Then He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “What! Could you not watch with Me one hour? Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Matthew 26: 40 & 41
"An hour? How could I pray for an hour? I'd run out of things to say!"
Praying for an hour is like sitting down in a restaurant with a friend, rather than ordering a cheeseburger and chocolate shake at the drive-up window. Somehow, as you sip coffee together, you find a lot of things to say. And, it's a whole lot more satisfying than a wave and a "Hi-how-are-you?"
But if talking to God for that long seems intimidating, it's probably because we're still learning just to share ourselves with Him as we would with a friend.
The following suggestions are designed to help you take courage to try spending an hour with the Lord. After the hour, probably after the first 15 minutes, you won't need this outline. You'll find there's plenty to talk about without prompting.
Start by bringing along some things to discuss with Him: your Bible, a hymnal, a world map or globe, perhaps a church directory and yours or your church's current prayer list. Then find a place where the two of you won't be disturbed.
Preparation
1 min. Beginning Prayer. Ask God to help you spend this time profitably with Him. Ask His guidance. Give yourself to Him for this hour.
4 Min. Confession. Spend a couple of minutes going over with Him recent sins which weigh on you. But don't dredge up old ones. Read 1 John 1:9. Ask His cleansing, then accept it by faith and thank Him for it. He is far more willing to forgive than you are to ask.
Praise And Thanksgiving
9 Min. Adoration. Sing to the Lord using a hymnal or some choruses you know. Come on, lift up your voice in praise; there are just the two of you. Now start to thank Him for His goodness to you and your friends. There is a special sense in which God "inhabits" (KJV) and is "enthroned upon" (NIV) the praises of His people (Psalm 22:3). As your heart begins to adore Him, you'll sense His presence more deeply.
Petition
9 Min. Pray About Life's Difficulties. Use this time to talk over with the Lord your own personal struggles. Discuss with Him your relationship with your special loved one or spouse, your family, your hang-ups, your financial needs, your studies or job. But don't stop here. Be sure you go on to praying for the needs of others.
Intercession
9 Min. Pray For Friends, Relatives, Neighbors, Fellow Workers. Don't just read a list of names to God, but talk to Him about their lives and needs. You can boldly ask Him for their salvation because Jesus died for them. Ask God to bring Christians into their lives, to alter circumstances, and to give you opportunities for witness and sharing in depth.
12 Min.Pray For Your Church and its needs. Call on Him for a deep renewal of love for God. Pray for your pastor and church leaders. Intercede for the Sunday school children and the youth, the families, the singles and the widows, the sick and shut-ins. Call on God for an increase in giving so the church doesn't have to struggle so much. Pray for the Christian organizations working with the college students, the children, the homeless in your community, with servicemen, and on college campuses. Then intercede for those you know in special need.
8 Min. Pray For Our Nation, that God will guide our president and legislators, our justices and judges, our governors and mayors, our police and firemen. Pray for righteousness in government and a public policy sensitive to the needs of the oppressed here and abroad.
8 Min. Pray For Other Nations, for the work of Christ throughout the world. Intercede for unreached peoples, call on God to send laborers into His harvest. Pray for missionaries, for third- world pastors and churches, for the people of God who are suffering persecution. Pray for peace. Ask God to give food, shelter and hope to the hungry.
Total = 60 min.
Sixty minutes already? I've just got started!
A Few Suggestions
Here are some ideas that'll help you pray more freely. First, be yourself. Why wouldest thou pray like Brother So-and-So? Talk to God like you'd talk to your best friend.
Get comfortable. The stiffer you feel, the more formal your relationship will be. Sitting is fine. If kneeling helps, do it. You might want to take an hour's walk as you talk with your Friend.
Next, try praying out loud, though not loud enough to disturb others. Being able to hear yourself pray really helps. You'll find that your mind doesn't wander as easily and that you can pray more fervently.
But don't feel you have to do all the talking. Discuss something with the Lord, then be silent for a time. Sometimes God uses these times of listening to implant His answers in our minds. Gradually you'll find that prayer can be a conversation.
Finally, don't worry about keeping to the times suggested here. It's only to get you started, to help you believe you actually can spend sixty minutes in prayer. You'll find God will guide you in your prayer time. Its not a program, it's a growing relationship.
Now, go for it. Before you put this down, set a time when you will spend an hour with Him. You can't learn to pray from reading any more than you can learn to swim from a textbook. It's time to get into the water.
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News from Around The Church
Remember all those who are in recovery in your prayers.
Everyone who was in the hospital or ill has returned home and is in better health. I pray that God will continue his healing and we praise Him for his care.
We will have guest at the Church the 6th and 7th of August. We will need help to feed and work with all of these folk. If you can help please let us know.
Agenda for Synod
The agenda for synod to be held at All Saints will be as follows;
Wednesday August 6, 2003
12:Noon thi 1:00 PM
Lunch and Registration
1:00 PM til 3:00 PM
The Prayer Book
3:00 PM til 3:30 PM Break
3:30 PM til 5:00 PM The Eucharist
5:00 PM til 6:00 PM Break and Preparation
6:00 PM til 7:30 Holy Communion and Ordinations
Acceptances of postulants and Holy Trinity Work
7:30 PM Dinner,p.
