Believe “Christ-mindedness” RUMC January 29, 2017

Believe “Christ-mindedness”

RUMC January 29, 2017

 Zoad in the road video by Dr Seuss 

  Adults make 35,000 decisions a day. Children about 3000. Teenagers somewhere in between. That is a lot of decisions! There is no getting around it. It starts with, “Am I going to shut off the alarm?” And doesn’t end until you decide whether to go to sleep on your back or your side.

About 34,999 of those decisions are inconsequential. They won’t change our lives or anyone else’s life: like what TV show to watch, which route to drive, whether to have a second cup of coffee. Most are not difficult decisions, but there are a few that are really hard.

When we get to those hard decisions we may be tempted to be like that young man from Zoad and try to go both directions down the road, but the Bible has a name for trying to have your cake and eat it too…  it is called double-mindedness. When Christians begin to focus the worries and priorities of the world, or their own worries and priorities instead of Christ… the Bible calls us double-minded.

One of the places we see the term is in Matthew 6. The English word “Worry” is used 6 times in the passage, but that Greek word really beans to SPLIT THE MIND: to be double minded.

So listen to this

 “I tell you not to split your mind about everyday life—whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. …Can all your mind splitting add a single moment to your life? “And why split your mind about your clothing? Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. …“So don’t split your mind about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else.” 

Do not split your mind, Jesus says. Do not split your mind between God and the world. Between heavenly things and earthly things. Do not be double-minded. KEEP YOUR MIND ON THE KINGDOM OF GOD ABOVE ALL ELSE.

Jesus uses examples of the very practical needs food of and clothing to get at a bigger issue. I think the bigger issue is priorities. What is it that is most important in our lives?

            God is very clear about proper priorities throughout the Bible beginning with

•           “You shall have no other God’s before me.”  Single-minded worship.

•           “Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.”  Single-minded love.

Jesus expected the same

•           Jesus said, “He who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is not fit for the kingdom of God.”  Single-minded obedience.

•           Peter began to sink beneath the waves because he was not singularly focused on Christ.   Single-minded focus.

Then in our lesson this morning, Paul takes it one more step.

•           “ Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,”

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,”

 In other words, Paul is saying that single-mindedness is not really enough. We must be Christ-minded God calls us not just to single-mindedness, but Christ-mindedness.

The 4th Spiritual practice in the Believe series- Answering the question “how do we become more like Jesus.” Is by being CHRIST- MINDED. Which might not seem like a spiritual practice to you, but I believe it is. Just like the other practices, it is not one I have mastered so I am preaching to myself today as well.

Most of us are here because somewhere along the way we decided to make God our number one priority in life. But no matter how hard we try, No matter how well intentioned we are, our minds keep sliding backwards from our top priority, They

•           keep sliding backwards, away from Christ, and

•           back to thinking about ourselves,

•           back to thinking about our problems,

•           back to worry, and

•           anger, and

•           lust, and

•           all kinds of evil.

But, you say, “I can multitask.”

•           I can read my Bible, and gossip about my neighbor at the same time.

•           I can sing hymns and judge the clothes of the person next to me at the same time.

•           I can rely completely on God, and worry about money at the same time.

Research says you can’t. The latest brain research says that multitasking is an illusion. We convince ourselves we are doing two things, but we are really switching back and forth. The part of our brain called the medial prefrontal cortex keeps track of two things, so we can switch back and forth, but it can’t perform two complex functions at the same time.  It just doesn’t work. Either we are Christ-minded or we are double minded switching back and forth.

I’d like to propose to you that there are three keys to being Christ-minded in our discipleship.

 First… Christ-mindedness means KEEP YOUR EYES ON JESUS. The best way to illustrate this is with the story of Peter walking on the water. Peter had enough faith to say Lord, let me come to you. He got out of the boat and was strolling across the waves toward Jesus … then he got distracted. He looked down at the churning water beneath his feet and began to sink.

We have spiritual attention deficit disorder. We want to focus on Jesus but then

•           we get worried by the water churning under our feet.

•           Or something shiny gets our attention over there.

•           Or we lose our focus because the cell phone rings, beeps, and tweets incessantly.

•           Or we begin to think we can do this all ourselves, forgetting that it is Jesus who called us out of the boat to start with… and keeping our eyes on Jesus is all that keeps us from drowning.

