A Force of Influence, A Model of Hope

Jesus, You hold all things together.  Hold me together.  Hold us together.

Will You help me keep my mind flush with right thoughts and brimming with mercies?

Will You assist me to keep my heart pure and honorable?

Will You be my counsel and strength, my ever-present help in the face of danger?

Let our yeses rise in harmony, let our promises unfold in beauty where ashes once laid.

I lift those who struggle with less than merciful attitudes.  Let there be a new wave of hope overtaking where even the smallest burning flame of rage once consumed oxygen.

I lift those who struggle with the need for power.  I am thankful that You are powerful beyond our greatest need – let that be enough in the hearts of Your believers.

I thank You that You have given me such a strong team to work with here in Rushville.  I am so grateful for the visionary way they are rising to the occasion.  But I must pour myself out to You all the more so that I will not misrepresent You in any way, or be an disappointment to them in any regard.  Make these relationships strong so that the enemy can find no leverage against us.

I thank You for my family that inspires me to be a better man.  I want my heart to honor You in such a way that it creates a windforce of influence for them.  Make me, in fresh and new ways, more like You so that I may serve them all well.

I am so grateful for this walk with You.  I am so thankful for the moments both quiet and loud!  I am thankful for worship that is still, and worship that raises the roof.  I am thankful for Your presence that both draws near to me, but also that leads me boldly.

Let Your glory rise, my Lord.  Let it rise in me afresh today.  For Your glory alone!

Grief Song

In the sweetness and peacefulness of Your presence, Father, I still feel a profound burning from the hurt and loss going on around me.

One a relatively young man, one a man who lived a long life.  Two different families, two very different hurts.

Father, grace me with the strength and heart to serve these families well through these days and beyond.

Give me the words to speak your heart into clouds of hurt.

Fill me with peace, to overflowing, so that peace streams into the empty river beds.

Fill me with grace, to overflowing, so that grace fills the empty places with Your Name.

Fill me with wisdom, the kind that comes free of the need of words, so that I might stand as a place of comfort for those in the storm.

Be with these aching families today so that tomorrow’s story might be of peace that defies explanation.

Thank You, glory to Your Name, First, Last, and all things in between.

Let Your glory rise.

24 Hours of Prayer

Father, I await You with much excitement and joy as the ministry community I now serve enters into a period of 24 Hours of Prayer.

I sanctify these hours, these efforts, in Your Name.  Let them flow with Your presence, and with our attentiveness.

Hear our words that they will be met with Your power.

Speak to our ready ears that we may listen and obey.

We covenant together to pray for such an outpouring of Your presence that the ripple effects will be known throughout our community.

Bring us together in a rare, miraculous form of unity; one where diverse people, ranging in ages and perspective, come together as one.  Bring it on, Lord!  Do what we don’t see happen in any other group we participate in…  we pray for unity of spirit and vision!

Bring us together with a holy, driving vision.  Inspire us, create new dreams, encourage us by Your Holy Spirit.

We enter into these hours with great anticipation.  Change us.  Draw us to Yourself.  Guide us, Great and Everlasting Father.

Let Your glory rise!

Head First, Heart Following

In Your graciousness, in Your mercy, find me waiting here, Father.  I lay me down before you, expectantly, enthusiastically.

I wait for You, head first, heart following.

I wait for You, listening for Your counsel.

I wait for You, not inactively, but in active service to You.

I need Your words – there are deep, difficult things happening around me.  People in great pain today.  Huge question marks pounding on hearts.  Give me Your words, I accept Your counsel.

I need Your direction – my ministry community is about to embark on a significant prayer journey together.  Season us with Your graces, pepper us with Your wisdom, excite us with Your vision.

I wait for You, head first, heart following…

Let Your glory rise…

Earth Change

What a joy it is to spend these precious moments with you – these moments of intense listening, crying out, worship, adoration and refueling.  For the sake of all the great days that lay ahead for my community, I surrender as much of my all to You as I can think to surrender.  I pour myself out in anticipation of the greater outpouring – the virtual flooding – of Your presence, Your Spirit, on me and on this town.

What powerful moments these are!  Though Your presence is permanent, and these prayers flow endlessly, I count these singular, powerful encounters with You as earth-changing.

Once again, I am anticipating earth change.

I lift these individuals to You that You have put on my heart this morning.  But I lift them for more than mere surface encounters with You.  I pour out my tears and words on their behalf for a richer journey – a journey rooted in You – today and in all the days ahead.

I lift high this community You’ve given me to serve.  Break my heart anew for the needs around me.  Open my eyes with more focused intensity so I can readily see the prevailing hungers and cries of despair.  Enrich me with new floods of love, mercy, grace…  seasoned more generously with wisdom and discernment…  and made more available by the yeast of Your Word.  Father, it doesn’t seem to be as much mind to feed a community with bread, though I am willing to do so at a moment’s need.  What I long for is the nourishment of Your salvation to spread, to feed, to cleanse, to renew and to empower for true life.  I long for Your light to shine in even the darkest places so that we can experience true earth-change right here in our own little pocket of civilization.

