The Strongest Passion

Lamb of God, Precious Savior, Lord God Jehovah!  Your Name is a sweet sound to my ear and the source of strength, power and life to my soul.

What do You desire of me this morning?  What song can I sing to You?  Though You don’t need my gifts, I desire to bring them to You.  May they be an aroma pleasing to You, my Lord.

What confession do I need to make?  Whisper into my thoughts now so that I can be free of the burdens of my sin.  Break the chains, set me free of all that the enemy would use to bind me.

What service of generosity would be pleasing to You?  How can I better serve my people today?  Is there a light I can shine, a gift I can bring, a load I can carry that will bring hope, help and healing into someone’s life?  I will be Your arms, legs, voice as You see fit to use me.  

What new teaching can I learn today?  I am excited to look into Your Word.  I can’t wait to explore the excellent teachings we have so readily available today in various forms.  Lead me to what my heart needs to know.  Show me.

How can I better bring freedom, godly justice, and right things into the flow of life here where You’ve grafted me?  Give me Your Spirit so that I may be wise, discerning, fair, equitable and active on all those things.

If Your glory is to rise, it must rise in Your people as well.  Let us rise!  Rise up in me, lead us on to reflect Your glory, instruments of Your song of joy.  Let it be so, my friend, my Father, my Hope.  

The Laying Downs and Rising Ups

I lay me down, I’m not my own…

Father, I bring You all my frustrations, aggravations, displacements and discombobulations.  I lay them down.  You always know what to do with them.

Father, I bring You my pride and self-assuredness, my certainty and my whims and prejudices.  I lay them down.  You always have a plan for them as well.

Lord, I bring You my reservations and hesitations and all the holding-back and uncertainty that I find in me.  I lay them down.  Do Your beautiful God-work on them.

Savior, I bring all my un-repented flaws and foibles and even the downright sinfulness that still lurks in dark corners of me.  I lay them all down.  I trust Your promises, they always prove true and worthy.

I lay me down, I’m not my own.  I am Yours.  This day is Yours – You made it.  How can I serve You in it?

I am so grateful for the Ephesians 2:10 reminder that I’m a part of something much bigger, brighter, all-encompassing and beautiful than anything I can come up with on my own.  I lay me down to Your purposes for me.

Let Your big, beautiful, adorable, awe-inspiring glory rise…  let it rise in me today, let it rise in this city.

New

Help me to bring new glory to Your Name today, Lord.

Lead me to the new harvest and give me strength for the field work.

Create in me new dreams and new vision for what lies ahead.

Open my mouth with new songs and new praise that refresh my perspective and sound beautiful to Your ears.

Kindle new fires that I may roast up some aromas pleasing to You.

Set my feet in a new direction that I can take an exhilarating journey with You.

Remind me of my new name in You that I may live into Your reputation by Your help.

Bring new hope into my heart for the things You are doing in fields that seem barren and dry to me at this time.

Raise new faith in me that I can arise in greater and stronger obedience and trust.

Inspire new love that I may move more and more into being the man You’ve made me to be.

Lead my hand to press into new brushstrokes on this canvas where You are creating Your masterwork.

Fire me up today with new prayers…  new ways of expressing my heart…  new needs that I can lift today.

Make me new, create in me a clean heart, my God.

My Surrender Met By Your Faithfulness

Lord, I need You, how I need YOU!

Confront me with all You’ve got to give me this morning.  I need a head-on collision with Your righteousness and majesty. On these days when my heart is dragging behind me – lovely image, right, Lord? – I need Your heaven-sent jolt to awaken me.

You are better than coffee!  You are more worthy of my attention than any show.  You are mightier than any force that would keep me away from You.

I want this day to be a reflection of You from start to finish.  I want my motivations to center around Your great plan that was put into motion long, long before I came along.  Teach me to flow in the brushstrokes of Your masterpiece.  Center my attention in Your life-giving Word, in Your way-making words.

This could quickly become redundant, and You have taught me not to pray in vain repetitions, but the song of my heart continues to be, “Lord, I need You.”  The timbre and tone of this resounds with, “Lord, I want You.”  The harmony and melody resolve each other with a, “Lord, You are my desire, my precious friend.”  And the choruses swell with, “Lord, I worship You with all that I can marshal within me.”

Lord, this week finds me stepping farther into this great mystery You are unfolding around me these days.  I lay Your ark in the water, and I await with expectant heart the dry ground passage You are making.  You have set me on a journey that has taken me by wonderful, glorious surprise, and I gladly yield myself to You and Your direction.  I ready my heart for the wonder and excitement only You can build.  I serve You with eager anticipation of Your call, Your whisper, Your neon billboard.  I know You are faithful and will guide me on this journey.

Suddenly, my song of desire for You is met with the reminder that You are singing over me.  I can almost hear Your reminder in my ear…  that sweet sound that tells me Your love never fails, it never gives up, it never runs out on me.

