Prayer 3: Words of my Mouth

My friend Vera has a killer prayer list. She keeps it in two three-ring binders and tends it every day, spending literally hours in intercession for people and situations. We have prayed together a number of times, always about something specific that had sprung into her heart or weighed on her mind, but when it comes to her list, I marvel at her zeal and faithfulness in it.

In contrast, my own prayers are clumsy, wandering, searching for direction and relevance. I have a list, too, but am not faithful to it, mostly because, well, my prayers just sound dumb. I just never seem to know what to say.

I should remember this:

We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.--Romans 8:26

I'm starting to think that I just need to shut up and present myself to God. My thoughts, my words, will never be good enough.

But He lives in me. What I can't say, He can. Where my words stumble, His do not. When my heart faints, His is strong. I can depend on Him to direct my heart and inspire my stumbling mouth. You can, too.

When my prayers do not come because I am depending on my faltering heart to provide them, all I have to do is to lean toward Him and listen before I speak. Then the words of my mouth will always be acceptable.

Oh, that smell...

A few years ago, a summer camp near here constructed a full size replica of the tabernacle that the Israelites built according to God's instruction and carried around the desert during their years of wandering. I went often to see it, sitting and praying and just looking, trying to get some feel for a place God literally inhabited. The images I stored up during those sunrises and sunsets, during those sweet hours of contemplation, still serve me well, not only as still spots in a stream, but as pictures of God's physical presence preserved in wood and linen by His specific command.

It turns out that each construct within the tabernacle exists to explain something about God's character and desires.

Make an altar of acacia wood for burning incense. Put the altar in front of the curtain that is before the Ark of Testimony--before the atonement cover that is over the Testimony where I will meet with you. Aaron must burn fragrant incense on the altar every morning when he tends the lamps. He must burn incense again when he lights the lamps at twilight so incense will burn regularly before the Lord for generations to come.--Exodus 30:1, 6-8

In the Bible, incense always indicates prayer, and promises to usher in His Very Presence.

May my prayer be set before you like incense, may the lifting of my hands be like the evening sacrifice.--Psalm 141:2

So God commanded constant prayer, refreshed intentionally every morning and evening, but burning steadily at all times. This prayer was not optional. God commanded it--like the daily sacrifices, like the tithing. Every day, a priest offered up new incense, went out into the courtyard to kill and dismember the day's sacrifices, then washed his hands and came back to the incense again. As the incense framed the priest's dirty business, as it burned and drifted up along with the burning of offerings, so does my prayer need to do the same.

Prayer has nothing to do with results, with my mood, with my location, companions, or circumstances. Prayer is not just for church or even for the side of my bed, but for days filled with work and other concerns. Although life may be bloody, prayer, like incense, brings sweetness.

The New Covenant of Christ has made me a priest and I must pray. It is the constant offering of the hours of life, of constant praise, of constant lifting of my spirit toward my God. My suns must rise and set with it. I can never let my incense go out.

Pray continually.--1Thessalonians 5:17

Who Are You Lookin' At?

I went shopping the other day to buy an anniversary card for my husband, and nearly went home empty-handed. I expected to find a card that would tell him what a wonderful husband he's been, but these were the messages I found:

"When I met you, I never knew how much my life would change."
"I want to wish you all the happiness you've given me."
"All I want is to love you for the rest of my life."

Good grief--the cards were supposed to honor him, but most of the sentiments they expressed started and ended with "I". They showed much more concern for his effect on me than gratitude for all his years of love and the security and fun he'd brought to our life together. In other words, these messages tell him that he is important only to the extent that he makes me feel good. That does not sound like honor.

And neither does the same kind of language when we use it in worship or praise directed toward God. When a prayer uses "I" or "we" more than "You", who is most on our minds? When we sing more about how God makes us feel than who He is, who are we honoring?

The best way to praise God is not to describe how we are happy or singing or lifting our hands or bowing down, but simply to praise Him--to say He is holy and mighty. To acknowledge that He is all beauty and power. Israel's King David understood this when he prayed:

Yours, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the majesty, and the splendor, for everything in heaven and on earth is yours. Yours, O Lord, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all. Wealth and honor come from you. You are the ruler of all things. In your hands are strength and power to exalt and give strength to all.--1 Chronicles 29:11-12

Not an "I" in it. Real praise destroys self-awareness and replaces it with God-awareness. When it does, we praise not our own position and character, but His.

