Tag: Pray

Ep.144: Lost and Found.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.  

Luke 15 tells us that tax collectors and sinners gathered around Jesus to listen. But the Pharisees and teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and even eats with them.” The Pharisees were Bible-study experts who had created a system of literal interpretation and developed detailed rules for doing exactly what the Bible said. They were offended that Jesus wasn’t more careful about interpreting and obeying the Bible, and they were shocked that he associated with low-lifes who thought parties were more important than Bible study.

Responding to this criticism, Jesus told three stories about people who lost something, and then threw a party when they found it.

Today, let’s look at the first story. It’s about a shepherd with one hundred sheep. One of the sheep wandered off and got lost. So the shepherd left the ninety-nine in the open country (I hope there weren’t any wolves about), and he hunted for the lost sheep until he found it. Then he joyfully brought it home on his shoulders and threw a party, saying, “Rejoice with me, I found my lost sheep.” 

Jesus said, “There is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who changes his mind and comes home to God than over ninety-nine righteous people who are certain they’ve got God figured out and aren’t about to change their mind.” 

The story has at least two pointed messages and a number of loose ends. 

Jesus’ first message is to his critics, the Pharisees. He tells them, “You think you have God figured out. You think he wants everybody to be like you, living sober, rigorous lives, keeping all the rules and getting everything right. But you’re wrong about God.” Jesus told them what God wants most is to find people who are lost, so he can throw a party when they come home. 

The religious people had built their own road to God. They knew they weren’t lost, and they knew they weren’t wrong, so they didn’t appreciate Jesus’ suggestion that they were both lost AND wrong! Like the T-shirt that says, “Don’t mess with my faith, my family, my firearms, my freedom”, the Pharisees had locked themselves into a whole worldview about what was right and necessary. And on pain of death, even Jesus wasn’t permitted to mess with that. 

Jesus’ second pointed message is that everybody is lost–both the wandering sinners and the competent middle class who’ve studied how to get it right. John Newton’s famous hymn says, “Once I was lost, but now I am found.” But my experience is that we all keep wandering off and getting lost, and we need Jesus to keep finding us. 

Let’s pray. 

Jesus, we have tried to be good Christians. We have studied the Bible and interpreted it and built books of rigid doctrine and a whole system of religion that tells us how to get God’s approval. We pray the right prayers and keep the right rules. And we are sure that God will notice us and reward us with a place in heaven. And that he’ll keep the bad people out.

Jesus, what are you saying about lost sheep? And about people who need a change of mind? And about party-time in heaven? We had our change of mind when we exited the party scene and put on our religious straightjacket. Have we lost our way again? Is your story an invitation for us to change our mind again?  

O Jesus, lift us up on your shoulders and carry us home to God. 

Amen.

I’m Daniel on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Ep.143: Psalm 62: Only in God.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray with Me”. 

In Psalm 62, the poet finds a quiet place of rest from his busy life and noisy enemies. He says,
    Only in God my soul finds rest;
        my salvation comes from him.
    Only he is my . . . fortress;
      I will not be shaken (vv 1-2). 

This psalm is unique because the poet doesn’t make any requests to God. Though he complains about enemies, he doesn’t ask God to save or rescue or deliver him. Instead, he finds in God a quiet shelter in his stormy life, a strong refuge in his weakness.

Let’s pray. 

Our father, this psalm tells us to trust in you at all times, to pour out our hearts to you, for you are our refuge (v. 8).

Thank you for welcoming the outpouring of our hearts, with their muddled thoughts and feelings. We present to you our thanks for food and shelter, our relief that spring has come at last, our fear of the coronavirus pandemic, our concern for the economy, and our faith that you are good. Take our hearts, Lord, protect and heal them.

With the poet we form a prayer of rest around three times our psalm uses the word “only”.

About his enemies, the poet says,
    How long will your assail [me]
       will you batter [me],
        like a leaning wall, a tottering fence?
    Your only plan is to bring me down. . .
    With your mouth you bless,
        but in your heart you curse (vv.3-5, paraphrased).

O God, our enemies are single-minded–their only plan is to bring us down. The enemy in our minds discourages and depresses us. The enemy in our hearts creates numbness and apathy. The enemy in our relationships destroys trust and goodwill. The enemy in our spirits tells us faith is an illusion. O God, how often, like the poet, we are a leaning wall, a tottering fence. Fragile and vulnerable, we live on the edge of failure and ruin. But we choose with the poet to rest in your shelter. 

In a second use of the word “only”, the poet says,
    Those of low estate are only a breath,
          those of high estate only a delusion;
          in the balances they go up;
    together they are lighter than breath (v. 9). 

