A friend to walk with you on the Way/

Hello!  I don't think anybody knows about this blog, I took a long leave of absence.  Now I am coming back to start something new.  The title will stay the same, the subject will be about deepening and widening our spiritual life.

I plan to start offering one-on-one sessions as a personal friend of people walking towards faith, and people journeying on the Way.  These session will mostly happen on Skype, face to face.  Skype is not limited to location and removes the necessity of travelling.

More later.
 

Daniel's prayer for his nation

Daniel was over 80 years old when he prayed his great prayer of intercession. He had been taken to Babylon when he was a young man, and seventy years later he writes down one of the prayers he had continually prayed for his nation.

His prayer was answered. The captives were allowed to return home. Did Daniel live to see it? If he did his rejoicing must have been two-fold. First that his people were set free and secondly that he had, by his prayers, been a part of their liberation.

Two things leap out from the story Daniel tells us. First he was told by a messenger from heaven that as soon as he began to pray an answer was given. Secondly that as soon as he set his mind to understand the scripture and learn God’s ways that his words were heard.

So if God hears us from the first time we begin to pray for someone why continue praying? Because the problem keeps happening, the situation continues, the person shows no sign of change. These things drive us to prayer. Because we are praying for someone other than ourselves there is little we can do to change things, except pray.

Some people give suggestions to God about how to do what we want to happen and other people laugh at them for thinking the Creator needs their advice. But better be laughed at than stop praying, and often our understanding of God does show us how he might be willing to work.

Most of us find it easy to pray about our own worries and concerns but an effort to pray about someone elses’ worries and concerns. Prayer is work. The same work that Jesus does in heaven on our behalf. God continues to love the people who love him and the people who reject him; by praying for our friends and enemies we integrate ourselves into his on-going work.

Daniel chapter 9 verse 23 and chapter 10 verse 12

Partnership with God: Invisible and anonymous.

Do you pray for nations? Do you pray just for the nation you belong to because that nation's safety affects yours? Or do you pray for suffering people in lands ruled by dangerous dictators? This kind of praying is called intercession. I recommend the work of intercession because it is an act of partnership with God. A life lived in partnership with God is an invisible way of being great and an anonymous way of doing good.

Daniel's prayer of intercession is one of several recorded in the Bible and a good place to look for a pattern to copy.

Daniel started his prayer by including himself in the confession that he made. The people of his nation had caused a great disaster to happen to them. (This cannot be taken to mean that all disasters are caused by sin; that would be wrong.) Daniel did not try to distance himself from the sins of the time. He could have done so because he spent all his adult life serving in the royal courts of Persia far away from his homeland.

So he begins to pray for the disaster to be mitigated. He spoke to God and addressed him as Great and dreadful God, who also is faithful and merciful. Then he began. "We have sinned..." (Continued later)

Daniel chapter 9 verses 3-19

Five Days With Father Abraham - Day one continued

This is day one of my Five Days With Father Abraham. It is the day called, 'Accepting God's blessing on my life and being a blessing to others.'


I'm glad I chose to start on a Saturday because everything felt like a blessing today. My good health, the fact that I actually exercised instead of thinking about it, and the fact that I'm at last beginning to enjoy a healthy diet because the sugar cravings have gone away for a while.
The second part - being a blessing to someone else - was difficult! It was Saturday, I saw lots of people and didn't meet anyone. I failed one opportunity: as I entered a store I heard the woman behind me talking into her cell phone. This is what I heard, "Yes, I'm just going to buy a little microwave right now, do you by any chance have a big garage?" I guessed that she had lost the place where she used to live and was needing to store her furniture." Then I went on with my shopping. If I had stopped, if I had spoken to her could I have helped? I imagine not, but isn't that just a failure of faith and doesn't it show how I couldn't give up my comfort to ask. But I have succeeded at something else - to be truthful not today but in preparation for today. I have helped supply a tent in a shopping cart that will be lent to a homeless person sleeping on the street. I feel so good about this. Lanaire gave me the details at the 'Send Out Cards' seminar and when I looked it up on the web I was delighted. www.EveryoneDeservesARoof.com is as exciting as www.Kiva.com When I got back to my computer I sent a copy of a really delightful book 'Beach Money' to someone and imagined it changing their life.
Mmm a rather tepid start:, all money no personal involvement, and most disappointing, no interfaith involvement.
I need community if I am to commit myself to repeating these five days. I need people: who will join in this experiment, make suggestions and share their own life with Father Abraham. Send me a comment.

Five Days With Father Abraham -

Five Days with Father Abraham - Day One

O.K. So I want to live like Abraham. Only I'd prefer a home-mobile to a tent.
Five things that Abraham did that shaped his life and I can do to.
The wonder of these things is that I do not have to be young, rich or clever to do them, but a by-product of doing them is that my inner (spiritual) self becomes young, rich and wise.

I Commit myself to:

1. Accepting God's blessing on me and becoming a blessing to others
2. Praying prayers of intercession for the undeserving
3. To build an alter wherever I go
4. Becoming what God wants me to be. How ever unbelievable it may seem.
5. To pass the faith on to succeeding generations.