As Your glory rises among us, my desire is to never be stingy with it.  Let it spread, let the waters flow, let the winds blow, let the victory be tasted in true earth-change fashion.

This MUST begin in me.  I MUST be sold out and ready to do something.  So I seek Your rocket fuel-like grace to not just be enough for me, but to supercharge my engines so that I can rightly participate in the good things You planned from long ago.  Let Your masterwork be painted!  Let Your symphony sound out loud!  Oh, Father, I am ready, I am hungry, I am empty but for You.  Fill and fuel today!

Yes!  Let Your glory rise!  What beautiful things Your life brings.  What relief from despair and hope from hopelessness comes from Your side.  Let it rise, let it rise, let it rise…

 

 

 

 

A Different Belly Button

(The friend who inspired me to start this prayer journey would often warn against “naval gazing”…  or being so self-aware that we lose our necessary focus on others.  That’s the genesis of the title of today’s entry, and that is the track that transformed my prayer time today.  Lord, enough of the “I”/”me” prayers, and on to some healthy community prayers.)

And so I embark on a fresh new day, a fresh new adventure with You.  Another busy day deserves some deep plunging into You and Your Word.  Lead on, my Lord.

I fully embrace You in this moment.  Help me to fully embrace Your ways in the moments ahead.

I seek Your will for these moments.  Help me to walk in Your purposes for the hours ahead.

I bring longing and adoration for the awesome God You are.  If I fade or fail in my recognition of Your perfect rightness later, nudge on.

I lay me down, I’m not my own.  If I wiggle off the altar of giving myself to You, I trust in Your kind corrections and mercy for the correction.

I am not my own, yet I sway such conviction and authority over even minute details.  Wrest away all the unlike-Yous in me so that I may be free of the garbage that kills me and surrendered to the life that awakens me and fulfills me.  You are the life, the promise, the hope I seek.

There is an acute recognition in this moment that so far, I’ve been very me-focused.  I suspect that in the fury of all the transitions in my life of late, I have cocooned myself in layers of introspectiveness and self-awareness.  Break me free of this stinking shell!  Help me to love afresh and anew.  I willfully turn my words now to others so that Your grace and mercy will prevail.

Build this community, my Lord!  Let us rise up in embrace of You, dancing to the music of Your glory all around.  Let this be the day of many renewals and new-life awakenings.  Let Your perfect ways prevail in this community.  Let us rise as You rise, my Lord.

Increase us in love.

Increase us in grace and mercy.

Increase us in compassion.

Increase us in concern.

Increase us in strength and power.

May this be the day that Your glory rises with such greatness and sharpness and focus that our community is forever changed for the better.  Let Your glory rise, my Lord!

Let every pocket of darkness be overcome by Your light.  Let hopelessness be broken and hope saturate every dry bone.

Let Your glory rise, my Lord, let it rise in me today!

Box Full of Joy

My hope is built on nothing less than Your blood and righteousness…

(Thanks for putting that song on infinite loop in my mind this morning!)

There’s nothing that seems so solid and trustworthy and welcoming that I trust more than You.  Today I purpose and will to trust in You more…  to lift Your holy Name more…  to lean less on my own understanding and more into Yours.

These are interesting days to say the least.  I’m not sure I’m doing all that well with holding up my end of our ongoing conversation. So train my eyes anew this morning so that I can walk in strength in the hours ahead.  I need bodily strength today to endure this taxing packing process.  I need emotional strength for more goodbyes.  I need intellectual strength to make good decisions and to sort and pack well.  Most of all I need spiritual strength that all things may direct me to You, and that I may source all my thoughts and reactions from You.

Even in the dry task of putting stuff in safe packaging, may Your joy rise in me.

Just as I stuff the boxes full, may I be reminded to be full of Your love and grace and mercy.  OK, so maybe that metaphor is reaching just a bit…  You are the Lord who made me this way!  Ha!

Here’s the heart of this prayer today…  that You alone are my Cornerstone.  Be my center, Jesus.  Be in my comings and goings.  I want more, I want more, I want more of You.

May I not be shallow, may I not be careless, may I not be anything less than completely Yours.  Send Your Spirit!

Enough focus on me.  I have so many others on my heart today and I need to bring them to You.  Hear these prayers, and let Your glory rise today.  Make Yourself known among those who don’t know where to turn today.  Be manifest and shine Your face where darkness threatens to overcome.

Yes, I pray that Your glory would rise.  Let it rise in me.  Let it rise all around.  Blessings to You, my Savior.

The Heavy Lightness of Praying for Others

My heart is crying out for my people today.  Father, I lift them to You with a great heaviness, and yet a great lightness knowing that You do far more than we can ever think or ask.

