Learning to Pray | Life is Daily

You know how sometimes you can’t remember what you had for dinner last night or what your spouse told you they had going today? Then again, some things stick with you for life. I remember years and years ago a pastor at Faith Center at the time, Ted Roberts told me, “Life is daily.” I don’t even remember what in the conversation prompted that comment or why it was profound enough to stick with me all this time. Most likely because it is true. We have hard days and good days; we have confusion and “aha” moments; we have deep sorrow and unbelievable joy. And frankly, everything in between. Time marches on.

I think faith and prayer are also daily.

Sometimes I pray and immediately that prayer is answered and I know it was the Lord. Sometimes it is not so immediate, but I do see God working and over a short period of time, I experience what I believe is God's answer. The answer is not always, “Yes and Amen!” But at the same time His answers bring provision and great blessing…even if they take longer then what I was hoping for :-)

One day I was praying and the Lord brought to mind an image of a landscape of hard packed soil. Have you ever tried to start a garden in hard packed soil? Packed earth can be solid as rock especially if it has continuously been walked on and packed down over a long time with little water. Even with a shovel, a hoe or a pick axe, it takes time and backbreaking work to break it up so that something can be planted in it. Sometimes you have to call in the big equipment and healthy replacement soil.

Some areas of our lives and the lives of others are like this. Hard packed hurts, trauma or areas of sin are not conquered overnight. Coping mechanisms that humans adopt to help them along in life’s seasons are not always healthy and can get so reinforced by habit that we don’t even realise that we are still using them long after the circumstance that prompted them has passed. 

It is not uncommon for me to get mad at myself if I struggle with the same issue over and over again. Sometimes I get frustrated or mad at God if prayers seem to go unanswered… and time marches on. I think the Lord shared the packed earth image with me to remind me that there is a lot going on in my life and the life of others that I don’t recognize. Maybe the soil is packed in hard! Perhaps there is soil being tilled, watering going on, or new soil being brought in, before the ground can be productive and healthy again and God can even consider planting something in it. It doesn’t happen overnight. It might require rain, digging, worms, seasons of rest and who knows what to make this part of life healthy again. 

Not that this answers all my questions about prayer, but I think it is something worth considering if we are frustrated with ourselves or God. There is so much more to life and to God then we can take in. It is just possible that something that we pray for and are sure we have the best answer for…we don’t. If I consider prayer to be talking with the Lord, then it is about getting to know Him or Her better as well as and even more so than ‘getting what I want’. When I am confused by something I thought I knew about God, instead of panicking, I like to look at it as an opportunity to get to know Him better. Prayer and listening open the door for that.

Pastor Aaron reminded us this last Sunday that Jesus’ love isn’t something that we receive once and done. We get to be open to receiving it again and again. Hopefully daily and moment by moment!

A side note:
I want to leave you with another practice that I feel the Lord has invited me to in a season when the world seems to offer so many things to discourage us. If something happens that gives you joy, take a moment (or 5) to soak in it. It doesn’t have to be a big thing. More likely it may be small and easily overlooked. What started it for me was a friend giving me a little yarn pumpkin she made with a stick of cinnamon for its stem. It smelled sooo goood! So I took some time to delight in the aroma. It could be lingering in a warm shower an extra 5 minutes or walking your dog in the sunshine, or curling up with a cat in your lap or so many different things. Cr-p happens. But so do incredible life moments! Less than pleasant moments in life seem to scream at us. Invite the moments of JOY to SING!

John 16:32-33 NKJV
Indeed the hour is coming, yes, has now come, that you will be scattered, each to his own, and will leave Me alone. And yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me. These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

Philippians 4:4-9 NKJV
Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!

5 Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand.

6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; 7 and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

8 Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things. 9 The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you.

Zephaniah 3:17 NKJV
The Lord your God in your midst,
The Mighty One, will save;
He will rejoice over you with gladness,
He will quiet you with His love,
He will rejoice over you with singing.”

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About the Author

Darla is a creative at heart, and a communicator by nature and trade. It is her goal in life to love God and love people at which she has varying degrees of success. The Lord has gifted her with an amazing husband and partner in life who is a source of great support and encouragement. She is grateful for her family and her church.

Learning to Pray | A Quiet Moment

In a past post, I’ve mentioned having done a study of the short writing “Practicing the Presence of God” by Brother Lawrence. (If you haven’t read it yet, find it online. It’s very old and still very relevant.) This last fall, I went back to teaching at my old military-ish school, and finding quiet time has been a challenge. And when I say “quiet time,” I don’t just mean official prayer/devotional time. I mean that my life (between teaching kids and having 5 kids at home) is literally noisy. I don’t even want to listen to audio books or podcasts while washing dishes or driving home from work. My brain craves an actual break from hearing words. 

