A Practical Activity To Remember the King's Rule and Reign

A 10 Minute Guided Prayer Activity:

I would assume that perhaps you are a bit like me: I default to thinking that the circumstances of my life are quite overwhelming. I am realizing that I go through life mostly believing that I am un-helped and un-seen. But that is not true! I am actually more helped and more seen than I can even imagine...and, actually, the circumstances of my life don't have to overwhelm me! I have a Father, and a KING, who is in charge in a very mysterious way. His rule doesn't seem quite clear to me most of the time, but when I stir up my faith to remind myself of His care, I can rest. So today I offer a 10 minute prayer activity, for those of you who, like me, sometimes find it hard to remember that you are so cared for, so held.

Set aside at least ten minutes to be alone and quiet. Turn off the TV; turn your cell phone to quiet. Plan to do this at a time where you have set aside time that you probably won’t be interrupted.

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Step 1:

Hold your hands kind of like you’re cupping something inside of them (like if you caught an insect like a lightning bug or something, and you didn’t want to squish it...but you also didn’t want to let it go 😃 ). As you hold your hands like that, with your eyes closed or open, whichever helps you concentrate more, start listing before the Lord, preferably out loud, concerns that you have. For example, “God, I’m worried about how much my daughter cares about her friends. It feels like I’m losing influence in her life. …God I’m worried about the disobedience in my son. I don’t know what to do about it. I try to throw different techniques at it, or just love him through it, but it never really gets addressed. I don’t know what to do. ...God, if I’m really honest, I feel like a failure as a parent, as a friend, in my job. ...God, my home feels out of control. ...God, our schedule feels so busy. I don’t know how I can manage the things I have on my plate. ...God, I’m worried about my health. ...God, I feel so alone, like no one really loves me,” etc, etc. Try to just keep listing worries that surface. You might have to sit quietly in between worries, waiting for the next honest worry to come to your mind. You might not have even known that you were worried about that thing, until you gave space to list those worries.

Try to linger, and to give yourself extra space to list more worries...don’t rush through this time. And try to give an extra sentence or two description to each worry to kind of tease out a bit more of how you're feeling, what's inside. 

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Step 2:

Once you feel that you’ve listed most of your worries, and there’s a kind of natural end to the ‘flow’ of things you've been carrying inside, just sit quietly for a few moments. Breathe quietly. Keep holding your hands in a cupped position. Imagine that you’re holding those worries cupped in your hands.

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Step 3:

When you’re ready, face your palms upward and start saying aloud, “Lord, I release to You my worries about my daughter. I release to You my worries about my son. I release to You my worries about my husband/wife. I release to You my worries about my job. I release to you my worries about my conflict with my friend. I release to You my worries about our family. I release to You my worries about our schedule. I release to you my worries about my future. I release to You my worries about my capabilities. I release to you my worries about my health,” or whatever the worries were that you prayed about. Let yourself sense letting go of the worries, releasing them from your hands to the Lord’s hands. Breathe deeply as you're releasing the worries. 

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Step 4:

As the final part of the exercise, keep your hands palms face up, and now receive from the Lord. Say aloud truths about what you can receive because of what Jesus has done. This might feel like a humbling process, because we so want to do things ourselves. Here are some examples:

• Jesus, I receive Your peace today. You are in control of these things.

• Jesus, I receive Your rest today. I can slow down with trying to fix everything, and I can rest in Your care, Your timing, Your love for me.

• Jesus, I receive Your power to help me show up where I need to today- to have conversations, to deal with things I need to, to engage...help me to choose to show up.

• Jesus, I receive strength for this day.

• Jesus, I receive Your love for me.

• Jesus, I receive Your consolation and comfort that You see me, you see the ones I love, you see it all.

• Jesus, I receive the truth that You are here.

• Jesus, I receive the gift that my worth isn’t determined by my performance. I am accepted, I am prized, I am wanted, I am loved, I am enjoyed apart from if I get any of this perfect or not. It’s based in You, Your performance, and You wanting me and making me in the first place.

