The Best Prayers Are Short Prayers

Obviously the title of this post is not comprehensively true—there are certainly times when long, extended prayers are appropriate and necessary. The Bible teaches that, at times, Jesus went out and prayed for hours on end (Luke 6.12; Luke 22.39-46), and if He felt it was necessary to do so on occasion, how much more should we?

At the same time, I think we sometimes feel that brief prayers are less meaningful or less useful, and this certainly is not what the Bible teaches. In Matthew 6.7, Jesus says, “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.” He then goes on to provide a prayer as model which is not lengthy at all.

I mentioned that I am studying Hebrew this semester, and in class, my teacher shared with us the words pictured above, which comprise a Hebrew Table Prayer (i.e., a prayer that would be said before a meal by an observant Jewish family).

Translated, the prayer goes something like this (words in [ ] convey additional meaning implied in the Hebrew):

Blessed are you, O LORD [God of covenant] 

Our God, [God of creation]

King of the universe [eternal king]

Who brings forth bread [food]

From the earth.

Amen.

As this illustrates, the briefest of prayers can convey great meaning, and simplicity can possess great power:

As the God of covenant, we are reminded that God desires relationship with his people, and that it is through our relationship with him that all spiritual blessings come. As the God of creation, we are reminded that everything which exists exists because God made it—we owe Him our very existence. As the eternal King of the universe, we are reminded that God’s dominion and authority extends over all things, and throughout (and beyond) all times. And as the One who brings forth food from the earth, we are reminded that we are dependent on God for our daily survival; He is our Sustainer as well as our Creator.

Some very important reminders in just a few simple words. Don’t sell short the power of a short prayer; it can convey the deep truths of life and faith!

Big Lessons from the First Day of School

Today is the first day of school for a lot of people. As a youth minister, I’m very aware of this because my students were (generally) bummed about it yesterday at church. As a grad student, I’m also very aware of it because today I have taken the plunge and started the process of learning Hebrew. And if I wasn’t already aware that today was Back to School Day, I would’ve figured it out quickly once I checked Facebook this morning, as my news feed was blowing up with everyone’s pictures of their kids dressed up and ready for the First Day of School.

So for a lot of folks, today is a big day, and it got me thinking about some important lessons that the First Day of School reminds us of:

(1) We need to be prayerful on behalf of our students. As a youth minister this is something that I’m very aware of, but it is hard to overemphasize how difficult it is to be a young person today and to cling to Christian values, and how much our young people need our prayers and support. 

I am not trying to make a political statement or start a debate on the issue of prayer in schools or anything like that; I am simply making the observation that our society is an increasingly dark place, and this darkness is absolutely manifested in our schools. Teens (and even those who aren’t yet teens) are exposed to all sorts of things that are contrary to a Christian worldview, and resisting those things can be difficult.

But there’s good news as well: a shining light makes the biggest difference in a dark place! Pray not only that our students resist the darkness, but that they shine their lights and point others to Jesus Christ.

(2) We should be thankful for educators. On the whole, I think teachers tend to get a bad rap. Certainly some teachers are not as good, or as caring, or as dedicated as they could be, but on the whole, teachers are people who care about young people and want to do what they can to help them (come to think of it, that entire last sentence could probably be applied to youth ministers as well!).

And really, they have pretty tough jobs: they have to do a lot of work to stay current in their field, they have to deal with children with significant behavior problems (and the parents who produced them!), they get to work long hours before and after school grading papers, working on lesson plans, and going to school activities, and often they spend significant portions of their (not always great) salaries to buy additional resources for their classrooms and students.

Be thankful for educators! Encourage them, tell them you appreciate their efforts, and try to be cooperative when they need something from you (helping your child with homework, getting a paper signed, coming to a parent/teacher conference, etc.).

(3) We should realize how quickly our lives pass by. My first day of Kindergarten was 25 years ago, a quarter of a century. But seriously, I can remember it like it was just yesterday! A repeated theme I saw on Facebook today was parents who couldn’t quite believe that their kids had gotten so old so fast!

I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago, but it really is amazing how quickly time flies. The Bible says that our life is like a mist, something that is here for a short time and then vanishes. And as I see pictures on my news feed of college students who I think should still be in high school, high school students who should still be in grade school, and kindergarteners who should still be in diapers, it really hits home.

Our lives will be gone before we know it; we must make the most of the time we have!

(4) We need to never stop being students. I’m not talking about formal education here, but rather that we need to always have the attitude of being learners—we should never think of ourselves as knowing all there is to know on a given subject and always be willing to learn more. 

This is one of my favorite things about the preaching minister that I work with. He is in his 50s and has decades of experience in ministry, but he is always looking to learn new things so he can stay current. He reads constantly, and is always interested in examining things that I come across in my studies. What a great example that is!

I know so much more about life, ministry, and theology than I did two, five, and ten years ago. But I am by no means I finished product, and I hope and expect to know a lot more in two, five, and ten years down the road than I do now.

One of these days, if the Lord wills, I will finish my grad school education. But that won’t be mark the end of my learning, as I plan to continue doing that until the end of my life.

What do you think? Agree or disagree? Did you think of an important Back to School Lesson that I left out?