So many are tangled in the webs they’ve been taught to weave, caught in traps they themselves set.  How do I come to their rescue?  How do I give them relief?  I run to You!  I lift them now knowing that You are able, You are good, and You are faithful.

I know that each will have many knots to untie for themselves.  But I also know that You can loosen the knots so that we can work through the untangling part with You.  Loosen knots today!  Give aid to the hurting, bring wisdom to the counselors.  Let Your Holy Spirit be fast at work.

In my peculiar role these days of feeling more like an itinerant than a resident, give me the wisdom and discernment I need to be your arms and legs and voice.  Here in my last week of service to this community it seems that so many things are going awry…  and the greatest gift I bring are these prayers.  I cry to You, Lord, hear these pleadings on the behalf of my people.

And then my mind goes to the public nature of this journal part of my prayer, and I realize that there may be many who are stranger to me, yet are struggling with overwhelming things.  I join them in prayer for wisdom, discernment, and most of all, peace.  Draw us to Yourself in these days that we might know Your heart and Your ways better.  Counsel us according to Your Word.  Send strong voices of help in the form of those who walk in spiritual maturity.  Let Your glory rise among us, I cry!

May I be reflective of all things that are of You.  May my very nature exude Your peace and goodness.  Help me to know You more so that others may know more of You and Your goodness.  Let Your mercy be my lifeflow.

All to You, my Lord and King, all to You.  Glory to Your Name.  This is Your day, You made it, and it is good.

The Only Hope that Heals

Good morning, Lord!

What wonders You speak into being.  What hope You bring into waiting hearts.  What joy You reward to the patient.  What peace Your presence commands.

So here I sit contemplating the way you answer my concerns, and speak into the great need that possesses my thoughts.  Oh, the hurt in the lives of these I serve!  I trust in You alone to be the cure, the hope, the salvation, the healing.  Make me Your conduit of blessing, make me the vessel You need to speak of Your hope.

Where there is difficulty, speak the solution clearly into our minds.

Where there are puzzles to solve, give us discernment and wisdom.

Where there are dissenting voices, give us the right mix of words and silence and action and stillness to speak well.

Where there are disagreements bring us together in Your holy unity – the incredible level of love and respect and togetherness that only You can orchestrate.

May Your holiness and rightness permeate our words and ways, may they be reflected in our lives.

I lay me down at Your altar, a living sacrifice… the kind of sacrifice that brings life, that overcomes death, that restores the souls of men.

I cry for Your deliverance, I plead for Your wellness, I humbly beg for eyes like Yours.  These are gifts I can’t even imagine that You’d withhold!

Grace!  Peace!  My prayer.  Words are gone, I cry!

Be exalted, my Lord.  Be lifted high.  Let Your glory rise.

Loud Prayers in a Quiet Morning

Father, I am looking for You, searching out Your work, and that is where I will focus.  I am seeking Your way, the path you are lighting, and that is where I will walk.

You know the need of the day, and You have always been faithful to provide.  Today I will train my eyes on what You are doing and strive with all my being to be there.

There are so many voices telling believers what to think, how to speak, what to do.  And many of those voices are right on the money, so to speak.  But today I want to train my ears on You in a fresh, new way.  I want to hear from You today.  I want Your voice, whether still and small, or booming loud and neon bright, to be my source, my direction.

I pray this as well for my many friends who come here to pray with me.  Let us be challenged to seek You alone.

As I pray this, I realize a prayer like this actually leads us INTO community, and not AWAY from it.  Take us out of our cloistered monasteries and into the lives of those You’ve given us to serve.

Could I be so bold as to pray this one thing?  Here it is.  You know the intense, immense, overwhelming, flood-stage Jordan prayer of my heart in these days.  I know that You are my deliverer, my guide, my soul resource.  Would You show me the way today?  Could this be the day of the grand-opening of the Jordan so that I can cross on ground fit to walk on?  (Joshua 3 & 4)

I know Your ways are perfect and Your timing is impeccable.  I also know my heart is weak and my body is shaking.  I boldly seek this revelation from You.  I pray for new vision, new dreams, and great purpose and strength to serve.  I seek You alone, oh God hear my prayer, see my tears, meet me in these desperate moments.

I give You praise because Your Name is the top name…  it’s above all others.  It represents goodness, rightness, quality and hope.  Your Name is the label that caries no preservatives or harmful additives…  though You do preserve us and add many good things to our journey.  Your Name is peace in a clamoring world.  Your Name is perfectly designed, and easy to remember.  It comes with a rock solid reputation among those who’ve truly tasted and known.  Your Name comes with a guarantee, Your Holy Spirit.  Your Name is the song of my heart and the tune I never want to get out of my head!

Let Your glory rise, my Lord.  Let it rise over me, on me, in me, and through me.  Let it light up this community ’til every soul sees and knows it.  Let it rise today.  For Your Name’s sake, let it be so, Jesus.