Posted on by Ralph Felzer

“Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread”

Here we are, Day 8, and this is the first time we’ve prayed for something personal!  Have you ever noticed that in the Lord’s Prayer we never pray for ourselves individually?  All we see are plural pronouns: us, we, our.  This is a profound lesson for 21st century American Christ-followers.  We are members of one another, and our lives intersect and overlap one another’s in ways we may never see.  When you flourish in your endeavors, struggle against despair, or cave in to temptation, in some sense we all have a share in that.  In some mysterious way, we truly share a life together.  Your struggle with pornography or your secret generosity really affect your brothers and sisters in Christ; all you do affects the spiritual health and temperature of the Church.

Well, back to today!  When we pray for “our daily bread” we are, of course, praying for far more than just food.  Food is a poor substitute for truth.  For genuine sustenance, for nourishment not just of our bodies but our souls, we need to feed on God’s word.  Jesus replied to Satan’s temptation in the desert with God’s word from Deuteronomy 8:3:  “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

Ahead of us today are all sorts of trials, temptations, worries, concerns and opportunities.  As we walk through the day in His Spirit, let us be mindful of Christ’s provision for us in every encounter, every smile, every tear, every challenge.  He is our daily bread, our bread of life.

 

GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD

And even as You fill our hearts with visions of glory, even as You in the person, presence and power of the Holy Spirit lend strength of will and purpose to those whom You have made, give us all we need to walk our road in this present age, in this our one earthly life.  Give us all the resources we need to follow You fully, devotedly, and passionately.  Mindful of Your eternal power, goodness and love, we offer ourselves and our ways to You, for we are but dust shaped by Your divine hand, with life breathed into us by You, the Author of all creation.  The Author of all creation, who spoke worlds into existence, has breathed life into our bodies and souls.  We are Your humble creatures, inspired dust, God-shaped clay, utterly and wholly dependent upon You.

We do not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from Your holy mouth.  Give us this day all we need in order to join forces with you, to be your image-bearers, those who act in accordance with your will and purposes, for we are not men and women capable of such.  All we have we owe to You, and therefore we ask for the courage, faith, boldness, hope and vision of Jesus in the living out of our daily lives.

[What are the specific challenges or responsibilities you need grace for today?  Make them your offering today.]

Posted on by Ralph Felzer

“As It Is in Heaven”

Who can even imagine Heaven?  The best we can hope for is a good analogy, so how about this:  Heaven is like a musical composition.  If you try to write it all down, capturing every instrument’s part and every nuance of musical dynamics, the end result looks endlessly complex–you see a lot of pieces, but you lose sight of the whole.  But when you hear the piece actually played as a single composition, it’s unified, seamless, an immersion in beauty.

We’re so blinded by the world we do know, we cannot even conceive of Heaven—and yet when we pray for God’s will to be done on Earth, we ask for it to be modeled upon what exists in a realm we cannot even imagine—now that’s boldness!  As the Apostle Paul wrote: “no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9).

So we may not be able to pray with precise words for God’s will to be done “as it is in Heaven,” but we can rely on the Holy Spirit, who dwells in us, to intercede with us and to speak through us, so we listen in on the music of Heaven instead of getting lost in the individual pieces.

 

AS IT IS IN HEAVEN

This very moment You reign supreme—over the angels in heaven, over the sun, moon and stars, and over this Earth.  You reign, indeed, over all You have made.  But in the heavens Your rule is established in all its fullness.  You reign in the eternal present where nothing is past, nothing is yet to be, but all simply is, and is as it ought to be.  That rule, that reign, is the deepest longing of our hearts, and we yearn for it to be established among us even now.  May we be emissaries of this Kingdom and act for its fulfillment.  Give us a vision of Your kingdom as it is so that we may surrender our goals and aspirations to Yours.  May You be our vision of all that can, should, and ought to be.  Let Your glory reside in and emanate from all You have made.  And as Your glory fills us, and all of Creation round about us, may we be transformed as we wait for the Day on which You will return to us.  Correct and train all our imaginings.  Fill our hearts and minds not only with the vision of Your kingdom established among us, but with longing for it as well, so that our wills may be joined to Yours.  Raise us up to You as You indwell us.  Grant that our imaginings and longings will be loftier, nobler and holier than they could otherwise be.  Transport us into the heavenly realms so that, descending to the here and now, we may, like Moses, bear the light of glory on our faces and live in such a way that Your heavenly kingdom be established here on Earth just as it is in Heaven.

