An Eternal Offering

One of the earliest memories I have of my father is that of him kneeling beside his bed praying. Of course, at the time, I didn’t realize what a gift that was — both the prayers and the imagery. Today I am overwhelmed by it. 

I have always been grateful for my parents’ prayers for us children. Whereas I recall Daddy saying our nightly prayers with us, I think Mom did most of her praying in the bathroom where things were quieter. In later years, she has kept a running list of all the family members in her little prayer book by her chair in the den.

Through the last decade, we have watched as my dad’s mind has been given over to dementia. And with that has come the loss of things which he used to do with ease. All who have any dealings with this disease know the many things of which one is robbed. It has also made me wonder what my life would look like without my daddy’s prayers. 

But then there’s this:

The angel said, “All of your prayers ... have ascended before God as an eternal offering.”

Acts 10:4

What an amazing and encouraging word! To know that my daddy’s prayers were not limited to time and space but have found an ETERNAL presence before God to be answered in His timing and good will.

When my children were young, I would often use prayers written by others. Today I have a full shelf of prayer books with dated pages and the child’s name for that particular day I prayed. And then there are the spiral notebooks filled with prayers for my children ... as well as my husband. After all, isn’t it a wife and mother’s duty to pray?

But my children are all grown now. Full-fledged adults. Living their lives all in separate cities. And sometimes I don’t know what to pray. Or how to pray. I just feel “prayed out”.

But in such times, it is verses like this that gives me such hope. 

Indeed, I have been known to stand in front of that book shelf, open my arms and pray: “God, thank You that every prayer I have ever prayed still lives before You. That on the days I prayed them, they became an eternal offering. And that on these days when I have no words, You recall not only my words, but you see my posture and hear my heart.”

Rest today in a God who is faithful and ever-mindful.

Just an ordinary moment...

The ABC's of Prayer

When my children were very young, I began using the ABC's as a tool to guide them in Scripture memorization. For example, "A" would stand for Anger: "A wise man controls his temper" (Proverbs 14:29). "B" -- Bad Words: "Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies" (Psalm 34:13). For "C" I chose the word Choosing: "Where is the man who fears the Lord? God will teach him how to choose the best" (Psalm 25:12). And on and on we'd go until we had made our way through the alphabet and then we'd begin again with new words corresponding to each letter. (I must inject here that I used money as an incentive. Back then, I think I paid them a quarter at the end of each week for the verse committed to memory. You may judge me, if you like, but, hey, it worked.)

There was a period of time where our middle child would get up in the middle of night with some type of anxiety, pacing the floor on his toes. As his mother, I would pull him into bed with me, wrap my arms around him, and say, "A." He would respond with, "A wise man controls his temper."

Then I would say, "B."

He'd reply, "Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies."

And on I would go with each letter, with him responding with the corresponding verse until he finally settled down and drifted off to sleep way before we made it to "Z." And as I recall, none of those verses had anything to do with anxiety or fear. They had more to do with just life in general.

"D" - Doing: "Whatever you do, do well" (Eccl. 9:10).

"E" - Example: "Follow my example as I follow the example of Christ" (1 Cor. 11:1).

"F" - Friends: "Do not be mislead: bad company corrupts good character" (1 Cor. 15:33).

After several rotations of ABC character-building verses, I moved to selecting scriptures that had to do with God and His character. How many of those verses through those years took root and produced good fruit? Only God knows. But for that season of restless nights, the ABC's were less about Scripture memory and more about prayer and connecting to the true Word of God.

Many, many years have passed since those days of drawing my child close and saying the ABC's in order to calm him down. Many books have since been read on prayer, and many techniques have been employed. Does anyone truly believe they have arrived when it comes to praying? Certainly not I.  Recently I came upon a story that J. David Muyskens relates in his book, Forty Days to a Closer Walk with God. I offer it to you here.

The story is told of a Jewish peasant who became so absorbed  in his work in the field that he did not notice that the sun had gone down. It was the eve of Passover, and he was not allowed to travel after sunset. So he spent the night in the field. At sunrise his rabbi came walking through the field and said to the peasant, "Your family missed you last night." With a sigh the peasant explained what had happened. 

"Well," said the rabbi, "I hope you at least said the appointed prayers."

"No," the peasant replied, "that's the worst of it. I was so upset that I could not remember the words."

"Then how did you pass the holy evening?" asked the rabbi.

"I recited my alphabet," said the peasant, "and trusted God to form the words."

