The Super Natural Life – prayers for strength, words of wisdom, daily bible reading

Today marks the anniversary (in the year 1471) of the death of the great Dutch mystic Thomas a’ Kempis. Kempis was the author of the Christian devotional classic Imitation of the Christ. Here’s a prayer credited to Thomas.

I offer up unto You my prayers and intercessions, for those especially who have in any matter hurt, grieved, or found fault with me, or who have done me any damage or displeasure. For all those also whom, at any time, I may have vexed, troubled, burdened, and scandalized, by words or deeds, knowingly or in ignorance; that Thou wouldst grant us all equally pardon for our sins, and for our offences against each other. Take away from our hearts, O Lord, all suspiciousness, indignation, wrath, and contention, and whatsoever may hurt charity, and lessen brotherly love. Have mercy, a Lord, have mercy on those that crave Your mercy, give peace unto them that stand in need thereof, and make us such as that we may be worthy to enjoy Your grace, and go forward to life eternal.
Amen.

Ask our family just about any question pertaining to the Andy Griffith show, and I’ll be embarrassed to admit how much we know. Our Andy Griffith Trivia Game is played with alacrity. We simply know way too much.

We own all eight seasons and love the nuances of each. Floyd, Thelma Lou, Gomer and cousin Goober are our buds. And how can we begin to talk of Barney Fife? (Our favorite scene is his skilled rendition of the Preamble to the Constitution. What a fun thing to watch on Independence Day of all days.)

But the dearest of all characters is Andy himself. Why? Because he is the glue that holds all the other characters together, and he is the actor that makes every other actor look good. While Don Knotts won five Emmys for his role as Barney, Andy never won one.

So my little take away from my Mayberry friend’s life is this: I hope I can be more like him in this regard – drawing out what is delightful about the people in my life and watching and rejoicing when they win their awards.

Jesus,

John the Baptist was your cousin and your friend, and he said such a profound thing: “He must increase, I must decrease.” Please make that my motto today and everyday. Help me to place You and others in the spotlight, and help me to continually slip backstage further and further.

Amen

Today is like any other. The sun rises. The winds blow. Rain falls. Rain does not fall. People are born. They laugh. They cry. They dance. They die. Today “chronos” time is as it has been since You gave it beginning, and will be as it is until you bring things to an end. Today is like any other.

Today is also fresh and new, and like no other day. Today is a “kairos” moment of opportunity that has come and will pass in a moment. Today is a passage from one epoch to another. Today is a gift from you. Grant grace to see it and seize it.

Today is a graduation, a passage, a completion, an inauguration. Today we pray for all those who have met the challenge and kept the faith to the commitments of their studies. Now they have a new “kairos” before them. We first offer thanks for the success of their journey. We thank for you granting them focus and direction and then strength and endurance. You created the knowledge and understanding they have mastered. You have created the curiosity and capacity and determination that led them in their pursuit. All these good things came from you. Thank you.

Today we also pray for tomorrow. This graduation opens another door to another time. As you have led in the past, lead now into the future. Give them focus and clarity and a calling from you to understand their purpose and the courage to respond and step toward that purpose.
With scriptural precedent we pray: ‘Bless them indeed. Expand their territory. Let your hand be with them. Keep them evil, that they will not cause or experience pain.’

In Jesus, we bless our graduations and our graduates…

Matthew 6:9-13

“Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one”

Some things to think about:
The world is can be a scary and dangerous place.  The Bible is clear about this: there are beings about intent on ruining our lives and thwarting our relationship with our Father.  But Jesus here invites us to call upon God to intervene and direct our lives clear of enemy intervention.  Notice here that Jesus does not promise that we will be kept from the fight, simply that we will be delivered through it!