But God has given me an interesting gift: an annoyingly quiet minute or two at the same time every weekday. Every morning, the whole school gets quiet as we solemnly wait for the “colors” (flag-raising process) to happen. We’re in the gym grouped up in our little homeroom platoons, standing at the position of attention until the order is given to salute. Sometimes it takes a while. It’s so quiet you can hear a pin drop. I see the 7th graders facing me from across the gym and try not to yawn when I see them yawn. 

I used to dread that time of day. Most of the kids probably do. Squirrelly 6th graders trying not to move? Good luck! Even my 11th & 12th grade homeroom kids have a hard time! But one day, I realized what a gift that minute or two is. Peaceful quiet. Some might say it’s a good time to practice mindfulness before the craziness of the school day. I hope many of the kids think of it that way. But I decided to take it a step further. 

Nowadays, when we all go to the position of attention and await the order to salute and the sound of the bugle, I take that time to pray. I pray for the day ahead: for the safety of the school, for the welfare of the students, for me to teach well, etc. Even though things don’t always go well (we live in a broken world, and God is not a genie that just grants magical wishes), I always feel a bit more at peace after praying. It reminds me that no matter what happens, God is with us. 

I save the bigger prayers for Wednesdays, when a colleague and I meet up outside of school hours to pray. This is when we pray for the bigger student needs, bigger school needs, our own families, and heck, we pray for the whole world while we’re at it, because it’s a hot mess right now. 

Would you join me in these prayers? For hope and peace/safety in our world, country, state, community, families, schools, and in the hearts of kids. Thank you. 

Psalm 46:10 NKJV
Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth!

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About the Author

Jessie is a novice writer, with several books in various stages and a blog about travel and the journeys of women. She is very excited to be a part of the CitySalt blog team. She has been blessed by a few communities of Christian writers that have encouraged her dream. She lives with her sweet husband, Chris, their 5 funny kids, and 1 fluffy cat in Springfield. She loves hiking and other outdoor and indoor adventures with her family.

Saved Once and For All

"Jesus Saves ... Green Stamps"

In obvious bad taste, this cynical but funny line caught my expanding junior high world view back in the 70s. For me raised in the church, it was certainly irreverent. 

Being saved was absolutely central to my faith. I learned about salvation from a very young age and it was something that religious people around me never questioned, in any detail whatsoever.

Mostly out of fear, unfortunately.

Modern Christianity’s version of salvation is a big event - releasing us from sin once and for all. Also a big production following a fiery sermon with dramatic and pleading music. And for an impressionable and conscientious young man, it all seemed epic! I experienced many, many altar calls in churches and camp meetings over the years, but unfortunately they didn’t seem to stick. The promises were plentiful but the payoffs were not. 

Why? I did not know. 

We were told to confess. I confessed. Told to repent. I repented. But in Romans 7:15 the Apostle Paul echoes an all-too-common frustration with believers everywhere: "I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate."

And the nuts and bolts of trying harder to be good aside, I just didn't feel saved! My friends around me would share their testimonies, tales of pain, longing and moral failure - turned into victory! Were they exaggerating? They talked of a transcendent moment of change, the amazing feeling of being filled with the Spirit of the living God. When hearing the sermons and singing the songs, I felt good, but for me it certainly wasn't as advertised. 

It still felt hollow.

And then came the distractions of everyday life - schooling, jobs, a wife and kids - a real time pressure cooker. I needed a release! Getting saved was a distant, cloudy memory. My present took all of my attention, as my faith wavered. 

Back to church again and again, once a week or more, chasing a deeper feeling, or any feeling at all. 

Oh yes my brother and my sister, I had "those backsliding blues", according to a hip Christian band. But the lyrics confused me. Backsliding from what? My sin? I thought Jesus took care of it once and for all. He sighed a great sigh on the cross and exclaimed with his last breath "It is finished", right?

It certainly didn't feel like it.

But as I've matured over the years in my faith and as an adult, salvation has taken on an expanded meaning. Yes we are saved from our sins (which simply means "missing the mark"), but mostly we're saved from ourselves, our mistakes in judgment, our insecure reactions aimed at people we love, and our self-centered pride.

It all started with the word being.

Fast-forward many years now, and I'm transformed! I was supposed to be saved, but now I understand being saved. That little word now speaks volumes to this more mature believer. Salvation wasn't ever simply a single event, it's a lifetime of events. 

So what are my events? It's really quite simple. Everything (is spiritual) - a common theme in most of author Richard Rohr's books, especially in The Divine Dance. God shows up and speaks to us in a million ways and through everyone we touch, through our own cadence of time (even through Dave, my daughter's sweet and crazy Australian shepherd). The Trinity's presence occupies our life's pleasures and its pains (usually more in our pains). 

Yes, my initial salvation was real, but that altar call was only the first of thousands of salvations - more and more transformative moments happened as I simply said YES in the moment.