Therefore, the first step in being Christ minded is to keep your eyes on Jesus every day. Every morning when we get up, we have to remember why we are here in the first place. We are here because we Jesus called us out of our lives of sin and asked us to go for a walk on the water with him. If we get up and the first thing that fills our mind is the stuff we have to do that day, or the pain we have in our back, or the worries of our day; we are forgetting why we are here. We are not here to get things done. We are not here for our own comfort and enjoyment. Our worry will not add one minute to our lives. We are here to be like Jesus.

Being Christ-minded means keeping our focus on Christ. So when we get up the first thing that fills our mind should be Christ, during the day the thing that should be on our mind the most is Christ, and the last thing before we go to sleep is Christ. Being Christ-minded means keeping our eyes on Christ.

  Second, Christ-mindedness means that we know IT ISN’T ALL ABOUT US. Jesus says don’t worry about what you will eat or what you will wear. Jesus is not denying that we need food and clothes. He is simply saying that our food and our clothes should not consume our minds.

  Jesus goes on to say, God takes care of the lilies and aren’t you more important than the lilies? Jesus is telling me that I don’t have to be the most important thing on my mind because I am already the most important thing on God’s mind. Let me say that again I don’t have to be the most important thing on my mind because I am already the most important thing on God’s mind.

See what I mean? Since God is looking out for you, you can spend your whole life thinking about number one… and that is not you. It is Christ. You can afford to be single-mindedly in love with Jesus. You can afford to be completely Christ-minded.

 Therefore, I want you to get out of yourself. Instead of thinking about your needs and problems, get out of your own heads and lives and be Christ to someone else. Serve them, love them, treat them the way Jesus would treat them.

•           Volunteer to help at the lock-in or the parent’s morning out.

•           Clean out your closets and take the goodies to a homeless shelter or somewhere that can distribute them to needy people.

•           Give up some of your precious time (because it isn’t really your time anyway) and make a difference in the lives of those who are the least in the eyes of the rest of the world.

•           Write a check… not an easy check… write a check that hurts just a little

o          to support one of our kids going on the mission trip,

o          or to help families who have had disasters

o          or to dig a well in Nigeria.

It doesn’t really matter what you do as long as you get out of your own head, stop worrying about your own problems, and be Jesus to someone. .

The second thing to remember if you want to be Christ-minded disciples is that your life is not all about you. Jesus says it a hundred different ways, but we seem unable to get it through our heads. Life is not about us. Life is about loving God and loving neighbor with the heart and mind of Christ.

 Finally, to be Christ-minded means to Trust God. That might seem simple, but trust is among the hardest of things we as human beings do. We are born implicitly trusting, but after we have been dropped a couple of times, ignored a few times, betrayed a few times, used a few times and it gets harder and harder to trust.

Being Christ-minded is to wholly trust in God. Sometimes the voice of God seems very far away … in human terms God is an unknown. Being Christ-minded, is to have enough faith to trust God and completely let go of who we are so we can fall into the unseen arms of an unfailing God.

. Therefore, the final task for today is to take a chance. If you trust God… if you really trust God…take a risk

•           Maybe it is trying a new ministry.

•           Maybe it is inviting a new person to worship.

•           Maybe it is signing up for Emmaus or an academy retreat.

•           Maybe it is asking me if there is any way I can coach you in your spiritual practices.

•           One of the risks I took recently (and it might not seem like a big deal to you but it was to me) is volunteering to be a preacher at the academy. Preaching in front of you is great--- you are my friends. Preaching in front of other preachers and our instructors is frankly terrifying.  I decided, however, God led me to the academy I was going to take whatever risk came my way. I’ll tell you it was terrifying… but ultimately very good to be able to share my witness with my new friends.

To have the mind of Christ, is to trust God completely. To take a risk, to pass up safety and step out for God. Christ-mindedness is not easy and safe. It is risky and scary. If being a disciple does not regularly stretch you and scare you at least a little, you are not really filling yourself with the mind of Christ. Take a risk and trust God.

 Keep your eyes on Jesus…from morning to night.

It isn’t all about you…Serve someone.

Trust God. ..Take a risk.

What’s the bottom line? It all comes down to a few words. We have seen over and over the WWJD stickers and t-shirts. “What would Jesus do?” Let me tell you asking, “What would Jesus do” is not being Christ-minded… Being Christ-minded is not about asking what would Jesus do.

   Being Christ-minded is making a decision. Am I going to live like Jesus or not? Am I going to think like Jesus or not. Am I going to love like Jesus or not. That is the one decision out of 35.000 decisions you will make today that will shape your life. And the lives of everyone around you. Christ-mindedness means deciding to live and love like Jesus. Christ mindedness is to

•           live as Jesus lived,

•           do as Jesus did,

•           love as Jesus loved.

