Time to Be Fierce in Prayer

This Psalm really arrested me the other day. I was minding my own business, listening through the Psalms, when God nudged me to pay particular attention to what I was hearing. David is talking about people who are deceitful, who are speaking “with a lying tongue.” 

And I realized that he might just as well be talking about the news media of our day, about the political system right now, even of the education system in our world. I sat up and paid more attention to what the Bible is saying here. These are direct quotes from the Bible, remember: 

 

• “Set a wicked man over him, And let an accuser stand at his right hand.” (Let his job, his work life, be messed up!)

• “Let his days be few, And let another take his office. Let his children be fatherless, And his wife a widow.” (Let him die!)  

• “Let the creditor seize all that he has, And let strangers plunder his labor.” (Let him go bankrupt.)

• “As he clothed himself with cursing as with his garment, So let it enter his body like water, And like oil into his bones.  Let it be to him like the garment which covers him,  And for a belt with which he girds himself continually.”  (That's just messed up!)

And as I was listening, I found myself repulsed. “God, that’s messed up! I can’t pray this for my enemies!  Who was the demented person was that wrote this, anyway?” Oh wait. King David, the “man after God’s heart” wrote these words. <gulp>

My powerful reaction ‒ and his patient response to my reaction ‒ went on for some time. “Christians can’t pray this way. We’re supposed to love our enemies! [“But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you…” Matthew 5] Are you rescinding that instruction?

“No, absolutely not. But I am re-shaping your understanding of it. My children have long labored under the delusion that godliness required them to be ‘nice’ to people who were abusing them.”

And he reminded me of Hebrews 12: “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” In the same breath, he reminded me of my mother’s famous “spank spoon.” 

In no way did she ever want me to die! She didn’t even want me maimed. But she was dealing with a high-energy little boy who didn’t understand limits very well. And it took a big smack to teach me the lesson. (She used to buy wooden spoons by the dozen; I needed help learning.)

Now at this point in this discussion, I could go one of two ways. I could go on about the right way to apply this sort of prayer in 21st century America, and maybe both help some folks not to be scared off by this sort of prayer and help some other folks not to pick up arms and slice off a persecutor’s ear. 

Or I could turn left to the point that God was making with me. I think I’ll do that. 

“Son, it’s time for my children to learn to get a little more fierce, a little more dangerous in their prayers for the people who are trying to be their enemies. There’s a time to pray angrily.” (Did you ever notice the command for us to be angry? Ephesians 4:26 says “Be angry, and do not sin.” The first command there is to be angry, at least sometimes. The rest of the verse gives limits.)

In practical terms, it is appropriate to be angry that Charlie Kirk is now dead, that hell is paying rioters in the streets, that little kids are being stolen away from their families. And it is good and healthy for that anger to shape and to power our prayers. (It’s also appropriate for us to live within the rest of Ephesians 4’s limits on anger.)

My *very strong* recommendation is to listen very closely to Holy Spirit if you feel the urge to pray this sort of prayer. I remind us: David was a man after God’s own heart. If we are not first and foremost after God’s heart, this is not safe territory; it’s too close to giving a little kid a loaded gun to deal with schoolyard bullies. Don’t do it! 

But when this is on Jesus’ heart, when you feel Father pointing you this direction, when Holy Spirit is nudging you, don’t rebel and decline to exercise the tools he’s given us. Go carefully, but go there when he is taking you there. 

“My children need to not be afraid of their anger, of their ferocity. That’s from me. Use it.”

Problems with the Christian Religion

I was talking with someone recently who doesn't call himself a Christian any more. And I realized that I avoid that term "Christian" pretty intentionally myself. 

The term is a Biblical term [Acts 26:28 & 1 Peter 4:16]. That's not my problem.

I found myself saying that I avoid the term because I don't like the associations so much. There's a lot of heinous things that have been done in the name of the Christian religion. The crusades are a good example.

 
But then I corrected myself. Yes, that's true, but the bigger issue for me might be that I don't like what has happened to the Christian Religion so much. Well, really, not at all.

Yeah, the term is Biblical. That does not mean that what we've done with it is Biblical. It's not. We can point to the Romanization of Christianity first by Constantine's legalization and patronage of it starting in 313 AD, then the adoption of Christianity by Theodosius I in 380 AD.

