On Praying With Power

The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. (James 5:16)

 Not because God only listens to the "good" people. Not because he rewards the "good kids" with favours.

Because we were made powerful and given authority by a God who will not take it back just because we don't listen to him. 

Because we are the holders of the title deed to the Earth, and because what we choose matters. 

Because there is real, actual power involved in aligning ourselves with the Good.

We do not conjure power; we bow to it.

Lies I Have Believed #3

 Lie #3

I can't ask for help because I will scare people away. My needs are too big and too crazy. I can give help, but I can't ask for it. 

Nobody wants the weak me. I can't connect unless I am strong enough to be the giver.

I need to put everyone else's needs first and focus on meeting them, even if it means stepping on myself to do it. 

The Truth:

Jonathan said to David, “Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do for you... And Jonathan had David reaffirm his oath out of love for him, because he loved him as he loved himself.” (1 Samuel 20:4, 17)

When Mephibosheth son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, came to David, he bowed down to pay him honor. David said, “Mephibosheth!” “At your service,” he replied. “Don’t be afraid,” David said to him, “for I will surely show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan. I will restore to you all the land that belonged to your grandfather Saul, and you will always eat at my table.” Mephibosheth bowed down and said, “What is your servant, that you should notice a dead dog like me?” Then the king summoned Ziba, Saul’s steward, and said to him, “I have given your master’s grandson everything that belonged to Saul and his family. You and your sons and your servants are to farm the land for him and bring in the crops, so that your master’s grandson may be provided for. And Mephibosheth, grandson of your master, will always eat at my table.” (Now Ziba had fifteen sons and twenty servants.) Then Ziba said to the king, “Your servant will do whatever my lord the king commands his servant to do.” So Mephibosheth ate at David’s a table like one of the king’s sons. (2 Samuel 9:6-11)

Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech... (Genesis 20:17)

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. (James 5:16) 

Healthy relationships involve trust, mutual reliance, asking and receiving, and everyone is weak sometimes. Life has a way of turning around so that one who asks and receives gets to give as well. Both are necessary for a good friendship, and also for lots of other relationships. 

I don't really even understand what my needs are. They seem big and crazy because they are feelings, not ideas. Feelings are human, and even though they can be difficult, they draw people together. 

It takes time and experience and wisdom - and healing - to figure out how to show up for the people we love. People might be put off by my needs, but they might be scared because they are trying to manage their own big, crazy needs. These things go deep and they are HARD. Seeing my own weakness can give me compassion for someone who struggles to give what I want from them. In any case, I can ask for help without being ashamed. 

...there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. (Proverbs 18:24)

Though my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will receive me. (Psalm 27:10)

But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. (Psalm 13:5)

The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms. (Deuteronomy 33:27)

 For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. (Psalm 84:11)

If people fail me, I have the nearest of Friends waiting to care for me. He will not fail.

Sometimes a struggling person is like a drowning person, and it takes a really strong swimmer to reach out to help without getting pulled in themselves. Sometimes the wise thing for any of us to do is to wait until the struggle has gone and a friend in need is too tired to fight. We can rely on each other for support, but Jesus must be our rescuer. He is the one who has overcome what overcomes us.

In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting for God, for whom and through whom all things exist, to make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. (Hebrews 2:10)

Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and sustain me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners will return to You.… (Psalm 51:12, 13) 

I like to be a giver, and when I have the strength and emotional stability to reach out, it is a beautiful thing. But doing damage to myself in order to maintain my role as the giver is not healthy or good. I can only give what God gives me. 

It is okay for me to be weak.

My weakness, surrendered to God, can be a gift to other weak people. When I have revealed my wounds, others may be made bold to reveal theirs. Hurt can foster compassion.

Even Jesus was imperfect - incomplete - without suffering. God gives us this to complete us, just as he accepted it himself. This is how we become God-like: by learning the truth of what is and letting it scar us. 

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. (2 Corinthians 4:7-10)

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

This is not the end. If I am weak, I can learn and grow and become. I am not trapped here forever. Even what damages me is growing something beautiful. I do not need to despair, but fix my eyes on the unseen. God is able to turn my destruction into glory. The Redeemer of all things is near, and he will go this hard way with me. 

I am not trash, but a seed whose death leads to life. But a seed cannot water itself, or reach for sunlight. Its growth comes from outside. I am not responsible to grow myself. God is faithful, and he will rescue.

Lies I Have Believed #2

Wounds open us up. They expose us to infection and death, or they open up a way to let infection out, do undo deep damage and heal hidden hurts. Wounding never feels good, but we should never forget that this world of ours is prefaced on tragedy and predicated on loss. The most innocent of us, our first parents, were cruelly tricked into selling their innocence and authority for an empty promise. What bitterness is set free to infect and do detriment to our humanity. We pass our own pain and harm from mother to child, generation after generation. We'd love to hold it in and protect the ones we love, but we can't help passing on what diseases destroy us.

I have found a deep wound in myself, one caused by lies whispered into my soul by the enemy of Love. I believed those lies innocently, tricked just as Eve was. What knowledge did I have to combat them? What strength did I have to resist? Even now, with 46 years' experience, I hardly know how to deal with my own delusions. But the Man of Sorrows calls me, holding out wounded palms. Though his commitment to Good is sometimes terrifying, I know that he has sweat and bled and wept, and I would go to him even with my shame and hurt.

Faithful are the wounds of a friend... (Proverbs 27:6)

Here I lay my tattered heart before him, and let him unwind the long, dark lies that have so weakened it. Here I will let him tell me truth to fight the lies and heal my hurt heart.

Lie #2

I will be abandoned. 

I will be discarded and left, because I am too much and not enough. No one has the strength or the will to deal with my mess. I am alone, and I will always be alone, and I should not depend on anyone. My constant swinging between longing for belonging and then for freedom reveals my weakness and my defectiveness. I am a mess and a horror of a person, and I am too much to handle. 

If I were lovable, people would care about me, but they can only pretend.

The Truth:

...for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. (Psalm 103:14)

“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands... (Isaiah 49:15)

Everyone is full of their own pain, just like me, and there are a lot of loving people who are, like me, unaware of the hurts they bump up against in others. Some people have pain that they survived by denying emotion and shutting down connections. Their inability to connect with me is not because I am hideous but because they are wounded themselves. Responding to me would require them to deal with horrors within themselves that they don't have the ability to face.

Everyone gets left with unmet needs sometimes. Even where there is real, intentional, sincere love, people have so much to manage and we are shot through with failure. Loving well is an art and a discipline. It is HARD. Most of us have had some vital piece of ourselves damaged and we struggle to give and receive.

It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man… (Psalm 118:8)

Even my close friend whom I trusted, the one who shared my bread, has lifted up his heel against me. (Psalm 41:9)

I developed a defense for an unfair situation. But I need to learn how to override it without discounting it. I need to learn how to depend on people in ways that are fair to me and to them. We are all inherently un-dependable, because we have so many holes. But I can depend in pieces, for certain things. And there is One on whom I may fully rest the whole of my weary, bruised heart. Only the Man of Sorrows is worthy to bear that weight in its entirety. He knows what it is like to be betrayed and left alone in grief. He knows the pain of separation, of being let down and of letting others down. If he wounds, his wounds are faithful, and the wounds he gives bring about healing, not harm.