I’ll be the first to say that is a lifelong pursuit. It is what John Wesley called going on to perfection. So go, and as Paul wrote, let the same mind be in you that was in Jesus. Go be Christ-minded. Go, Live and love like Jesus. AMEN.

Believe week 13 “Engaging scripture” RUMC 1/22/17

Believe week 13 “Engaging scripture”

RUMC 1/22/17

 I was wondering this week…. What if … what if for one week we exchanged our mobile phones for Bibles?

•             Anywhere we normally take our phone, we take your Bible instead.

•             Anytime we normally look at our phone, we look at God’s Word instead.

•             The time we spend calling, texting, and browsing online with our phone is traded for time reading Scripture.

•             What if instead of getting a phone call, we get a notification and our Bible app opens up.

•             If we normally place our phone next to us at a meeting, we now put our Bible there.

•             Instead of browsing the internet while we wait for the doctor, we browse Galatians.

What difference would this make in our life in just one week? I am not trying to make anyone feel guilty, (In fact I don’t want to give up my phone either!), but I was thinking about how cell phones have changed our lives and how much more our lives would change if we placed as much importance on our Bibles as we do on our cell phones.

Most Americans just do not read much of anything. One poll states that in the past twelve months

•             41% of the respondents had not read a fiction book.

•             42% had not read a non-fiction book. And

•             28% have not read even one book in the past year.  When it comes to the Bible, the results are similar.

  You might agree with more than half of Americans who believe the Bible has too little influence on our culture. At the same time, even though

•             88% of Americans own a Bible,

•             fewer than 20% open it on a regular basis.

 According to a Barna Research Group survey

•             82% of Americans think that “God helps those who help themselves” is directly from the Bible (it isn’t);

•             63% cannot name the four Gospels (Matthew, mark, Luke, and John) ;

•               58% do not know that Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount (he did);

•             52% do not know the book of Jonah is in the Bible (it is right between Obadiah and Micah).

 If we start with the

(lack of Biblical reading   X general Biblical ignorance, )

Skepticism of our age,

we have a formula that explains why the Bible has not only been marginalized, it is completely off  of our cultural page.

 Therefore, my message to you today as we examine power of the Bible in our lives is DO NOT READ YOUR BIBLE. Does that surprise you? I’ll say it again in case you want to get your tape recorder turned on so you can turn me in to the District Superintendent. “DON’T READ YOUR BIBLE.” ENGAGE your Bible.

If all you are going to do is read, you might as well put it under that old table leg to keep the table from tipping back and forth. Today I want to call you to engage the Bible. Let me unpack that.Here are three ways not to read the Bible. 

 1. Do not read the Bible as a rulebook. Yes, there are rules in it, but that is a fairly small portion of the whole text. Don’t hear me wrong. The Bible does guide our lives, but reading it as primarily a rulebook is like just looking at just the pictures in the encyclopedia.

 2. Do not read the Bible for one-liners. To search for a single verse that gives us a warm fuzzy feeling and take it out of context, is to abuse the Bible.

Perhaps we should blame Stephanus, who in the year 1551 added verse numbers every sentence or so. It was handy for referencing, of course. But it also encouraged people to see the Bible as a set of isolated sayings. Where each verse is numbered separately so it appears to be an independent thought. Rather than memorizing stories or longer passages, people started to memorize these isolated verses stripped of their context and making it all about us. The Bible has some great one-liners, but to read the Bible just for the one-liners is to sip the spiritual milk and ignore the meat of scripture.

 3. Do not read the Bible as a puzzle to be solved. Reading the Bible is not an Easter egg hunt. It is not a jigsaw puzzle where we empty all of the Old and New Testament pieces onto the ground, and start to construct our theology. Did you catch the problem there? “OUR” theology. The Bible is not to be pieced together to fit our own prejudices, and agendas. In some ways, that is exactly backwards. We are the puzzle to be solved. The Bible is the picture on the front of the box that describes what we will look like when we are done.

 So don’t read the Bible as a rulebook, or a collection of one-liners, or like a puzzle. In fact don’t read it at all: engage it. There are times, when Robyn and I  have been driving on a long trip. A song will come on the radio and I’ll even hum along or sing with it a little. When it is over, Robyn will ask me something about that song that was just on and I have no idea what she is talking about. I was listening but I was not engaged with the song.