Those effects, both the patronage of government (think "501c3") and the cultural dominance of the religion are perversion (in my view) that have continued on even today. Christianity does not thrive when paired with government.

We see another religion trying its hand at government: Islam is working pretty diligently to take over the world. Literally. If you look around, you can see a lot of growing dominance in a number of countries (Great Britain being one example), and there are communities around America that are considering adopting Sharia law (the religious law of Islam).

Islam (Muslims) kind of hate Christianity. And they kind of have reason. I refer you back to the crusades, when Christian knights and armies slaughtered Muslims and took their lands. We did it badly then. They're doing it badly now, and reminding us of why religion and government don't mix.

I've been in the Gospels in the Bible for a few months. Some Christians today kind of hold up ancient Israel as an example of religion and government working together. But if you read the Old Testament (Kings & Chronicles in particular) and the Gospels with open eyes, you'll see that it never worked for them either. Jesus went waaay out of his way to castigate the religious ruling party (Pharisees, teachers of the Law) for how badly they got it wrong.

The way I read it, Christianity was never meant to be a culturally dominant religion. Aw heck, Christianity was never meant to be a religion at all. It has always been meant to be a family. When family and government converge, you get dynasties and corruption, and we have seen too many examples of that in our lifetime.

Let me add, however, while the Christian religion does not belong in government, Christian people ABSOLUTELY do. William Wilberforce and Charlie Kirk have been really excellent examples, though they've both were persecuted and slandered for bringing their faith into their political work. Let's be honest: our faith belongs in our work, regardless what our work is. If we can't be a believer in our work - and I am not saying to be an evangelist or a preacher in our work - then our faith might be pretty superficial.

So yes, I am proudly a part of Jesus' family. I am his son, his child, and I live my life in and under and for his kingship. (Note that God's Kingdom is NOT a political kingdom!) I have been redeemed by Father's massive love, and by Jesus' massive sacrifice, and Jesus lives in me, along with Father and Holy Spirit. I am born again. And I am what Luke (in Acts) and Peter called "Christian," but I respectfully decline to fit into the cultural and political boxes of what is called "Christian" in the 21st century.

I know some folks who call themselves "Christ followers," and the term "born again" has some value again these days. I'm afraid that I expect that whatever "believers" (another option) call themselves will be corrupted quickly enough and filled with all sorts of cultural and historical baggage, particularly by people who want to put "those Jesus Freaks" (yet another option) into some sort of box so they can stop listening to them.

So yeah, I kind of hate what has been done by the Christian religion over the centuries, but I think I resent what has happened TO the Christian religion even more.

Maybe I'll find a label (ick) that will work, but maybe I'll just avoid labels as much as I'm able for the time being.  

Earnestly Desire Spiritual Gifts

Some years ago, my habit was to begin my prayer walks by asking Father what was on His mind. Sometimes I'd get a sense of something, maybe a topic to pray about, maybe something to confess, maybe I needed to pray in tongues for a bit.

So I'd start with that topic first. Since those walks were about an hour long, it was pretty rare that the topic he gave me would take the whole time; at some point, I would feel a release in my spirit, and I knew I could go on to other topics on my mind. We had been working with this model for a couple of years, four or five times a week. It was a good season.

One day, it might have been a Monday, he asked me to pray 1Corinthians 14:1: "Pursue love, and desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy." That's an awkward verse for a Presbyterian boy to pray, but that's what I felt him saying. So I spent some time praying through these three points, I felt the release to go on, and I went on to other topics.

The next day, he gave me the same assignment. That hadn't happened before, but let's be honest: "business as usual" is not a normal model with God. I wondered if maybe I'd missed something yesterday, so I was especially detailed in praying through the verse, but I felt the release to go on, so I did.

One Wednesday, he said the same thing. And Thursday. And Friday. He never said any more about the verse, just that I needed to pray the verse.

We didn't have walks together over the weekend, so I kind of wondered if we were done with that verse.

We were not. Every day that week, he asked me to pray that verse. And every day the next week. And the next.

Have you ever been in a situation where you needed to do the same thing every day, and you didn't see any point in it? Did you get tired of it? Did you grow to resent it? I did. Every day, pray the same three things. It went on for months. I got to the point where I'd grumble out, "Yes, I pursue love, and I desire spiritual gifts, especially that I may prophesy. Am I done? Can we go on now?" This went on for months!

