A Prayer Coming to Life

All last week, I prayed one prayer every night. It was a unique prayer. I had never prayed it before that week. And, to my knowledge, I had not heard it anywhere. It was just something that came to me one night when I went to bed. It is simple.

"God, first, please protect my family from temptation, sin, and evil of any kind. Lead us in all things. And, with evil out of our lives, lead us to seek you and do your work."

As I said, the prayer was simple.

I began the prayer on Monday night. I said it every night. Then, on Friday, I had to take my car into the shop for some minor work. On my way home, I took a short cut, which led me down this 1/2 mile stretch of residential highway.

As I started down this road, my phone drew my attention. I look down to see if I had missed a call or text message. When I looked back up, a car was in my lane. Basically, a car had backed our of a driveway. But, instead of straightening up quickly and getting in their lane, the car was just sitting in my lane. I don't know if it was just waiting for me to drive around it, stop, get off the road completely...I don't know.

Anyway, I looked up just in time to slam on my brakes and stop, nose to nose to this car. For whatever reason, this must have scared the other car because the car turned and pulled back into the driveway it had just came out of a second earlier.

My heart was beating fairly well by now. So, I put my phone in the seat beside me and decided I could wait 10 more minutes until I got home to check the phone any more.

So, I started back down the road. As I sped back up, I entered a curve. Sitting in my lane was another car! It had just backed out of its driveway. Once again, I slammed on the brakes and came to a safe stop quickly, as I had only accelerated to about 20 mph. The car got in its lane and drove on by me.

By now, I am thinking something weird is happening. Two cars in less a tenth of a mile had pulled out into my lane.

Not 1/4 mile down the road, I saw yet another car back out of a driveway and stop in my lane. Three times in less than four minutes! My approach must have paralyzed this driver as she decided to just sit in my lane and not move. I coasted around her and kept going only to have to stop a FOURTH time for a FOURTH car sitting in my LANE. Again, I pulled over and coasted past this car as well.

4 cars in less than a 1/2 mile stretch of road had pulled out in front of me and stopped in my lane.

Now, I my thoughts had quit; I was now in full, straight prayer. "God, just get me home safely."

I did home safely, and as I pulled into my garage, I remembered my prayer that I had prayed every night that week.

"God, first, please protect my family from temptation, sin, and evil of any kind. Lead us in all things. And, with evil out of our lives, lead us to seek you and do your work."

I did not see temptation, sin, or evil in those 4 cars, but I certainly see the first part of the prayer..."God, first, please protect...".

God protected me four times in a row. And, at either one of the incidents, I could have easily collided with someone head on into them. But, God protected.

I am compelled now to share that account because sharing it does two things. First, it gives praise to God. He protected me, and I give all credit of my safety to Him.

Second, it taught me on the obedience to pray. It does not matter if every word comes out right. You don't have to rehearse the prayer ahead of time. God simply wants to hear from you. You are His child. He longs to communicate with you. And, in that, He longs to watch over and protect you, which He did to me this past Friday.

Question: Have you ever had an experience like this one where a prayer came to life and you got to see God answer it? Share if you would.

Brent

Can we only give Him some of us?

It is Sunday afternoon, and I am once again perplexed by Sunday School this morning. If you have been following these blogs, you know that our class, the 18-30 year old class, is walking through the book of Job. Last week, Job 29: 1-6 shook me to the core by making me look at my intimacy with God and showing me what I was lacking.

Today, we entered Job 30. We kindly broke it down loosely into two sections. Verses 1-15 detail how Job's role/place in society has diminished since these tragedies have faced him. Within this, we discussed how his pride was really blurring the lines of being arrogant and prideful.

Then, we discussed verses 16-31, which displays Job's feelings of abandonment from God. Job's perspective of his separation from God is riveted through such verses as these:

Job 30
20 "I cry out to you, O God, but you do not answer;
I stand up, but you merely look at me.
21 You turn on me ruthlessly;
with the might of your hand you attack me.
22 You snatch me up and drive me before the wind;
you toss me about in the storm.
23 I know you will bring me down to death,
to the place appointed for all the living."

This is where the confusion began to rise. Someone asked if Job was justified in his feelings of pridefulness and if he should feel that God had truly abandoned him. Obviously, we know that God never left nor foresake him, just as He has never left or foresaken any of us. However, we feel that it was not Job's fault that he was in the tragic position that he was. Ultimately, it was God and God's allowance for Satan to work in Job's life that brought upon Job's tragedy.