Let me tell you how to engage the scriptures.

 1. Read to understand. If the Bible is just an ancient text, we can study it like a history book. You know that when I study for a Bible study or a sermon there are all kinds or resources I use to help me understand the original language, the history, the context, the historical interpretations. But all of that is academic. I don’t do that in my personal reading and I am not asking you to do that

Just read the story and ask: “What is going on in this Bible passage?”

•             Read it several times from a translation you understand. From various translations if you want.

•             Read it slowly. Thinking about every single word. Our brains tend to skip words as we read because we know what if coming. Nevertheless, slow down and read every single word.

•             Always read it aloud. The scripture was intended to be read aloud and it forces us to slow down and read every single word.

Ask:

•             What is going on in this Bible passage?

•             Who are the characters?

•             What is the situation?

•             How does the story move?

•             What is the outcome?

Those kinds of questions. If you have to look up something in a Bible dictionary or Bible maps to understand it fine, but don’t spend much time researching. Just read to understand.

 2. Read to encounter God

Ask God “What are you saying to me through the text?” Remember Hebrews says the Bible is “the living word of God.” If it is living, it speaks to us today in our context and our lives. Spend some time encountering the living God in the text.

•             Is there something that God might want to reveal to you through this passage?

•             Does the story connect with something happening in your life? Remember “sharper than a two edged sword.”

•             Does it pierce you in some way?

•             Does it poke a hole in something you have been doing or thinking?

•             Does it call you to stand up for what is right?

•             Does it call you to sit down and have a heart to heart with someone with whom you have had a disagreement?

•             Does it make you feel uncomfortable, or

•             guilty, or

•             ashamed, or

•             angry, or does it

•             comfort you or

•             encourage you. Listen to your feelings because that too might be God.

Encounter the living God n the living word and hear what God has to say to you today.

 3. Read and talk back

What do you want to say to God about the text? After encountering the living God in this passage, you might want to tell God that you are

•             scared,

•             angry,

•             confused, or

•             embarrassed. On the other hand, you might want to tell God that you feel

•             emboldened, at

•             peace,

•             comforted, or that you are

•             ready to make a commitment. Use this time to tell God about your feelings. Ask questions, express your fears and doubts as well as your obedience and praise. Be honest—and don’t worry: God can handle anything you have!

 4. Read and respond

Finally, you do something. The living word and prayer may move us to action.

•             It might be standing up for what is right,

•             proposing a new ministry,

•             taking food to a neighbor. What does the scripture call you to do? Do it.

The living word and prayer may move you to change. Maybe it

•             calls you to be more compassionate and

•             faithful. Maybe it causes you to

•             rethink an attitude or

•             decision. Sometimes we are changed by our engagement with scripture.

Based on your prayer, to what action are you called? Do it.

 Hebrews tells us that “the word of God is living and active, sharper than a two edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

That is not something that you just read. Just reading it like a textbook, or a fairly tale, or a Steven King novel will not change a thing. … I call you to engage scripture as “the living word of God sharper than any two-edged sword.” With the power to reveal, the power to transform and the power to give hope.

An African Christian who had been converted from cannibalism was standing by a boiling pot of water. An explorer came by and asked what he was reading.

The converted cannibal responded, “I am reading my Bible.”

The explorer could hardly keep from laughing. He scoffed at the man saying, “The Bible? No civilized person believes anything the Bible says. It is out of date, and a waste of time.”

Without looking up from the Bible, the native pointed to the pot of boiling water and asked, “Do you see that pot of water?”

“Well Yes,” said the man.

The former cannibal said, “You better hope that I believe what the Bible says, and you better believe that is has the power to change lives, or you would be in that pot right now. “

 We had better believe that truly engaging the Bible as the living word of God will change our lives. Or we are all in hot water.

•             Read to understand

•             Read to encounter God

•             Read and talk back

•             Read and respond

AMEN

Believe #12 prayer Rumc January 15, 2017

Believe #12 prayer

Rumc January 15, 2017

 How many of you have a facebook page? I have one. I don’t post much on my personal page but if you have not connected to the church page yet, it is time to do that.

I am not facebook’s biggest fan, I find it a little spooky, and many of the posts that aren’t offensive, are just plain silly,

•           In the last few months, however, I have been ”found” and connected with two childhood friends whom I hadn’t seen for 40 years.

•           I can see the facebook pages of some of the youth I had, and see them married and with children now.

•           I learn about how other pastors and churches are dealing with certain issues on closed clergy pages.

