Anorexia
(This message is also available at: http://pastorjimdorton.blogspot.com/)
If you are just joining this study, this portion is called “Road Repair”, and is inspired by John the Baptist’s call to clear the road and make way for the King. And so, we are looking at things in the “road” between God and us.
I heard a story once about a pastor of a big church somewhere. Every morning, he spent the first hour of his time at the church office in prayer.
Drove his secretary crazy.
There were papers to sign, calls to respond to, meetings, people wanting appointments, and so on. Regardless, the first hour was blocked out of his schedule for prayer. One day, in an effort to get him to realize the importance of his ‘priorities’, she caught him coming in the door with a list, twice as long as usual, of all he needed to do that day, hoping he would skip, or at least shorten his prayer time. His response was priceless.
“Goodness,” he said, looking over the list, “I’ll need two hours to pray today!”
We can giggle at this, but there is a reality of need in his response. Skipping prayer is like going without food. Imagine a runner, preparing to run a marathon, saying, “It will take me a long time to run this, I don’t have time to eat.” Or, imagine you are riding shotgun with a friend, on a three-day drive across the country, brought about by some family emergency that required you to be there as soon as possible. What would you think if your friend said, “We’re in a real hurry here, I’m not stopping for gas”?
Those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength… (Isaiah 40:31)
Jesus (as related in Mark 8) spent the night in prayer the day prior to contesting with the Pharisees for the life of an adulterous woman. Jesus! If Jesus spent the night in prayer prior to a trial, how can we hope to get by? When God said, “Be still and know that I am God.” (Ps.46:10) he was not playing some kind of game with us, or testing us. Like a car needs fuel, like our bodies need food, our souls must have prayer.
If we choose to hurry to work, school, church or anywhere else without time in prayer, we are going underfed and undernourished and we will fall.
I guess the issue for many of us is to truly believe that our need is that real. We know what will happen if we run out of gas. And we know what will happen if we do not eat for a long period of time. But most of us have been starving ourselves from prayer for so long that we have developed a sort of spiritual anorexia; our perspective is so skewed that we think we’re ok.
Lent. Reflect. Reach out and clear some space between you and God. Be still. Know God. Be renewed.
That’s what I’m going to go do. Until tomorrow, Pastor Jim
P.S. If you need a starting place for spiritual discipline, consider the following: Starting today, and then first thing tomorrow morning, I challenge you to listen to God, with this five-minute exercise:
1) Do this as soon as you wake up. Set your clock a few minutes early if that is what you need to get up ahead of the household noise. Lay your Bible by your bed as a reminder. 2) Go to the quietest place in your house, outside, your kitchen, your bathroom...wherever. 3) Pray for 1 minute that God would speak to you. Audibly, out loud, ask Him to remove Satan from your presence for this time. Ask Him to remove distractions and mental clutter. During this time, do not ask Him for anything else, do not thank Him for anything else, do not pray for anyone else (but please find another prayer time for all these things). 4) Open your Bible and read for 2 minutes. This is God talking to you through His Word. Listen to Him. 5) Close your Bible and be silent for 3 minutes. Listen for Him. He may come as a thought, a nudge, an idea. For a while, He may seem hard to hear. There is so much clutter in our minds! Keep listening.
This may seem difficult. You will hear every creaking tree branch. You will hear every barking dog. But like Elijah's time in the cave, God is not in the tree branch, God is not in the dog. Persevere. Listen for the gentle whisper.
No comments:
Post a Comment