And he was always kind and gentle, and I always felt that sense of release, though very often it was tinged with his chuckle, and we'd go on.

I was confused by the same requirement every day, but it never discouraged me from looking forward to my walks with him. And he was never grumpy, and not nearly as legalistic as I was about it. We had good walks together, covering loads of topics, and though I didn't count on it, his presence was often near. Those were really wonderful times, though they started strangely every time. I never told a soul about that strange season, not even my bride.

About that time, the church that had been our family for years shut down, so we went looking for our next assignment. We eventually found excellent fellowship in a community two counties away. After a while, I wanted to get to know the men in that family, so I signed up for the men's retreat with them.

The fellowship was pretty good, and the meetings were interesting. A remarkably gifted teacher spoke for a bit (good stuff!) and then turned the meeting over to a prophet we knew. This was back at the beginning of the prophetic movement, and is sure was more interesting than the Calvinist church I'd grown up with. Rather exciting, really.

One session, when it was the prophet's turn, he announced that some guys would be feeling a physical sensation in their gut, and would those guys please come forward, because God has something for you. I was hungry enough that I started forward before even checking to see if had that sensation, but by the time I reached the front, there was something that I could identify, so I felt like I wasn't cheating.

The guys that he ministered to seemed to affirm the words he was declaring to them (tears are a good thing, right?) so I waited my turn and enjoyed God's presence in the meantime. Eventually it was my turn.

The prophet slaps a hand on me and announces, "God says that you've been asking him for the prophetic." I remind you of my strange prayer times during that whole season! I felt seriously set up!

As my head was spinning, he went on to say that God was answering my prayer, and I think he said some other things. I confess, I was distracted.

So all those months, God was setting me up. I guess my Calvinist & fundamentalist background got in my way (in our way?), so it seemed he needed to go all "Jehovah Sneaky" on me to get me to get over my prejudices and invite him to work in me.

So I forgave him for the sneaky maneuver. And yeah, I've had a small part to play in the prophetic realm (I still have to tell people, no, I'm not "Northwest Prophet!")

I'm just a very much loved son, playing in the shallower half of that pool. And I'm loving my sneaky Daddy.

Beauty Even in Destruction

This photo is in the rotation of images that I use for my computer’s screen saver, so sometimes when I walk into my office this image is on my large computer screen. 

That happened this morning. 

I found myself first-of-all appreciating the beauty in the image, and commenting that my Father even makes destruction into beauty. I so admire him! 

After a second, I observed that part of my mind felt obligated to feel guilty for appreciating the beauty in such a destructive event. At that point, I examined that guilty feeling: some of it is a conditioned response based on my culture. I knew folks whose lives were dramatically changed (or ended) by that event. 

And that led me to this thought: “I describe this as a destructive event because of the humans and human construction and human convenience that were disrupted. But this is just how the mechanical systems of this playground of ours called Earth functions.” 

 There certainly was no malice in the event, no intent to disrupt or cause harm. This is just how the planet functions. 

And I realized how much I tend to define what goes on around me by how it inconveniences me or entertains me or impresses me with beauty. I will continue to admire beauty wherever I find it, but maybe inappropriate to evaluate the world by how it impacts me. 

Do y’all have some suggestions for other standards for defining the world around us? 

God Works Within Our Worldview

I'm sure you're aware that none, not a single one, of God's followers is perfect in everything we say, think and do? Amazingly, that includes you and me.

Did you realize that this didn't actually get in the way of God working with us and through us? Surprisingly, God does not expect absolute perfection from us the day that we first meet him.

It's not that God doesn't care about our shortcomings; he's just not disillusioned by the fact that we have them. He loves us anyway. He works with us anyway.

And while he works with us in our shortcomings, he doesn't leave us with those failures, doomed to eternal imperfection and unwitting brokenness. He relates to us in the broken, imperfect place, and he works through the broken imperfection to refine us, to make us more complete, to make us more like himself.

