I'm Praying For You

Some friends of mine are writing a big exam tomorrow, so I messaged them with the classic “I’ll be praying for you.” But the reality is, tomorrow, like too many other days, will get crazy busy at work, and the good intention of praying for them throughout the day too easily will fall away.

I wonder how many times over the years I’ve said, “I’m praying for you” when the sad reality is: I’m really not. How easy it is to throw out comments like, “I’ll pray for you,” or “We should go out for coffee,” or even “I love you” and never actually mean it.

As harsh as it sounds, I think sometimes “I’m praying for you” can be synonymous with “I’m too busy to deal with you right now” or “I actually have better things to do” or, “Shame, sorry to hear that, but…” It’s tragic—such a powerful, beautiful thing—quickly and easily just becoming yet another Christian cliché.

It’s like the spiritual version of those Facebook comments “Sending hugs and good thoughts,” or “Wishing good vibes”. A nice thought, but empty and meaningless at the end of the day, unless that praying becomes reality.

I truly believe in the incredible power of prayer (John 15:7, Matthew 21:22), but that exists in more than the placating phrase. That power exists in actually uttering those prayers to our all-powerful God, in crying out to the omnipresent, omnipotent Holy Spirit within us.

What if we truly mean and actually live out all the good things we say? What if we all took the time to spend ourselves to invest in the lives of one another? Don’t you think the world could start to look very different?

So my challenge today is not to say “I’ll be praying for you” less, but instead to keep saying it more and more, but also to put those words into action. That I’d tell my friends that I’ll pray for them and that it would be more than fleeting words that I forget about as soon as I walk away or put my phone down.

We are called to pray for one another (James 5:16, 1 Timothy 2:1). We are called to love one another (John 15:12). Let’s actively choose to live that out well, starting by praying right now.

“Love is unselfishly choosing for another’s highest good.” - C.S. Lewis

YOLO

After the long intermission, let's get back to the lyrics of A Whole New World from the wonderful new Aladdin:

“There's time to spare.”

Uh nope. That is incorrect. The time is now.

We are so good at procrastinating. We are so good at waiting for the perfect conditions on the perfect day when we have the perfect experience and the perfect plan. We think things will be easier when we're older and wiser, so we tell God to just hang on until then. Or we hope that if we wait, it will leave room for someone older and wiser to tell us just what to do, or even better, to step in and do it themselves.

Yesterday, this jumped out at me from Jeremiah 47:7 “But how can it rest when the Lord has commanded it, when he has ordered it...?” The next chapter also talks about it won't go so well for those who are lax in doing God's work.

How many opportunities for God's grace to go out, for His gospel and kingdom to advance have I missed because I've been too 'resting' or chilling or being lax, buying into the lie that there's time to spare?

Dear friends, let us not wait! God has called us now, to use us now. Yes, he says don't worry about tomorrow, but let us also not leave our living until tomorrow, for tomorrow is never certain. God wants to use you now in whatever stage you are in right now.

Don’t wait for tomorrow. If there is someone that is on your heart, message them straight away. If there is a prayer in your heart, pray it now. If you haven't read the Word today, open your Bible here and now. If you told someone you'd pray for them, do that right now. If there is a skill you want to learn, google how today. If there is a hard conversation you need to have, set it up now. Do what you need to do today.

"As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work." - John 9:4

We don’t know what tomorrow holds, and all we can control is what we do right now in this very moment.

You really only do live once, so do it well and do it now. There is no time to spare. Live for Jesus now.

Thank You, Next

I've been travelling a lot lately, and I use a cool travel app, Polarsteps to track my trips and show my progress over the globe. After getting home from a fun time in Nashville, I was updating the journey in the app. As I logged in, it said to me, "You haven't travelled in 2 days! Plan your future trip now!"

Woah, easy tiger! Can I just recover from that trip first, please?!

Yes, I know that is automated to show, whether it is 2 or 200 days, but it struck me how we're also automated like that—we're always searching for more; moving onto the next, bigger, better thing. We finish one trip and we're already planning the next. We take our last bite at lunch and think about what's for dinner. We buy cool new shoes and already the ads for the next pair surround us.

We live in a culture of perpetual unfulfillment. Consumerism shapes us to always be dissatisfied with our current situation, so that we open our wallets to try and purchase that ever elusive satisfaction. Yet we're always left thirsting for something more.

