QotRTP

"Dependence on Him is the breeding ground for spiritual maturity."

quisnam?

The Bible, Learning "Continually," and Praying with Your Eyes Open

Have you ever thought about why we close our eyes, bow our heads, or clasp our hands when we pray? None of those actions are mentioned in the Bible with regards to prayer. In fact, it is rare that prayer is associated with any physical actions. (Incidentally, head-bowing is mentioned in association with worship (II Chron. 29:30) and fasting/grieving [Psa. 35:13-14; Isa. 58:5; Lam. 2:10], both of which are related to prayer but not the same thing.) The only ones I know of are "go into your room, close the door, and pray..." (Matt. 6:6; intended to avoid hypocritical, overtly religious prayer like the Pharisees did in the synagogues and on street corners) and "Lift up holy hands in prayer" (I Tim. 2:8).
However, the Bible does say, "Pray continually" (I Thess. 5:17), which is hard to misinterpret; "Pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests" (Eph. 6:18); "in everything, by prayer and petition...present your requests to God" (Phil. 4:6); "Devote yourselves to prayer" (Col. 4:2); "I urge...first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession, and thanksgiving be made for everyone" (I Tim. 2:1); as well as Jesus telling his disciples "that they should always pray" (Luke 18:1).
If, then, we are to be praying so frequently as to be virtually praying all the time without stopping, it follows that it is impractical to often close one's eyes or change posture while praying. The apostle Paul, who was extremely busy while he was on earth, had a lot of other things to do like traveling and ministering, and "prayed continually" while he was doing those things. I believe this is the key to an active prayer life, doing it simultaneously while living life rather than stopping and setting aside time to pray (though that may also be necessary, even on a daily basis).
Certainly, there are times when it may be appropriate or necessary to close one's eyes when praying, in order to shut out distractions from other things around you. I find personally, however, that praying with my eyes open makes prayer a more natural thing any time that I do it, and makes activities like driving and walking great times for prayer. Knowing God and His desire for us to be intimate and natural with Him, I would encourage you learn the practice of praying with your eyes open.

Dreams, Occupations, and the Questions of Life

I'm still thinking about what I should do with my life -- no, what I want to do with my life. This just happens to be the main question I'm asking right now, and is closely connected to the more basic question, who am I?
I believe God made all of me, and put in me my desires and dreams and everything that makes me, me. This means that I am unwilling to accept that what God wants me to do isn't what I want to do. That could be true, but it means I should change. What I do should come out of who I am. It's unnatural, and probably unwise, to ask what I should be doing without asking who I am.
When we ask these questions about occupation and career, we need an extra measure of determination to get to the bottom of things, to be true to ourselves and true to who God made us to be. I'm reading a book about twenty-somethings, and in it the author says that many people who she talked to knew what they wanted to do but weren't doing it. Why? They got sidetracked in the process and didn't ask all of those questions. They allowed what the world says about them, who they should be, and what they should do, to be more important than what God says about it.
If you're somewhere in that process like I am myself, let me challenge you to ask a couple questions that the author of this book recommended. I've heard these questions before, but maybe for the first time I am making the effort to think thoroughly about my answers.
The first question is: If time and money were not a factor in my life, and I could do anything I wanted to, what would I do? Some of you may know what your answer is; others, like myself, may need to delve into your lives and hearts deeper than you have before to find those things. (A resource that I highly recommend to help you in answering this question is the book Cure for the Common Life by Max Lucado.) Many of us think it's a fun question to think about but too unrealistic to be practical. That's where the second question comes in: What is stopping you from doing that (that thing or things)? The things that we come up with as obstacles to our dreams and passions may seem insurmountable. But if you're daunted by the task, I suggest to you that you may never know how much fun life can be until you do those things.
And let me remind you, no thing that you have a passion for doing is useless or trivial in the eyes of our Father. No matter how insignificant it seems, I guarantee you God can use it in much greater ways than you can imagine.

