Tag: A Word for Wednesday

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Selfless Prayer

Throughout the years, I’ve encountered two types of prayer support. I’ll bet you have, too. By far, the most frequent is in the form of a promise: “I’ll pray for you.” We hear it, we say it, and we appreciate it, for it gives us the hope of help. Even if my friend ultimately heaves my plea heavenward as if to jettison the weight of obligation, at least he stands with me, at least she adds her name to my petition, and I am grateful for the promise of prayer.

Yet have you ever experienced the richness of the friend who intercedes for you in real-time? “Let’s just pray about that right here,” she responds; “Let’s stop and pray together now,” he offers. Like the men who lowered the paralytic through the roof, these faithful friends interrupt their lives—if even for a moment—to carry you to Christ. Though the world bustles all around, you step away into an unseen crevice of hidden calm. Two now intercede as one, and both are blessed in His promised presence. And your wobbly legs of doubt and fear are strengthened again to faith and confidence.

Selfless prayer is a gift we pass around, giving it at times and receiving it at others. How can we make it all the more precious and all the more helpful? Pray in faith and do not doubt, for “anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”1 Trust the Holy Spirit, for when we do not know how to pray as we should, “the Spirit intercedes … according to the will of God.”2 And “pray with thanksgiving,”3 celebrating the reality that God is more compassionate than we are, that He is wiser than we are, and that He is more faithful than we are. God is more eager to bless us than we are to receive His blessings, and He is able to do anything. He is good.

Whether we depart our friends with a promise to pray, or we linger with them in the present to pray, God is glorified and we are blessed when we experience the gift of selfless prayer together.

Our Father, thank you for making us one in Christ and for the privilege of coming before you in His name. Grace us to pray selflessly and boundlessly. May our sacrifice of prayer be pleasing in your sight today. In Jesus’ name and by the power of your Spirit, we pray. Amen.

Christ in me is strength.

Read Jesus’ teaching on prayer in Matthew 6:5-13.

1 Hebrews 11:5
2 Romans 8:26, 27
3 Philippians 4:6

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Family Photos

Tell me if this is you: Friends invite you to their house for the evening and, before the night is over, you’ve perused the pictures that rest on their shelves and pondered and portraits that hang from their walls. For while an open door welcomes you into their house, it is the family photos that draw you into their life.

Even in our own home, family in frame calls us to pause and remembrance. Wooden edges encase memories of loving and living, of taking and giving; golden perimeters surround stories of coming and going, of aging and growing. We smile at goofy glasses and toothy grins, and we laugh at paisley polyesters and passé plaids. Some images return us to moments of joy, while some summon a lump to the throat, and still others remind us to forgive yet again.

The Bible tells us that Jesus “dwells in [our] hearts by faith.”1 We are His home, for He resides in all who believe in Him and welcome Him in. No lens has captured His image, of course, but even as He lives with us and in us, we have a very special way to pause, remember what He has done, and take in all that He was and is and always will be: it’s called communion. When we break bread and partake of the wine together, we remember the One who instituted this outward sign of an inner grace. For as He held up the bread and lifted the cup, He declared His covenant with us and His presence in us until He comes again.

Then in renewed confidence, we go forth in the perpetual assurance that He goes in us. In fresh humility, we serve others in the knowledge it is He who works through us. In unity of the Spirit, we remember none of us lives alone, for He has made us to be one with each other—children of the same Father, united in His Son, all included in one family picture.

Father, thank you for sending us your Son. Grace us to live and serve as one, always remembering Jesus, who united us forever in Him. In His name and by the power of your Spirit, I pray. Amen.

Christ in me is life.

1 Ephesians 3:17

Read Paul’s teaching on the Lord’s supper in 1 Corinthians 11:23-26.

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The Glow of the Soul

I had an acquaintance who openly professed himself to be “not a religious man.” So, it was fascinating to hear him tell of the time when, as a college student, he visited the campus of a Christian university. Whether it was for scholastic competition or a conference, I do not recall, but whatever his reason for being there, the experience was for him a bit unsettling. “They were too happy!” he exclaimed. Though his grin acknowledged the irony in his statement, he nevertheless remained as bemused by—and seemingly skeptical of—this outer glow of inner joy as when he originally encountered it decades prior.

There is indeed a joy that fills us who are in Christ. We discover His promises to be true, His love to be free, and His presence to be real. Our life changes in an instant, and we blossom over time. But to think life in Christ is free of problems and disappointments is [trigger warning!] no more realistic for us than in the fairy tales that conjure up the “they-all-lived-happily-ever-after” specter in the first place. Even blessed lives have their difficulties. Take Isaac, for instance. This chosen son of Abraham planted crops and reaped a hundredfold “because the Lord blessed him,” so much so, it turns out, that his rival Philistines “envied him” to the point of stopping up his wells and “filling them with earth” (Genesis 26:12-15). Even in blessing, evil lay close at hand. (We can relate, Isaac, we can relate.)

Christian joy is not the goofy grin of naiveté, as some might suspect, rather it is the glow of the overcomer—the one who perseveres through the struggles of this life with face set on Christ and the eternal victory that is found in Him. Then in this hope, she assures sojourners of this hope; in great blessing, he becomes great blessing to others. This is the smile of the soul, the manifestation of the Spirit, the beaming beacon of joy. This is new life in Christ.

Father, you are good; in your goodness, deliver me from evil. You bless me, so grace me to bless others. Your Spirit burns in me, so let Him shine from me in great joy, the joy of an overcomer. Thank you. In Jesus’ name and by the power of your Spirit, I pray. Amen.

Christ in me is confidence.