Book Review: Soul Work

As I mentioned in this post, I intend to do somewhat better in 2013 in regards to writing about books which I read. I really don’t enjoy writing book reviews (probably because it reminds me too much of school), but from time to time I will try to write very informal reviews and share some quotations which I found to be helpful or insightful.

I recently finished reading Soul Work: Confessions of a Part-Time Monk, by Randy Harris, which focuses on prayer and spiritual living. Harris has spent considerable time among monks and religious hermits (making him somewhat of an oddity for a Church of Christ minister and professor) to gain insight on the disciples of prayer, silence, and solitude, and in Soul Work, he shares some of the lessons he has learned.

Harris has an easy-to-read style, is full of humor, and doesn’t take himself too seriously at all. Parts of the book were a little mystical for me, but he had a lot of good things to say. Here are some of my favorite quotations (with random thoughts by me in brackets):

“One of the reasons that I think we struggle with prayer so much is that we think we need it so little.” (p. 13) [Ouch.]

“If you’re willing to walk and talk and spend time with God, he’ll start to remake your life even when you don’t know what’s going on.” (17) 

“Obedience and submission aren’t really tested until you have to submit or obey in situations where you’re pretty sure you know a better way.” (56) 

“We often give ourselves credit for obedience when we do what we’ve already wanted to do anyway—when the real test of obedience is doing what we don’t want to do.” (57) [Ouch, again.]

“Optimism depends on human beings and hope depends on God. And while I don’t see any reason to be optimistic, I see every reason to be hopeful.” (66) 

“We would get healthier if we committed to fewer things over longer periods of time.” (72)  [Our obsessed-with-activity culture would benefit greatly from this wisdom.]

“Things are learned in suffering that can be learned in no other way.” (99) 

“What would we lose if we lost all suffering in the world? There’s no longer any courage. There’s no longer any compassion. There’s no one to be compassionate towards. There’s no longer any patience. There’s no longer any endurance. There’s no longer the love that doesn’t give up when life goes badly. I don’t know about you, but it sounds like you give up an awful lot.” (100) [Great perspective on suffering.]

“Many of the most important events in your life are going to be ones over which not only do you have no control but which you’re not even going to see coming. And there is nothing like one of those events to burst your illusion about being one of those people who’ve got things under control. Nobody expects that their children will die before them. No one looks for that debilitating disease.” (102-103) [Wow, this really rang true to me.]

“Often the greatest ministry you do is while you’re on the way to do what you think is the important ministry.” (147) [I have found this to be true in my ministry as well.]

“The goal is not to have us praying more. The goal is to have us aware of and practicing God’s presence every moment of every day.” (154)

If you are interested in examining your prayer life and looking at prayer from several perspectives that you likely haven’t before, I recommend this book.

How I Will Celebrate the 4th of July Without Fireworks

I have enjoyed fireworks for as long as I can remember. When I was little, we always used to go down to my cousins’ house to shoot off fireworks on the 4th of July, and it was always one of the highlights of my year, right up there with Christmas.

In addition to getting a kick out of shooting off my own firecrackers and watching those from the rest of the family, I would also go around collecting the remains of already-shot-off fireworks and then spend the next couple of weeks playing with them (I was a weird kid, what can I say?).

As an adult, I don’t get into it all like I used to, but I still shoot some off every year, and I always enjoy trying to get the best bang for my buck by finding fireworks which are pretty but don’t cost too much. This year though, it doesn’t look like I’ll be setting off any fireworks though. Because of a lack of rain this summer in my part of the world, it is so dry that burn bans have been issued which are prohibiting people from setting off personal fireworks.

I was pretty bummed about that for a while, but after further thought, it occurred to me that I could spend the holiday doing a couple of other things which are pretty important:

First, I can be thankful for independence. It’s a novel idea—spending the 4th of July actually reflecting on independence. I mean, the actual name of the holiday is “Independence Day,” but we don’t really spend all that much time thinking about that, as we are so busy with our plans to visit family, head to the lake, and shoot off our miniature explosive devices.

Ours is a country with many serious problems, but it is also a place of unparalleled blessing and opportunity. I am thankful to live in a place with so many freedoms (including the freedom to complain without fear when we feel those freedoms are being limited by Supreme Court decisions!). James 1.17 says that, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights….” Regardless of its faults and the things about our country that we would like the change, we should always be thankful for the material blessings, military protection, and political and religious freedom that we enjoy.

Secondly, I can pray for rain. In addition to being a pain for those who like to shoot off fireworks, the lack of rain is a more severe problem for those who rely on rain for the growing of crops (ultimately, all of us), and in a wider scope, is a huge hindrance for those who are putting their lives on the line in an effort to fight raging forest fires out West.

In James 5.16-18, James says that “…the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working,” and interestingly enough, he makes that point in the context of discussing someone (Elijah) whose prayers impacted the rain in Israel. Prayer is not an easy button that immediately fixes our problem, but the Bible consistently teaches that, if we need something, we should pray for it.

So without my fireworks, that’s how I’ll be spending at least part of this year’s 4th of July—thanking God for the blessings of our country and asking Him to bless us with rain. Even if miniature explosives are still okay where you live, maybe you should consider doing the same.