Take Abraham, for example. Abe grew up in Ur, an ancient Sumerian city-state in southern Mesopotamia (modern-day southern Iraq); he spent his first 75 years there [Genesis 12:4], so he was well and truly a child of the Sumerian polytheistic culture. Sacrifices were regularly performed to honor, appease, or seek favor from the gods, ensuring divine protection, fertility, and prosperity for the city and its people. The system included offerings of food, animals, and sometimes humans.

It was in the midst of that cacophony of deities that God speaks to Abe and tells him to leave the city. The problem is that Abe took 75 years of his history in the city with him when he left. He took the Sumerian culture with him.

So when God tells Abraham to head up the  mountain and sacrifice his son [Genesis 22:2], he didn't hesitate. In his experience, this is what gods did, so he assumed that the God that called him to leave the city demanded the same kind of sacrifice that the other gods demanded. Who was he to expect something different?

His adult son Isaac had not grown up in polytheistic Sumeria, but he'd grown up with polytheistic Abraham, so he didn't hesitate either. This is what gods demanded. Who are we to cross the gods?

And in the midst of both Abe and Zac complying with the call for a human sacrifice, God breaks in and interrupts the process. He provided a ram for the sacrifice and introduces himself as "Jehovah Jireh," The-LORD-Will-Provide (well, technically as "YHWH Yireh"). God was saying, "Abe, this is how you do things, but this is not how I do things. Let me show you how I do things: when I require something of you, I will be the provision for it. This is the God you're working with now."

The principle I take away from this is that God doesn't sweat the details: he works with us in whatever condition we're in, even while he restores our misshapen condition to a healthy place in him.

God and Abe had already been through this once before. In Genesis 15, God cut a covenant with Abe. He told him, "Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old." So Abe the Sumerian does what Sumerians do: he chops the animals in half. God didn't ask for that, but he rolled with Abe's traditions [H. C. Leupold, Exposition of Genesis, The Wartburg Press, 1972, p. 480].

I work with the assumption that none of us is perfect yet. And yet, I observe that God uses us to do his stuff in the Earth. Ergo, God works with imperfect people in our imperfect state, not offended by the imperfection, not even offended by the stupid things we believe about him.

Someone smart once said that "now I know in part, but then I will know fully [when the perfect has come]." Not a one of us "knows fully" yet. So God works with what we've got.

In other words, while we learn God's heart, his values, in the Bible, we would do best if we did not make the things that his people do in the Bible our standard. Not even the heroes (like Abe).

Apparently we do not need to chop animals in half or sacrifice our children in order to receive a promise from God. That's just they way Abe did it, largely because of his polytheistic Sumerian roots.

We probably don't need to seduce our friend's wife (and then put out a hit on our friend) like King David did in order to raise an heir to carry on the work God had given him. We probably don't need to kill church folk with our words like Peter did with Ananias and Sapphira when they lie about their generosity.  We could go on.

But wait, I can hear some folks say, won't that undermine the "Authority of the Word of God" in people's lives? Actually, no, though it probably will undermine the imagined authority of the religious leaders who control people with their Bible teachings. And that's not such a bad thing, is it?

You see, we were never designed to follow a written book as our guide for life, not even some leader's teachings about what the book says. The book was for the purpose of drawing us into relationship with a living God; we follow the living God. We continue to learn things from the Book that was written by earlier followers. And we can continue to learn from leaders whose goal is to serve the people of God rather than control them, assuming that they're following the living God and not just the teachings of other leaders who came before them.

Over the years, I've been teaching that unless we question our beliefs, we can never know if they're our beliefs, or if they're someone else's beliefs living in our head. This article is part of my questioning some of my historic beliefs, only to find that they were my denomination's beliefs, not mine.

It's hard to discover this, but it gives me the opportunity to get rid of my own false beliefs and learn more of what's actually true about my very real and very loving Father, who is not ashamed of my brokenness and ignorance.

Assumptions Kill

OPINION: Assumptions kill relationships.

It's really rude to assume I know what someone else is thinking or feeling, unless they’ve already told me what they’re thinking or feeling.  Or you.

I’d say go so far as to say that it’s disempowering them, and it diminishes their right to be in charge of their own thoughts and feelings.

And “But I know them well” is not actually a good excuse. If I know someone well (for example, I’ve known my bride for many decades), I may have a better guess, a less-ignorant assumption, but I’m still taking away their agency, damaging their responsibility for their own heart. I’ve made that mistake enough times to be gun-shy. (She has paid dearly for my assumptions.)