Apathy, Hypocrisy, and Compassion for the Lost

I once heard it said that there's one thing worse than going to hell. Do you know what it is?
It's taking someone with you.
There's another side to that for those of us who aren't going to hell: The harshest rebukes that God will give when we get to heaven (and is probably saying now if we would listen to Him) are reserved for our apathy towards others' souls. Many of us would say we have compassion for the lost, but our actions toward them don't reflect it. When a friend that we know makes a bad decision, we don't reach out to them in love, much less let them know that what they did was wrong and will bring consequences. We pass by a homeless peddler on a street corner, perhaps dropping a few coins in their tin cup but not even considering to pray for them, God forbid that we might look at them, smile, and shake their hand. We know a father, brother, or friend who's viewing pornography, and we think we're doing them a favor by ignoring it, as if it won't carry countless negative repercussions for their present or future marriage and family. We know a sister or friend who's addicted to romance novels or fashion magazines, and we pretend it's harmless and has no effect on her self-esteem or outlook of life. Homosexuals and prostitutes would hardly dream of coming into our churches, because our looks and stares or just plain avoidance condemns them.
My point is, our inaction is not neutral, but is a negative action.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying to point fingers and quote Scriptures and become a "holy tattletale." But it is time to get over our fear of man and find some fear of God, because ultimately we will answer to One and not the other. Passivity never helped save anyone. Compassion is useless unless it translates into actions, words, and prayers that advance the gospel by impacting people. It's time to look lost people in the eyes, welcome them, touch them, and even become friends with them. It's time to go to where they are and stop expecting them to come to us by jumping the insurmountable barriers we put up between ourselves and them. Jesus is not a secret trophy to be passed around indoors under a cross and stained glass, hidden from the world, like the world would hurt God's feelings or something. This is our chance to live unapologetically devoted to God while in the world, rather than sheepishly hide behind our hypocrisy. It's time to leave the big pew Bible at home and put the words of God in our hearts so they'll be with us wherever we go.
I don't know about you, but I don't want someone else's blood on my hands. I can't force people to make the right decision, and ultimately they will make the decision for themselves. But I will make sure they know the gospel and experience it, because they experience me. I will live the gospel, not just speak it or profess dedication to it. I'm going to make it as hard as possible for every single person who comes in contact with me to go to hell.
What will you do?

The Sacred, the Secular, and the Fun Things in Life

Let's say I ask you two questions: What has God called you to do? And, what do you enjoy doing?
Most people would come up with two entirely different answers. They would probably think that those two questions don't have any relation to each other; after all, don't they represent two different spheres of thought?
I need to tell you that it doesn't have to be that way. You can enjoy what God is calling you to do; more than that, you ought to. I would go even a step farther and say, in many cases they are really the same thing. God calls you to do what you enjoy, and what you are excellent at.
"But wait a minute," you say. "That sounds great, but can you really mean that? How can I be fulfilling God's calling on my life when I'm playing computer games? Or fixing something?" What about other things, that aren't "spiritual" at all? Doing makeup? Selling cars? Playing darts? Answering phones? Building houses? Climbing mountains?

Why have we created such a division between the sacred and the secular? In God's eyes, I suspect the only difference in the realm of human endeavor is whether something is done in worship to God. If it is, it's sacred; if it's not, it's secular. Why is it inconceivable that the same God who gave us the ability to do those things, and even be good at them, wants you to do them to bring glory to Him? As long as it is not expressly or implicitly forbidden in the Bible, I don't know of anything in the whole world that can't be done as an act of worship to God, and there are many things (much more than we would initially think) that can be done as a ministry to people.
God is not the heavenly "Fun Police." He's not out to make sure that you don't have a good time while you're on earth. Rather, He's looking for people who will invade the world with their talents and abilities, pursue their dreams and passions, and do it all in worship to Him.
If you think you're doing what God has called you to do, and you're not enjoying it at all, then you're probably not doing God's calling. So go find out what you enjoy doing, what you were made to do, and do it for God.
"So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God" (I Cor. 10:31).

QotRTP

"The best kind of crazy we could ever be is crazy for God."

Tim Franklin