Psalm 19:12, 14 How can I know all the sins lurking in my heart? Cleanse me from these hidden faults. May the words of my mouth and the thoughts of my heart be pleasing to you, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer. This is my prayer. Sometimes I feel like there are so many hidden faults, those things that are so ingrained in me that I don’t even realize they’re there – like pride or selfishness. I know that some people would say that God convicts me of my sin and I should recognize these things… but the truth is sometimes God’s working on one issue and I get focused on that and don’t hear Him, or other times I’m so busy that I’m not paying a whole lot of attention. I’d like to think that I could pause and reflect and ask God to cleanse me from my hidden faults. My prayer each day is that the words of my mouth and the thoughts (or meditations) of my heart be pleasing to my Abba, Father, my rock and my redeemer. He paid a high price to redeem my heart, and I want to make Him smile.
From Max Lucado’s Weekly Email: The Miracle of the Carpenter by Max Lucado Loretto Chapel took five years to complete. Modeled after the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, its delicate sanctuary contains an altar, a rose window, and a choir loft. The choir loft is the reason for wonder. Were you to stand in the newly built chapel in 1878, you might see the Sisters of Loretto looking forlornly at the balcony. Everything else was complete: the doors had been hung, the pews had been placed, the floor had been laid. Everything was finished. Even the choir loft. Except for one thing. No stairs. The chapel was too small to accommodate a conventional stairway. The best builders and designers in the region shook their heads when consulted. “Impossible,” they murmured. There simply wasn’t enough room. A ladder would serve the purpose, but mar the ambiance. The Sisters of Loretto, whose determination had led them from Kentucky to Santa Fe, now faced a challenge greater than their journey: a stairway that couldn’t be built. What they had dreamed of and what they could do were separated by fifteen impossible feet. So what did they do? The only thing they could do. They ascended the mountain. Not the high mountains near Santa Fe. No, they climbed even higher. They climbed the same mountain that Jesus climbed 1,800 years earlier in Bethsaida. They climbed the mountain of prayer. As the story goes, the nuns prayed for nine days. On the last day of the novena, a Mexican carpenter with a beard and a wind-burned face appeared at the convent. He explained that he had heard they needed a stairway to a chapel loft. He thought he could help. The mother superior had nothing to lose, so she gave him permission. He went to work with crude tools, painstaking patience, and uncanny skill. For eight months he worked. One morning the Sisters of Loretto entered the chapel to find their prayers had been answered. A masterpiece of carpentry spiraled from the floor to the loft. Two complete three-hundred-sixty-degree turns. Thirty-three steps held together with wooden pegs and no central support. The wood is said to be a variety of hard fir, one nonexistent in New Mexico! When the sisters turned to thank the craftsman, he was gone. He was never seen again. He never asked for money. He never asked for praise. He was a simple carpenter who did what no one else could do so singers could enter a choir loft and sing. See the stairway for yourself, if you like. Journey into the land of Enchantment. Step into this chapel of amazement and witness the fruit of prayer. Or, if you prefer, talk to the Master Carpenter yourself. He has already performed one impossible feat in your world. He, like the Santa Fe carpenter, built a stairway no one else could build. He, like the nameless craftsman, used material from another place. He, like the visitor to Loretto, came to span the gap between where you are and where you long to be. Each year of his life is a step. Thirty-three paces. Each step of the stair is an answered prayer. He built it so you can climb it. And sing. From In the Eye of the Storm Copyright (Thomas Nelson, 1997) Max Lucado What an awesome reminder of how God works to answer our prayers. Like the angel who was delayed on his way to answer Daniel’s prayers, it probably took this man all those months to get to the chapel to be the answer to the nuns’ prayers. As long as we’re praying and being faithful to the vision God’s given, He can do some amazing (and uncanny) things – even when the solution seems impossible.
Psalm 5:3 Listen to my voice in the morning, LORD. Each morning I bring my requests to you and wait expectantly. I have found that the days when I spend time with my Abba in the morning, my day seems a little less tense (usually). I’ve also found that the hardest part about requesting something is the waiting. I love how David is waiting “expectantly” for God’s answer. I wonder if he was waiting for a verbal answer or if he was waiting for a more physical answer. My husband and I recently took a class to help us communicate better with our son who has autism. One of the key things they teach parents is to wait. It’s really hard to wait. And there are times when I think I’m waiting, but I’m not. This is also a skill they try to teach teachers – ask a question and then wait. Count to 10. It always seems longer than it is. Maybe it’s the same with waiting for an answer. In the grand scheme of things, it’s definitely shorter than we think it is. But it’s really hard to wait without trying to say the answer or reiterate the question. Waiting is definitely hard to do.
Psalm 118:22 The stone rejected by the builders has now become the cornerstone. This verse made me smile because I think this is how all of us at Hope Inspirational Schools feel. We’re the rejects of society trying to build something revolutionary. Psalm 118:25 Please, LORD, please save us. Please, LORD, please give us success. Yes, this is my prayer on a daily basis. Save me from this situation in life and please give us success with this venture. Psalm 118:28 You are my God, and I will praise you! You are my God, and I will exalt you! Ultimately, God is supreme. Worship is the way out (read about it in the book In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day). No matter what the circumstances I find myself in, He is my God. I will exalt Him. That’s sometimes easier said than done, and sometimes it takes me a little while to remember that; however, even in my darkest days God has given me a lot to praise Him about. Yeah God!