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Step 5:

If you are sensing the sweetness of Jesus being close to you after praying and remembering that you are a child of God who receives those things freely, feel free to rest in the ‘manifest presence of God,’...it may look like just sitting there awhile longer with your hands open, just lingering quietly. It may look like crying. That’s wonderful! Don't back away from crying in order to 'keep it together'; tears are a beautiful (but not mandatory) part of being with Jesus. It may look like saying, “Thank You, thank You, thank You.” You may want to kneel. You may want to sing a song worshipping Jesus (i.e. ‘What a beautiful name it is’ or ‘Jesus we love You, oh how we love You, You are the One our hearts adore’, etc).

Loosely adapted from Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster

--Sarah Howard

The Unbeaten Path

I turn 30 in a few weeks. I can’t believe it. It feels kind of surreal to realize that I won’t be twenty something anymore. However, although I can say that it definitely has me doing some reflecting and evaluating of my life, I feel pretty peaceful about it. 

When I look back on my story, I am struck by the overwhelming theme of God’s faithfulness and his good leadership over me on many “off road” paths. From the standpoint of what man may call ideal, there is a lot about my story that was the opposite or shouldn’t have worked; but I am so glad that with God nothing is wasted and that He makes something beautiful out of the unlikely.

So as to not rehash my whole life and make this the longest post ever, I will start at high school graduation. When I graduated high school, my plan was to attend a four year college for pre-med. I would work my butt off and then be accepted into medical school. I had been accepted to Houghton College in a super small town in upstate New York after putting all my eggs in one basket and not having applied anywhere else. They had a reputation for being strong in the sciences among other things.

I started college full of gusto and enthusiasm and thoroughly enjoyed my first year. Sophomore year is when the struggle got real and I delved deeper into my major courses. I soon realized that although I loved science, my high school education had not prepared me well for college level science courses and I started to fall behind. I somehow managed to keep my head above water though and spent many long days at labs and getting extra help. Junior year began, and I was already feeling a little burnt out, but I continued on as the work load increased and tried to balance it by hanging out with an unlikely “carefree” group of people. Midway through Junior year, other realities started to hit. It had always been a stretch and a sacrifice financially for me to attend this college. It was an out of state private school and not cheap. However, God always seemed to provide exactly what I needed just in the knick of time. 

This time was different. I was on winter break when I received a phone call from financial aide stating that if I didn’t come back with about the $3,000 that I owed for the semester that I could just stay home. We were able to get the money together but about two weeks after the semester had started. Back up to New York I went and scrambled to catch up the rest of the year. Summer was a very welcome break, but cue fall of Senior Year. Again I am short on funds for the year and this time have to wait a whole month into the semester to return. My professors were gracious enough to still let me enroll after the cut off dates even though I had missed a lot. After my late start, my grandfather died, and I went back home for a few days to be with my family for the funeral, etc. That was the breaking point. I fumbled through the entire rest of the year emotionally and academically. Even after working as hard as I could, it was clear that I wouldn’t be able to finish all my credits in time for graduation, so I decided to take a May term. Again things did not work out according to plan, and I came home instead, never having finished about six credits.

I returned home feeling utterly defeated after what seemed like the grand derailing of my life. I took a job at a local tearoom, which was a fun change of pace but didn’t pay very much, and it was the only thing I could find. The tearoom closed after my six months there, and I spent another six looking for another job to finally land one at a doctor’s office. Hooray!!! Things were looking up, I thought. Fast forward through two hard years at that place and many steep learning curves about boundaries, integrity and once again following Jesus in less than ideal circumstances. I was able to quit after my husband and I had our first baby in the summer of 2014, and I have yet to return to work outside the house.

Here I am on the doorstep of 30. After looking back on the start of my twenties, do you know what I feel??? Gratitude. I am so incredibly grateful because in all of the derailing of my plans, in the less than ideal, in perceived failure and hardship, God was in it all. He never left and He has and is making use of everything. He broke me down, and the things I was looking toward to save me in order to build a deeper relationship with Him and to create greater tenacity. Both of these things I would need for the financial struggle, difficult pregnancies and brokenness in relationships that would come later. I have found God on the unbeaten path and the road less traveled, in questions and unfinished journeys as much as in the joys of life. So here’s to 30 and the myriad of experiences it will bring. With God, life can be quite the off road adventure. Where are some places in your story that you can see God’s presence with you on the detour?

--Sophia Howard

Numbering our Days

It was a small, friendly church in a small, friendly town.

When the doors were open, my family was there. Everybody knew everybody.