Sometimes life can get just get overwhelming. Whether it be the chaos in the world, the chaos in our own personal life, or the chaos within our heart, during those times, we can find that it's difficult to know what to pray. Or how to pray. It's times like that when we can trust God to form the words. After all, He knows the world's troubles; He knows our personal circumstances; He knows our hearts -- our desires, our needs, our sorrows, our rejections. And sometimes there just are no words. 

So should you hear me singing in the night season, listen closely, I just may be reciting my ABC's while God draws me close in His arms.

Just an ordinary moment...

I Want to Pray Like That

I sat with a friend last week over lunch, and after he said the blessing, I recalled just how much I want to pray like him when I grow up. His prayers are honest. They are real. And more times than I can account, it has been as if I were sitting in on a private and intimate conversation ... sometimes to the point of almost feeling embarrassed about it. 

Me? I have a tendency to be concerned about my words. Are they the right ones? Are they eloquent enough? Do they sound spiritual? And heaven forbid I leave out something or don't cover all the bases, "just in case," when praying for someone, so I pray ad nauseum. (Lord, help me!)

In the early days of our friendship, I would bow my head for my friend to pray ... and there would be nothing. I would finally raise my head a bit and peek open an eye just to see what he was doing ... or see if he was still even in the room. But, no, he was right there. Head bowed. Eyes closed. And I remember thinking, "This is odd. Maybe he prays silently for people." But as I learned, he was not praying, he was listening. Here was a man who knew and knows what intercessory prayer really is.

He knows that prayer is not asking God for what WE think that person needs. Nor is prayer trying to pry an answer out of His hands by using loud or large words. Rather, it is listening to the prayer the Holy Spirit is praying for that person and then joining Him in it. Ruth Haley Barton puts it this way, "It's being present to God on another's behalf." 

And so my friend would enter the stillness of prayer ... and just listen. Only then would he begin to pray out loud. Only then would he begin to speak those things he thought were on the Father's heart. Only then would he begin to hold me or whoever else he was praying for in the love and care and grace of God.

Just think how much freedom there would be in such praying. Freedom to not have to perform. Freedom to not have to manipulate God (as if we could). Freedom to not have to fix things in prayer. Freedom to be silent, for goodness sake, should we NOT hear anything. Freedom to speak what we DO hear. Freedom to just hold another in the grace of God before His throne. Words or not.

People need ... want .... our prayers. And we need to rightly give that to them. But how much more profitable those prayers would be if we would just be silent for a moment, like my friend, and listen.

Yep, when I grow up, I want to pray like that.

Just an ordinary moment...

She Talketh Too Much

At the suggestion of a friend, I pulled up a movie on Netflix this last week and, over a 3 day period, watched Shall We Dance? on my cell phone. While the title was in English, what she failed to mention was that the movie and dialogue were in Japanese. And so for those 2 hours, I both watched the action and read the translation that appeared at the bottom of that tiny screen that sat perched on the treadmill.

The movie itself was okay, but what was so humorous to me over and over again in what was considered to be a drama was the time it would take for a character to say something compared to the amount of words in the caption. He or she would rattle on and on in a language that was so foreign to me, often times said very seriously, and then only four or five words would appear on the screen. On a number of occasions, I thought to myself, "They left something out there. He said a lot more than that." In fact, I felt purely cheated.

The point of my watching that movie never surfaced as I was looking for a particular quote or conversation between two of the characters ... which I never saw (or read). But what I did discover, or maybe just realized again, is just how many empty words we use when, really, just a few will do. And no one is more guilty than I. 

We do live in a wordy world. Words reeking with emptiness. In our conversations with each other. In our writings. (You are reading an example of that now.) And certainly in our relationship with God. But is there really such a thing as praying too much? I imagine that if we were to keep a record of the words we speak in prayer compared to the words we hear GOD speak, our side would be lengthier and ... well, wordier. But whose words are more important? His or ours? I think we all know the answer to that.

Having experienced the limited captions in the film, I have been challenged to speak less and listen more. Particularly in my prayer life. The appeal is to limit my prayers to 3 words per subject. Therefore, I attempt to listen and then choose them very carefully. With a particular person or situation in mind, I am learning to simply pray, "Send Your Spirit."  Or maybe, "Heal her mind." "Open my eyes." "Take note, Lord." "Bring Your peace." "Lead him." "Have mercy." "Establish what You have wrought." Yes, I know that last one exceeds the limit. And so I remind myself this is not a legalistic exercise but a spiritual discipline of listening more and talking less. 