Enjoying the Dance

I'm not usually fond of country music, but some years ago, country stations were playing a song that went something like, "Life's a dance you learn as you go..." I liked that. When I heard its carefree melody, I couldn't help thinking about how we really do learn how to live.

Then I realized that it is good an proper for a man to eat and drink and to find satisfaction in his toilsome labor under the sun during the days of life God has given him--for this is his lot. Moreover, when God gives any man wealth and possessions, and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work--this is a gift from God. He seldom reflects on his life because God keeps him occupied with gladness of heart.--Ecclesiastes 5:18-20

God shows us in simple terms how to live. He puts our proper circumstances squarely before our eyes and tells us to enjoy them. He tells us not to plot and plan for a future we may never have. He cringes when we spurn His gift of days and say, "I wish" or "I want."

I keep thinking that I have to change my circumstances, to fix everything, but do I really? Has not God determined the days of my life for my benefit? I have to work, of course, but do I have to spend so much time figuring stuff out? Hasn't God done that already?

God gives some things and takes others away, but will not leave us lacking. In the end, I think that my real job is to receive smiling the circumstances that God brings not because they are all happy, but because He brought them. If I can do that, if I can find God in all my circumstances, then I will be happy because we will be together.

Life really is a dance we learn as we go and God wants to dance every dance with us, every moment of our whole lives, to every beat of our hearts, keeping the tempo of His unending song.

Regaining the Image

God made us, He says, in His own image. What does that mean, exactly? I know that, when I look in the mirror, I see an image of myself, but applying that same logic to God confuses me. I know that I don't look like God but, on some level, He tells me that I do or was meant to.

Sounds like there is some work to do. God agrees:

Work out your salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who works in you to will and act according to His good purpose.--Philippians 2:13

Work has to happen on both sides.

God works in us, but He does not work in us to make us better people. He works to change us to be so much like Him that we will, or want, the same things that He does.

Then, we work out what He has worked in. Once we turn our eyes on God, this is our only job, and we fear and tremble at the magnanimity of it.

God works Himself into us until our wills change, letting the salvation He wrought work itself into actions. He does not stop until we see only His own face.

We become better people in the process, but not primarily in our relationships with other men, but in our relationship with Him.

Striking the Perfect Note

At a symphony, when the conductor raises his hands and the music begins, its beauty comes less from each individual instrument than from the whole of them...their magnificence is in their union. Even the meaning of the word "concert" includes an understanding of beauty arising from what happens when individual components work together.

Prayer is like this. God does not answer every prayer, only those within His will and His will, like the symphony, has one intended direction. As when violins, one by one, join with the composer's will for them to make something beautiful, so it is with prayer.

Perfect harmony is the power of both music and prayer.

We tend to measure the efficacy of our prayers by those God grants, but fulfilled prayer says much less about us than it does about Him because we tend to forget its dependence on His will.

When God grants our prayers, He is telling us that we are on the right road, that we have found at least one single point where we have properly cast our lot with Him. God gives us what we want when it is the same thing He wants.

Granted prayer testifies to the glory of one clear note of communion.

This, then, is how you ought to pray: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. --Matthew 6:9-10

The Glory of Dirt

Work. God gave Adam work to do in Eden and He gives it to us, too. Every day. We have jobs to do at home and outside, for our families and for others. We even have to take care of ourselves, and that is work, too.

God tells us to do work for His glory, so I try to sort through the jobs He brings for the glory they hold, but it's often hard to find. I rarely see glory in mowing the lawn or doing dishes. It's hard to see any glory in doing homework or mediating arguments or in listening to someone bemoan their own troubles for the umpteenth time. I want to see God in these, but He doesn't show up and I just end up tired with dirty hands.

And yet, these are the jobs God has brought. Am I looking at this the wrong way? Is it possible that I cannot choose what brings God glory, but that He chooses it by bringing it to me? Does God mean to teach me about what He wants by laying it at my feet and asking me to pick it up and do something with it? Does it really matter how the job looks from my point of view?

Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has become His counselor? Who has ever given to God that God should repay Him? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever.--Romans 11:34-36

Come to think of it, the work Jesus did on the cross didn't look very glorious at the time, either. In the end, it is for God, not me, to choose the work that brings Him glory. And He shows it to me every day by laying it at my feet. I don't have to choose it; in fact, with my limited view, I can't. But He can, and does.