Assumptions damage and can kill relationships, sometimes slowly and painfully, other times quickly and messily.

I watch folks pretty regularly make an assumption about someone else, then relate to them, or discuss them, as if those uninformed (or misinformed) assumptions were actually true. The assumptions prevent us from learning what is actually true about that person, and in conversation, they prejudice other people’s thoughts and expectations about them.

I was part of a social experiment one time. Six or eight of us were assigned to the task of figuring out the answer to a pretty complex problem. But as we worked on it, the researcher stuck labels (like “prideful” or “wise one” or “hair-brained”) on our foreheads and instructed us to assume that this is who each person really was as we worked on our problem.  

The exercise continued for another 10 or 15 minutes. The curious thing was that at the end of the exercise, we all knew what the label on our foreheads said, and we had all begun to live up to (or down to) those assumptions.

Lesson: in a relationship, my assumptions about you will help to shape who you are and how you relate to me and to others around you.

On the other hand, if I’m making assumptions about a public figure I’ll never have an actual relationship with, for example Taylor Swift or Donald Trump, then there’s no actual relationship to damage. But our assumptions still prevent us from understanding what’s actually true. If I believe that Taylor Swift is this way, then that’s what I’ll see, that’s what I’ll expect from her. More dangerously, that’s also going to shape (to limit) how I pray for her. Same with Donald Trump, or any other person I might pray for. (And I always recommend praying for both thought-leaders and political leaders.)

Personally, I’m working on (and I confess I have a long way to go) replacing assumptions with possibilities. I’m trying to eliminate “They think this” with “I allow for the possibility that they might think this,” and then ask enough questions to find out. Provided I really want to (and deserve to) know what they think. It seems to me that people made in the image of God are deserving of that level of respect.

"You're Killing Her!"

I had an interesting dream (aren't most dreams interesting?) recently.

Do you remember the battle of wits in The Princess Bride? My dream wasn't about that scene, but it referenced one line from it. This is that scene:

Vizzini: So it is down to you, and it is down to me. If you wish her dead, by all means, keep moving forward.
Dread Pirate Roberts: Let me explain...
Vizzini: There's nothing to explain. You're trying to kidnap what I have rightfully stolen.
Dread Pirate Roberts: Perhaps an arrangement can be reached?
Vizzini: There will be no arrangement, and you're killing her.

That's the line: Vizzini, holding the knife to the princess's throat, declares to the man who loves her, "You're killing her."

"You're killing her!" The villain blames the hero for the villain's own actions. That's a memorable scene in what is arguably the best movie ever made, but that scenario plays itself out over and over in the real world: the person doing good is blamed by the evildoers for the evil that he himself is doing. (I wonder if that ever happens in politics?)

God used that scene in a dream. It seemed that Father was calling out that lying spirit.  I was thankful.

And that's when Father spoke into the dream, and his mighty voice declared two things.

1.  A number of his kids have been falsely accused of what the devil has been doing. The accusations are lies. That's not who you are and you haven't done those things, the enemy has done them. Don't believe the lie.

2.  The enemy has had other lies, other lying spirits, deployed to protect the lie. Those are being disempowered and terminated as well. Some of them were very powerful, some very skilled with weaponry (I think of giants and swordsmen, of course.)

I believe that the lie that "You're killing her" is being exposed as a lie: those who are accusing others, more specifically, those who are accusing you, of doing evil will be exposed as liars, and they themselves will face consequences for that.

It's worth mentioning that if you've actually done the evil thing and it's just being exposed, then you don't qualify for this promise. There's a lot of real evil, even among the church, and much of it is being exposed these days, and God is not offering to keep sin hidden.

In addition, I believe that Father is revealing, and disempowering, other spirits who have been assigned against you to protect the lie that the accuser is making against you. He has made plans that would cover his lie, and if it were found out (as it is now), to cover his escape, but Father has already dealt with those lies as well.

So the exhortation is for us to pay attention. Specifically, we are called to stop paying our attention to the accusations against us, to let go of the fear that they are spewing at us, and to fix our eyes on the One who has already defeated them, who is now marching them off to captivity.

Look to your deliverer. Look to your King.