Praying for Nothing

At some point early in our teenage years, every boy and girl has to face the reality that prayer is not a simple discipline. No where is it more honestly and simply recorded than in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain:

“Then Miss Watson she took me in the closet and prayed, but nothing come of it. She told me to pray every day, and whatever I asked for I would get it. But it warn’t so. I tried it. Once I got a fish-line, but no hooks. It warn’t any good to me without hooks. I tried for the hooks three or four times, but somehow I couldn’t make it work. By and by, one day, I asked Miss Watson to try for me, but she said I was a fool. She never told me why, and I couldn’t make it out no way."

I never blame Huck for his views on religion. Huck is a boy. Miss Watson is a woman who has somehow ignored the fact that she doesn't get what she asks for all of the time. That's a little screwy.

These two characters are in our church. I'm mostly trying to persuade the Huck's to consider different definitions of the fundamentals they grew up with, but I also get to meet Miss Watson, who tends to speak for Huck and even answer the questions I direct at him. Both, however, have the misunderstanding that prayer serves one purpose: to get what you can't get yourself.

This is certainly a purpose of prayer: petition. The Scriptures tell us that we don't have some things simply because we don't ask God for them. But it's not solely what prayer is for. Prayer is for meditation, for reflection, for connecting with God, and so many more things.

That's why when Jesus taught his disciples how to pray (after they asked him), he gives us an extremely comprehensive and somewhat broad prayer, which includes worshipful, relational, petitionary, and reflective/repentant language. It's complex.

Overall, when Jesus asked things of his Father, he always put the relationship with God above the request with the line, "your will be done" and a repeating use of the word, "Father." Jesus always kept prayer multifaceted. We don't always get what we want, but God always gives us what we need: access to Him and His throne.

If your prayer is not being "answered," consider perhaps that what you need above your request being fulfilled is a relationship and knowledge of the Almighty. That might not change your circumstance, but it will certainly change you.

Why the Bereans Were Noble in Character

There's this strange passage in Luke's account of the early church where he accounts one group of early believers as more noble than another. The passage is short and reads like this in one translation:

"Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true."
-Acts 17:11

I have read that passage before and thought, Ah yes, these Bereans were solid because they received the word with eagerness. That is true. But it is only half of the whole truth.

The Bereans not only received Paul's message with eagerness, but they examined the Scriptures every day to see if Paul was right about Jesus.

First century Jews were not ones to easily give up their faith. Berean Jews would not just shrug their shoulders and follow whatever was popular (which was not Christianity at that time, anyways). In fact, Bereans were some of the most educated of 1st century Jews and Luke says they were more noble because of their eagerness to examine the Scriptures.

One thing that drives me a little crazy is how many of us hear something a good speaker says and automatically believe it. We'll hear one side of something or hear something said strongly with enough authority and we're willing to take it as our own. It's not necessarily a great argument, but the person said it with enough gusto that we assume it to be right. That's what most of cable news is today and I'm afraid some of our churches are leaning this way.

My friend Branden often says in his sermons, "Don't take my word for it, look at the Scriptures and examine it for yourself." The Bereans were not noble in character for just accepting and agreeing with Paul, they did their homework.

Strange thing is, this is the next verse:

"As a result, many of them believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men." 

The product of their eager examination was to believe. Not the other way around. Many people blame the movement of Christianity on ignorance. And perhaps, yes, it started with fishermen, but it didn't stop when it reached the scholars.

There is Nothing Safe About Childhood

 "It's a hard world for little things" 

- Rachel Cooper, The Night of the Hunter

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were brothers who spent their lives researching culture and studying linguistics. They also had a knack for folk tales and spent another portion of their life editing, writing and compiling tales for children in their native German language. The result would be Grimm's Fairy Tales, where we get classics like Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, and Snow White.

When the tales were first published in 1812, they were met with fierce criticism because they were too violent, sexual, and "adult themed" to be marketed to children. Many reviewers rejected the first printing and the brothers set out to make several updated editions over the next number of years that toned down some of the graphic content. They removed overtly sexual jokes and turned the "wicked mother" into a "wicked stepmother." But one thing they didn't erase but in fact escalated was the violence in the stories.

That's why we have these old stories about wolves chasing little girls, step-mothers planning the death of young innocent ones, and little boys being run down by malicious candy shop owners. They are "fairy tales" for children however they are extremely unsafe stories filled with terror.

I spend my life with families who have kids exiting childhood. And far too often I meet students who have been told a lie their whole life. They have had parents who were wealthy and supportive and loving, but not honest. These students have been protected from the one reality they need to know: life is dangerous.

In the attempt to keep their children "innocent" and "free," parents tell their children a different type of fairy tale, a modern American story: everyone loves you because you're special, you are good at everything you try, and if you work hard enough and be a good little boy or girl, you'll be successful. Also, you'll never die.

Of course the language is not as blunt, but this is what we tell kids with our actions. We tell them all of this under the banner of "protecting them." They can't see certain things because it will damage their innocence, ruin their good heart, and give them a bad name.