•           I never thought I would do it, but I sometimes check your pages just to see if there is anything happening in your lives that your pastor should know about. Occasionally I have learned something important

Facebook: Scary? Yes. Silly? Yes. But I have to admit facebook can be a pretty incredible way to connect with people.

•           If only we had a way to facebook God.

•           If only we could connect with God like that!

•           If only there was a way to “like” God.

•           If only there was a way to share what is happening in our lives with God.

•           If only there was a way for us to see what God is up to.

Oh wait, there is…it is called prayer.

24 hours a day, 7 days a week

•           from anywhere in the world…

•           No internet connection required…

•           No computer or mobile device required…

•           No email address required…

•           no spooky pop up ads …

•           nobody trolling your page…

•           and no silly games to play.

Just simply PRAYER.

 Maybe we should start calling prayer “godbook.” You know as in…

•           You’ll never believe what I heard on godbook ?…

•           Oh, man I can’t wait to post that on godbook.

•           Or I saw it on godbook, it must be true.

If the one billion people who belong to facebook spent half of that time on godbook we could increase the amount of prayer in the world by 100-fold.

In our spiritual practices inventory last week, not surprisingly, worship and then prayer rank as the number one and two spiritual practices in which we are engaged. That would fit with surveys that say 86% of Americans pray and 50% report praying every day. When you look a little closer, however, it seems that in reality the amount of time people spend in prayer is reported to be between 1 and 8 minutes per day depending on the study.

Even if we go with a generous 8 minutes of prayer each day, that is 1/50th of what they call our “disposable” time. (Not working, not sleeping, and not caring for our bodies) It is 1/20th of the time the average person spends watching TV and less than half as much time as we spend on those dreaded exercises.

Now, I am not going judge you for how much time you spend in prayer. The Lord knows that my spiritual practices have had so many ups and downs I am not in any position to judge. Nor am I going to tell you how much prayer time is enough. I said last week, each of our spiritual lives are made up of a unique combination of spiritual practices. Your menu of practices is completely different from mine, and that’s OK.

Going back to the spiritual practices inventory, however, even though Prayer was number two on the list of current practices… it was also the practice you most often identified for improvement. If you are among those who are unhappy with your prayer life, you are in good company. I am not always happy with mine either.

•           In fact only 16% of pastors are very satisfied with their personal prayer lives,

•           47% are only somewhat satisfied,

•           30% somewhat dissatisfied and

•           7% very dissatisfied.

The median amount of prayer time per day for pastors is 30 minutes.

I’ll admit there have been seasons when 30 minutes would have been a great improvement for me. Right now, most days I get about twice that much time in concentrated prayer, and then lots of bullet prayers, and a few professional prayers like at the end of a visit or the beginning of a meeting. I am in a pretty good season right now. What I want you to hear, though, is that we all have ups and downs and struggle with prayer. Pastors and lay people alike… every one of us… struggles with prayer. So there is no judgment in what I say today.

Therefore, with that in mind there are a few things I want to share with you about prayer today.

 First God wants more than anything to meet you in prayer. If you are one of those folks who once liked God’s Godbook page (so to speak) but you have never returned to post or read anything, you are missing out on one of the best parts.

After 9 ½ years I feel like I have a pretty strong relationship with most of you. But it didn’t happen in the blink of an eye. It took time. Lots of time.

The same is true for God. God loves you automatically, but it takes time to build that trusting relationship. If we never spend any time with God, or only speak to God once a week, our relationship will remain stuck in its infancy. God wants to spend time with you. God wants to meet you in prayer.

 Furthermore, the God wants more than anything to meet you in prayer wants to answer your prayers.

A group of physicians did a double-blind “drug-type” study of the efficacy of Christian prayer on healing. Patients from the San Francisco General Medical Center were randomly divided into placebo and test groups. Patients in the test group were to be prayed for by Christians; the placebo group received no prayer. The results demonstrated that patients who were prayed for suffered

•           “less congestive heart failure,

•           required less diuretic

•           and antibiotic therapy,

•           had fewer episodes of pneumonia, had

•           fewer cardiac arrests, and were

•           less frequently intubated

•           and ventilated.” 

The bottom line is prayer is powerful… I like to say that prayer is the most powerful force in the universe. (And letting people pray is sometimes like letting a toddler play with C-4 explosives.) Prayer is the most powerful force in the universe precisely because, as Jesus teaches us over and over, the God of the universe wants to answer your prayers.