O God, the heavyweights of our world are not as weighty as they imagine–they are only a breath of air. When they stand on the scales, the needle doesn’t move. When they walk through the sand, they leave no footprints. When they stand before you, O God, their haughty speech and mighty words are reduced to silence. They cannot provide a reliable fortress or a  trustworthy salvation.

The poet also uses the word “only” to talk about you, God, for you alone are his focus. Twice he says,:
    Only in God does my soul find rest,
    Only he is my rock and my salvation (vv. 1-2, 5-6). 

Thank you that our souls find rest in you. Thank you for each night of sleep. Thank you for each day of peace. Thank you for the downtime that coronavirus imposes on our hyperactive society. As we take a break from shopping, eating out, commuting, and attending church, we invite you to bring us to rest. May this coronavirus sabbatical become a holy time of rest in your name. Bring us through the epidemic with a new desire to seek you in our lives and to follow you in our world. Care for the unemployed, the displaced, the weary, and the sick in Jesus’ name.

Amen.

I’m Daniel on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Ep.142: When to Quit Forgiving.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.  

In Matthew 18, Peter asked Jesus, “How many times should I forgive a persistent sinner? Maybe seven times?” Jesus replied, “Don’t stop at seven, try seventy times seven!” 

Then Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is like a king whose servant owes him twenty bags of gold. In today’s money, that’s 20 or 30 million dollars. 

The servant begs the king, “Be patient and I will pay it all back.” Right. That’s likely to happen. At day labor rates in Jesus’ time, it would take 10,000 years to earn just one bag of gold. This guy is going to pay back 20 bags on a servant’s salary? But the soft-hearted king says, “Why don’t we just forget it? Your debt is cancelled! Off you go.”

Now this servant had a fellow servant who owed him one piece of gold. Not a bag, mind you, just one piece. The servant who just lost his multi-million dollar debt was determined to collect that one piece of gold. The debtor begged, “Be patient with me and I’ll pay it back.” But the forgiven servant sued for his piece of gold, and threw the debtor into prison. 

When the king heard about it, he was angry. He said, “What’s up with this? I forgave your huge debt. That’s a hint about how things work in my kingdom. Clearly you didn’t catch the hint, so now you owe it all again. Off to prison with you, so the jailers can torture you until you pay back all 20 bags worth.” 

Now only death can set that servant free. 

Here’s a list of things that are wrong with the story: 

  1. First, how in the world did the servant manage to rack up a multi-million dollar debt? Didn’t the king do a credit check on him? Why didn’t the king fire him after the first bag or two? I think the king was an irresponsible manager.
  1. Second, the servant’s offer to pay back the debt was totally implausible. The king should have said, “That’s impossible. Can’t be done.” Instead he says, “Let’s just forget the debt.” My credit card company could take a lesson from this king.
  1. And third, when the servant didn’t forgive that small debt , the king retracted his forgiveness and reinstated the multi-million dollar debt. Kind of arbitrary, don’t you think? Does the king just go about offering forgiveness and then retracting it and throwing people in jail? 

But Jesus ignored all that and spelled out one lesson from the story. He said, “This is how my heavenly father will treat you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.” 

Let’s pray. 

Jesus, is that how the kingdom of heaven works? We humans owe this massive debt to God because he’s given us ourselves and the whole world, and we’ve messed it up and squandered it and we’re unable to put it right? 

But you say that God will forgive all if we just forgive each other a bit? Is there no sense of proportion? No bookkeeper to track God’s losses? No list of wrongs we must right to make forgiveness kick in? No enforcer who tells applicants to repent?

Jesus, it seems from your story that the only way to receive forgiveness is to give it away. God’s forgiveness is not a bag of gold to hide under a mattress for judgment day. It’s a river that flows from God’s heart into our hearts, washing us clean as it flows in us through us and out into the lives of others. If we try to dam it up into a lake, it no longer works.  

O Jesus, let the river of forgiveness flow. Let it flow from you to us. Let it flow from us to everyone we know. 

Amen.

I’m Daniel on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Ep.141: Psalm 61: Refuge and Refugees.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray with Me”. 

Psalm 61 is a poignant statement of faith. Listen to the poet’s prayer:
  From the ends of the earth I call to you,
      when my heart is overwhelmed;
  lead me to the rock that is higher than I.
  For you have been my refuge,
    a strong tower against the foe (vv. 2-3). 

Do you experience that same feeling: “From the ends of the earth I call to you when my heart is overwhelmed.” I don’t often get to the geographical ends of the earth, but like the poet I bump into my emotional limits and get overwhelmed.