But doesn't Scripture tell us such a different story? It's a lot more similar to Grimm's Fairy Tales. The horrific truth of life is that nothing about childhood is safe and everything about everyone is dangerous. The Bible says that there is no one who lives correctly, that the world is filled with people who will try to tear you apart, and you and I are contributors to the madness. You don't teach your son to disobey. He's already pretty good at that.

One time I was speaking at a conference and I mentioned that I am slow to trust people. Afterward, a woman came up to me and said, "You're a pastor and you don't quickly trust people - that seems kind of backwards. Wouldn't the Christian thing to do be to assume the best about people?" But the problem is that the Bible actually assumes the worst about everybody. I am slow to trust people because most people are looking out for their own benefit and not the common good.  

What I've realized over time is that I am also slow to trust others because I have no trust in myself. If no one is "good," then neither am I. Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, and all of the characters in those old stories made mistakes of their own that nearly cost them their life.

This is why the Bible tells us to "Trust the Lord" with all of our hearts and "lean not on your own understanding." Because of our crooked hearts, we see the world around us as either "not so bad" or too terrible to ever expose to our children. The trick of parenting becomes shepherding kids through their own brokenness, letting them in on the tragedy of the world at the same time as you let them in on the goodness of God.

We are right in desiring for our children to never be corrupted, but we must remember that we cannot save them from this world. That's why God, the best Father, sent His perfect Son Jesus to be corrupted for us so that we might be delivered from evil. This phrase "delivered from evil," should emphasize the word "deliver," for it infers that we are to spend some time amongst wicked things, namely ourselves. It's useless pretending there's no big bad wolf. God rescues us from it all.

Until then, we train our children in the understanding that enemies abound, and our greatest adversary is closer than you think, closer than under your bed or in your closet: it's right under your rib cage.

Tweet It and You've Got It

Some friends and I were recently talking about broadcasting ideas onto the Internet; the limited editing, the quickness at which we fall in love with an idea, and how we publish something with such ease that remains in one "space" forever.

The conversation turned to how we communicate things we're learning about God and how the "publish" or "share" or "tweet" button gives the idea a type of permanence and championing. It's there. Forever-ish. And people recognize you as thoughtful and sort of sharp. They "like" it, comment on it, or retweet it. Instantly, you feel good about it all and never have to revisit that thought.

I realize how easy this is: you feel convicted by an eternal truth, you write it down, and share it publicly and then make the dangerous but easy step of convincing yourself that by tweeting or sharing it online, you've mastered it.

Think it. Tweet/Blog/Status Update it. Boom. Mastered. Never have to think about that one again. Strangely dangerous.

Also, I've got to mention to irony that I'm sharing this in a blog post right? No matter the incongruity, I find myself struggling deeply with this idea: Just because we share a truth does not mean that it has changed our life, that it has sunk in at all.

Right now, I am sharing with you about how we too quickly share truths that they never sink deep enough to change us. Now that I've shared it, can I just continue on blogging and tweeting everything I think?

I don't think I need to have "mastered" everything I share, but I do need to be sure that it's done something in my life. Because you can't take people to a place you've never been. Right?

[Insert Apocalyptic Pun Blog Title Here]

With all of the verses that were thrown out on the Internet over the past couple of weeks, the ones that stick in my head are ones like this: "For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths."

That's from 2 Timothy 4. It is, in my opinion, Paul's best advice to his protege, Timothy.

Why? Because there's something very off about the human heart, that is, about my heart: we hear what we want to hear.

But I've lived just long enough to realize that what I desperately want to be true is certainly not true. Well, not all of the time at least. With physical realities and science, this is easy. When something is able to be proven over and over, no matter how you "feel" about gravity we know that it's true. Your dreams of flight will stay in your slumber.

Our metaphysical realities are much more difficult to harness. And if we begin with the basis that humans are generally good people and that you and I have hearts that are "in the right place," then we quickly build up a solid trust of our own heads.

Religious, secular, or spiritual people have this issue. And it's ultimately what ended up blowing this whole Harold Camping/Family Radio Apocalypse thing way out of proportion. Camping was able to communicate this and garner enough publicity to reach those who genuinely and desperately wanted this to be true. And in America, all you have to do is strike a heart-string and you've won people's lives.

The Los Angeles Times reported on some Family Radio Followers' reactions to the Non-Rapture and told the story of Keith Bauer, a 38 year-old truck driver who took the week off of work to travel the US before the Rapture with his family. He pulled his kids out of school and took off for 10 days.

"If it was his last week on Earth, he wanted to see parts of it he'd always heard about but missed, such as the Grand Canyon. With maxed-out credit cards and a growing mountain of bills, he said, the rapture would have been a relief."

Keith didn't need God, Keith needed a rapture, a way out of his life - he wanted to hit the restart button because he was losing lives fast. As Christians, we've gotten very good at getting out from under the Bible and truth by listening to our Pastor when he says, "What God really means here is..." or "This isn't what it looks like..." when most often it really is.

We look for ways out of what God says because normally what he says is really difficult to understand and ever more difficult to practice.

I don't blame Keith because he's a lot like me. He wanted his circumstances to change and wanted God's help with that, instead of recognizing that the common denominator to his circumstances was the one thing he is unwilling to give up: himself.