Pastor Mike’s Blog

It would be fun to take a survey to find what we think is the role of the church in today’s world.  Is it to provide a friendly place for those seeking answers?  Is it a place for only believers to hear God’s word?  Should it compete in a marketing environment with all of the other activities?  Is it a place to bolster believers or a place to launch outreach?

So many questions and so many opinions.  Maybe, over the next few posts, we can kick around some ideas.

Are you prepared?  When something hard or unexpected comes into your life are you theologically prepared to handle it?  Some, when faced with a severe hardship have their concept of God severely tested.  Recall the followers of Jesus who grumbled and walked away when faced with hard sayings from Jesus (John 6:66).  Or, will we be prepared to answer as Peter did: 

Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.”  (John 6:68-69).

Solomon tells us to remember God beforetragedy comes (Ecc 12:6-7).  Are we ready?  What is your concept of God and how does it prepare you for the hard times of life?

In a few minutes, we will being the memorial service for my friend, Bob Costello.  Bob lost the battle against cancer last Sunday, a year and eight days after his wife died of cancer and a year and two days after being diagnosed.

Bob was a rough kind of guy.  He knew it.  He worked on smoothing the edges.  But, he was rough.  Bob wasn’t as “far along” with Christ as some of us might consider ourselves.  We might excuse him because he started “farther back” than many of us: he had a tough childhood and military and post-military experience that was similarly shaping in a negative way.  But, Bob understood how much God loved him; “he saved a wretch like me.”

In reality, we are all Bob.  Compared to God’s holiness, the little difference between any of us doesn’t matter.  We are wretches, sinners all, undeserving of God’s great grace and mercy.  But, like Bob, we can take God at his word: by placing our hope and trust and love in him who died, was buried, raised, appeared to many, and is our Lord–Jesus.  If you do this, then one day you, too, will get to know Bob.

As for Bob, I am sad that my friend is gone because I will miss him.  However, I am overjoyed that his is with his wife again and with Jesus.  I envy him that.

See ya soon, Bob!

Howgozit?  An aviation expression for a progress check: how goes it?

Howgozit with my attempt at fixed hour prayers?  Not so good.  Morning is easy for me since I have a long-standing habit of rising early to spend time being attentive to God.  Noon is just hard.  I’m trying to find a repeatable alarm that will sound to remind me…otherwise I tend to work straight through lunch–sadly, another long-standing habit.  Perhaps it is not that I need to find an alarm, but that I need to learn to stop for lunch, both to spend a few minutes being attentive to God and to come up for air in a busy day!

Evenings are also hard.  I don’t know why this is so.  God is often on my mind, sometimes to the point of distraction.  But, stopping for a formal few minutes of prayer is again hard.  I’m beginning to pay attention to why it is hard.

 Meanwhile, the Jesus prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me,” runs through my mind frequently through the day and when I find myself lying awake at night.

And, it’s lunchtime right now.  So, I’m off to read the mid-day prayers…

Last time I talked about how the ancient Jewish community and the first centuries of the early church practiced prayers as fixed hours of the day based on their rhythm of life.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been trying to establish a pattern of praying at loosely fixed times (e.g., morning, lunch, evening) so that I might join in prayer with the universal church.  For me, it is not about prayer at fixed hours for its own sake, but it is a discipline to help me keep my focus on God throughout the day so that I might actually be able to pray without ceasing (1Thesselonians 5:7) as well as join my prayers with those of the universal church, participating in something far larger than myself.

I’ve got to admit, it is hard.  I don’t have much of a rhythm to my life once the day gets going.  For me, morning prayer is easy because it is a long-established habit.  Even being aware of God during the day is coming easier.  However, remembering to watch the clock, especially for lunch, so that I can stop and pray is quite difficult.  Yet, I plan to keep at it for awhile; I think I would enjoy it if I am able to come around to doing it as a habit.

I’ll keep you posted on how I am doing with this particular discipline…why don’t you join me in some discipline to return our gaze to God during each day.  It can be life transforming.