Some things to do:
Paul, in Ephesians 6 outlines the game plan for Christians dealing with enemy assault.  The way God “leads us not into temptation” and “delivers from the evil one” is by providing us with armor for our battle.  This week take time to “put on” this armor as you get dressed in the morning.  It’s a good time to “fit” yourself with the protection God has provided for you.
Belt of truth (holds all the armor in place and protects our loins)
Breastplate of righteousness (guards our heart and conscience)
Shoes of the gospel (prepare us to move with purpose and direction)
Shield of faith (extinguishes the offensive arrows of the enemy)
Helmet of salvation (guards our thoughts)
Sword of the Spirit (our one offensive weapon – the Word of God)

Some things to talk about:
How has the enemy attempted to lead you to distraction?  How have you fought these attacks?  Does God ever tempt us? (see James 1:13).  What part do our own bent desires play in this?   What are some practical ways we can “put on “ and “use” the armor of God?

Matthew 6:9-13

“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”

Some things to think about:
Here’s a startling even troubling truth: our relationship with God is conditioned on our relationship with other people.  We are invited to bring our sins before Jesus.  When we confess them he forgives us freely (I John 1:9).  But there is a caveat.  That grace coming to us is contingent on our willingness to extend grace to those who have wronged us.  Now forgiveness is not a feeling.  It is a covenant choice.  In forgiveness we release to God the pain and ask him to be the instrument of justice.  This is a legal matter, like “dropping charges” against a guilty party.  God has done this to us (grace) and he simply asks the same of us.  It’s a powerful principle.  This week we receive and extend grace.  And the process changes us and our world forever!

Some things to do:
It’s time to be graceful.  We need to be forgiven. Surely we know this.  Any honest look inside will reveal all manner of trouble.  We’re impatient, suspicious, jealous, angry.  We need to be released of the guilt and power of these sins.  And we can be when we ask.  But we also must extend grace.  This week we will begin to allow grace to flow through us so that it might come to us.  Here’s a pattern for prayer in this way.
Pray that God will reveal to you any unconfessed sin (Ps. 139:23)
Pray that God will cover this sin under Jesus’ blood (Rom. 3:25)
Pray that God will reveal any harbored unforgiveness (Matt. 6:14)
Allow Jesus to carry this hurt in your place (Is. 53:4)
Ask that God will bless this one as he sees fit (Matt. 5:44)

Some things to talk about:
What are some thing God has forgiven you for?  How hard is it to ask for his forgiveness?  Can you believe that he can really do it?  Can you forgive yourself?   How about what others have done to you or to others you love?   What does it mean to “forgive” them when your emotions can’t change?

Does it ever seem as if God speaks in riddles? Do you ever wonder why he doesn’t just come out and write words across the sky for us? In Nine Ways God Always Speaks, we wonder too, and we speculate on God’s answer:

God is so much bigger and more amazing than we can comprehend, therefore, it’s no wonder his messages to us would be also be more amazing than we can comprehend. That’s why his messages feel like teasers, like puzzles missing a few hundred pieces. At the time we receive his message, it seems as though we can’t quite wrap our brain around the whole picture. God’s messages might initially seem confusing, but it’s not his intention to keep us in the dark.

Maybe the messages seem incomplete so that we’ll invest ourselves in understanding them.

To ponder their meaning.

To reflect.

To learn more about their source.

God uses incomplete communication to tease us into a relationship where he can reveal even more.

When we have sincere doubts about what we’ve heard, (or think we’ve heard), God will often confirm his message.

Especially, if we ask him to clarify it.

It may not be instantly comprehensible, but over time the photograph develops.

Do any of God’s messages to you seem “incomplete?” Do you ever feel like God “teases” you with his voice, but never comes out and makes the message clear? Have you gone back to ask for clarity, for more, for more of God?

Are ways we can increase our likelihood of hearing God speak? In Nine Ways God Always Speaks, I [Mark] offer the following:

What’s the difference between those who hear him and those who don’t?
It’s as simple as how they listen.

We know what you’re thinking. “I listen, but I never hear him.”

Okay, we hear you.

But frankly, how hard, how intentionally do you listen?

When you read the Bible, do you assume what you’re reading applies to you and try to figure out what God is saying to you personally?