But let me quickly add that Prayer is NOT first and foremost about requests. When people believe that prayer is just asking for things, they treat God like a divine super-duper wal-mart. I think that might be why after 1 to 8 minutes they run out of things to ask for so they are done praying. Yes, prayer includes asking for stuff, both for ourselves or for others. But that is not the heart of prayer. I refer you back to my first point… and remind you that

•           the heart of prayer is not asking for stuff. It is being with God.

•           The heart of prayer is not praying for help, but communing with God.

•           The heart of prayer is not seeking, but connecting our true selves to the one true God.

•           The heart of prayer is not so much an activity, as it is communion.

  Prayer is a state of being … being aware, being honest, being vulnerable, and being open to God’s presence, which is always with us.

That is why we read the story of Jacob wrestling because prayer is about wrestling and struggling and really engaging God. That is why we read the story of Elijah praying in the cave today, because prayer does not always go the way we think it should. We find out in that story that

•           God is not necessarily in the earthquake that rocks our world,

•           or in the fire that burns in our souls,

•           or the lightening that knocks us off our horse,

but sometimes God is the still small voice that speaks almost inaudibly in the background of our lives. Sometimes we wrestle, sometimes we sit very quietly and listen. That is the nature of prayer.

So, the question becomes how do you do that? What do you do when you run out of requests? What do you do when, after 1 minute or 8 minutes, boredom sets in? If you want to improve your spiritual practice of prayer and really connect with God, I have three suggestions.

•           SEEK SILENCE. Don’t be afraid of silence. Our culture has a pathological fear of silence. We almost never shut our mouths long enough to hear the voice of God. Remember, sometimes God is the still small voice.

•           If silence makes you uncomfortable, get a bubbling fountain. We have one from Menards in our living room that works very nicely.

•           Or play low instrumental music in the background, not the kind you want to sing to, just something to buffer the silence. So if you want to improve your prayer practice, first seek silence.

•           Second, seek simplicity. Jesus condemns those who heap up all kinds of fancy words in order to impress others. When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray Jesus didn’t offer a doctoral dissertation. He said

i.          “Pray like this:

ii.         Heavenly daddy.

iii.        You are great.

iv.        Do it your way.

v.         Help us and forgive us.

vi.        AMEN “That is really the spirit of the lord’s prayer. Prayer is simple, don’t make it hard.

One of the most powerful prayers I know is the simplest prayer I know. It is called the Jesus prayer. A 6th century Egyptian Monk, named Philimon, is credited with praying the powerful prayer that I use every day to begin my prayer time.

•           Breathing in I say “Jesus Christ Son of God” and

•           breathing out I pray, “Have mercy on me a sinner.”

I repeat it until my mind is clear, and I return to it if my mind starts to wonder while I am praying,

•           “Jesus Christ Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.”

Simple is best. Nothing fancy. Seek simplicity in prayer.

 Finally be still. This is different from seeking silence. Silence is outside of you. Stillness is inside.

•           Have you ever tried to talk to someone who is trying to do something else?

•           Someone who keeps moving.

•           Someone who drums his or her fingers on the desk the whole time.

•           Or repeatedly checks their watch?

You can’t really talk with people like that.

The problem in prayer is that all of our brains are like that. They are

•           constantly moving,

•           constantly thinking,

•           constantly planning…

unless we discipline them. It might be quiet on the outside but if you are

•           having an argument with yourself, or

•           being angry, or

•           worrying on the inside,

you will never hear the still small voice of God.

Ps 46:10 says, “Be still and know that I am God.” This has been one of my greatest learning’s in the last year is how to still myself inside so I can hear that still small voice of God.

Before refrigerators, in the days of icehouses, one man lost a valuable watch while working in an icehouse. He searched diligently for it, carefully raking through the sawdust, but didn’t find it. His fellow workers also looked, but their efforts, too, proved futile.

A small boy who heard about the fruitless search slipped into the icehouse during the noon hour and soon emerged with the watch.

Amazed, the men asked him how he found it. "I closed the door," the boy replied, "lay down in the sawdust, and kept very still. Soon I heard the watch ticking."

Let us be still and listen for the ticking.

 Let’s take a few minute to listen to God ticking in our lives… to visit “godbook” if you will. Let’s take a few minutes to be really prayerfully present to God in this place in this moment. Let’s practice

•           silence,

•           simplicity, and

•           stillness.

If you aren’t sure how to start, I suggest the Jesus prayer on the screen. That’s how I will start.