Posted on by Ralph Felzer

“Thy Will Be Done”

“Yet God my King is from of old, working salvation in the Earth”

                                                                                                ~Psalm 74:12 NRSV

So why pray in one breath for God’s Kingdom to come and in the next for His will to be done?  Aren’t they essentially the same thing?  Simply put, God’s Kingdom is where He rules, but God’s will is what He intends.  What does He intend for the world?  And if He met with greater faith in His wanderings through the world, what exactly would He be doing?  Rest assured it’s more humble and less cutting edge than you think!

And what about you?  Does He rule in you?  Are you aware of what He intends for you?  I mean, beyond some vague, nebulous sense of being meant for eternal life, do you know what He intends for you?  How would your life be different if you were more that person than the one you are today?

Dallas Willard said in The Spirit of the Disciplines that the nearest and best synonym for “salvation” is “life.”  So what would more abundant God-life look like if it were manifest in you and in the world around you?  Can you enter into that life?  Can you be a vessel of that life today?

This Christ-life is meant for now.  It’s about far more than just holding on until He returns—as if the one aim of life was holding on until we get to eternity!  Eternity is now, friends!  You are not far from the Kingdom of God!  He has already invaded this world in Christ.  It’s rather like D-Day:  once the Allies established a beachhead in France the war was essentially over, but there were a whole lot of battles yet to be fought.  Ever since the Resurrection of Jesus, the war is over, but yes, there are indeed a whole lot of battles yet to be fought.  Merely holding on until we reach Heaven is no way to live when God’s Kingdom of love, joy, peace, grace and strength are near to us right now!

 

THY WILL BE DONE

Lord, as Your kingdom comes, as Your reign is established, let Your will and purposes be accomplished therein.  May all those who are called by Your Name bend the knee in allegiance and devotion to You.  May “the obedience of faith” be our hallmark.  We surrender to Your will, sacrificing our own wills on the altar of obedience.  As You come and indwell us, rule in us to accomplish Your purposes.  Give us the grace to join our wills to Yours as we offer them in Your service.  Send forth legions of angels to do battle in the heavenly realms so that Your people’s way would be leveled.  Then let Your people wage their own battle to enter fully and joyfully and readily into the Land that is Promised.  Lord, let all this world’s systems, all nations, all governments, all rulers, all people, all families, and all of nature itself be what You have ordained them to be; let Your will and Your purposes be accomplished everywhere and at all times.  And may Your people, Your Church, stand for Your purposes and protect, honor and defend them with boldness, courage, faith and hope.  May we love Your purposes and, led by Your Spirit, enjoy the grace to work with You until all their clarity and brilliance is established.  Have mercy upon us as we set about Your work, for it is You who are at work in us.    And we recognize as well that you are about purposes far larger and far beyond than ourselves.  May these larger purposes of Yours be extended and fulfilled throughout all Creation.

[Beginning with the most global concerns you are aware of, invite God to accomplish His purposes in those places and/or issues.  Then think nationally.  Then of your community and neighborhood.  Then, not least, pray for the unity and purity of the Church—not just your local church, but the entire Church of Jesus Christ.]

