On the Brink of something LARGE

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Stop by and see what I have been posting.

I am moving to j4man.wordpress.com  

On the brink - is there - mark it down - Stop by and visit!

Anyone else having difficulty - posting - editing  and other stuff?

 Over the past two weeks I have really had a hardtime logging on, posting, and generally anythng to do with it.

 Anyone else or just me?  Let me know.

I picked up Vince Antonucci’s book I Became a Christian and all I got was this Lousy T-shirt and started reading. I had no idea what to expect but was surprised by what I read. I am only currently 50 pages in but I have been challenged by what I have read to this point.

He hits on somethings that I have thought but also on some things that I have not thought. He has hit on the idea that Christians believe that being a Christian is about the two B’s - Believe and Behave. I have found this to be true in my own life. He has also hit on the idea of that a relationship with Jesus is not what Jesus wanted. You will have to read to get a good feel of what he is talking about.

This morning while reading and drinking some coffee, I was laughing out loud and then a few minutes later weeping.

I will keep you updated on my thoughts on the book and if you are reading this please let me know what you are thinking.

I was reading Matthew 20:1-16 today and I really did not like it. I must stay I have read it many times in the past and I did not like it then. It is not that I do not understand the parable or not get it in some way, but I think that the message is unfair. I understand that God is generous and that I am stingy but I see the workers point who have worked all day and get the same amount as the one who worked an hour.

Do you ever read something that you do not like in the Bible?

I love the fact that I am forced to wrestle with this, which I am and I will continue to do.

Any thoughts?

I have been struggling for sometime with my faith.  It might be more accurate to say that I have been in a dry period - it has been a long dry period.  I would not even venture to guess how long it has truly been.  I have had small oasis’s while in the dessert (Mission Trips/special times but nothing consistent) but have not been in a truly rainy period with God in a long time (a time where I have felt Gods full power in my life, I know that it has been me and not him).  Right now it is starting to drizzle.  I am sensing God beginning to do somethings in my life, nothing overly special but just sensing him moving.

What is interesting about God beginning to do somethings is that it is the way that God is going about this.  I never would have thought that I would begin to head down the right track by God exposing my sinfulness.  In my thoughts I would have been overwhelmed by God doing powerful things in my life.  Now he is not exposing my sinfullness others but to me in a gentle and kind way.  The areas of my life that have slipped during this dry period are being pointed out to me. 

In the past when God would try to work this way I would be offended and I would recoil from it. Right now it has triggered a resurgence in me of desiring to get to know God in a more personal way.  The more aware I have become, the more I am relying on God to help me with it.  I have in the past tried to fix these things on my own, I am a male and that is what we do isn’t it, we fix things. I have found I can not fix these things on my own.  I am now seeing that is what has lead me into this dessert.  I have tried to fix myself so that I would look good to God.  I am so silly, I know that I cannot do it that way, but I did it anyway.

My prayer is that I would keep work with God and doing things his way, instead of trying to fix it so that I look good to him.  I also pray that this would not be a drizzle but a full on downpour in my life of God.

Anyone have any thoughts on this or gone through stuff like this.  I know that I am not alone.

the organic God by Margaret Feinberg is what i am currently reading and it is a gem.  She has a writing style that is easy to read and one the penetrates the heart with the Truth of God.  If you have a chance to pick this up - DO IT! 

 You will not regret reading this - I still have about a 1/3 to read so this will be a short post.

Sometime doing the right thing is so very hard. 

 I have been dealing with sensative issues in the church and is so very taxing on both me physically and spiritually.  I have been dealing situations and I know that this is part of ministry but this time is very hard because I dearly love those who are involved but see them ruining their lives.  This is going to end up changing my relationship with those involved.  I think that I am going to lose some close friends because I have ( along with others) done the right thing.  I know and trust that what was done was right but it does not remove the hurt or the pain. 

I do not want this to taint my view of ministry and friendship but I also want to learn what God has for me in the midst of all this. 

I am willing to give up friendship for peoples lives to be put in order.  I am willing to do the right thing.