I commit myself to concentrate on a different one of these five actions every day for five days.
If God guides me I committ to calling Muslims, Jews and Christians to come together on the things we can agree on and love and live in peace.

Jesus; the way out of death and the way into the good life.

I tell you the truth, said Jesus, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.

Resurrection happens to the dead and happens to everyone. Eternal life happens now and happens to those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God. It is right, says Jesus, to honor the Son just as we honor the Father, whoever does not honor him does not honor the Father.

To some people, said Jesus, praise from people is more important than praise from God. That way of thinking is a barrier to the good life. A self-erected barrier. It is composed of bricks named, What will they think? Will I look foolish? Will it put me in difficult situations? How about dismantling that self-erected barrier? It can be done instantly by realising that the Father praises, approves, honors and supports the person who believes in Jesus. To believe in Jesus is to be united with the Father. Reflect for a moment on the situation of being united with and supported by God and then contrast that to the situation of continually trying to get the praise of people.

Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. Don't be afraid to believe, but be very afraid to remain alive without possessing eternal life.

(Gospel of John chapter 5 verse 19-45)

There will be enough when we learn to trust and obey

“Pour out” said Jesus to the waiters at the banquet. Take some of that water you have just put into jugs, take it to the head waiter and pour it into his wine cup. There was little hesitation on the part of the waiters, they were there to serve tables and the only thing left to serve was water, the wine was all used up. You know the rest of the story, when the head waiter drank from his cup he drank wine. Better tasting wine than that he had been drinking before.

Don’t let the scale of the miracle divert you from the lesson. John, who recorded this event for us, calls it a ‘sign’ Sign is not just another word for miracle it is a word for an example of what Jesus was talking about. Although I have no trouble accepting this account just as it is, I know a lot of good people who loose the benefit of the story because they can’t believe it. Never let that stop you; to unite with God requires that a person believe in Jesus, that’s all. If you want to think of the story as an allegory you can do that, the important thing is that right now, today, you focus on these words “Pour out.” Because we have entered an era of scarcity. Mary said to Jesus, “They have no wine.” Today we would say to him, “They have no home, they have no job.”

Based on the story, we are to take whatever we have, no matter how weak it seems and distribute it liberally. This is the culture of the Kingdom of Heaven to which all who believe in God through Christ belong. The writer specifically tells us that there were six containers each holding twenty or thirty gallons, between 120 to 150 gallons. It’s laughable really, how much wine did they need? But this is part of the example, God gives abundantly. We call it the good news of abundance. God has chosen to give abundantly but he tells us to pour out the abundance.

Of course there’s an escape route; we God-respecting people can avoid being generous in our support of others by spiritualizing the story. If we say that the story only refers to the gift of spiritual life which God gives: then we don’t need to do anything but instruct other people to trust in God. That way we can hoard our energy and save ourselves from doing kindnesses. Or we can imitate Jesus and go about doing good, trusting God to take care of the results.

So let’s be liberal even though we feel our gifts are weak compared to the need. Let’s pour courageously. Think back on your own lives, did acts of kindness ever change your day? Did that changed day help to shape your life? God gives to the deserving and the undeserving, to those who help themselves and those who can’t help themselves. We, as citizens of his culture are called to do likewise. God gives and also forgives, what a lot of courage it takes to do for others what God has done for us

Going Around With A Dirty Face

I am wearing the ashes as I write this: This is the first day of the season of Lent and we start Lent by having our foreheads or hands marked with ashes.

The ashes are created from burnt palm leaves. When Jesus rode into Jerusalem the people cheered him, waving palm leaves. A week later Jesus was crucified and the same people decided that because he was dead he could not be the savior that they had hoped for.

Palm leaves decorate the church on Palm Sunday. When lent starts those palm leaves are burnt and their ash mixed with oil. This is used to anoint the people who are beginning 40 days of preparation before they celebrate the triumph of the resurrection.

In all different parts of the world people are wearing the same sign as I am. They are members of different families of the same faith, but in reality we are all one; members of the family of God. Today I wear the ashes and am a sign of that unity.

The lights were dim in the church; we lined up silently to receive communion and the mark of the humiliation of Christ and of our repentance. All the people in front of me in the line were old like me, some of them frail. The piano played quietly in the background and I thought that none of us needed the ashes to remind us that one day someone will pronounce ‘Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.’ You can forget about that in your forties but it’s hard to avoid when you’re eighty.

Suddenly the people at the back of the line began to sing, strong voices that swelled out of the darkness at the back of the church. I turned and saw that there were younger people behind us.

It seemed to me that my generation is a mighty wave raised up and towering. We finally recognize ourselves and know that we have been influential; we have resisted evil together and gathered all manner of good as we swelled and increased. Now our mighty wave is about to crash and roll splintered on the sands of time. But the voices of the younger people behind represent another wave gathering strength, when we have receded this new wave will stand where we were and tower over all the forces that try to resist. Living water has sprung in the hearts of believers in many different places and streamed over the dry and dusty soil, uniting they have become a might ocean.