But don't take my word for it. Listen to Jesus' example and instruction on effective praying: 

"Thy kingdom come."

"Thy will be done."

"Give us this day."

"Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive others.'

"Lead us not into temptation."

"Deliver us from the evil one."

Yes,short, power-packed words that penetrate the very heavens.

So, why do we talketh so much .... especially when we have so little to say? And He has so much?

Just an ordinary moment...

Find Us Faithful

How we got from here to there I don't know.  One minute we were discussing the Boy Scout house that is long gone, giving way to weeds and overgrowth years ago, and the next thing I knew we had "the book" out.  No, not the Bible.  The Harper genealogy.  Surely the hump in the conversation was when I asked how we were related to Wayne.  I had thought all these years it was just by marriage ... not by blood.  But come to find out, my great-grandmother was related to her husband's first wife whose child by her first husband was Wayne's grandmother.  I think.  But like I said, one thing led to another until I finally pulled out the family book that my mom wrote for us a decade ago.

I agree, it's not always "safe" to go digging into family past.  One never knows what one might find.  And boy, did she ever find!  Let's just say we are rarely surprised anymore when something "new" shows up.  It is what it is and there's usually not a thing we can do about it.  But it has made for some lively conversations.

Yes, it is interesting to flip through the pages of family histories and discover something of the lives of those gone before.  For example, I just learned that I had a great-great uncle who was the mayor of Homestead, FL.  His life was cut short in 1937, however, when he and his 19 year old daughter Katherine were killed in an accident involving an ambulance on their way home from the horse races in Miami.  (They had left early to "beat the traffic.")

Something else I didn't know.  My great-uncle, R.E. Harper, was among the very first trustees of the Perry School System.  He also spent his last days in Milledgeville at the mental hospital.  Surely there was no direct correlation between the two.

And then there was that "little incident' of "Who Shot the Sheriff of Jones County."  No one can say for sure, but the three Harper boys did go a-missin' after that.  And such is how we ended up in "these parts."

I imagine every family has a story or two they can tell if they're brave enough to look.

But what overwhelms me the most each time I fan the pages of our family history are the obituaries.  And one in particular: that of my great-grandfather, Bright Harper.

"Papa" Harper
1846-1913

I remember reading the article years ago and it striking the same chord then as it does now.

August 14, 1913, 100 years ago, the Houston Home Journal obituary read: "After being in declining health more than two years, Mr. Bright Harper, one of the most highly esteemed citizens of Houston County, died at his home near Providence Church last Sunday. ... Upright and true in all walks of life, Mr. Harper held the absolute confidence of all who knew him. ... There never lived a more steadfast friend, a more excellent neighbor, and his home life was kind and true to his high ideals of morality and Christian duty. ... A truly good man...."

Four months later on Dec. 18 of the same year, another article appeared -- this one written by "A Former Pastor."  In it, I read, "As a citizen this good man ranked as the best, as a neighbor he was all that could be desired.  He was very tender and loving as husband and father, and his children rise up and call him blessed.  ... For years he was a member of the Methodist Church, having his membership at Providence church ... and the hands of many a pastor were made stronger from the faithfulness of this good man.  His home was the place of rest for many a weary preacher, as he made them the objects of his hospitality. ... He was true to God, sympathetic in the afflictions that came to others, liberal in all things pertaining to the church of God, one of its most faithful members and to his family a loving father and husband.  He was a follower of Jesus in whom was no guile.  May the mantle of the father descend upon the sons."

"May the mantle of the father descend upon the sons."  Even as I read and type those words again, fresh tears run down my cheeks and I want to fall to my knees in enormous gratitude to a God who has been so faithful to these generations.  At once I want to shout to those in the grave a loud "THANK YOU!!!!, all the while my heart bursting open toward the heavens knowing it is God who has done this thing for us.

Before me each morning as I sit in my "sacred space" is a picture of our family: my husband and me, our children and their spouses and our grandson.  

No doubt, it is very often the central focus of my prayer time.  And this is what I am learning:  to pray that the mantle of the father descend upon the sons (and daughters).  Don't just take it for granted.

Many months ago, I jotted "Psalm 112" on a piece of paper, tore it off, and placed it in the corner of the frame.

It became my prayer.  It begins:

Praise the Lord!

Happy are those who fear the Lord, who greatly delight in His commandments.

Their descendants will be mighty in the land;

the generation of the upright will be blessed.

Wealth and riches are in their houses,

and their righteousness endures forever.

They rise in the darkness as a light for the upright;

they are gracious, merciful, and righteous...