I receive a weekly email devotional by Max Lucado. This is the one I got this week. It was interesting because I led worship at a Presbyterian church where they say the Lord’s prayer. It made me think back to this devotional. And Max Lucado has such a great way of saying things! Enjoy while I go check on my coughing child! Happy Monday! The Kitchen: God’s Abundant Table by Max Lucado “Give us this day our daily bread…” Your first step into the house of God was not to the kitchen but to the living room, where you were reminded of your adoption. “OurFather who is in heaven.” You then studied the foundation of the house, where you pondered his permanence. “Our Father who is in heaven.” Next you entered the observatory and marveled at his handiwork: “Our Father who is in heaven.” In the chapel, you worshiped his holiness: “Hallowed be thy name.” In the throne room, you touched the lowered scepter and prayed the greatest prayer, “Thy kingdom come.” In the study, you submitted your desires to his and prayed, “Thy will be done.” And all of heaven was silent as you placed your prayer in the furnace, saying, “on earth as it is in heaven.” Proper prayer follows such a path, revealing God to us before revealing our needs to God. (You might reread that one.) The purpose of prayer is not to change God, but to change us, and by the time we reach God’s kitchen, we are changed people. Wasn’t our heart warmed when we called him Father? Weren’t our fears stilled when we contemplated his constancy? Weren’t we amazed as we stared at the heavens? Seeing his holiness caused us to confess our sin. Inviting his kingdom to come reminded us to stop building our own. Asking God for his will to be done placed our will in second place to his. And realizing that heaven pauses when we pray left us breathless in his presence. By the time we step into the kitchen, we’re renewed people! We’ve been comforted by our father, conformed by his nature, consumed by our creator, convicted by his character, constrained by his power, commissioned by our teacher, and compelled by his attention to our prayers. The prayer’s next three petitions encompass all of the concerns of our life. “This daily bread” addresses the present. “Forgive our sins” addresses the past. “Lead us not into temptation” speaks to the future. (The wonder of God’s wisdom: how he can reduce all our needs to three simple statements.) First he addresses our need for bread. The term means all of a person’s physical needs. Martin Luther defined bread as “Everything necessary for the preservation of this life, including food, a healthy body, house, home, wife and children.” This verse urges us to talk to God about the necessities of life. He may also give us the luxuries of life, but he certainly will grant the necessities. Any fear that God wouldn’t meet our needs was left in the observatory. Would he give the stars their glitter and not give us our food? Of course not. He has committed to care for us. We aren’t wrestling crumbs out of a reluctant hand, but rather confessing the bounty of a generous hand. The essence of the prayer is really an affirmation of the Father’s care. Our provision is his priority. From The Great House of God Copyright (Thomas Nelson, 1997) Max Lucado
1 Corinthians 11:6 Yes, if she refuses to wear a head covering, she should cut off all her hair. And since it is shameful for a woman to have her hair cut or her head shaved, then she should wear a covering. Really? Is it a custom or a law? Somehow I don’t think God is upset when women worship or pray without something over our head. I don’t know. It’s like my other questions about how we pick and choose what things to obey or follow in the Bible. It makes my head spin… and today, with my stomach spinning, other spinning isn’t good. Ugh.
I wanted to post the sermon at my church (Discovery Church) that Jon Tyson “preached” yesterday. It was AWESOME! It was all about grace and how we’ve misinterpreted it, how the church has become known for its hate and intolerance instead of love, and how it’s not by faith that we’re saved but by grace. If I were to try and explain it, I would ruin it. So, I’ll post the link to Discovery’s media page for now, and I’ll post the link to the sermon when they get it up there. Plus, Jon Tyson’s from Australia so he’s got an awesome accent! :) Second, there’s a guy who leads worship at Discovery that sang a song he wrote and it’s AWESOME! Take a peek: The song’s called Saturate. I hope it spreads because it’s beautiful. Yesterday at church (yesterday was an awesome service!) our pastor (David Loveless) reminded us of the importance of speaking with God and relating to Him and praying to Him from different positions. He has us all kneel down and pray that way for a moment. It was a great reminder that simply kneeling before God has a way of focusing me and humbling me and allowing me to press into His presence more than if I’m sitting on my couch or bed or standing in the kitchen (and certainly more than if I’m chasing my little ones). He spoke briefly about how the Bible talks about praising God with our hands raised, or on our knees or faces, or with instruments, or with our voices, silently and out loud. And each of these methods brings something different to that moment. It was very cool. My amazing husband, John, went to an awesome men’s event at Discovery Church this past Saturday called the Better Man Event. He has a great time and met some wonderful guys (one of whom just appeared and disappeared but made a pretty deep impact on John). So, last night John actually came into our room as I was getting ready to go to bed and invited me to pray with him!!! It was SO cool! :) I was so proud of him and thankful for his courage in taking the initiative. Yeah God! And then he went to up his character points to 60 since the Mass Effect 2 game comes out Monday at midnight (and he found out that the main character, not only has the same first name as he does – John Sheppard, but they also share the same birthday, so that upped the awesomeness of the game for him a little more)… Children’s laughter. There aren’t too many things more awesome than children’s laughter. John was throwing Gavin and Kai last night and rough-housing with them right before we put them to bed (yeah, way to calm them down before bed, right?), and they were screaming and laughing and it was beautiful! No wonder Jesus said, let the little children come to me… I can totally see Him scooping one of them up and tossing them into the air as they screamed with delight. Cool pictures.