Thursday August 7, 2003
8:30 AM Morning Prayer
8:30 AM til 9:30 AM Breakfast
9:30 AM til 11:30 AM Classes on the
Holy Communion and History
11:30 AM til 12:30 PM Lunch
12:30 PM til 4:30 PM Business meeting
4:30 PM Dismissal
We look forward to the fellowship and love we will share. You are invited to attend any and all of these services.
THE SPIRITUAL SLUGGARD
Oswald Chambers
"Let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works; not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together." Hebrews 10:24-25
We are all capable of being spiritual sluggards; we do not want to mix with the rough and tumble of life as it is, our one object is to secure retirement. The note struck in Hebrews 10 is that of provoking one another and of keeping together - both of which require initiative, the initiative of Christ-realization, not of self-realization. To live a remote, retired, secluded life is the antipodes of spirituality as Jesus Christ taught it.
The test of our spirituality comes when we come up against injustice and meanness and ingratitude and turmoil, all of which have the tendency to make us spiritual sluggards. We want to use prayer and Bible reading for the purpose of retirement. We utilize God for the sake of getting peace and joy, that is, we do not want to realize Jesus Christ, but only our enjoyment of Him. This is the first step in the wrong direction. All these things are effects and we try to make them causes.
"I think it meet," said Peter, ". . . to stir you up by putting you in remembrance." It is a most disturbing thing to be smitten in the ribs by some provoker of God, by someone who is full of spiritual activity. Active work and spiritual activity are not the same thing. Active work may be the counterfeit of spiritual activity. The danger of spiritual sluggishness is that we do not wish to be stirred up, all we want to hear about is spiritual retirement. Jesus Christ never encourages the idea of retirement - "Go tell My brethren . ."
Sweet Dream
By: Catherine Manning July 4, 2003
I dreamed that you were watching me across the sea so blue.
I dreamed that you were watching me across a
cloudless sky.
I dreamed that you were watching me while I was
watching you.
but we never met eye to eye
I dreamed that you were watching me high up in a tree.
I dreamed you held my fate in the palm of you hand.
I dreamed that you were the only one I could see.
I dreamed about things only you could understand.
Beyond Virtue and Vice
Some morals are absolute, but they are not ultimate.
A Christianity Today Editorial | posted 06/25/2003
Those who say it is impossible to love the sinner and hate the sin should take a second look at the case of former Secretary of Education William Bennett. When Newsweek and The Washington Monthly reported that the author of The Book of Virtues lost millions of dollars to the vice of gambling, many commentators excitedly twittered that it would place social conservatives in a Gordian knot. His fellow virtuecrats, it was argued, would either have to cannibalize one of their own, attacking him with the same vitriol they spew on other sinners, or they would be forced to back away from their so-called moral absolutes.
But with remarkably few exceptions, Christian conservatives did neither. Far from being shocked that Bennett had a moral Achilles' heel, they understood clearly the breadth of original sin, that each of us has a plank or two in our own eyes.
As Christians, we also understand that ultimately, virtue and vice are beside the point. For what is vice but a pretty word for sin, and what is virtue but an attempt to reconcile ourselves with God and others (i.e. The Law)? Virtue is necessary for ordering society and our own lives. But the heart of the Christian message is not "Do good."
Jesus was the only one able to live a truly virtuous life. And it is only by virtue of his death and resurrection that we can be called virtuous. This is the theological core of Christianity and it provides the motivation and the power to live a life of active goodness.
Christians can therefore affirm that gambling away millions of dollars is not God's will for Bill Bennett. They can use the opportunity to decry how casinos and other forms of institutionalized gambling exploit the vulnerable. They can encourage gambling addicts to seek help in 12-step meetings and therapy. Christian leaders did all of these things in the days following the exposé, and in none of these were they hypocrites, even though all commentators among them have vices and habits that they struggle with, and all of them look to God's forgiving and strengthening grace.
No one is virtuous all the time; no one is virtuous enough. That doesn't mean we should simply abandon the effort, for ourselves and for our neighbors. Seeking humility does not require us to refrain from our agenda of moral reform, nor does it mean uncertainty about what constitutes active goodness or about what qualifies as moral failure. We are unworthy pilgrims who need to be pulled from a pit. We know that until the kingdom comes, the pit will be there, and we are still in danger of falling into it again and again. But not to warn others of the pit would be selfish evil.
For the same reason, we are rightly distressed when we see others calling vice virtue (and vice versa), such as calling public supported gambling a social good. But even in such cases, we must never see our fellow fallen human beings as transgressors, a threat or the enemy. The others in the pit, like us, are those for whom Christ died.
Ultimately, however, our story is not about the pit but about the One who pulls us from it. We were not created simply to be free from vice, but to enjoy God forever. We may therefore occasionally preach from The Book of Virtues, but only with the understanding that it is at best a supplemental text you are focusing on. Most people focus on the negative and unhappy aspects of their lives. Why do this? If you focus on the negative, unpleasant things in your life it will force you to see your life as unhappy and unpleasant. God is doing something great in your life right now. Today! What is He doing? Can you see it? Can you feel it? Feed your thoughts on the positive and wonderful blessings God has given to you. Thank Him for your family and your friends. Thank Him for the promise of Heaven and the relationship that you have with His son, Jesus Christ!