My surrender…  met by Your faithfulness.  What a wonderful place to be today.  I gladly pour out every breath and every notion in surrender to You.

And again, in bold exclamation, my heart proclaims, “Let Your glory rise, Lord!!!!  Let it rise in me today!!!”  You are so great.  Be my cloak and marrow!  Be all and all of me.  Begin me, end me in You.  I surrender to Your ways.

 

 

 

Getting Warmer

Even on these frigid mornings, Your glory is all around me, Lord!  My heart sings to You today…  and what a thrill to know you might just be singing over me as well.

I pray for our school children today – especially the ones who have to walk through these arctic temperatures any distance at all.  Keep them warm, wrap them in such a glow of Your presence that even the child of the least concerned parent might stay warm and well.  For the ones with inadequate coats or wrapping, wrap them in You, Father.  Then wake the rest of us up to their plight so we can make sure they have what they need to stay warm.

Seal the leaks in drafty homes.  Keep our elderly safe and warm through these chilling events we’re experiencing.

Use these days to warm hearts as well.  How may I serve You better?  How can this community be changed by Your wonderful glory being made manifest through your workers doing right things.

How dare we linger in the idea that we can be Yours for even a moment and not be called to be blessings into the lives of others?  Forgive me for any vestige of such thinking left in me.  As long as there is breath and time, spur Your people to rise up and DO good things – the very good things You had in mind for us long ago.  May we be a mighty flood of justice and an endless river of righteous living.  May Your blood course through us, may Your ways be our ways, permeate our souls with Your passions.

Awaken us!  We must rise.  You already knew this – I am simply standing in agreement with it today.  Ready my heart for doing right things, be on my lips that I may teach Your people to rise and shine Your glory.  Remind me that I go nowhere that Your Spirit isn’t already there.  Give me the words, the tools, the heart.  Oh God, can we do this alone?  Thanks and praise to You that we don’t have to.  Empower us now!  Lead on, Great Lord of Heaven’s forces.

Even these prayers, even as they exist only in my heart and on this journal in these moment, make me sing with joyous expectation for what is to come.  You are such a wonderful God, a Mighty fortress and a Warm Coat!

I am so thankful for You, my friend, my Lord, my Father.  I am so grateful to be a part of Your masterwork.  Glory to You, all praise and honor belong to You, Lord God Jehovah!

Let Your glory rise.  Let it be so in me today.

In The Mood For Love – Simply Because You’re Near

(Using such a suggestive old song title may seem a bit strange, but how remarkable is it that as I draw nearer to my Lord, I find my heart more in tune with real, generous, godly love?!)

Father, You have blessed me with such a rich tradition of faith, and my life has been surrounded by such a wonderful witness of people who love You.  Yet as I approach You my mind is also full of the trappings and mimickings of faith that at times provoke me to approach You with more pomp and ceremony than You require or want.

As I bask in Your presence in these moments, wash away the paint of religiosity and the glitter of man-made tradition, and teach me anew what it means to approach You with humility and readiness.

As I’ve spent this week praying through the idea of learning to truly understand what it means to love You, I’ve encountered so many artifacts that I’ve kept on the shelves of my heart; so many useless but beautiful trinkets of faith.

Today I willfully and purposefully clear out the old and seek to love You with new passion and new diligence.

As I come to You, I come just as I am, receiving what I cannot earn.  As I walk with You, though, I begin to adopt Your ways.  I covenant afresh to DO things that express Your love simply because You’re near me!  And funny, but when You’re near me, I’m in the mood to be more loving to those You’ve given me to serve.  I find I’m more loving towards my community, my family, my friends.  These that You’ve given me become like treasure because I walk with You, and they are Your treasure.  I want to know how to love them all better…  so I walk with You even closer now.

So what If I look in a mirror, see that my hair is a mess and that I have food on my face, then I walk away without having done anything about it?  What if I walk with You today, after this intimate conversation this morning, and I get a blast of understanding of Your immense love and goodness, and yet I walk away and do nothing about it?  What does that make me?  I want to be the man You’re making me to be, not the one the enemy tries to convince me that I still am.

I see a great light coming from the heavens, I see it shining brightly on this community of believers.  I see them stepping out of this light place, still aglow, and taking that light to the darkest reaches of our community.  Let it be so!  May we be the source of brining Your Good News to a hungry, hurting community.  Oh God, my heart longs for it to be so today!

Stir me afresh to these good things.  Refine me to be more than just a wooden spoon.  I want to be useful like hard metal, both reflective of the beauty of the mind of the creator, and useful for hard tasks.

Let Your love inhabit every corner of my being, every sinew of my body, every synapse of my brain, every beat of my heart. I love You, Lord, and I lift my voice to worship You.  Oh, how my soul rejoices!