Posted on by Ralph Felzer

“Thy Kingdom Come”

When I was a boy, my mother used to say, “Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it!”  When we ask for God’s kingdom to come, do we really know what we’re asking?  The implication of praying for the coming of His Kingdom is the realization that His Kingdom is not yet here in its fullness.  Don’t you feel a thrill of excitement when Jesus says, “You are not far from the Kingdom of God” or “The Kingdom of Heaven is near to you.”  His Kingdom is poised to break into our world—indeed, has broken into our world.  It falls to us to allow that Kingdom’s sway to be broadened and deepened, to run free and unhindered, not only in us but through us.

Living in a democracy, though, the notion of individual rights and freedoms dominates our vision of “the good life.”  But what if we’re not made for a democracy but a kingdom?  What if the highest and best we can be has more to do with obedience than independence?  What if we’re meant to enter into an already-established order that we don’t get to invent or approve of?  Living under His reign means letting go of our own rule and entering into His—once in Christ we are no longer our own.  We want to live in His Kingdom, but how sincerely do we want Him to be King?  Is there a part of me that resists that?

As you pray today, stop for a moment and see with your mind’s eye the reign of God being established in the world.  Where do you see a need for His Kingdom to be extended?  See His rule being established in you.  Pray for His Kingdom to be established in you so that it may be established through you.  Where are the “hot spots” in your own soul? Throughout the rest of the world? How can God do that Kingdom work through you today?

 

THY KINGDOM COME

Lord, let Your kingdom come.  Let the fullness of Your rule and reign be made manifest here and now, in this world, this nation, this community, in these Your people, Your Church, in me.  Come in Your holiness, bend Your knee, stoop to those who are Yours in order to reign over us.  We surrender all that we are and have to You alone, to You who are holy and good.  Take up Your throne.  Take up Your scepter.  Order all You have made.  Come in all Your fullness to Your own, to those who are called by Your holy Name.  May every knee bow and every tongue confess in worship of You.  Let Your sovereignty be our everlasting joy.  Let Your majesty overwhelm all those who would supplant You.  Cause all who would contend with You to fade into obscurity, into a mist that burns off in the light of day.  Cause Your light to shine upon us and all that You have made in order that Your love and care and rule would fill our hearts.  Break into this world.  Until Your kingdom comes in all its fullness on the Day of Christ, do not send it from above or raise it from the earth, but bring it in through that which already is, so that what is is not obliterated but transformed.  And do not merely dwell in us but rule in us, fill us, transform us into creatures who bear more truly and clearly Your image and Your glory.  O You who alone are holy, make us holy who serve, honor, love and obey You.

Posted on by Ralph Felzer

“Hallowed Be Thy Name”

In Days 1 and 2 we’ve already begun to dwell on the holiness of God.  Here at the outset of Day 3, though, God’s holiness takes center-stage.  We cry out, “Hallowed be Thy name!”  But do most of us have any idea what “hallowed” even means?  Just this:  holy, revered, set apart.  Words cannot express holiness—it is beyond comprehension, beyond imagination, beyond all words, all thought, all artistic expression.  Down through the centuries, every attempt to express God’s holiness, the most sublime music, poetry, sculpture, literature, all of our human attempts to express it, however uplifting, look pale and haggard in the light of God’s majestic Other-ness.  All of our prayers and reflections before God should begin as we’ve begun in these first few days.  We’re too eager to rush into our laundry list of requests for God to meet for us.  But if we begin here, with the Fatherhood of our holy God who dwells in the heavens, we will come to see our needs, concerns, anxieties and requests in the shadow of His glory.  Then we can lift those to Him with far greater wisdom, clarity and humility that we otherwise would.

As you pray today, notice how your own desire for holiness is heightened when thinking of His.  What does God’s holiness lead you to long for?  How would His holiness, more fully realized among us, transform our view of the world and the way we live in it?

“HALLOWED BE THY NAME”

Lord of All, You are holy.  Nothing that is not holy can dwell in Your presence.  You are the high and holy One.  Your Name, You who called all into being by the power of Your Voice, is higher than every other name.  Your Name is holy.  Your Name, O great Speaker-Into-Being, is that which we, Your created, hardly dare to speak.  You are high above all, holy and separate in all Your deeds, inscrutable in Your ways, mysterious in Your movements, subtle in Your plans, and majestic in Your person.  Every thing owes its existence to You and cries out praise from its very being, through its very being.  All of creation vibrates with the anticipation of fulfillment in You.

