TimHowey.Com

Today's Time with God

2009-12-09T10:29:00-06:00

I thought I'd give you a snapshot into my time with God today.

In my daily reading this morning, I read through Isaiah 43-48. My current plan is to read 8 pages/day, every day except Sunday. I don't get to it every day, but that's the plan. What jumped out to me today was the repeated counsel from God to "Fear not!" (Isaiah 43:1, 5, 44:2)

Then for my prayer time today, I did a good chunk of journaling. I don't write a letter to God every day, but it's still a HUGE part of my prayer life with God. For me, it's the best way to lay the weightier times & topics before the Lord and leave them at His feet. Here's the bulk of what I wrote today:

"Dear Lord,

In my daily reading, the command 'Fear not' jumped out at me 3 times. Then you reassured me that your enemies will fear.

Lord, I seek You. I'm trusting you & your promise of James 1:

(1) I'm counting this trial all joy (v.2). This is a joy to be able to be a part of a situation beyond your control; to cling to you in faith & lift it up in prayer; and watch you do what only you can do. This is all joy (Acts 5:41).

(2) I know you are trying to grow me (v.3). Specifically, when you test my faith, you are trying to grow patience in me --> the ability to wait on you & watch for you & rest in you until the situation is resolved in your timeframe. Tough times are designed by you to grow me internally...the inner man (2Cor 4:16).

(3) I need to not short-circuit the process of spiritual growth (v.4). Lord, it would be so easy for me to just try to fix situations in my own strength; or run; or do whatever it takes to stop having to wait on you. But I need to let you work on me...and that takes time (1 Peter 5:10).

(4) I know you will give me direction if I pray in faith (v.5). You already know what you want to happen. In fact, since you are outside of time (existing in the past, present, & future all at once), you are already there in the future & know what will happen. Lord, give me your wisdom. Lord, give me your direction, give me your plan. All I want is to be your follower & you to be pleased with me. I am yours (1Cor 4:3-4). direction.

Love, Tim."

Web Bonus - Extraordinary Challenges

2009-12-07T09:03:37-06:00

We closed out our "Extraordinary Prayer" series yesterday. Our topic was the extraordinary challenges we all face in maintaining a consistent, heartfelt, powerful prayer life.

What can we say?

A Praise -- One small group leader said our topic came at the perfect time. His small group is studying our discipleship material called Directions, and they were scheduled to talk about that very topic.
An Example -- A preschool teacher caught me after service to expand on the thought that God sometimes waits to give us good things until we ask it in prayer. It reminded her of how she tells her preschoolers to "Use your words" because it's important to their personal development too.
A Praise -- We received this story from Amanda: "I am going through something very difficult personally right now...Through this, I have started attending Grace and really committed myself to finding the Lord again. This situation is much bigger than I personally could handle - but thanks to the power of prayer and God's strength and Grace, my eyes have been opened...I am also remembering and taking time each day to listen to God and THANK Him continually for the strength he gives me to handle whatever he puts in my path. And with each trial and tribulation I have learned that I am never alone."
A Resource -- If you've never read it before, check out a super-short book called "The Practice of the Presence of God" by Brother Lawrence. It's a great resource on prayer.
A Quote -- I saw this quote on the power of prayer recently: "Nothing is more powerful and significant in our world today than prayer...Satan is not afraid of our budget, out buildings, our programs, or our projects. He is afraid of our praying."
A Script -- I had someone shoot this note to me this week, on the topic of being specific in our prayers. "I have been pondering the words I use too repetitiously and without thought and have been trying to communicate with God in a more thoughtful and 'natural' way. I have, however, realized...it can be really effective to write out exactly what I want so I don't leave out/forget details when I petition God...My latest effort is for our unborn baby girl...I would ask you pray it as you read it:
- Family, please pray specifically...
- for the further development of this child;
- for little Emma’s brain and intelligence,
- for healthy blood circulation and a healthy life ahead
- for a healthy physical heart and a tender spiritual one,
- healthy ears that allow attentiveness and easy communication,
- for healthy eyes and eyelids to develop so this baby can see our smiles clearly,
- for perfectly formed face and lips,
- for a strong physical neck and back and a spirit of upright confidence while remaining kind to others,
- for perfectly formed fingers and toes, hands and feet that allow this child to serve God,
- for perfectly formed vocal cords that can sing songs or shout for mommy or daddy (but not too loudly, please),for inner organs and sexual organs and for clear identity and a God pleasing lifestyle,
- for muscle development and the ability to walk and run,
- dear Father I pray for...
- fat production and healthy bone marrow,
- for strong bones and teeth,
- for healthy strong lungs and a healthy tongue (that likes all foods, even vegetables),
- I would love a perfect little nose and pretty hair too!
- Father we pray in the name of Your Son."
A Video -- About 3 weeks ago, Ben & I thought about using the "Meet the Parents" prayer clip to close out the series. So we show up yesterday for our 6:30a meeting with members of our weekend service team & we hear, "Didn't we show this clip recently?" Huh??? Ben & I had NO memory of it. We checked back and, sure enough, we showed it earlier this year and both totally forgot it. (It was still a good clip, though.)