Let Your glory rise in me today.

Lessons From The Fire

Purify my heart, Lord! Here in the dawn of a new opportunity to take hold of, purify me, ready me now, I humbly wait before You submitted and obedient.

I pray in the spirit of what Paul taught Timothy, and us:

Remind me hourly, momently, of what is pure and right that I may live there. Make me a special instrument for honorable use. Clean me now, teach me the ways of cleanness so that I will practice them and be ready for every good work.

Give me the strength now so that if something stimulates youthful lust, I will run. Raise Your standard before me – right living, righteous living, faithfulness, love, and peace – so that I may embrace them, absorb them, live them. Let this be my breath. Surround me with those who call on You with pure hearts; not as a permanent place to reside, but as a permanent band of doers and activists of Your right teaching and leadership.

Keep me from foolish, ignorant arguments that only start fights. Help me to be kind to everyone – especially online where it is so tempting to be otherwise for us all! Teach me to teach. Enable me. Give me patience for difficult people.

Lead me by Your precious, Holy Spirit that I will have gentle instruction for those who oppose the truth. Change their hearts! Bring them to their senses! Make me a liberator. Remind me moment by moment of the authority I have in You. Remind me of the privilege I have in You. Remind me of the love I have in You. Prompt me to do the loving, right thing even before I know to specifically pray over it. Ready me now. Refine me, purify me I pray.

In this hour I release my anxiety over doing this right thing You have set before me to do. I accept Your authority and seek the cover of Your Spirit and the prayers of my people. Make me strong, make me bold, let this be the day my people see me as a great leader. Not to my glory, but only to You, Lord of Heaven’s Armies – one who has the right, the authority and the justice to rule fairly and mercifully.

You are at work in this thing, and I know Your presence is powerfully upon me in these days. I know that of myself, I am weak. In You, I am strong. Build me for this great thing I do in Your Name.

May it be so for everyone who comes here to pray with me. Refine them, purify them, make them ready for the great thing You have for them to do today and in the days ahead. Make them ready, my King. Touch them now and give them strength and the assurance of Your presence. Let it be so! Yes!

Big Boys Don’t Play Church

My prayer of praise: You are the God who makes sense! Certainly not to the unbelieving mind, but to the one who has opened up their intellect to You, there is a calm place amidst the mayhem. Even as life around me gets a bit dicey, You hold all things together. What an awesome God You are.

Here’s what’s troubling me this morning. My heart is heavy for the loss of the most significant employer in this already impoverished county. The closing of Ormet has been a devastating blow to the life, morale and comfort of my people. I saw such sadness and so many questions in the eyes of our good friend just last night. While You have given me the comfort of knowing that these men will rebound, I’m not the one facing the days ahead that they are. My heart connects with them, though. Here are my prayers (and I pray this for anyone whose job picture is dim today): Restore them to work, keep them well in the transition period, and inspire our people to rise up and be what we need to be to meet the needs of the hurting. May we not just claim Your Name, Jesus, but may we LIVE in You, of You, full of You.

There are many people who love the idea of being a part of a “church”, but have yet to be a part of You, Jesus. I lived that way for years, and I’m still growing into my intended purposes. Raise up the church to be a big boy, big girl church, not merely babies waiting to be fed. When I hear a criticism of “church people” these days, I’m embarrassed because I realize much of what people say of us is true.

May we stop being church people, and start bearing the Name of Jesus. I’ve thought so much recently of Romans 12:2 where You tell us not to be conformed to the world, but transformed by You. You are teaching me that “the world” includes the stuff we’ve adopted into being “church”. We have conformed ourselves to world stuff that we have somehow, in our minds, sanctified and made them You. Our formats and festivals and our architecture and our layouts have come to resemble the stuff we require of Christians.

Help us to be restored to the things YOU want us to be – TRANSFORM us. Take the unregenerate things in me and make them new today here in the fall of Your fresh mercies. Oh God, restore Your gathering… renew Your people. Strip us down to what You’ve called us to be. Shake the foundations of the dry, ritual-walking churches that have merely walk in their sleep. Shake the churches that have lively, well-organized structures that may still be shallow and empty. Shake us all, every one of us, til the chaff blows away and we are the people You intended for us to be.

I guess what I’m sayin’ and prayin’ today is… I join Your Spirit in praying that the believers become doers of the Word rather than merely practitioners of format and ritual. Start here with me and my community. Let there be a great revival. Give me voice and strength and boldness and equipment enough to adequately and properly proclaim Your present day prophecy. Let the disobedient-Israel-like New Testament church be transformed by Your holy presence. Whether we sit in rows in tiny white churches, or raise hands in the aisles of large stadium-like churches with all the modern touches, let us all stop squabbling about what is the proper format and move hearts to be bowed/sacrificed/laid down to You alone!

