Love the Church

Thou shalt arise, and have mercy upon Zion: for the time to favor her, yea, the set time, is come. For thy servants take pleasure in her stones, and favor the dust thereof. (Psalm 102:13-14)

Yes, our prayers for the church will be heard. The set time is come. We love the prayer meetings, and the Sunday school, and all the services of the Lord’s house. We are bound in heart to all the people of God and can truly say,

There’s not a lamb in all thy flock
I would disdain to feed
There’s not a foe before whose face
I’d fear thy cause to plead.

If this is the general feeling, we shall soon enjoy times of refreshing horn the presence of the Lord. Our assemblies will be filled, saints will be revived, and sinners will be converted. This can only come of the Lord’s mercy; but it will come, and we are called upon to expect it. The time, the set time, is come. Let us bestir ourselves. Let us love every stone of our Zion, even though it may be fallen down. Let us treasure up the least truth, the least ordinance, the least believer, even though some may despise them as only so much dust. When we favor Zion, God is about to favor her. When we take pleasure in the Lord’s work, the Lord Himself will take pleasure in it.

Here’s the deal.  I’m not a morning person at all.  I don’t like getting up any earlier than I have to.  I don’t think very clearly in the morning either.  I’ve tried prayer journals and devotional books.  They’re OK, but I still need a lot of discipline and a measure of focus.  I’ve tried the “read the Bible in 365 days” plan too.  It’s great, but my brain doesn’t want to digest that much so early in the morning.

I’ve used devotional books too, including My Utmost for His Highest (Oswald Chambers), Morning and Evening (Charles Spurgeon) and These Days (various authors).  They’re inspirational, but there’s not a lot of Bible or prayer in there – mostly reflection.

What I really need is a prayer leader – my own private prayer service each morning.  So here’s what I’m doing.  Each morning, I’m praying along with a “morning prayer” podcast.  It’s based on the Episcopal Church’s daily office book so it had a Psalm and two Bible readings along with a prayer of confession, a creed, a chance to pray for others, the Lord’s Prayer and a blessing.  It’s also set to music – just the thing for me.  As a good Presbyterian, I pause during the prayer of confession to get a little extra confessing time.  I usually pause during the intercession time too.

It takes me 15-20 minutes for that.  On the good days I can pray and read more as I feel led.  On the bad days, at least I’ve started with prayer!

There are several audio resources available for prayer time with a computer or MP3 player.  Try them and see what works best for you:

Listen or subscribe to the Morning Prayer podcast from the Episcopal Church in Garrett County: www.episcopalchurchingarrettcounty.org/churchonthewebpage.htm

For a reading and reflection Monday through Friday, check out www.pray-as-you-go.org

For a weekly dose of scripture, prayer, music and contemplation, try the Taizé podcast www.taize.fr/podcast

There’s also an audiobook version of Eugene Peterson’s The Message that divides the Bible up into daily doses (with a day off for reflection and catch-up each week): www.amazon.com/Daily-Message-Complete-Bible/dp/1598594575

I hope one of these will help my fellow morning-prayer-challenged night people out there as much as this has helped me.  May God bless you on your journey!

I preached about waiting for God on Sunday.  Then as I was feeling frustrated today about a couple of things, I happened to hear two different people on the car radio at two different times talking about waiting on God…  And about how we can’t do anything of consequence under our own power.  I got the message…  at least for today.

I woke up today with “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” in my head, but I didn’t get the message until just now.  “What a friend we have in Jesus!  All our sins and griefs to bear.  What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer.  Oh, what grief we often forfeit!  Oh, what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.”  How many things are you trying to force in life?  Try handing them over to God – it’s great!  Sure I keep trying to pick them back up, but you can always hand them over to God again.  Hopefully you’ll get the message faster than I did.