Prayer. Prayer is powerful. Prayer is flexible. Prayer is comforting. Prayer is extraordinary.

Stick with it! If we can avoid getting waylaid by the challenges we face, we'll find that prayer moves the hand that moves the world.

Basketball Kicks Off

2009-12-06T22:44:54-06:00

Here's an update on the 2 basketball games we had yesterday to kick off our 2009-2010 seasons.

3rd Grade Girls Team -- Before the game, I talked to the girls about all the key offensive & defensive principles to remember. We went out & warmed up. The referees blew the whistle, the girls instantly forgot every principle we talked about on offense. I think the sheer adrenaline rush of 10 girls on the court was enough for everyone's short-term memory to be completely blotted out. The good news is that we remembered how to play defense. We ended up winning 20-11. The girls had a blast.

5th Grade Boys Team -- Before the game, the boys seemed to be tuned in for the most part. We headed out to a quick 5-0 lead. Then our defense completely left us for the rest of the first half. After being outscored 14-2, we were down 14-7. The second half was a different story. We held them to 1 point for the entire 2nd half until the we tied it at 15 in the last minute of the game. Unfortunately, we gave up a late basket and lost 17-15. But the boys still had a great time.

Think Beyond

2009-12-03T21:56:32-06:00

Hey, let's not stop thinking "Beyond" as Acts 1:8 says. (That's our whole 2009-2010 theme!) In this verse, Christ lays the responsibility of reaching out personally, locally, AND globally...all at the SAME time! In other words, don't forget to think and reach out:

Beyond Yourself -- inviting friends & family to consider a walk with God
Beyond Your Community -- meeting needs in the Greater KC area
Beyond Borders -- praying for an unreached people group like the K's

Here's a picture sent to me by the Royston Small Group in celebration of finishing the "Beyond" series. Pretty cool...

Top 10 for the Week

2009-12-02T21:15:12-06:00

Here are the top 10 memories I have of the last week:

Thursday 11/26 -- Thanksgiving dinner. This meal is about as good as it gets. I get all hopped up on tryptophan & sugar. Mmmm...
Thursday 11/26 -- After the family leaves, my 11-year old son stomps me in a game of Halo. (What happened to my skills???) Then dear old dad eeks out a Madden football thriller, 14-10. I won with good old fashioned "Marty Ball."
Friday 11/27 -- I meet with my small group. We're with a great group of young couples who are passionate about developing their marriages in Christ. It's starting to gel.
Saturday 11/28 -- My family & I drive out to pick up my 91-year-old grandfather and drive to Children's Memorial Lutheran Church, where he has been for 62 years. For most of those, he's been a leader (a deacon). We went with him to the food & clothes pantry he helped start some 14 years ago in their church (when he was a young man). By the way, his car was loaded up with donated food from an area grocery store that he picked up around 6a that morning!
Sunday 11/29 -- I have the Sunday off but I watch the worship services from my kitchen table. We have an amazing team. From the technical team, to the praise team, to Pastor Ben's teaching (I was SOOOO proud of him), we are blessed. And it was a double-bonus that I got to worship in my sweats with a serious case of bed head.
Sunday 11/29 -- Chiefs game. They looked great for the few several minutes. Then "Ouch!!!" We'd better just forget that one & move on.
Monday 11/30 -- After a full day at work, I have the chance to sit down with our youth pastor and some committed parents of our middle schoolers & high schoolers. We had the chance to dream together about the future, talk about upcoming challenges, and ways to help make the transition to the youth pastor (who we're looking to hire) even better.
Tuesday 12/1 -- I coach 2 basketball teams. My daughter's 3rd grade team arrives first and I have an hour and 15 minutes with them. Then my son's 5th grade team follows them. They were MAJORLY squirrelly last night. And our first game for both is Saturday. Let the confusion chaos madness fun begin!
Wednesday 12/2 -- Today I made some major gains in finalizing our 2010 weekend service schedule. We've also got some ideas for 2011 (the January series & Easter series). There are some AMAZING things coming up.
Wednesday 12/2 -- Had the chance to worship with the church tonight, led by Michael W. Smith. The team wanted to experiment a little with a DVD. It was great. Lots of people. Highly engaged. God used it. We are a video generation.

L8R.

Web Bonus - Extraordinary Variety

2009-11-23T08:29:10-06:00

Yesterday was day 2 of our "Extraordinary Prayer" series. And I am having a blast hearing how God is using this series in people's lives.

Our topic was the creativity & variety that God designed into prayer: prayer lists, writing a letter, singing to God, praying the Scriptures, being still, praying micro-prayers, and praying when God brings people to mind.

God never wants our communication with Him to become, as E.M. Bounds wrote, just a "recitation of words, a mere verbal performance, an empty ceremony."

There's lots of stuff to talk about:

The Video -- We bought another SermonSpice video this week to kick off our topic. Very creative. Artistic. Beautiful music. You can watch it here.
The Quotes -- I quoted two authors on prayer this week: E. M. Bounds and Watchman Nee.
Which Was Harder? -- I changed up how I prayed with everyone yesterday. (1) I had everyone keep their heads up & eyes open. (2) I didn't end with my usual prayer script, "In Jesus' name, Amen." Which was harder to do? #2. After I just stopped praying, I didn't know what to say next. :-)
Singing to God -- Here are a couple of albums I love singing to God to:
- When I want to slow it down: Let My Words Be Few by Phillips Craig & Dean
- When I want to crank it up: Portable Sounds by tobyMac
Praying the Scriptures -- Years ago, I was challenged to create my own personalized prayer from the Scriptures by picking out a set of verses through Psalm 119. I chose 14 of them. For a time, my prayer time was built around them. It was a great exercise & great time of prayer.
More Variety in Prayer -- Here are some other ways that God designed variety into our prayer life:
- Pray alone (Matthew 6:6)
- Pray together (Acts 12:12)
- Pray aloud (John 11:41-42)
- Pray standing (1 Kings 8:22-23)
- Pray kneeling (1 Kings 8:54)
- Pray on face (Matthew 26:39)
- Pray looking up (John 17:1)
I'd Prefer Not To... -- I'm very open to trying out new ways of ministry, including prayer. But there's one mode of prayer I'd not into: praying in a circle while holding hands. Unfortunately, all I can think of is, "Are my hands in the right place? Am I gripping too hard? Too soft? Oh no, I'm starting to sweat!"

Sunday by the Numbers

2009-11-22T23:25:34-06:00

Here are a handful of numbers I'm thinking about this Sunday night.

2/3 = The percentage of our church that raised their hands saying they had taken up our "40-Day Prayer Challenge."
2 = The number of Grace Vodcasts (i.e. super-short videos) we've shot at Vimeo. Someone wrote me an email and called them "Office-Side Chats."
3 = The number of games the KC Chiefs have won this year, which is already one more than what we won last year.
17 = The number of PCs that were streaming our 10:00a services live over the internet this morning.
343 = The number of boxes our church brought to the lobby for Operation Christmas Child. Over double from last year I think. Way to go, guys!