We discussed how we know as Christians that God can and will allow trials to come upon us to strengthen our faith.

James 1
2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds,
3 because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.
4 Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

So, even it Job did not bring it upon himself, the fact that he was a Christian made him vulnerable to God's testing, which is appropriate.

Then, it happened. A statement came out that perplexed everyone.

"That is why I don't give God everything. I let him oversee the spiritual side, but I take care of the rest, like the physical side. If God does it all, there is more room for Satan to come in, and I don't need Satan around now."

Someone had just stated a serious statement open for debate, controversy, and investigation. Basically, to pose this statement into a question, it would read:

"Can a Christian only allow God in certain parts of their life? If so, how does that match God's design for your life?"

With everything that I believe, feel, and think, I have to go against this thought. To me, if you are a Christian, then you became one through the blood of Jesus Christ and his gift of salvation. He did not just save part of you; He saved it all. And, he did not just save you from the damnation of Hell, he bought you at a price, His own life. Therefore, my conclusion is that you don't have a choice. You are His. He owns all of you. So, He can do anything He likes with you. I find my reasoning for this in the following two verses:

1 Corinthians 6
19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;
20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.

If I am to honor God with your body, I take that as physical. It could also be mental as well. But, even if you choose not to honor Him, the other part of this verse still states that you were "bought at a price", which means that you (and all of you) are His.

Now, you belong to Him. And, James 1 says that you will face trials, but they are for our benefit. And, that is the point I am trying to get to in this blog. Here's what I am saying.

1. God does own us. We are His. He bought us at a price. We are to honor Him with our body, so we are not to give Him just part of us. He owns and deserves us all.

2. We will go through trials, but they are for our benefit.

3. Finally, the main point, is that God loves us and longs for us to be His. He wants all of us. But, it is not just to put us through trials. He created us, loves us, sent His Son to die for us, and has a divine purpose for us. He has a reason for us and a passion for us.

So, it is the least that we can do to honor Him with our life, the entire, complete, total life. He gave us His life; now, we can and should give ours to Him. It is one of our greatest opportunities to rise as His generation.

Feel free to respond to this. I'd love to see your opinions and thoughts.

Brent

Blog, Podcast, Study Guide or What?!?

"And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work." -- 2 Corinthians 9:8

Ok everyone, I have a question that needs an answer from you!

I really want to extend the Generations Rising movement. Right now, we have this Blog, which I have just really started up good this month and a Facebook site, which does little right now. Plus, we do the Sunday School class at church and host events every week on Sunday nights. This works great for the summer.

However, we school starts back, our class will be split. Some go back to college. Some stay in town. And, some come most weeks, but have a week here and there that they are out because of work.

To keep the community thriving and on the same page, I want to base the blog, the Sunday morning class, and our events around something that is uniform to everyone. I am thinking about a podcast.

A podcast is simple to understand. Basically, it is just an audio track that I will record a voice message on you and you can listen to it.

With an I-Pod

If you have an I-pod, you go into I-tune, search "Generations Rising", and subscribe to the podcast. The podcasts download to your I-pod everytime you plug the I-pod into your computer for charging or sync-ing. And, it is totally free.

Without an I-Pod

If you DO NOT have an i-pod, you would just go to a certain website, and click on the link for the podcast. It will open on your computer and you can listen to it there.

Without a Computer

If you DO NOT have a computer with internet, I can record the podcast to a CD and give it to you as well.

So, if we did a podcast, I would prepare our weekly lesson ahead of time. I would record it in a podcast and post it online, in I-tunes, and have a cd ready if someone needed it. Then, we would discuss it in class on Sunday morning or those away could email/blog about it. Everyone would be on the same page. We could even do announcements, prayer requests, etc on these too.

But, I don't know if the podcast idea is the way to go or not. I could develop a written study guide that would cover a month of lessons. That way, everyone could get a written copy from me or I could email it to you at college. And then, you would have my lesson and study notes.

There may be something totally better than all this too. I don't know. I need your help. You know what will work for you. Tell me what you prefer. I am open to any and all ideas.

Just respond to this post or tell me in person.

Remember:

"And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work." -- 2 Corinthians 9:8

Thanks!

Brent