A Conversation Between Friends

Last night, we continued our series on the spiritual disciplines by talking about Prayer. This is somewhat of a continuation from last week when we talked about Meditation and listening to God. We have to see these two disciplines as inseperable when we are interacting with God. Without the ability or desire to listen to God when we're talking to him, we're merely making a speech.

When we come to God in prayer, we need to first be thankful that this interchange is even possible! Think of the loving heart of God, the King of the universe, that he would be not only willing to interact with us but that he desires that interaction with us. Nothing could make that fact more evident than Jesus' cross, which paved the way for us to reconnect with God.

Prayer comes in many forms, just as your interactions with another person may come in many forms. We're probably most familiar with supplication, a fancy word that means to ask God for stuff. And then there's intercession, a fancy word that means to ask God for stuff on other peoples' behalf. Both of these are very valid forms of prayer and very important components of our relationship with God.

Another approach to prayer that is often overlooked, however, is simple conversation with God about how things are going. Many times when I didn't know what to pray for, I would hear God ask very simply, "How do you feel?" I didn't need to make an elequant requests or craft any brilliant overchores to God - He simply wanted me to talk to him. I would tell him if I was particularly worried about something and why. Or I'd tell him I was excited about something that was about to happen and talk about why. And then I would just be quiet for a while and see if God wanted to say anything to me about these things.

It probably goes without say that, of course, God knows what you're telling him or asking for in prayer long before you even say it. Many times it is you that doesn't know what you're feeling till you begin to talk about it with God. But even moreso, I believe that God simply enjoys hearing his childrens' voices. And as we talk with our Father, we begin to develop a sort of "casual intimacy" around him. There's a comfort level that begins to grow as simply spend time in his presence. After a while, not only do we feel more comfortable in his presence but we begin to desire it more and more.

Next week we'll talk more about that desire when we focus on Fasting as a spiritual discipline. We'll talk about what it means to develop a hunger for God and how to find (or re-find) that in your life.

Meditating

Last night at Core we talked about meditating as a spiritual discipline. Jesus often took the time to retreat on a mountain to pray. After feeding five thousand, he "withdrew again to a mountain by himself" (John 6:15). He knew the value of that time alone with God.

Rather than simply talk about it, we took 15 minutes to do some meditating on our own. Jason had us think about 2 questions: (1) What areas in your life are you feeling discontent? and (2) What do you do about it? Echoing the thoughts of others, I found it refreshing to sit and write my thoughts. I can only imagine how stoked God was to have that time with us.

I'd like to jot down a small list of questions that you can take with you the next time you sit down and meditate. Check them out...

• What do you think about God?
• What does God think about you?
• What are your dreams?
• When have you felt fully alive?
• What dazzles you?

Run with those :)

Delving into the Disciplines

In 1 Timothy 4:6-7 , Paul encourages us to train ourselves to be Godly, for physical training is of come value but Godliness holds value both in this life and in the life to come. But oftentimes, with Christlikeness as our goal, we go on to treat the symptoms of our Sin condition and not the real causes of it. Spiritual disciplines help us to refine our character and break out of years of in-grained habit that's contrary to God.

To this end, our community is going to focus on a set of spiritual disciplines outlined in Richard Foster's Celebration of the Disciplines. This is a spiritual classic written in our lifetime and is addressed to "ordinary" Christians about how to practice the spiritual disciplines in real life.

Instead of encouraging you to read this book, I'll be so bold as to ask you why you couldn't. You can find it on Amazon in hardcover (or audio!) for five bucks. If money or motivation is a problem we'll be happy to help.

A long narrow road

With the cross fresh in our memory from Easter a month ago, its helpful to spend some time thinking about what God intended Jesus' sacrifice and resurrection to result in. Surely Jesus' death and resurrection mean eternity in heaven after we die for those of us that follow Him. But for centuries, the underlying assumption has been that Jesus' cross had to do with death, his and what happens to us after ours. But, if we look closer, I think we'll find that Jesus' cross had far more to do with life than it ever did death.

Does it ever stike you funny that Jesus bothered being born and growing up - living an entire 33-ish years of life here just to be crucified in the end? Couldn't he have landed on Earth full grown, died a blameless death, and rocketed back up to heaven after the resurrection? If God took the time and trouble to live 30-some years here, I think we could spare a couple minutes to see if we can understand why.

Because Jesus' life wasn't just him biding time between his birth and his cross. It was him demonstrating a new kind (or quality) of life. In the words of NT Wright, "a new way to be human." Jesus' life was the blueprint, our example to follow long after he had gone back to heaven.

So how does Jesus' life and his cross fit together? The latter makes the former possible - Jesus' death frees us from Sin and gives us another way. It enables and inspires us to live our lives the way Jesus did his. But we often hold his life at arm's reach, thinking that his death was the only thing that directly affected us. Between now and heaven, we think we can admire his life, appreciate his death, and then get on with our own lives.

To know that Jesus lived a life that he intended us to emulate is a challenging thing. We have no problem being "good" to the extent that its convenient. But when our goal becomes to live our lives like Jesus would, we've chosen a more difficult way. A narrow road as long as our lifespan. We have to be willing to pay the price to walk down this road because it is the life we were intended to live. From the accounts of other that have already walked down that road we know that it has its rewards - a quality of life this world will never be able to match.

We also know that, walking down this road, we'll succed in drawing attention to ourselves. Some people shy away from this because of the stigmas arounding "radical" followers of Christ. There have been plenty of loud-mouths that call themselves Christians and do a horrible job of representing who he really is. Surely we don't want to be lumped into that group. But we have to understand that if we don't step out there accurately modeling Jesus with our lives, the only thing people are going to know about Jesus is what the loud-mouths say - and that is a tragedy.

Looking down that road and over the horizon, I see the glow of something great beyond it. Along the path I find little notes of those that have gone before me encouraging me to continue. Going a little further, I meet other travelers heading in the same direction as me. And the longer I walk down this road that I was so afraid to start walking down, the more wonder how I could have walked anywhere else.