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January 13, 2009

The Bible’s School Of Prayer

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READ: Habakkuk 1:1-4

I will speak in the anguish of my spirit. —Job 7:11

To call God and us unequal partners is a laughable understatement. And yet by inviting us to do kingdom work on earth, God has indeed set up a kind of odd-couple alliance. God delegates work to human beings so that we do history together, so to speak. Clearly, the partnership has one dominant partner—something like an alliance between Microsoft and a high school programmer.

We know well what happens when human beings form unequal alliances: the dominant partner tends to throw his weight around and the subordinate mostly keeps quiet. But God, who has no reason to be threatened by us, invites a steady and honest flow of communication.

I sometimes wonder why God places such a high value on honesty in our prayers, even to the extent of enduring unjust outbursts. I am startled to see how many biblical prayers seem ill-tempered. Jeremiah griped about unfairness (20:7-10); Habakkuk accused God of deafness (1:2); Job conceded, “What profit do we have if we pray to Him?” (21:15). The Bible teaches us to pray with blistering honesty.

God wants us to come to Him with our complaints. If we march through life pretending to smile while inside we bleed, we dishonor the relationship.

Give Him each perplexing problem,
All your needs to Him make known;
Bring to Him your daily burdens—
Never carry them alone! —Adams

The best thermometer of your spiritual temperature is the intensity of your prayer. —Spurgeon

Bible in One Year: Genesis 31-32; Matthew 9:18-38

Tred of cold (-20 here right now)

Something for warmer thoughts, summer time dreams

The Tao of the Asphalt Way

Asphalt ribbon ever unwinding into a new dawn
two lane magnet of the soul and where its gone
Tire song and pipe voices sing of eternity
so well known by the two wheel fraternity

Chrome and steel, paint and leather friend
so a part of you and yet of itself a blend
Impersonal and personal engraved in your soul
and only the open road makes you really whole

Windburned skin and early morning chill’s touch
signal you’re alive, aware of throttle and clutch
Road warrior, nomad, traveler to a distant fate
seeking something around a curve, down the straight

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, for the lovely Daily Bread message! How wonderful it is that we have Him to take our 'daily burdens' to and how He wants us to share them with Him.

Give Him each perplexing problem,
All your needs to Him make known;
Bring to Him your daily burdens—

Never carry them alone! —Adams