 

Posted on by Ralph Felzer

“Who Art in Heaven”

I love that we began yesterday with thoughts on the Fatherhood of God.  It really is crucial for us to see Him as Father and not just as Parent.  While our mothers nurture and protect, our fathers are meant to affirm, to call us out from the safety and protection of mother into our own identity and purpose.  He names us and affirms us.

Did you know that infants don’t even know they are separate from their mother?  The father’s voice calls the child out into his or her own identity.  The same is true of our heavenly Father.

Even though many of us have been challenged on that front because of issues with our earthly fathers, the grace of God can lead us into the very Presence of our Heavenly Father, who fills and heals that void and delights over us as not even the best earthly father can.  (I owe a huge debt to Leanne Payne for teaching this truth to so many!)

Day 2’s reflection continues in the same vein, but broadens the scope to focus not only on who God is in relation to us as Father, but who He is in His transcendence over all creation.

…WHO ART IN HEAVEN…

You dwell in the heavens, Father, in the high and holy places.  Your ways are not our ways.  Your thoughts are not our thoughts.  You are not of this world, but You exist in eternity, outside time, so you know all things and see all things.  Nothing is hidden from You.  All of creation is naked before You.  You know every blade of grass, every stalk of corn.  You know every drop of rain that falls to the ground.  You drench all of Creation with Your presence.  You fill the earth with Your grace and favor.  You see all, and Your purposes are at work in all that we see as You extend Your will and focus Your eye on all You have made.  You are eternally exalted, transcendent over all You have made.  Nothing in all creation can contain You—no mountain, no sea, no wood or valley—not even the sky, either by day in its single-starred brilliance or by night in its crowded and glorious host.  Though none contain You, all speak of You and point the way to You, for though You dwell in heaven, and Your creation knows You and resonates with the memory of Your calling-into-being Voice.  We ring like a struck bell, we testify to the One who lives on high and before Whom every knee bows, in order that You would be exalted to an ever higher place.  Glory to You forever, Lord God of the heavens!

Posted on by Ralph Felzer

A JOURNEY INTO THE LORD’S PRAYER

Over the next couple weeks I want to invite you take a journey with me through the Lord’s Prayer.  If you come along, I think you’ll find the experience both faith-building and encouraging.  I thought I’d make this invitation because very often on long runs I’ll pray and reflect on a phrase of the Lord’s Prayer during each mile and it’s helped me immensely.  You don’t need to run, though, in order to pray!  My hope is that if you choose to take this journey with me, you’ll enter into this Prayer as if for the very first time.  And you can carry it with you through the whole day!

Here’s how we’ll do it:

I’ll post a daily reflection on each phrase.  Don’t feel bound in any way to pray exactly as I do, just use my reflections as a sort of “jump-start” for your own prayers.

Also, these are obviously not the exact words I pray while I’m chugging down the road, and every time I pray this way the words and concerns come out a little different.  Sometimes I find myself praying for certain parts of the world or for certain situations in the church, or for certain relationships I’m challenged in or blessed by.  My only purpose in giving you these actual reflections is to help you see how God can lead you through the prayer.

Lastly, I want you to notice the communal aspect of the Lord’s Prayer.  Stop yourself—really—from focusing solely on your own needs and concerns.  Always begin by asking God to lead you as you pray.  Then notice Christ’s emphasis on “our” and “we” and “us.”  Think about God first and foremost (“we” don’t even come into the picture until “give us this day our daily bread”).  Until then it’s all God and His Kingdom!  Even when it comes to forgiveness, think of ways our nation has sinned, of how our communities are mis-guided, and use the opportunity to pray for our leaders.  And then, of course, throw in your own sins too—but notice how confessing your own sins right alongside those others changes your perspective!  We begin to see how grievous our “small” sins of envy, greed, etc. can become when taken to a larger scale.

