Faith Venture

One of the many things I read every day is 300 Words a Day by Jon Swanson. He is really grounded in daily life with interesting insights. The other day he wrote about someone coming to him with a problem–logistics about a church program. He wrote:

“I needed to separate the need she had from the solutions she offered. Once the need was clear, the best solution would come. I suppose this could be a lesson about teamwork and collaboration. but for me it’s a lesson about prayer. Too often I tell God the solution, and wonder why I don’t get my way. When I let him know the need and wait, solutions I never imagined appear.”

He is so right. Don’t we all have this problem of praying to God for a specific solution? I’ve been attempting to just lay out the situation for God in my prayers. I’m pictorial in thinking (even though I write for a living, go figure). So, when I am praying for others or for me, I just enter quietly into God’s presence and picture the person or event. Just lay it out there for God.

And, yes. I have received many solutions–and still am today. About lots of stuff. And I’ve seen changes in the lives of people that I lay before God–not praying for a solution or even that “cop out” phrase according to your will. I know that God will work in the situation and the proper solution will happen.

The coolest thing is that I rest in the confidence that God knows the solution. I don’t have to be his boss.

Sometimes when you are a person who meditates and prays you may think you’re the only one. Maybe different somehow from others. I find constantly find people who are meditative. Most of these people I meet at business meetings or during business lunches. So, it’s not just in church circles where you meet spiritual people.

Just yesterday at a technical conference I was talking about some high technology software with an engineer. I made a chance remark, and my companion mentioned, “I also meditate daily. It helps me maintain balance in my life.”

I know that I often need to bring my life into balance. Many times in my life I’ve been surrounded by people who are depressed or are on emotional roller coasters. It’s easy to react to them, and to allow the toxicity of unstable emotions to infiltrate into your inner life.

There is a reason that spiritual techniques such as meditation and deep prayer were developed thousands of years ago and  still  practiced today. The process of “centering” or bringing all of your being (“soul” in New Testament writing) into focus and placing that focus with God brings just that stability and balance I need to keep going in a positive way.

When I slip, I know it immediately. Sometimes, though, regaining that balance takes some time and work.

Yesterday I was meditating on Paul, and his difficulty in convincing Jewish people to recognize that their Messiah had come in the person of Jesus while arguing from their Scriptures. So, I wondered about how to change people. Arguments to the intellect are seldom successful.

Then, while studying Richard Foster’s “Celebration of Discipline,” I caught the sentence, “Prayer changes you.” And I thought, prayer changes others, too.

I’m not thinking about prayer as those short petitions to God that many people substitute for prayer. James says that you do not have your prayers answered because you don’t pray correctly. Prayer is actually work. I know, work is a bad word for many of you. But nothing is achieved without it.

Prayer and meditation practiced daily with devotion will change your life. I’ve witnessed it. I’ve seen it in others and myself. It will change your personality. It will change your orientation to life. It can change others. I have not only heard stories of people healed through prayer, I’ve also witnessed it. Not every time I’ve ever prayed, but sometimes.

Foster talks about a time when he was a pastor and was called to a house where there was a sick little girl. He went in to pray for her, and her little brother wanted to pray, too. He said OK. So they went into the room and closed the door. He said to the little boy, let’s imagine that Jesus is sitting in that other chair. We’ll see him come over to your sister and we’ll all put our hands on her and pray for her healing.

Prayer is like that. I have felt that I’m focusing the Holy Spirit on someone as I pray for them–often without words exactly, but more about a deep feeling of empathy and hope for their life. And things happen.

Try prayer in that way. Slow down and seek the presence of the Spirit. Don’t just rush to get your requests sent off to the big vending machine in the sky. Maybe you’ll change someone–and yourself in the process.