going with a "New Day's Resolution."  Each and every day of 2012 starts here...

But seek first his Kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 

Matthew 6:33 (NIV)

Are you teaching a classroom of students?  Leading a family?  Running a business.  Coaching a team?  Pastoring a church?  Living life...?

"It is not what a man does that is of final importance, but what he is in what he does. The atmosphere produced by a man, much more than his activities, has the lasting influence."  Baffled to Fight Better, Oswald Chambers

“The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Emmanuel”—which means, “God with us.”    Matthew 1:23

"To look at the last great self-portraits of Rembrandt or to read Pascal or hear Bach's B-minor Mass is to know beyond the need for further evidence that if God is anywhere, he is with them, as he is also with the man behind the meat counter, the woman who scrubs floors at Roosevelt memorial, the high-school math teacher who explains fractions to the bewildered child.  And the step from "God with them" to Emmanuel, "God with us," may not be as great as it seems.  What keeps the wild hope of Christmas alive year after year in a world notorious for dashing all hopes is the haunting dream that the child who was born that day may yet be born again even in us . . ."

                                                                 --Frederick Buechner

The following quote is from a recent blog post by Ben Witherington that speaks of narcisism, entitlement and me and...you?!?  (No, surely not you or me.  Rather, it is about all those other people.  I hope they read it.)

"A person who realizes life is a gift, all of it, is a person who can’t go around with a sense of entitlement. We are not entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of a good career. No we are not. Those are all gifts ultimately from God. We are not entitled to a certain standard of living. We are not entitled to a two car garage. We are not even entitled to a chance at ‘the good life’. It’s all gift. We did not create our own existence. We came into the world through the actions of others, chiefly God. And when we die, even if we are buried with our pink Cadillac, we cannot take it with us. Naked we came into the world, and we shall leave it without our stuff. The thing about nakedness is…. it reminds us we are not God. It reminds us we are vulnerable. It reminds us we need outside help. It reminds us we need love. And Adam and Eve became self-aware, self-centered, realized they were naked……. and the human race began its race down the slippery slope to malignant narcissism. Something only God can rescue us from now."

Taken from:  http://www.patheos.com/blogs/bibleandculture/2011/11/15/our-besetting-sin/

I love reading the Psalms because they give words to the joy, sorrow, anger, questions and disappointment that are sometimes realized in my heart.  They also remind me that God knows and is present.

Sometimes God provides other people (contemporary psalmists?) to give expression to the state of my heart.

MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it.

Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

- Thomas Merton, “Thoughts in Solitude”