This week as I flipped through the pages of the Harper genealogy, I came to the front of the book where my mother had penned a personal message to me.  My breath caught when I saw it.

Though certainly not perfect, I cannot be more thankful for the generations that have gone before me ... of both my parents, their parents and the ones before them.

A number of years ago, Steve Green wrote and sang a song that still rings within me today as I flip the pages of personal history.  A portion reads,

We're pilgrims on the journey of the narrow road

And those who've gone before us line the way

Cheering on the faithful, encouraging the weary

Their lives a stirring testament to God's sustaining grace

Surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses

Let us run the race not only for the prize

But as those who've gone before us

Let us leave to those behind us

The heritage of faithfulness passed on through godly lives

Oh may all who come behind us find us faithful

May the fire of our devotion light their way

May the footprints that we leave lead them to believe

And the lives we live inspire them to obey

Oh may all who come behind us find us faithful

So what if you don't have that kind of heritage: "the heritage of faithfulness passed on through godly lives"?  Beloved, you start it right now ... with your very own life of faithfulness.

Yes, may those who come behind us find US faithful.  And may the mantle of the father -- and the mother -- descend upon the children.  Let it be, Lord!

Just an ordinary moment...

A Man On His Knees

Honestly, one of the earliest visual memories I have of my daddy is of him on his knees by his bed ... praying.  It's not that he spent hours and hours there, but every night right before he retired to sleep, he would kneel on the floor, prop his forearms on the bedside, clasp his hands and bow his head.  I really don't know anything about the dialogue that went on between him and God, but I imagine it incorporated the Lord's Prayer coupled with prayers for my mother, my siblings and me ... among other things.

A man on his knees.  

Then there was the pastor that came to our little church back in the early 90's.  Honestly, I can't recall a word he ever preached.  But what I do remember is that every time he led us in the pastoral prayer, he hit the floor right there next to the pulpit.

A man on his knees. 

Another preacher/pastor I was privileged to sit under would walk down the aisle at the beginning of the service, and before entering the chancel area, would stop at the altar rail, go to his knees and pray.  For all we knew, he could have been saying his ABC's, but his life told us he was asking God to fill that place with His presence.  (I'm so reminded here of the high priests who went into the Holy place in the Temple, carrying the people of Israel on his heart before God.)  

A man on his knees.  

More recently, I sat in church with one of my sons, and while others received communion, watched him bow with his wife on the steps leading up to the platform.  This mother's heart swelled, I must admit.   

A man on his knees.  

And just weeks ago, while making a last minute copy in the workroom before the worship service, I caught a glimpse of the pastor, a very large man in body, alone in his office -- down on his knees before God.  Powerful imagery once again.

A man on his knees.

The physical act of prayer.  Is it important? 

No doubt we hear a lot about body language.  Interrogators watch the body language of those they are questioning.  Employers watch the body language of those they are interviewing.  And don't think for a second a young man (and old) doesn't read the body language of a flirting female.  Or vice versa.  So often, we say more with our bodies that we do with our mouths.  But what about in prayer?

I'm afraid I might do a lot more talking than reverent submission, evidenced by my own body stance not to mention verbosity. 

Have you ever considered that the disciples rarely heard Jesus pray?  At least there's very little recorded in Scripture.  Yes, we see Him "raising His eyes toward heaven" and giving thanks.  And we have the High Priestly prayer recorded for us in John 17.  But were His friends privy to that prayer or did John write it under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit along with the prayer in the garden before His arrest?

Regardless, sometime before both of those events, we have it recorded in Luke 11 that the disciples said, "Lord, teach us to pray."  Could it be that they asked, not because of what they had heard Him say, but because of what they had seen Him do?  And it took their breath away?  They desired THAT kind of intimacy with their God.  

A Man on His knees. 

There are no rules when it comes to such language.  We are given no blueprint that says, "This is the way you pray.  Bow ye in it."  But, personally, I am thankful for and encouraged by these men of whom I have seen kneel in prayer.  Could there be a lesson in it for me?

He was bowing in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said, "Lord, teach us to pray." (Luke 11:1)

Just an ordinary moment...

Tucked Away in the Father's Bosom

I had the holy privilege several weeks ago of standing with a dear friend while two ladies prayed for her and her child.  My job was just more spectator and agreement than anything else.  Of course, one's own prayer life expands when hearing others pray; and this particular morning was no exception.

It was really just one sentence that struck me so profoundly: "May this mother know that all the prayers she has ever prayed for this child, the prayers that have not yet been answered, are tucked away in the bosom of the Father."

