“It’s a Wonderful Life” and Why I’m Frustrated with Prayer

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Do we live in George Bailey's alternate reality, or God's kingdom?It’s a Wonderful Life has power like few other films to restore my faith in mankind.

Or at least that’s what I was going to write.

I saw a screening of the film at a friend’s house and drove home in my usual condition: more full of thoughts than I’d like. My Facebook feed awaited me with news of yet another couple grieving over their newborn’s passing. A friend sharing the effects of a years-long depression. More development on the San Bernardino shootings, over which the unbelieving world (voiced by the New York Daily News) finally threw off the last vestiges of their polite silence and hollered “God isn’t fixing this!“.

A cold blast of reality, like the one George Bailey got when his angel announced he’d gotten his wish, and no longer existed.

Sometimes George’s alternate reality, its eeriness anticipating the Twilight Zone a decade in advance, feels more like ours than George’s real one.

Maybe that’s why I was tempted to paint It’s a Wonderful Life as a faith-in-mankind movie. It’s the safer portrait. It was the original intention of the director. It sticks to viewing the movie as a feel-good experience, instead of looking a chaotic world straight in the eye to make the audacious, incredible, ridiculous claim that God is the powerful one.

But perhaps I’m not supposed to be playing it safe.

Perhaps I – we – should be walking straight into the audacity and planting our flag.

Yes. God does respond to prayer. He does choose to operate that way. He does answer our requests.

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What if You Could Be Part of Your Church’s Solution?

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The church needs you as much as you need them.I recently filled in teaching Sunday School (the usual guy was on mission in India). The topic for the weekend was the church – its role, its record, and how indispensable it is for the believer.

Suffice it to say I was blown away. The high school students in that group had solid, practical ideas about what a church should look like, how to evaluate one, and how much urgency we should place upon settling down in one.

Blown away because while these students knew the right answers, a lot of people my age find them hard to execute.

“I love Jesus, but not organized religion” has become millennial-code for rejection of the church. It’s not hard to see why. I could blame the media for doing its best to blackball the church by accentuating its faults. But I don’t have to. A lot of us have our own wounds to sport. We might have been judged. We might have been extorted. We might just be sick of gaudy sanctuaries, sermons resembling TED talks, and iPads handed out to retain newcomers. Or we might just feel that this or that church doesn’t “feed us” well.

But permit me to challenge. What if we shifted our view of the church from a service to an opportunity?

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Three Quotes on Prayer

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With many things on my prayer docket this week, it’s left me content to share three particular and immensely encouraging quotes from older saints of the faith, on the subject of prayer.prayer

Presented without comment (for I have much to learn myself):

 

Charles Spurgeon –

“…it is the habit of faith, when she is praying, to use pleas. Mere prayer sayers, who do not pray at all, forget to argue with God; but those who would prevail bring forth their reasons and their strong arguments and they debate the question with the Lord. … Oh brethren, let us learn thus to plead the precepts, the promises, and whatever else may serve our turn; but let us always have something to plead. Do not reckon you have prayed unless you have pleaded, for pleading is the very marrow of prayer.

 

E.M. Bounds –

Importunate praying is the earnest, inward movement of the heart toward God. It is the throwing of the entire force of the spiritual man into the exercise of prayer. Isaiah lamented that no one stirred himself, to take hold of God. Much praying was done in Isaiah’s time, but it was too easy, indifferent and complacent. There were no mighty movements of souls toward God. There was no array of sanctified energies bent on reaching and grappling with God, to draw from him the treasures of his grace. Forceless prayers have no power to overcome difficulties, no power to win marked results, or to gain complete victories. 

 

J. Hudson Taylor –

The prayer power has never been tried to its full capacity…if we want to see might wonders of divine power and grace wrought in the place of weakness, failure and disappointment, let us answer God’s standing challenge, “Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and might things which thou knowest not.

 

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. – Matthew 7:7

The Role of Thanksgiving in Prayer

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prayerWe interrupt your regularly scheduled tryptophan haze to bring you this important head-scratcher:

What do grass, a Seattle Seahawks championship, and the mercies of God all have in common?

The answer:

Nothing, thank God.

The first passes away on its own (Matthew 6:30). The second is dependent on human effort.

But the third “never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” (Lamentations 3:22-23)

Of course, I rarely ever live as if that were true.

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6 Spouse-Related Reasons You Need Jesus More Than a Spouse

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ringI’ve never been married. But I have been very interested in marriage.

The divorce of my parents led me to one of the most fervent prayers I’ve ever made – “God, don’t let me end up there.” It’s the kind of prayer God is eager to answer. His first lesson? Much of the answer takes place before any vows do.

And the greatest answer of all is…Jesus.

I know. I can hear you sigh. You’ve heard for years that you need Jesus more than a spouse. But he just seems so boring compared to romance and white picket fences and sex and babies. He honestly seems unrelated, other than saying “no” to your longing.

But indulge me for a second. The fall of my family prompted me to keep my eyes and ears open for “what it takes” for a thriving marriage. It got me watching older couples, gleaning from them, reading every book anyone gave me. It got me learning from couples my own age as they’ve reached that stage. God used the whole thing to grab my attention; he gave me the chance to scout out, in a way, the territory ahead of us singles.

And not only am I more convinced than ever that Jesus is the answer, but he’s been kind enough to give me some idea as to why.

It’s awkward to speak beyond my experience, and it forces me to mix in some generalities. But this really isn’t my words. It’s those of married couples. Perhaps we’d be wise to switch Tinder off for a minute and listen to them.