In the well known story in John 4, there is a woman who felt this way. She was thirsty, unsatisfied, and longing for something more.

And in varying ways and degrees, we all are too. So often our souls are left to run dry, in need of re-filling, replenishing. And if you've ever been severely dehydrated, you know how awful that can be. Yet we do that to ourselves spiritually.

We're good at carrying around our water bottles to quench our physical thirst and try be healthy, but how often are we stopping to drink deep of the Spirit to give life to our souls?

In John 4, Jesus promises the woman and us that we never have to be thirsty again. But in order to obtain that living water that quenches everything, we have to actively and consistently be with him and absorb all he has to offer.

So my challenge for today is to identify the 'wells' that I am running to in an attempt to quench my thirst—travelling, highly liked photos on Instagram, success at work, people liking me, etc, etc—and to remind myself that these are so temporary and will always leave me thirsty again.

And then, instead, to run to the true Fount of Living Water (Jeremiah 17:13), to the one who calls the thirsty to him to drink of the life and fulfillment that only he can offer (John 7:37). To the one who not only knows everything I long for—even the hiddens things I'm not aware of—but also gives and satisfies the desires of my heart.

“You open your hand, you satisfy the desire of every living thing.” - Psalm 145:16
"Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart." - Psalm 37:4

Perhaps in this broken life on this broken earth, we will never fully know that perfect satisfaction, but we hold onto this beautiful promise of the eternity that lies before us in Jesus:

"They will hunger no longer, nor thirst anymore; nor will the sun beat down on them, nor any heat; for the Lamb in the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and will guide them to springs of the water of life; and God will wipe every tear from their eyes." - Revelation 7:17

In Jesus, our longing will be fulfilled, our satisfaction found, our thirst quenched.

Heart And Mind

Reason and emotion.

People often think of these two things as mutually exclusive opposites, that both cannot exist and work at the same time. Some people believe that reason is superior, while others lean toward emotion.

And this carries over into our faith as well. Some people have inspiring passion for the things of God, but they are a bit light on the truth of his Word. “For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge” (Romans 10:2).

On the other extreme, there are those that view their faith as something to be learned, something mechanical and exact; emphasizing theology and doctrine, leaving no room for the heart and emotion.

But God is not shy to bring together things the world views as opposites:

• strength in weakness
• truth in grace
• wisdom to fools
• humble power

And this is true with reason and emotion too. In Mark 12:30, Jesus calls us to: "love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength." Heart and soul (emotion); mind (reason). The greatest commandment is very clear in saying that we should use our minds as well. Besides, how can we love someone with all our hearts if we don't know them, if our minds don’t contain knowledge of them?

Burning passion for God is great; but if it's not based on the scriptures and truth about him, it's just mindless fluff that will quickly burn out and can often be misleading and dangerous. Strong theology is very important, but without some degree of emotion and affection, it is stiff, rigid and unattainable.

God gave us both, they cannot be separated and must both be pursued. The mind and the heart work together, with the mind shaping our hearts and how we feel about God.

I think that so much of our unhappiness and discontent is due to us listening to ourselves. We constantly tell ourselves all sorts of unhelpful things—depressing, disheartening, daunting things—that sprout from the devil’s lies and deception.

“Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God” (Psalm 42:5).

But here we see that the psalmist counters his misery and his tumultuous emotions with hope firmly rooted in the truth of God’s Word. We need to do this more often. We need to ask ourselves: what dark roads are we letting our thoughts run down? what lies are we believing?

We need to speak truth to our emotions. We can't afford to just be passive and let ourselves be dragged down in misery. We need to “put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil” (Ephesians 6:11)—the full armour that includes both the belt of truth and the shield of faith. We'll fall apart if not held together by the truth, but we also need the faith and heart that goes beyond understanding and reason when the arrows start flying. We fight back with scripture and the truth of Jesus and that strengthens our hearts and grows our love and faith in him.

God created us with minds as well as hearts in order to love Him and enjoy Him. Our minds process the truth of God and teach our hearts so that our hearts can burn with passion and love for Him. 

 John Piper said, “Right thinking about God exists for the sake of right feelings for God.” Reason and emotion are not two separate, extreme opposites. They go hand-in-hand with each other – working together to make us more like our God.