WOW!  Take comfort in that, dear believer!  That all those unanswered prayers you and I have  ever prayed for our children, our grandchildren, our spouse, our parents and siblings, friends and relatives ... they are gently tucked away and stored in the bosom of our loving and kind heavenly Father -- hidden until the time is ripe for Him to answer.  That's mighty wonderful imagery, if you ask me.

I guess the only appropriate thing we need to be asking ourselves is, "Am I praying?"   

Just an ordinary moment...

When There are No Words

I opened my gmail just now on my phone to find a message from my pastor to our particular faith community called Grace Church.  It contained two prayer requests.  Words such a "diagnosed, "worst," and "awful" pervaded the first one.  "Hard-fought battle" and "resting in the arms of Jesus" phrases filled the 2nd one.

How does one pray for situations like this?  Sometimes I'm at such a loss ... like this morning.  And so I did the only thing I knew to do.  I lifted the screen within inches of my lips and let the breath of my voice flow over that phone and into those incredible needs.  "Jesus...  Jesus...  Jesus...  Jesus..."

Indeed, it the most powerful word in the universe, and it is enough; for "there is salvation in no one else" (Acts 4:12).

Just an ordinary moment...

How to Pray for a Grandson

Long before owls were so popular and the image found on anything from notepads to wrapping paper, my daughter-in-love was given this particular bird as a prophetic word.  And it had everything to do with having a baby.  Thus, “Little Hoot” was conceived and born, quite literally.

It should be of no surprise then that when my husband and I attended the Birds of Prey show at Callaway Gardens a few weeks ago that I was truly excited to learn that the featured bird was the owl.  Preliminary reading had already told me that all raptors have three distinguishing characteristics. 

1)      They all have sharp talons

2)      Their beaks are curved and pointed

3)      They are carnivorous

But of the birds of prey, the owls have three characteristics that set them apart from all the other raptors.

1)      Their keen eyesight

2)      Their acute sense of hearing

3)      Their silent flight

Probably the most striking of all his features is his eyes.  It’s what gives him his “wise” appearance.  They are large and forward facing and may account to up to five percent of the creature’s body weight.  If you or I had the same eye to head proportions that owls have, our eyes would be as big as grapefruits!  And because of the excess rod cells in his retina, he can literally see in the dark.  In fact, all an owl needs to see at night is the light from two stars.  And see he does: ten times greater than you or I, with great telescopic vision.  However, unlike human eyes, the owl’s eyes are stationary, therefore he cannot "roll" or move his eyes – in other words, he can only look straight ahead!  To compensate for this, owls are able to turn their heads around approximately 270 degrees, or about three quarters in each direction, giving the appearance that they can turn their heads all the way around.   

But next to their keen eyesight is their tremendous sense of hearing.  The eyes are in the middle of a disk of feathers, which are highly specialized sound conductors. The owl can flex these facial disks, channeling sound waves to the ears to catch even the faintest of sounds.  On top of that, an owl’s ears are asymmetrically placed.  That is, the right external ear canal may be a different shape than the left external ear canal and each could be located higher or lower on the side of the head. The naturalist giving the show suggested we take two empty toilet paper rolls, place each to an ear and point them in different directions.  (I suggest doing this at night when the neighbors have all gone to bed.)  This design enhances hearing depth perception. 

And lastly, the owl’s ability for silent flight sets it apart from all other birds of prey.  Two different feathers were passed around at the demonstration that afternoon.  One was a hawk’s; the other an owl’s.  No doubt the intricate feather structure of the leading edge of the owl’s wings enables him to fly noiselessly.  As air passes over the feathers, the sound wave is minimized and the sound level of the flapping is reduced to almost nothing.  What a great advantage to approaching its prey.  No wonder the great horned owl is called the “tiger of the air”!

So what does all this have to do with praying for my grandson? 

Everything.  Absolutely everything!

That's why, when I heard of the solid trust you have in the Master Jesus and your outpouring of love to all the followers of Jesus, I couldn't stop thanking God for you—every time I prayed, I'd think of you and give thanks. But I do more than thank. I ask—ask the God of our Master, Jesus Christ, the God of glory—to make you intelligent and discerning in knowing him personally, your eyes focused and clear, so that you can see exactly what it is he is calling you to do, grasp the immensity of this glorious way of life he has for his followers, oh, the utter extravagance of his work in us who trust him—endless energy, boundless strength!

Ephesians 1:15-19

Just an ordinary moment…