I offer that we Christians have long misused this Scripture for selfish and temporal reasons.  I will do my best to explain although it may prove to be difficult.  We tend to apply the persistent prayer parable to the healing of disease, to freedom from financial woes, to a better life, to the protection of our children, and so on.  We tend to believe that if we pray every day for these things (as I pray for my children’s protection) that nothing will ever go wrong or that God will eventually heal us from a disease or get us out of debt or something.

I use the word selfish because we are praying for ourselves and those we love.  I use the word temporal because we are praying for things that are only going to influence our lives in the flesh for the short time we have on earth.  Do I believe it’s wrong to pray for these things?  BY NO MEANS!!!  But I do believe we are misdirecting the intent for the persistent prayer parable.

So, what are we to pray persistently for?  I believe the answer to this question deals with eternal matters.  And the only eternal matters that I know of deal with the salvation of souls and the coming of the Kingdom of God.

What got me to thinking about this is Isaiah 62:6-7.  Read it below.

Isaiah 62:6 – 7 (NIV)
I have posted watchmen on your walls, Jerusalem; they will never be silent day or night.  You who call on the LORD, give yourselves no rest, and give him no rest till he establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth.

These verses show me a version of persistent prayer that is all about praying for God to bring His Kingdom soon.  Rather than focusing on the things that are only an issue in the life of the flesh, we need to focus on the things that are eternal.  Our persistent prayers should be for friends and loved ones to be eternally saved.  Our prayers should be for the coming of God’s eternal Kingdom.  Our prayers should concern the relationships that we have and how they could be used for God’s glory.

Matthey 6:7 – 8 (NIV) says ”And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.  Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”   I tend to think we confuse persistent prayer at times with this kind of praying.  And all along, we need to remember that God knows what we need, and He will give that to us.  For Paul, what God thought he needed was some kind of thorn in the flesh.  I’m not sure what that was, but God wanted Paul to have this in order to Glorify himself through Paul’s weakness.  For my friend Henry, God allowed him to have cancer in order to Glorify himself.

Some of you did not like that last statement at all.  But my friend Henry is the one who taught me that.  He actually used those words … shortly before cancer ended his life.  But I can tell you that Henry did more to Glorify God than any healthy Christian I have ever met.

I feel as if I’ve been rambling along in this blog going all over the place.  I believe this topic could use much more discussion than I am giving it here.  Plus, I think there are smarter people that could expound on this much better than I.  I would love to have your thoughts on this topic.  But I will close with my bottom line to all of this.

I believe our persistent prayers should be focused on people being saved, on the Gospel being spread and preached throughout the world, and on God’s eternal Kingdom coming sooner than later.   Yes, we should pray for healing and for freedom from financial woes and for earthly matters, but our persisting praying should be on all things eternal.

Go with God,
Donald B

As I finish up my time here in Japan, surrounded by tragedy, I have something I would like to share.  This also comes from a discussion I had with someone here while in Japan about tragedies such as this and God.

His take was from the approach that God was vindictive and mean.  If He’s God and He is sovereign, why would He let something like this happen?  There were children who died.  Why did they have to die?  What enourmous sin did they commit to deserve such as this?  My answer … I had none.  And I dare say that if you had had one, you would have been wrong.  For who are we to speak of why God would let something like this happen.

The day after I had this conversation with this man, I read the following Scripture.  I’m going to include it all, and then, I’ll tell you what I think.

Luke 13:1 – 8 (NIV)
Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices.  Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way?  I tell you, no!  But unless you repent, you too will all perish.  Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them–do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem?  I tell you, no!  But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”

Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree, planted in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it, but did not find any.  So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any.  Cut it down!  Why should it use up the soil?’

” ‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it.  If it bears fruit next year, fine!  If not, then cut it down.’ “

Point 1: Jesus didn’t even tell the people why these tragedies occurred.  They just did.  No explanation given.

Point 2: Jesus says these tragedies did not happen to these people because they had more sin.  No.  That was not the answer.

Point 3: Notice how Jesus says, “But unless you repent, you too will all perish” after each of those tragedies.  We are all eventually going to stand before God.  Whether it be dying in a tragedy such as the Tsunami in Japan, or in a car accident, or from old age, or if we are still alive when he returns — we will all stand before God.  And if we have not accepted His free gift of salvation, hell awaits us.  That’s the perish Jesus is referring to.  Our lives are not just the few years we spend here on earth.  Our lives are ETERNAL!!! Jesus was viewing these tragedies from a perspective that is difficult for us to have.  The real perishing comes after the life leaves the earthly bodies … not when.  We will either perish or live forever with Him.