I’ll pray through each of the phrases a mile at a time, but why not take one or two minutes (or five or six!) in the morning before starting your day?  Or before going to bed at night?  Why not go for a walk and pray a phrase from light post to light post?  Be creative about how you pray!

I love the Lord’s Prayer because it gives me a form to pray through.  Otherwise, I just drift from worry to worry, or I “wake up” to find myself thinking about something totally irrelevant!  I’m too scatter-brained to pray well—I need order and structure in order to be more faithful in prayer, and praying this way has helped me immensely.

So please come along and just give it a shot, but if you find this too structured for you, if it feels to mechanical or forced, just leave it and find some other way to pray!  Remember, the form helps me, but it’s not the form that counts, it’s the conversation it allows me to have with the Father.

Let’s get started—and let me know how it goes (even if it doesn’t go “well”)!

 

OUR FATHER

I thank You, Lord, that we have a Father in heaven and no mere impersonal force or power.  You know us inside and out, more thoroughly and deeply and profoundly than we even know ourselves. You made us, shaped us, called us into being.  With intention and foresight, you gave us life and breath.  Like Adam, you formed us and breathed life into us.  We are made in Your image and likeness, a mystery none can fully fathom.  You have called us into being for Your own purposes and for Your own glory, not our own.  You name us and affirm us.  Each of us is gloriously different from all others, and You rejoice over our very existence.  We are made for You and we cannot fully know ourselves until we know You.  You reach out to us and save us from all our enemies, from those other created beings who would do us harm, and from those spiritual powers that would hinder our growth in and pursuit of You.  You are our Shield and Defender, our Maker and our Redeemer, our Healer and our Master—in all things related to us You are Father indeed.

Posted on by Ralph Felzer

The Truth About Small Battles

I struggled for a long time over whether or not to go for a run this morning.  I looked at the weather to see how windy it was, and how windy it would be tomorrow (“will tomorrow be less windy—maybe I should wait till then”), and what will that do to my miles for the week.  The bottom line:  I just didn’t feel like it.  In fact, I really (no, really) didn’t want to go.  As I often do in such situations, I asked myself: “When I go to bed tonight, which choice would I like to have made?”  Still, I struggled.  Then I heard a small voice in my head (don’t know for sure if it was also a still voice too or not—probably just me) say, “If you don’t go now, you aren’t going to go.”  So I went.

I know many people who live life more spontaneously than I do.  And sometimes I give myself grief for not living more like that.  After all, isn’t it freer, simpler—“Won’t you be happier and more free-wheeling if you just relax already and take the easy road?  Why work so hard?  If it’s that hard, why fight it?  Aren’t you just fighting against yourself?  Just be who you are!  This isn’t really what you want, is it?”

Well, yes, it is.  Because the battle isn’t really over what I want to do and what I don’t want to do.  It only appears that way.  You see, the man I want to be, the Christ-follower I think God has called me to be, would go out on that run.  That’s the man I’m striving to be.  The “me” that wants to stay at home and veg truly is the “me” I am today.  But he’s not the man I’m becoming.  I choose to live as that man; otherwise I’ll never become him.  That man isn’t simply and solely a work of God—he’s a product of my own choices and commitments.  (Granted, my will and my desires originate as God’s gifts to me, but they are no less shaped by my own efforts—or lack thereof.  I will not just wake up one day to find myself the man God intends me to be without to some degree living as that man today.)

This doesn’t mean I have to fight myself at every turn.  It also doesn’t mean that what I don’t want must be what’s good for me.  It’s simply a recognition that the “me” I’m becoming is someone better, stronger, nobler, more courageous and more faithful than the “me” I am today.