What brings you to the “ends of the earth” where you feel overwhelmed and far from God? Maybe anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder. Or cancer? Perhaps it’s money: you don’t know where the next paycheck is coming from, unable to accumulate savings, buried under a pile of debt. Perhaps it’s the relational crises of your life–marriage not so good, kids are wayward, neighbours are jerks. Maybe it’s family who judge and avoid you. Or maybe it’s God: you are not sure if he exists, and if he does, why doesn’t he listen to you and care about you? 

Whatever makes you alone and isolated–bring it to this psalm. Are you at the end of your wits? At the ends of the earth? Overwhelmed? Then say with the poet, “Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.”  Yes, that’s what we need when earthquakes shake us, when troubles frighten, when waves of stress threaten to drown us. We need a rock to stand on, a firm place to plant our feet, some solid ground where we can look around, take our bearings, and find relief. 

The poet says, “That firm place is you, O God. You have been my refuge, a strong tower against my foes.” 

Let’s pray. 

Our father, we are refugees, driven from the homes we tried to build. We imagined happy and fulfilling lives but we have ended up with disturbed states of mind and body, in a world without answers.

We are refugees from church, driven into the wilderness by doctrines we can’t accept and rules that judge us. 

We are refugees from families that misunderstand and avoid us. 

O Jesus, we are all refugees in many ways. 

Lead us, we pray, to the rock that is higher than us. Be a refuge for the refugees, bring us to your tent, shelter us under your wings of protection and comfort.

We pray for the lonely elderly whose care facilities are locked down. In their loneliness and fear, be their refuge. 

We pray for health care workers in masks and hazmat suits, caring for the sick, watching people die. Be their strong tower. 

We pray for the unemployed, watching television at home as bills pile up. Make their home a tent where they dwell with you. 

We pray for refugees, far from home and family, scarred by violence and abuse. Protect them in the shelter of your wings. 

We pray for ourselves when we are overwhelmed. Lead us to the rock that is higher than us.

Amen.

I’m Daniel on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Ep.140: Mustard Seed and Yeast.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.  

In Matthew 13, Jesus explained his kingdom with word pictures when he said, 

“The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest garden plant and becomes a tree, so that the birds perch in its branches” (Mat 13:31-32).

When I was growing up, we used soupy-smooth bright yellow mustard for sandwiches and finely ground dry mustard in recipes. Today, we’re more adventurous–we have a small bottle of hot mustard, some smooth dijon mustard, and a plastic squeeze bottle of grainy dijon. The grains in the dijon are crushed seeds–certainly not the smallest seeds in a modern garden–but small enough to make a point. 

Jesus’ point is the marvelous discrepancy between the smallness of the seeds when they are sown and the large plants that result. Tomato seeds are also small. Put one in your mouth sometime and try to crush the slippery thing. Then think about what tomato seeds become in summer–large tomato plants supported on stakes or trellises, growing a harvest of cherry or heirloom or beefsteak tomatoes.  

Jesus says that’s what the kingdom of heaven is like. It starts small and powerless, almost invisible, and grows into a lush and fruitful plant. When we pray, “Your kingdom come”, we ask that God’s kingdom which today seems small and invisible and ineffective, will grow as Jesus promised into something large and world-conquering.

Jesus also said, “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman mixed into sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough” (Mat 13:33).

This woman is not your average home chef making a loaf or two of bread. She’s a serious baker, starting with three twenty-pound bags of flour! 

My wife made ciabatta buns recently, but she didn’t start by sending me to Costco for twenty pound bags of flour. She used three cups of flour in a no-knead recipe. The other three ingredients were: a cup-and-a-half of cold water, a teaspoon-and-a-half of salt, and one quarter teaspoon of yeast. After mixing the ingredients at 3:00 one afternoon, she let the dough rise on the counter for 19 hours. At ten the next morning, it was properly risen, and soon we had fresh buns for snacks and supper.

Jesus’ point is that the kingdom of heaven looks like it’s lost itself in the dough of the world. But in fact it is the controlling ingredient. It is present and active in the whole batch–the whole world– preparing it for the great bake-off when the doughy mess will become a feast of bread.

Let’s pray. 

Our father, we pray “Your kingdom come”. But we don’t see much evidence that your kingdom is on its way. Is your kingdom still at the mustard seed stage? Growing silently and unobserved toward its final form? Getting ready for an unscheduled but certain harvest? 

Is your kingdom like the leaven, already permeating the whole world, silently and invisibly preparing it for the day of your return? 

O Jesus, you are the bread of life. Take the small leaven of your kingdom we hold in our hearts, take the small mustard seed of our faith. Let it work in us and in the world, until you, the king, come out of hiding and reveal the kingdom you have built.

Amen.

I’m Daniel on the channel “Pray with Me”.