Point 4: The parable of the fig tree.  We do not have forever to produce fruit in keeping with righteousness (or believe God, receive His Son, and live for Him).  Our end is fast approaching.  You may be taken in the next big tragedy our world faces, or you may die at an old age … but do you know which?  Are you sure you’ll be here tomorrow.  The parable tells us that God is giving us all more time.  He keeps this world spinning so that others may have the time to see that He is God and He is real!

So, I can’t tell you why God allows tragedies to occur.  I won’t even defend God.  He doesn’t need me to do that.  And besides, can you imagine a Kindergartener defending an offensive lineman for a pro football team against physical attack.  And that illustration doesn’t even come close to how puny we are compared to God.  God is God!  He does what He does!  And I don’t have to defend Him.  My job is simply to continue working with the fig trees God has placed in the garden I am responsible for.  Pray for more time!  Pray for their salvation!

Go with God,
Donald B

While the speakers use the same curriculum each time, Kristie and I ALWAYS come home learning something new.  Because we hear different speakers, we hear different view points or we get to hear them focus more deeply on a point another speaker did not focus on deeply.  Going to multiple Get Aways is definitely beneficial.

At this past weekend’s Get Away here in Reston, VA, Greg Speck (www.gregspeck.com) said something that really brought home what my wife’s role is.  He said our wife’s role is NOT submission.  That is something she will do in response to her obedience to God (our obedience to God makes it easier for her), but that is NOT her role.  Our wife’s role is HELPER.

Many of you – especially those of you who actually read your Bible and attend church – are going … no duh!  We’ve all known that.  But then, Greg pointed out something extremely obvious I had never considered.

He said the Bible only mentions 2 helpers for man in the Bible.  I immediately knew who the other helper was, but I had never made the connection before.  (For those of you who are still wondering … the other helper is God Himself.)

He said that we need our wives just like we need God.  (Of course … there is the understood definite greater need for God in all of our lives.)  But his point is we NEED our wives.  We are incomplete without them.  God created Eve for Adam and said “this is good”!

In a marriage, God chooses to speak to husbands through their wives.  Men – we’ve gotta listen up a lot better than we do.  Greg used the following example (paraphrase big time by me.)

There was a man who got all excited about this particular product and wanted to invest in it through the stock market.  He told his wife about it, and she said, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”  He argued and fussed and said “But what do you know about this product?” She responded, “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”  The man went to another man and told him what his wife had said and complained again … “She doesn’t know anything about this product, so … how can she say it’s not a good idea.”  The other man asked, “Does your wife know Jesus?” … to which the man replied “yes”.  The other man then asked, “Does Jesus know this product?” … to which the man (with a light bulb kind of expression) replied “yes”.  God speaks to us through our wives.  Listen up!

In closing … men, if you have never taken your wife to a Family Life Weekend To Remember Get Away – YOU are missing out!  While it is great you could do this for your wife, it is even GREATER what God will do to you at one of these weekends.  No, you won’t be pansified.  Rather – God will show you what it REALLY means to be a man.   If you to be a better husband, a better father, an all around better person … go to one.

And you can sign up for one for half price by signing up through my group page.  Normally, a Get Away costs $318 ($159 per couple).  But if you sign up through a group … you can register both of you for ONLY $159 (half off).  You will NOT regret it.

http://familylife.com/groups/GroupDK

Go with God,
Donald B

I read Psalm 71 the other day, and this is the portion of Scripture that jumped out at me. The first 13 verses are David crying out to God because of his troubles and his enemies and such. I believe this is something most of us can understand. We’ve all got issues. Financial, family, work, overweight, don’t exercise enough, friends, etc. Some people seem to have it worse than others, but we’ve all got problems. And so did David. But these 5 verses are a reminder of how we should be responding. These 5 verses layout the kind of life I hope to live during my remaining time on this earth.

Check out verse 14. Can you say this? When your problems are at the worst, can you truly say this? If not, you need to read your Bible more … pray more. You will be able to say this no matter what kind of problem you are experiencing IF you are daily getting into God’s Word and growing in your knowledge of who God is and how God works.

I love verse 15! I must admit I do not share my faith anywhere near as much as I wish I was sharing my faith. I hope this will change in me as I go forward. But verse 15 screams out even more to those of us that say (or think) "I can’t share my faith because I want know what to say." David says he’s going to proclaim it even "though I know not how to relate them all." Just tell them what you know and you have experienced. Leave the results up to God.

Verse 18 is for the older people. Although many of my friends and family are calling me old now that I’ve turned 40, I realize I still have much time left on this earth. But as my children grow and leave the home, and as they begin to have children of their own, I am reminded that my days of declaring God’s glory go on until I am dead. I have a responsibility of declaring God to my grand children and other people that God will bring my way as I continue through life.

My prayer is that I will be declaring God’s glory on my deathbed. I truly hope that as I lay at that moment of life ending here on earth and soon beginning in Heaven, that God will give me something to say that will truly encourage someone who remains here on earth.