Six reasons we need Jesus more than a spouse…that have to do with the spouse.

1. You need Jesus to find that person.

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When God Arrives at the Last Minute

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Time winding down on God's answer?I honestly didn’t know where I’d be living in a week’s time.

My first teaching stint was coming to an end. The remote school lay surrounded by the trailer park they called teacher housing, on the very western edge of the Great Plains, right where they finally sweep upwards into the Montana Rockies – a glorious, meteorologically dramatic collision of alpine and prairie. As trying as the three years had been, I found (as we often do with such trials once they’ve finished) that I was going to miss the place.

Unfortunately, my job prospects were now as empty as those wind-swept prairies. Each interview that spring had led only to the familiar “You interviewed well, but we’re going in a different direction”.

Since I’d been busy organizing a senior trip (to Vegas, natch, after which I had to chaperone a student back to Montana by bus), the administration had given me two extra weeks in teacher housing. I had that long after returning (did I mention by bus?) to secure new living arrangements, which largely hinged upon figuring out my next teaching gig. Then I had to be out.

I could always return to my hometown. But it certainly wasn’t the way I’d hoped to end the year. And let’s just say that employment gaps on a resume are particularly deadly for teachers – especially when the choice schools get hundreds of applications and will invoke any and all reason to thin the pile.

With four days left in teacher housing, I was blind to the next step of my life.

Sometimes…well, a lot of the time…God’s plans for our lives look less like a blueprint and more like a Hollywood screenplay.

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Jesus is the Most Gracious Person You Know. Surprised?

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For those who might have wandered from Christ
Imagine the most gracious person you know. Someone who is always kind and patient with you, hard to offend, listens well, sees good in you that you miss, holds a higher opinion of you than you do. They might correct you when necessary, but they do so gently, and there’s never any doubt that they still believe in you. Their influence has only been positive.

It might be a best friend, a mentor, ideally a parent or grandparent. Whomever it is (I highlighted the correct letter for the grammar nerds), you feel  safe and welcomed in their presence, even if you’ve made a mistake. You know, from your long experience, that they see more good in you than you do in yourself, and that they’ll be very hard to drive away.

Jesus Christ is better than that person.

He has more of everything that you value and appreciate about that person.

That really does take some of us aback. Especially the “hard to offend” and “sees good in you” parts (John 1:47).

For many of us, God is little more than the Cosmic Fault-Finder. And to be sure, he does point out sin. He’s allowed to get angry with us when we provoke him. He’s God.

But the manner in which he deals with us, from our good moments right down to our very worst, is laid out very clearly in Scripture.

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We Have Some Enemies to Pray For, Christians

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Let our prayers for their salvation rise even if the bombs must fall.I stared numbly at my laptop this morning, watching reports of terrorist attacks in Paris Orlando fill the screen

Immediately the chatter began. Discussion of whether our nation’s leadership is doing enough, whether these acts truly represent Islam, how to respond going forward…all those arguments that you either want to flee or are all too eager to join.

Instead, I took refuge in praying for the families of the victims.

But later, I logged on to my Facebook account, hours after the tragedies…and was hit with an entirely new wave of grief.

At pictures.

Pictures of American military equipment assembled in rows with captions like “ISIS is doomed”…cartoons of American power symbols making their way overseas…snapshots of U.S. troops offering ominous proclamations to the Islamic State. The grim ill will echoing from the post-9/11 era, the hyper-patriotism that seems to go so naturally hand-in-hand with American Christianity.

Perhaps I have changed over the years, for I found myself aghast.

And struggling to reconcile it to the words of Jesus:

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4 Major Problems in our Response to “Persecution”

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Jesus calls us to grace, not outrage.I realize (and celebrate) that I’m not the first to address this ludicrousness. But I hope you will indulge me in digging a little deeper.

Starbucks’ simple red holiday coffee cups, devoid of any symbols or images that might imply embracing one Christmas “story” over another, have become the latest in a series of small things that American Christians find offensive. I guess our annoyance is better spent on that than, oh, I don’t know, human trafficking or the specter of abortion.

But while I could just say “this isn’t real persecution” (and I will), there are actually a variety of problems revealed when we react so strongly to things. (Like the final season of “Frasier”, I have saved the best for last.)

1. An Ignorance of our Orders

Never mind whether coffee cups without Christmas symbols is an actual sin. Jesus doesn’t tell us to point out sin and stop there. He tells us to spread the gospel. There’s a difference.

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Marketing the Unmarketable: The Gospel of Jesus Christ

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What if it's not my job to I’ve heard quite a few friends mourn the harshness of the Gospel.

“Why can’t it be about love, positivity, and inspiration?” they say. “That’s what’s missing in our lives.” Sounds great. It’s easy to swallow, not confrontational, and its hard to attack without looking like a jerk.

For a long time, I too had a habit of trying to “sell” the Gospel better. When I’d hear a Christian preacher speak fire-and-brimstone, I’d make a note to avoid recommending him to friends. Seriously. When a coworker would tromp around with a message of hellfire, I’d try to gently “rein him back in”. Tell them about the love of Jesus, I said. Make it about the benefits of his kingdom. Ask them why anyone would want to live without his love.

Without ever going to college to learn it, I had engaged in marketing. Soften the message. After all, nobody talked about hell anymore. It was corny and nobody wanted to hear it.

Then a cruise missile breached my arrogant thinking.

“The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” – Matthew 13:41-42

Oh shoot. Jesus talks about hell???

Hey, genius, I suddenly thought to myself. What if it’s not your job to decide what the Gospel is?

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