So it was big news when the new family marched up the aisle one Sunday morning, filling an entire pew on the left-hand side of the sanctuary near the front. I remember counting the children who slid down the row in size order. “…five, six, seven!”  We were all amazed at the clean-cut, well-behaved mob of kids that self-consciously peeked over their shoulders to size us all up.

Though I didn’t know it at the time, that’s the Sunday morning I met my husband. He was kid number two. Sometimes, I can still see them just like that: a clannish, fun-loving bunch of siblings, all seven born within a nine year span of time, crammed together on that uncomfortable wooden pew, making every attempt to tease and bother each other and not catch their mother’s watchful eye.

It’s hard for me to think of them then…and now. Number three and four are gone--empty places on that pew in my mind’s eye. My dear husband has lost a sister and a brother to cancer in the past couple of years. Thankfully, we have an unshakable confidence that, indeed, they are not truly “lost.” Because both Carolyn and Jerry each had placed their faith in the finished work of Jesus on the cross, we know they are with Him in heaven right now. What a comfort!

And that brings me to the point of this blog.

I sat at the funeral service of my dear brother-in-law just days ago, tears of joy and selfish sadness spilling down my cheeks. Person after person stood to honor Jerry, this straight-shooting pastor who had relentlessly pursued them, sometimes annoyed them, but always loved them. He unapologetically confronted them with the truth of the Gospel. He had encouraged them, by faith, to surrender to King Jesus, to be rescued and forgiven and set on the path leading to eternal life with the Father. And they did—lots of them.

Jerry would have been embarrassed by all that was said about him that day. For him, from the time he finally turned his life over to Jesus, it was always all about the One who had mercifully saved him. But he left behind quite an amazing living legacy, an untold number of precious people also rescued and transformed by Jesus and now part of His Kingdom. Like us, they all will miss him. He was one memorable character.

As I pondered all of this that dreary morning, the question that replayed over and over in my mind was, “What will be your legacy, Eileen? What will you be leaving behind when your life is over? Or who?” I can’t stop thinking about it.

I am not the evangelist my brother-in-law was, but I can care enough about the folks in my life to make sure they know about my Jesus and how He has graciously rescued me. I can be ready to give an answer for the hope that is in me. I can pursue knowing Him and daily seeking His Presence by immersing myself in His Word and humbly praying. I can make sure I am using whatever gifts God has entrusted to me to bless His body and to advance His Kingdom. I can love others well. That will be a start.

And we all can start somewhere. Isn’t that what every Christ-follower can do? Hasn’t God even promised to help us when we try? We all are leaving some sort of legacy. It’s time to make certain it’s a good one, don’t you think?  

Because the second thing I thought about at Jerry’s funeral was the urgency of working on that legacy, of doing those things I mentioned before in obedience to our Father, of actually being who He designed for us to be in whatever time He has wisely allotted us. Do any of us know with any certainty how much time we have here? Do we make the best use of the precious moments and hours we have been given? I can honestly say I don’t always. And I am not proud of that.

Kenny’s siblings were just over 60 when the days planned for them were over. We all know of many dear friends and family members whose lives were much shorter even than theirs.  We simply don’t know how long any of us will be here on planet Earth, do we? Our Sovereign and All-wise Father has withheld that information from His children. But it begs the question, then, what are we doing today? Are we frittering away the unknown quantity of time we do have? We aren’t promised tomorrow.

I am so very thankful for my brother-in-law’s life--one lived with an almost singular purpose. His vacant seat in our lives brings deep sorrow and many tears. But his legacy challenges me to consider my own with urgency. How about you? Does it challenge you too?

However long or short our years, we can make the most of our days. I close with a prayer for us all from John Piper, Pierced by the Word.

Father, teach us to number our days

and to get a heart of wisdom.

Forbid that we join the world in forgetting

 the certainty of our death.
Don’t let us play with the preciousness of life.

 Make us ready to die well by helping us live

 well by helping us trust You well.

Don’t let us be surprised by our suffering.

Don’t let us be surprised by being cut off early from this life.

 Don’t let us balk at the betrayal of friends

and the blast of enmity.

Help us to embrace our lot and count it all joy,

 And say with Paul, “to live is Christ and to die is gain.”

In Jesus’ name, Amen.

--Eileen Hill