Go with God,
Donald B

If you are a man, and your goal is to be as much like Jesus as you possibly can be, you really need to add this book to your library. If you don’t have a library of books – it’s time to get started. There’s a lot of good stuff out there.

Go with God,
Donald B

Let me begin with this quote straight from the devotional:

Have you received a ministry from the Lord? If so, you must be faithful to it— to consider your life valuable only for the purpose of fulfilling that ministry. Knowing that you have done what Jesus sent you to do, think how satisfying it will be to hear Him say to you, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:21).

The part that speaks to me is the part that says “to consider your life valuable only for the purpose of fulfilling that ministry.”  Some of you know that I am married, I have 6 kids, and I am enlisted in the Air Force.  I have a full and busy life.  But even as much as I love my family and as important as it is to work as unto the Lord in my work place, the ministry God has called me to has to be more important than any of those things.  I firmly believe that I become a better husband and father IF I am wholeheartedly obeying God’s call in my life.

Since 1993, that call has been to serve the local church.  And more importantly, that call has been to work with youth in the local church.  Recently I have come to understand that God wanted more of me in this ministry.  I decided to obey and give more of me (which means more of my already non-existent time).  And I can testify that since that time I have seen some awesome things happen with our youth, I have seen some wonderful things happening with my family, and I have found discipline in the areas of eating, exercising, reading, studying and working that I had been yearning for over many months now.  God is faithful when we are sold out to Him!

However, there is a very import factor to consider when giving everything to obey God in the ministry He has placed you in.  Satan won’t like it.  And thus, Oswald Chambers includes this bit in the same devotional that is mentioned above:

And we must be willing to experience the full impact of Acts 9:16 — “I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake.”

Obediently and wholeheartedly following God’s call in your life will lead you straight to the front lines of the ongoing spiritual battle.  The only way to fight this battle successfully and continue obeying God is to daily get in the Bible and pray.  Pray all the time!  Read the Word whenever you get the chance!  Be active on the front lines.

Go with God,
Donald B

This verse was read last night at our church’s Volunteer Worker gathering.  I have always loved this verse, but in light of current Youth Group activity, I had forgotten just how wonderful the truth behind this verse truly is.

As Christians, we all (or at least we all should) desire to please our God.  We attempt this by trying to live good, read our Bible, pray, serve in the church, help out someone less fortunate than us, and on and on and on.  But these are simply works.  And what good are our works …

1 Samuel 15:22
But Samuel replied:
       “Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices
       as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD ?
       To obey is better than sacrifice,
       and to heed is better than the fat of rams.

God does not want our best efforts or our works … He desires that we obey Him.  And in order to obey Him, we must demonstrate faith.

By faith we hear that faint whisper that instructs us to share our faith with someone.  By faith we are led to take on a new responsibility for which we are not qualified.  By faith we give more of our money even though it looks like there is not enough to make ends meet.  By faith we plant new churches.  By faith we start new ministries.  By faith we go to foreign countries.  By faith, by faith, by faith!!!

Only when we demonstrate faith in God by our actions will we please our God.

Go with God,
Donald B

First, I had been reading from the end of 1 Samuel and the beginning of 2 Samuel.  This covers the transition from Saul as king to David as king.  A few times in these chapters, David has a priest bring the ephod … and then he prays a prayer to God that goes something like this –> “Lord, would you have me do this or that thing?”  And God answers “yes” or “no”.  As I sat in the 234 commuter lot, I prayed, “God, why can’t I have an ephod?  Please show me that I am doing things Your way.  Show me that You are with me.”

I hit the road, 10 minutes from my house, still down and depressed.  First thing I saw was this red pick-up truck with individual letter stickers that wrote out … “GOD GOT YOUR BACK.”  Seriously!  That’s what it said.  This sent me to praising God immediately because that was exactly what I needed to hear.

But then, I get an email from a friend in response to a request for prayer.  She shared a verse with me that she felt led to share.  Psalm 37:6.  This just happens to be my most favorite verse.  I actually have this verse taped to my mirror in my bathroom.  It’s the only verse I have taped to my mirror.  It says, “He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.”

And this … this was just more confirmation from God that He was with me.

End of story!

Bottom line … obey God in all that You do, and He will always be with you.

Go with God,
Donald B

As a free will type person, the following scripture has always proven difficult:

Romans 9:10 – 24

¹⁰ This son was our ancestor Isaac. When he married Rebekah, she gave birth to twins. ¹¹ But before they were born, before they had done anything good or bad, she received a message from God. (This message shows that God chooses people according to his own purposes; ¹² he calls people, but not according to their good or bad works.) She was told, “Your older son will serve your younger son.” ¹³ In the words of the Scriptures, “I loved Jacob, but I rejected Esau.”