Prayer and Faith

2009-11-18T10:29:24-06:00

By now, a bunch of you have jumped on the bandwagon of our "40 Day Prayer Challenge", making sure you pray the same 3-10 prayer requests for the next 40 days. That is AWESOME!

MARKING OFF the days you pray in your journal will help you avoid the mistake of James 4:2 (i.e. not seeing God move because you're not praying about it).

DOCUMENTING your micro-answers from God in your journal will help you avoid the mistake of Luke 17:11-19 (i.e. receiving answers but failing to notice God and/or thank God for it).

But I want to remind you about the role of believing God in prayer...OUR FAITH. 1 Timothy 2:8 reminds us to pray without doubting God. James 1:5-8 says if you pray about something and doubt God can/will do it, guess what??? You won't get a thing! Jesus illustrated this in Mark 6:1-5 when his hometown's lack of faith limited what miracles He would do.

So here are 2 questions I want to address:

1. Why does God require us to BELIEVE HIM when we pray? -- That's easy. God knows that if we doubt God can or will answer our prayer request when we ASK it, then we'll ALSO doubt God had anything to do with it if He ANSWERS it! Then we'll get confused about who did it, & we won't give Him the credit. Instead, we'll just chalk it up to "chance" or "us trying harder" or some other reason.

2. What should we do if we are DOUBTING GOD when we pray? -- Well, we can do what Jesus did when He was tempted to sin in Matthew 4:1-11. He quoted the promises of Scripture. Here's what I do when I feel stressed or worried in the middle of praying about something.

I press Pause -- I know I'm not accomplishing ANYTHING when I pray about something as I'm doubting God, or sensing fear in me. So I press pause on my request & do the next thing.
I quote Scripture -- I start quoting verses about who God is, how good He is, how powerful He is, how He can do anything, how He really does want the best for us, and how His ways are perfect. Some verses I quote back to God are: Genesis 18:14, Jeremiah 29:11, Psalm 3:5-6, Romans 8:28, 2 Corinthians 2:14, 2 Timothy 1:7, Revelation 21:4.
I press Play -- Once my "stress level" has gone DOWN again (because my "faith level" has gone UP again by quoting Scripture), I start praying for my request again...this time in faith!

Hope this helps.

5 Quick Hits

2009-11-17T18:24:10-06:00

Here are 5 things to know:

Walmart Sold Out? -- Yes, our church charged out Sunday after worship for their "40-Day Prayer Challenge" and bought up every small Moleskine-type notebook they had!
How Many Gifts? -- Our church put together well over 250 gift boxes for Operation Christmas Child. (I'll get the final total at some time.) Also, I heard you have until this Friday to bring your boy and/or girl gifts to our lobby so they can be shipped out on Saturday.
What is Connected? -- To move beyond simply "Coming" to being "Connected" at Grace, it takes 3 things...and they're directly aligned with our mission:
1. Having friends TO LOVE -- praying for, reaching out, & developing friendships in the church (i.e. "fellowship")
2. Having a place TO LEARN -- a small group study, Bible Study, 1-on-1 Directions Study, Wednesday night Bible Study, etc.
3. Having a place TO LEAD -- a ministry, volunteering opportunity, local outreach ministry, etc.
Developing Warriors -- Yes, my 3rd grade girls & 5th grade boys basketball teams practice back-to-back again tonight. We're taking the next step of leaving "nice" on the sidelines! :-)
Say it Ain't So, Gary! -- Snow? Are you kidding? Say it ain't so, Gary! (Yes, I'm referring to Gary Lezak, the weatherman who my wife swears by...and his blog.)

L8R.

Web Bonus - Extraordinary Power

2009-11-16T09:45:34-06:00

We kicked off our "Extraordinary Prayer" series yesterday. And I don't know if I've ever looked forward to a series more...seriously.