Jesus really did finish it all. But the business of ongoing change is now a shared, pleasurable and cooperative dance. No more heart-wrecking guilt, fear and shame. Just peace - the one that really does pass all understanding. 

I've been born again, again.

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About the Author

Terry is a man in constant motion to explore new horizons. He has a thirst for new places and faces, and a deep love for the natural world - with a weakness for waterfalls and sunsets. All of this venturing out helps to both ground and inspire him, because it opens him up to people, with their vast, collective array of experiences, outlooks and responses.

He finds all of this fascinating and sees that it has encouraged the growth of something crucial in his Christian development: empathy and compassion toward his brothers and sisters on this planet.

Learning to Pray | What is Prayer? You tell me!

Following CitySalt’s recent sermon series on prayer, the blog team is leaning in to share our own perspectives and learnings on the topic. Join us as we explore personal discoveries of what prayer is and what it was never intended to be, and we pursue deeper alignment with how God invites us to communicate with him. 

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As a kid growing up in an Episcopalian home, I learned two prayers. Not more, not less, not ever venturing off into the unknown of conversational prayer. Rote. Memorized. Genuine, I think, but said so often that you didn’t really need to think about what you were praying. One was said before supper and this prayer was always said by my father. It went, “Please God bless this food to our use and us to Thy service, for Christ’s sake. Amen.” Nice. Short. No real thanks for the food, but hoping that it might help us be healthy so we could serve God (who knew what that meant?!). The second prayer was at bedtime when we were taught to pray for ourselves, “Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.” Oh, Lordy. Every night we reminded ourselves that we were going to die, and maybe it’s even tonight! I guess you could call that a fear-based prayer.   

The next prayer I learned before my full confirmation into God’s Episcopal family was the Lord’s Prayer. Again, memorized and kind of rote, but beautiful and meaningful nonetheless. The “Our Father…”, I’m sure you all know this one so I won’t repeat it.

So these are what I thought of as prayer until I was 18 years old when I was introduced to the living Jesus, accepted him and started to go to church to learn more about him. Pretty quickly I entered the world where you asked God for things: if you needed something (more money) or hoped for a certain outcome (a passing grade in your Math class) or wanted your sick friend or grandmother to be healed (from anything from a cold to a deadly disease). These prayers were based on scriptures like: 

Matthew 21:22
If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.

Mark 11:23
I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go throw yourself into the sea’, and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him.

James 5:16
The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

These are the kinds of prayers I prayed until reading a book in the 1990’s entitled Listening Prayer by Leanne Payne. Learning and practicing prayers that weren’t necessarily about asking God for something (though that could still be part of it), my wife and I started to expect God to speak to us if we only would wait and actually listen for a response. This was a radical shift and greatly increased our faith in, and closeness to, God. This expanded our awareness of God’s presence with us at all times and all places. This kind of prayer, added to the intercessory kind, established a genuine conversation with God. It was a wonderful revelation! But I remember one time long after we’d been practicing this kind of listening prayer, when I asked God for his council on something and I was waiting to hear his answer. What I heard him say to me was, “Well, what do YOU think😊”. I include a smiley face because I heard this with a light-hearted attitude on God’s part, wanting to teach me that he’d given me the ability to reason things out and that whatever decision I made, he’d be with me to guide the next step and teach me from the experience. That was empowering!

Then there came a very difficult time in my life when I felt spiritually depleted, unable to read the Bible with any openness, or to pray with any conviction. Too many prayers had gone unanswered. A wise counselor encouraged me to simply “float in the sea of grace”, not attempting to read, craft prayers or do anything else. This was so powerful and just what I needed to recognize that God is always with us, upholding us in his grace, no matter how well or passionately we prayed. In fact, this silent floating became the prayer itself. Oh, how freeing and expanding that was…and still is.  

Another profound teaching I was introduced to proclaimed that God’s Creation was actually the “first gospel”. Before Jesus came in bodily form to this earth, the whole universe, including the heavens, the earth, the waters, the animals and we humans proclaimed the glory of God:       

Psalm 19:1-4 
The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. 

For many, simply walking out in the woods, camping in the mountains, swimming in the ocean, watching the sunrise… all these things are prayers if you acknowledge the presence of God as the Creator of all things. I believe he delights in the times we delight in his natural creation.

The point of this blog entry is really to contend that prayers, like so many spiritual practices, are not black or white, right or wrong, good or bad. Prayer is simpler than that. It is just finding the best way to commune with God at any particular season in our lives. Don’t judge it! Experiment with different forms of it! Practice whatever allows you the most closeness to the God who loves you!

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About the Author

John lives in Pleasant Hill with his dog, Gunnar, and a multitude of guests who enjoy the peace and beauty of the Cascade foothills. With three children and three grandchildren all living in Oregon, he is continually blessed with their company and the good food that always accompanies their get-togethers!