¹⁴ Are we saying, then, that God was unfair? Of course not! ¹⁵ For God said to Moses,

“I will show mercy to anyone I choose,
and I will show compassion to anyone I choose.”

¹⁶ So it is God who decides to show mercy. We can neither choose it nor work for it.

¹⁷ For the Scriptures say that God told Pharaoh, “I have appointed you for the very purpose of displaying my power in you and to spread my fame throughout the earth.” ¹⁸ So you see, God chooses to show mercy to some, and he chooses to harden the hearts of others so they refuse to listen.

¹⁹ Well then, you might say, “Why does God blame people for not responding? Haven’t they simply done what he makes them do?”

²⁰ No, don’t say that. Who are you, a mere human being, to argue with God? Should the thing that was created say to the one who created it, “Why have you made me like this?” ²¹ When a potter makes jars out of clay, doesn’t he have a right to use the same lump of clay to make one jar for decoration and another to throw garbage into? ²² In the same way, even though God has the right to show his anger and his power, he is very patient with those on whom his anger falls, who are destined for destruction. ²³ He does this to make the riches of his glory shine even brighter on those to whom he shows mercy, who were prepared in advance for glory. ²⁴ And we are among those whom he selected, both from the Jews and from the Gentiles.

**********************

Editing this post:

I had originally added some other thoughts to this post – with slight hesitation.  When I posted, I lost everything after the Scripture.  I’m thinking that is probably best.  So, what you see above is what you get.  The Word can speak for itself.

Go with God,
Donald B

OK … so, I’m not sure where this blog is going, but the principle given to us in these 2 verses has been working through my mind for a while now.  The jumbled mess comes with words like contentment, joy, trust, faith, eternity, relax, smile and more.  Trying to piece all this together into a thought has been the difficulty I have been struggling through.

Let’s begin with the verses.  Paul is simply telling the readers that he has discovered the secret on how to be content, and that secret is that he “can do everything through him who gives me strength.”  But how does that work?  How does simply knowing and believe verse 13 help us to be content?  What does it mean to be content?  How does joy, trust, faith, eternity and more connect to contentment?

To be content means to be satisfied with what one is or has; not wanting more or anything else.  So, immediately we can deduce that Paul means he is content with what he has here in the physical realm while living in the flesh on Earth.  For we can easily find scripture (even in this same book) where Paul is longing for heaven, or he is yearning to have more of Christ.  He is never content in his relationship with Christ.  He is always wanting more.  The irony is that it is this lack of contentment in his relationship with Christ which enables him to find contentment regarding the things of the world.

We have to learn to be content with the things we have in life, the position we hold in life, the circumstances we have experienced in life and the outcomes we experience in life.  If we truly believe that God is sovereign over all things, then we must begin to understand that our life (and everything that happens in it) is completely in his control.  And because he is all knowing, all powerful, all present, all loving and EVERYTHING … we should be able to TRUST that God wants the absolute best thing for us.

That paragraph is a hard thing to take in because you can’t just say that and ignore the fact that there are some bad, crappy things that happen to us.  To equate that God controls everything that happens to us, and bad things happen to us … is not a fun conversation.  Then, we start asking why he let it happen.  Why didn’t God spare us from the bad thing?  He spared someone else, why not me?

Those are questions people scream out about God and to God all the time.  And many times, those are questions which an answer will never be provided.  But we can always go back to the book of Job for a tad bit of understanding.  In the end, faith must play the major role.  We MUST trust that God has our best interests in mind.  We MUST begin to realize that our LIFE is so little about this time we have on Earth and is so much more about the eternal life we are going to live after we are dead or after Christ returns.  Everything we experience here is part of our growing in our eternal relationship with Christ.

Maybe – and this is probably a lame example – it can be viewed like a basic training of sorts.  Any military member will tell you how bad basic training was.  No one will ever talk about how much fun it was to have people screaming at you because your folded t-shirt was 1/4 inch off.  But what the will all tell you is how that basic training changed them and prepared them for a life in the military.

I am not sure that I have said much of anything in this post, but I need to close before it gets any longer.  To do that, I would like to discuss the joy aspect of all this.  Joy is NOT happiness!  However, I can find joy as I trust God completely with my life.  At basic training, we knew when the end day was.  We had the hope that the suffering we endured would be over soon.  And knowing this enabled us to continue on through the training.  Well, for Christians, we know we will be in heaven one day.  This thought should provide us with joy because we have hope that goes beyond this physical realm we are currently living in.

I hope you have found this useful.  If you think there was more I could have said, please add it in a comment below.  This is one of those things that needs to be talked out in order to get the best understanding.

Go with God,
Donald B