Prayer works. As E.M. Bounds wrote, "Prayer moves the hand that moves the world." We just desperately want to help people see how their prayer lives can be rich, personal, fulfilling, & life-changing.

There's lots of stuff to talk about:

The Power of Prayer -- There are a HOST of examples in the Bible of how God doesn't really care how skilled we are, or what our tools are, or what our strategy is...though we have to work together with God after we pray too, as Ephesians 2 describes. God even specifically says that he's not impressed by our athletic ability: "He takes no pleasure in the legs of a man," Psalm 147:10. Check out these stories on the power we can have in prayer:
- Joshua (Joshua 10:12-14)
- Elijah (James 5:16-18)
- Hezekiah (2 Kings 19)
- Peter (Acts 12:5-17) -- This one cracks me up...they can't believe God actually answered their prayers!
The Mandolin -- Did I hear that right? Our band's new mandolin has a NAME??? What gives, Pastor Ben? :-) P.S. I loved the mandolin rain from our band.
The Video -- We purchased our "man-on-the-street" video on prayer here. SermonSpice.com is a great resource for the church.
E. M. Bounds -- I referenced this book on prayer this morning. It's excellent. The quote I referenced came from this web page.
When God Says "No" -- This seemed to touch a lot of people. Kudos to our 6:30a sermon review team who added that point to the message. We had a full house this week: Jason, Chase, Doug, Brian, Josh, & Danny. And Ben brought Dunkin Donuts for everyone! The "When God Says No" thought brought these comments:
- Rejection -- After 1st service, one person told me, "In prayer, God's rejection is God's protection." That's totally true.
- 3 Answers -- After 2nd service another person told me, "God answers our prayers 3 ways: (1) Yes. (2) Not yet. (3) I have a better idea."
Did I say that??? -- Yes. At the end of 2nd service, I asked people to "Close your heads." Whoops! I meant to say, "Bow your heads & close your eyes." :-)
Prayer Stories -- Here's what people told me after service:
- A Teen -- Told me he didn't know how to prayer & prayed that morning that God would teach him how.
- A College Student -- Showed me their prayer journal from Tuesday where they asked God to teach them how to do a prayer calendar for personal accountability
- An Adult -- Emailed this note: "This 40 Day Prayer Challenge in itself was an answered prayer for me. Although I pray several times a day 'in my head,' I truly wanted something more and didn't know how to begin. I am excited to be faithful in prayer for my first set of 40 days."
- An Bunch of People -- Keep telling me how they have started their 40-day prayer challenge. Way to go!
Several Receive Christ -- By the way, we probably had 10-15 people claim they received Christ AGAIN this week. Wow!

Now, on to the "40 Day Prayer Challenge." Here's how you do it:

Notebook -- Get a small notebook
On page 1 -- Put the date in the corner. Write out a list of the next 40 days ("Nov 16, 17, 18, 19...Dec 1, 2, 3...23, 24, 25").
On page 2 -- Make list of 3-10 prayer requests. Make prayer request #1, "To pray every day for 40 days, & for it to be real instead of a ritual." Make sure to add a prayer request for others (a friend, your church, the President, etc.)
On page 3+ -- Rewrite each request at the top of a blank page to capture the answers you'll receiving on it. This will be an idea, thought, verse, comment, direction. etc. Then, when you sense a micro-piece-of-the-puzzle, write the date & thought in that section, so you can track the hand of God.
Pray Every Day -- Take 3-10 minutes to pray for your 3-10 prayer requests every day. Let your prayer requests go longer on days that time allows & God leads (20 minutes, 30 minutes, etc.). When you pray (& read a chapter hopefully), circle the date. Then jot down any ideas you had in the prayer answer section.

Try it out. You will NEVER regret it...and you get to "move the hand [of God] that moves the world." Here's what your prayer journal might look like after 10 days of praying, watching for answers, & documenting them. (Note: Click on the pictures to zoom in & read the writing.)