One Reason for Prayer

We pray in order to stimulate, deepen, and strengthen our faith.

This reason for prayer is almost a complete reversal of our usual idea, which is that we pray because our faith is strong and at its best. Prayer is an activity we are called to perform when our faith is not complete, when things are not going well, when God seems far from us. These are the times when we most need prayer. These are also the times when prayer is most difficult and we are prone to procrastinate in our praying, thinking that we just do not have enough time for prayer. We put off prayer and allow time for prayer to get squeezed out of our schedule even when we say to ourselves that prayer is vitally important to us. The near-universal difficulty of finding time for prayer on a regular basis suggests that more than laziness or lack of faith is the issue. We are up against some inner conflict about who we are and who God is, and our flight from prayer is also a way of fleeing from our confusion and ambiguity.

When we discover our resistance to prayer, we should realize that we are in deep conflict, whether we are conscious of it or not. Part of us wants to seek God's will and the other part of us is digging in its heels to resist. The resisting part of us finds excuses not to pray, becomes obsessed with the dry spells and bored with prayer. We begin to doubt that prayer is worthwhile or get distracted from prayer by a variety of fantasies...We need to pray most when we least want to do it, because our resistance is a sign of some spiritual problem that only manifests itself in our reluctance to pray.

The act of prayer is a way of renewing a sense of God's presence in our lives and of deepening our own faith. But such renewal and depth come only when we have resisted the temptation to give up and have pushed ourselves to the demanding work of prayer. [emphasis mine]

--from my current reading: Reformed Spirituality by Howard L. Rice, pp. 75,76

Family Discipleship

We have recently started two new habits in what I'll call "family discipleship" that God is using to bless each of us. For the past several months, we have been having a sermon discussion on Sunday afternoon. We encourage the kids to take some notes during the Sunday morning sermon, and James and I do as well, though it usually is a joint effort between us. If Logan is with James, I'm writing, but if Logan comes to me, the notes get passed down to James.

At some point in the afternoon, we gather the family together and go through our notes, asking the children questions in order to discuss the main ideas. We have found the practice to be a great platform for discussing key spiritual truths, bringing up examples of our own, or tying in other scripture that goes along with the sermon. It is encouraging to hear what the children remember from listening and to go over what was missed.

An exciting benefit we have discovered from starting this habit is that we are all retaining in the long run more of past sermons, and when we discuss the sermon of the week, we often tie in examples, illustrations, or truths from past sermons.

James and I are encouraged by the soft hearts we see in our children at this point in their lives. We haven't run across sighing, groaning, eye-rolling or other "How boring" type of behaviors. The children participate in and seem to enjoy our sermon discussions. It has even been a time when I get to "cuddle" one of the older kids on my lap which doesn't happen as often the older they get!

Sunday afternoons are often opportunities for a family bike ride or walk as well (though I often stay at home while Logan naps, because I feel all worn out on Sunday afternoon), but I like that we have added in this spiritual "discipline" to our routine which draws us closer together as a family and closer to our Savior.

The second discipleship habit that we have added is in our nightly family worship routine. We have begun using the guide Balancing the Sword to aid us in our Bible reading. Right now, we are reading through Exodus (Again-- in case anyone remembers that I read in Exodus with the kids at the beginning of last school year.) The guide includes 3-4 content related questions which James reads to us before the Bible reading and then asks the children to answer after we read the scripture aloud. We also pick one of the questions to read all of the related cross-references which often is a wonderful opportunity for tying the Old and New Testaments together.

When we read the chapter about Moses and the burning bush, we talked about how God wants and requires the worship of His people. The guide asked the question, "What did Pharaoh say was the root problem that caused Israel to ask to leave and make sacrifices to YHWH?" The kids remembered that Pharaoh accused the Israelites of wanting to worship God out of idleness, and we talked about how Pharaoh considered working for him more important that worshiping God. The cross-reference for the question included Matthew 26:8,9 ~ the story of the woman who poured out expensive perfume on Jesus, getting scolded by those present for wastefulness, while receiving commendation from Jesus Himself for her act of devotion. While the children did not grasp the connection between these scriptures on their own, the light dawned on James and me as we pointed out the similarities between the two stories. Just as Pharaoh discounted the Israelites desire to worship God, considering hard work more important, the disciples frowned on the woman's simple, yet extravagant act of worshiping Jesus, telling her that it would have been better for her to use the money from the perfume for the poor. We came away from our Bible reading with a renewed sense that our highest calling as God's people is to worship God. (And what an encouragement to continue faithfully in family worship.)

Guess what the sermon the following Sunday was about... Matthew 26: 6-13! Praise God for His grace to us! We thank Him for this demonstration of His love and encouragement to us through His Word and the timeliness of the sermon for our family! The pastor brought out the phrase "She has done what she could" from the parallel passage, Mark 14:8 and discussed how, though she was nothing in the eyes of the world, God made note of her, because of her worshipful, self-sacrificing act, done solely out of love for the Lord Jesus. The sermon drove the meaning of the passage deeper into our hearts.

For my family and any other readers of this blog, if you would like to pray for our family, please ask the Lord to continue to lead us into greater faithfulness in our worship and service to Him, that we would do what we can, simple though it may be, but out of love for Christ and with our eyes fixed on His glory.

Thanks for letting me share our joy in the Lord!