I want to be that man.  So, in the end, did I do what I wanted to do?  You’re darn right I did, and it was the hardest thing I’ve done today.  Tomorrow’s things may be harder, but I’ll be better equipped to choose rightly and well then because I won this small fight today.

Today’s fight?  No big deal.  No one would ever know or care if I had stayed home.  And that makes me wonder:  How many fights like these are going on all day every day in other people’s lives?  I know there are many.  And I know many of them struggle and lose—because that’s been me before too.  I want the losses to be the exception, though, not the rule.

 

Genuine wisdom and discernment are called for here, too, because I could make this a law if I wanted to.  I could decide that every time I struggle to make a decision I’ll do the hard thing, the thing I don’t really want to do.  But this isn’t a law, it’s a battle to become someone, to become a whole person, a man who not only honors Christ but reflects Christ.

I can only make that decision tomorrow because of what I’ve learned today.  I know pretty well where and how I struggle, and I know what temptation looks and feels like (well, much of the time!).

Here’s one of the temptations:  Tell everybody else that this is the choice they should make too.  It may be, but it very well might not be.  I can’t even tell myself that I should make this same choice every day.  As I said, this isn’t a law.  If that’s the case, how can I know which choice to make on any given day?  Because the choice isn’t about running or not, or eating or not, or buying those clothes or not.  The choice is whether or not to be the man or woman Christ is calling me to be.  Will this choice, whatever it is, lead me closer to, or farther from, that man?

The easy thing for me is to choose laziness (many of those who know me will push back here, but trust me).  For others, the easy thing is constant activity, perpetual busy-ness.  Whereas I may need to get up and do something, the activist may very well need to just stop it and sit down, or even just go to bed.  That could be at least as hard a struggle as my decision to run this morning was—and I mean that.

You are not becoming me.  Neither am I becoming you.  But perhaps instead of living by the law we can live by the principle that in order to be the person I want to be when I wake up in the presence of Christ, I may have to choose something in this moment that runs contrary to what I want to do in this moment.  I’m willing to sacrifice this moment for eternity—now there’s a principle to live by!  Not a law, or a rule, but a guide.  And the beauty of it is that you and I, however differently we’re wired, can both live by the same principle without necessarily making the same exact cookie-cutter choices.

Posted on by Ralph Felzer

Cussing Without Cussing

Every English teacher has pet peeves.  One of mine (just one–there are many!) is “things.”  It’s fine when you’re drafting because your job then is just to get it all down in a place where you can set to work on it.  But there’s no excuse for it in a final draft.  “Things” is lazy; it’s a sign of carelessness.  What “things” are you talking about–ideas, pencils, values, flowers?

I recently shared a video I found on Facebook (thanks, Ned Berube!) of an interview with Bono and Eugene Peterson.  At one point, Peterson observed that we need to find a way to cuss without cussing.  Hmm…

Just this morning (the best ideas are the ones that not only stay with you but that you find yourself processing over the coming days), I discovered a parallel between cussing and my fretting over “things.”  It’s just this:

Cussing is lazy.  One of Bono’s and Peterson’s other observations was that they wish Christians were more honest in work, art, music … life in general.  Cussing is just surrendering to the frustration or anger of the moment.  Granted, it’s often emotionally charged, which precludes thinking very consciously, but it’s also most often automatic and thoughtless.

Again, I know that, as Clyde Kilby noted, “You can’t kiss your girl and think about it at the same time” without ruining the experience of both!  Go ahead–live the heat of the moment, but don’t let it be a substitute for a vomit-fest that engulfs everyone around you.

What if, the next time you get frustrated with your spouse, friend, government or boss, you really thought about not just venting but forming your reaction into a response that invites others in rather than elbows them out of the way?  What if you thought deeply enough about how to best express the intensity of your experience that you wound up both reconciled to the other closer to them?

What if, the next time you find yourself angry with God or disillusioned with your state in life or spirituality, you framed a prayer that sincerely and honestly named what you were feeling and offered it to God?

If the psalmists can do it, so can we.