My heart spins when I hear those who claim Your Name criticizing other gatherings over format. Let us instead be You, Jesus. Let the hymn-sings and the chorus-singers and the suit/dress-wears and the jean-wearers band together in Your Name and be what You purposed us to be. Am I off on this? Am I straying from Your heart, Jesus? Counsel me I pray!

Am I sick of the condition of churches (not just “other people’s churches” – but ALL of them) because I am in sync with Your heart? Instruct me that I may proclaim what You will, what You desire.

A living sacrifice – that’s what I need to be! As I remember the needs of the people I serve, I wrap this time in wanting to get this thing right. That is, I pray that I will be increased in what is holy and true and right, that mercy, grace and love might abound in me and my people. Let it spread like wildfire!

Sanctify my thoughts that they will be like Yours, my God! Sanctify Your people that we may be useful to You – refined like silver. Let it be so, my Jesus, let it be… let Your glory rise. Let it rise in me.

Lay Down and Listen

 

(Today’s prayer was greeted by the most fantastic, fiery red sky.  I love how God calls through nature.  I love his artistic, creative flair.  

This entry will be brief because today was a day for listening.)

It’s another day in my journey with You. I want this day to bring joy to You (realizing, of course, that You work beyond the measure of time). I want to thrill Your heart, to offer myself as a sacrifice, an aroma pleasing to You. I lay me down, I’m not my own! Here in the dawning of Your fresh mercies I rise up, I seek Your risen glory, and I long to be near You every step of the way.

I lay down the things that have grieved Your heart. I want nothing more to do with those things.

I lay down the self-focused motives and seek You out.

I lay down the baggage that You never intended for me to carry in the first place.

I lay down worry and second-and-third-and-fourth-guessing myself to be more fully surrendered to You.

—

Wow, and wow again. Thank You for this magnificent morning sky. I can only cry out, “Oh Lord, my God!” It is breath-taking, it is sacred, it is a masterpiece. All praise and glory to You, the Maker, the Artist, the Creator. You truly hold all things together!

—

For a second day in a row, that old song, “Be Still My Soul” is dancing in my mind. Today would be a good day to let my words be few and to listen. So, I soak in the music, I give You all glory, and then I listen…

Firefall

(Prayer time is anything but glamorous.  Even on its most powerful, glory-filled days it can be a messy instrument with slow, puttering starts.  Yet every day, my Spirit alarm awakens me at just the right time and beckons me to come.  Even when I grumble and groan, there can be surprises waiting just around the corner as I begin to open my heart, my mind, and the line of communication begins.)

Fire from Heaven fall on me this morning. Burn away all the chaff and all the garbage and all the anxieties. Replace them with Your presence, Lord, my God. Fill the spaces once occupied by useless things with all the goodness Your righteousness brings.

As I follow You, some doubt my course and others say I am not demanding obedience from our people. I come here to listen to Your voice daily so that I may obey it. You speak grace and mercy into my heart. You do not differentiate the sins of man but see them all the same. Help me not to make some folks just like the others, but instead, give me the fortitude to call all to be like You, Jesus. I must walk with You more diligently, I must seek You all the more in more and more places. I am nothing without You, my Lord! I am lost and hopeless without You.

So as I daily pray to be the leader You’ve called me to be, lead me now so that I can walk in Your ways. Counsel me by Your Word. Give me good, clear counsel from those who draw near You. Teach me more about Your Word and fill my heart, fill my intellect with Your sound instruction. Holy Spirit, bring the fire I need. Your grace and mercy has given me a gentle nature, replacing my anger and my rage. Show me how to use this nature You have put into me to teach, to instruct, to call others to You and Your rightness.

Bring truth alive in me afresh today.

I see Your beautiful – in fact, stunning – morning sky greeting me. It’s been a while since that view stirred my heart like it has this morning. Awaken in me what must be awakened, and put to death in me that which must be laid aside. Awake my soul. Passions arise. God, send Your fire today I pray and set me aglow with Your Spirit. I want nothing less. Anything less insults Your holy Name and even stands as an affront to me. If I am to bear Your Name, if I am to walk with You, that which stands against You is against me as well. Let this day be a marker that as surely as the sun is rising in spectacular fashion, so shall the fires of Your Spirit arise in me. Set me to it.

I seek You anew for wisdom and discernment. Help me to endure in both.

I lay me down to You, gentle Savior, Rushing Wind. All to You, all to You Jesus – in Your mighty, everlasting Name. Let it be so. Oh – and let Your glory rise! Let it rise in me right now. Let it burn brightly. Let this entire community change from its light. Take what is Yours, Lord of Heaven’s Armies. Defeat what is killing us, gracious Savior. Bring life where death has ruled. It’s not about rules or regulations, it’s all about You, Jesus. I stand in that victory today. You are great! You are all I need.