When you have a stray thought, do you explore it to see if God somehow put it there for a reason?

When you wake up after a particularly vivid dream, do you pray asking God what he was trying to tell you?

When a friend says something more direct and personal than usual, do you wonder if God could be behind her words?

When an unlikely series of events happens, do you assume God arranged them for a reason and try to discover his purpose?

Do you examine your history, your environment, and your emotions to see what you can learn from them?

That is listening.

Listening is an active awareness of what is happening around you and an intentional pursuit of God’s voice. Many of us wrongly assume we haven’t heard God unless we’ve heard a James Earl Jones type voice amplified through the clouds. If you think that’s the only way you will hear him, it is the only way you will hear him. But here’s a hint—it’s not one of the ways he always speaks, likely it’s one of the ways he rarely speaks.

To hear God, we have to believe he wants to communicate with us. That doesn’t take a huge amount of faith, but it takes at least a drop. The people who hear from God all have a drop of that faith.

In Nine Ways God Always Speaks, the book I [Mark] co-wrote with Jennifer Schuchmann, we relay a fascinating story from writer, Cecil Murphey.

My brother was maybe five feet two and weighed around one hundred pounds. He was a career man in the Navy, and he worked below deck. One night my mother had a dream that his ship had hit something, and when my brother went into the compartment to try and shut it off, he got trapped. This all happened in my mother’s dream. She was agitated but there was nothing she could do. There was no way for her to communicate with her son, and besides, who would believe her anyway?

A few weeks later, she was at a prayer meeting at our church in Davenport, Iowa. It was a mostly fundamental church, not the kind that believed in visions from God. But while she was there she was gripped by a panic that what she dreamed was happening right then. She interrupted the meeting and said, “My son is drowning. You have to pray for him right now!”

The whole group stopped what they were doing and prayed for ten or fifteen minutes. A sense of peace came over my mother, and she told them they could stop. It was over.

About two weeks later, we got a letter at the house. It was from my brother, and he told us that he had almost drowned. The ship went aground, and one compartment started to take on water. My brother and several others went to close it off. In the confusion, the others left the compartment locking my brother in.

He said that the water kept rising until it was above his neck and almost at his mouth when one of the guys said, “Where’s Murph?” They figured out he was in the compartment, and they returned to rescue him.

Though the dream and the events surrounding it took place nearly a half-century ago, Cec Murphey still remembers the details. His mother was known for having dreams that predicted terrible events—events of which she couldn’t have had prior knowledge.

Cec recalls a second dream where his mother learned about a divorce in the family (at a time when divorce was very rare) before the couple announced it. In still another dream, she was warned that his brother was dying of lung cancer before his brother had been diagnosed. Cec believes his mother heard from God.

Is it possible for God to speak through dreams?

Cec believes that God also speaks to him—just not through his dreams.
Off the top of his head, Cec can quickly tell nearly a dozen stories of when God has spoken, helping him to perceive future events, make decisions, or gain insight into situations that he wouldn’t have except through divine knowledge.

He describes hearing God’s voice inside of himself like an anointed intuition. “I feel a sense of conviction so powerful that I would die before I’d turn away from it. Say what you want, I can tell you I’ve been a Christian for fifty years, and I’ve never been wrong any time I had one of these strong convictions. If I had to give up the conviction or die, I’m ready to die for it; it’s that clear to me.”

Does God speak that clearly to you?

Here’s the introductory paragraphs to Nine Ways God Always Speaks, my [Mark's] second book, co-written with Jennifer Schuchmann. Yes, we talk to God in prayer. Does God talk back?

Some things are too good to be true:

• living to be 101;
• winning the lottery;
• hearing God speak.

Despite the fact that these things are out of the ordinary and even unlikely, they happen every day to people all over the world. With a healthy diet, exercise, and regular checkups you can outlast your genes. Buy enough scratch-off tickets and eventually you’ll get lucky. But hearing God speak? Is there anything you can do about that?

We think so.
Do you think so?