Retreat Recap

I spent the weekend of September 12-14 with about 250 women at beautiful Lake Ann Camp in Michigan. Together we addressed the apparent dissonance between the God-centered requests and the need-centered requests that Jesus teaches in The Lord’s Prayer. Is it possible to be God-centered when we have so many needs?

When I began studying The Lord’s Prayer, I wondered whether hallowing God’s name could ever be a desire in the middle of a practical need like daily bread. I questioned whether a longing for God’s kingdom would be possible under the burden of broken relationships in this immediate world. I asked whether doing God’s will on earth - a hostile place full of temptation and very unlike heaven - could ever truly be possible.

But if we allow God’s holiness to inform us about bread, His kingdom to teach us about relationships, and His will to be our path of deliverance, something in us changes. What we discovered over the weekend is that as Jesus teaches us how to pray about our needs, he teaches us how to live in our neediness.

I’ve attached #3 of the four sessions, which brings together the second set of requests: “Your kingdom come…forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.”

God of Both/And

Inspired by Luke 1:5-25

Incense swirled its way upward, outward, heavenward.

Forgive Your people

Send the Messiah

Give us a son

Zechariah stopped mid-prayer, chiding himself for that last request and shaking his head that it lingered still. Truly, it had been a desire long ago, voiced by himself and Elizabeth, but as decades passed, it had crystalized into a wordless ache.

Remember your people

Keep your promise

Give us a - 

Not again! Enough with the personal issues! He took a deep breath, the aroma filling his nostrils and focusing his senses. He was there at the altar of incense on behalf of Israel’s long-held hopes, not to bring up his own impossible ones. How selfish of me, and how ridiculous!  If God had been silent towards the entire nation for hundreds of years as they prayed, then surely God’s lack of response to his private burden should be understandable by now. Plus, with age came natural limitations. Priorities, he told himself.

Deliver your people

Bring us hope

Give - 

Suddenly, off to his right, he sensed someone nearby. All of the people were just outside praying; who would dare to enter this sacred space? He looked over and turned white with dread.

“Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard.”

In a millisecond, questions flashed through his mind: Which prayer? For the nation or for Elizabeth and me? Which one has been heard? How could either of them really be answered?

God would break centuries of silence to answer both an elderly couple’s cry for a child and a nation’s cry for a Deliverer.  John would be his parents’ fulfilled prayers and Israel’s final prophet announcing their Messiah. We don’t have a God who has to pick between either/or; He is the God of both/and.

Do you pray believing that? Or do you filter your prayers, as if God has to choose one or the other? Has time decreased the probability that He can answer at all?

I’ll be taking a blogging break over November & December, so Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!

Hurricane Milton

A prayer inspired by Psalm 89:8-14

As family and friends down south brace for yet another storm, my heart lifts up this prayer:

O Lord God of Hosts, the one who commands angel armies, 

Who is mighty as you are, O Lord, with your faithfulness all around you? 

You rule the raging of the sea. 

Rule it.

When its waves rise, you still them. 

Still them.

The heavens are yours; the earth also is yours. 

Hold them.

The world and all that is in it, you have founded them. 

Steady them.

The north and the south, you have created them. 

Care for them.

You have a mighty arm; strong is your hand, high your right hand. 

Reach down.

Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne. 

Reign over.

Steadfast love and faithfulness go before you.

Come quickly.

Back-to-School Prayer

Our boys started their sophomore and senior years in high school last Wednesday, but this is their first full week back. As I’ve thought about all of their commitments and their development in 2024-2025, these desires for them rise out of Psalm 90:14-17, and this is what I pray:

Satisfied Hearts: “Satisfy Gradyn and Jace in the morning with your unfailing love…” because there is so much offered to them that will only leave them empty, longing, and unfulfilled.

Singing Mouths: “...that they may sing for joy and be glad all their days. Make them glad for as many days as you have afflicted them, for as many years as they have seen trouble…” May the hard times be displaced by the joy they find in you so that instead of overhearing teenage complaints, negativity, and sarcasm, our ears catch them singing in the shower.

Saturated Eyes: “May your deeds be shown to your servants, your splendor to Gradyn and Jace…” Our eyes roam in search of splendor. Shield their eyes with the bright light of your presence and actions, so they’re more amazed by you than by anything else.

Steadied Hands: “May the favor of the Lord our God rest on them; establish the work of their hands for them- yes, establish the work of their hands.” Only by your grace can their effort this year mean anything. Let what they do make a difference in the direction of their lives, others’ lives, and for eternity.

May it be so.

The Lord’s Prayer

I usually rush into prayer, driven by all I need, and I miss the worshipful focus that Jesus teaches us to begin with in His famous Lord’s Prayer. I want to worship, but I feel so needy. It’s a lofty goal to hallow God’s name when what I really need is daily bread. It sounds too distant to ask for His kingdom when immediate relationships need healing. His will is a foreign path in a world that tempts to define my course.

But if we allow God’s name to inform us about bread, His kingdom to teach us about forgiveness, and His will to guide us into deliverance, we can unite our divided desires and come to God in worshipful neediness.

“Our Father, what kind of love is this to be called Your children!? 

You’re a Father who doesn’t play favorites with Your family, 

yet You lavish me with individual attention as if I’m an only child. 

I am here on earth, but You hold me in your gaze from heaven.

May Your Name be seen as holy when I live in unusual obedience, 

because I believe You for my urgent needs like daily bread.

May all who watch my reactions to life’s lows and to your provision in them,

wonder at the Name I carry.

May Your kingdom come, first ruling in my heart

to reveal who I am: Your debtor turned daughter.

May I draw from the treasury of Your forgiveness of me

to spend it on behalf of any sin against me.

May Your will be done, here in my life on this broken earth 

where temptation is rampant and evil rules the night.

Deliver me to overcome like Your Son from heaven,

because I belong to You, and it all belongs to You.

Amen.”

Matthew 6:9-13; Numbers 20:2-13; Matthew 18:23-35; Matthew 4:1-17