 I pray for the strength and wisdom of God to get through this. 

The Spirit Intercedes - but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us …because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. 

Think about the times in your life when your parents helped out without you ever asking.  I remember as a boy wanting to buy some fishing gear from a store called “Uncle Joe’s Woodshed” and I thought I had the right amount of money, but when the bill was rung up I was a few dollars short.  Before I had a chance to look at or even as my dad for help, he was handing the cashier the money I owed.  My dad interceded on my behalf. 

“but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us” Paul is letting us know that even though we do not have the words to pray or know what to pray that the Spirit of God will step in with petitions or prayers for us.  Those times when we do not have the words, the Spirit of God is there for us.  He is interceding for us, which is to say that the Sprit is pleading for us before God the Father. 

“because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”   So for us even when we do not know what to pray or how to pray we have the security of knowing that the Spirit of God is pleading for us to God the father.  Think then of this, that when the Spirit of God is interceding or pleading for us, that because the Sprit is also God, the prayers will always be in God’s will.  The Spirit cannot pray a prayer that is outside His will because it would against the whole nature of God.  There should be great comfort in knowing that God’s will is being prayed for in your life even in those times when you do not know what to pray. 

Have you ever been frustrated by the fact that you cannot find the words to pray?  In those times we can relax knowing that the Spirit is praying.  But we also, according to Romans 8:34 have Christ who is at the right hand of the father interceding for us.  Romans 8:34b Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.  We need to find and take comfort in having the Spirit of God as well as Christ pleading to the Father on our behalf. 

Fast forward 6 months – Mckayla has another episode and we again have to rush her to the hospital.  She has all the same symptoms as she did the last time and is very ill.  The doctors at the hospital have no idea how to treat her, so the need to take her to a larger hospital.  I am at her bedside and Wendy is at home just a couple of minutes away gather some stuff for us for the night.  Wendy called and I had to tell her to come back quickly because they were going to Life Flight our little 5 year old girl.  She is sent by Life Flight to University of Virginia Medical Center, but they will not let Wendy or I fly with her.  We had to watch them load our little girl on an ambulance and then hear the helicopter take off.  Where we were we could not see the helicopter, we could just hear it taking off.  For Mckayla she would be to the hospital in about 15 minutes, but for Wendy and I it was a 45 minute to hour drive.  This drive was again a time when there were no words to pray, just us pleading without knowing what to say to God.  It was the longest and most agonizing time of our lives.  We had the Spirit interceding and Christ for us as we were literally groaning during our drive to get to our little girl. 

The Spirit Groans – with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, 

Groaning is something that I now do when I have exercised and then try get up after sitting a while.  Groaning is something my kids do when I ask them to do something that they do not want to do.  Groaning is what I do when I have to stand in the woman’s department holding my wife’s pocketbook while she tries on cloths, boy do I groan.  The good thing for us is that the kind of groaning that the Spirit does on our behalf makes a real difference in our lives. 

“with groanings too deep for words” We have seen how creation groans and we groan and now we see that the Spirit makes intercessions for us with groans.  The idea of groan here is an intense yet inaudible sighing according to a consensus of scholars.  Inaudible sigh was kind of an odd thing when I thought about it.  Inaudible sighing is that is it like inedible food or invisible art?  Really what is it though is a powerful and amazing thing.  Inaudible sighs are too deep for words according to this passage.  In other words, they are what is felt and known in the heart and yet they never come to words. 

Some have interpreted this passage as having something to do with praying in tongues.  When you look closely to the passage this has nothing to do with the person who is praying and the Spirit is not saying anything either, so it really is not about tongues.  What it is about is the Spirit is having nonverbal communication with the Father.  

“and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is” Searches here gives us the idea of careful investigation or to find out and this is done by God the Father.  Notice that this is in the present tense, so it is something that God is continually doing.  God is finding out what is in our hearts so that he knows what the mind of the Spirit is so the He can supply it. 

This passage is not about not praying but it is about praying when there are no words.  You see there are times in our lives where we can take this passage say that it means something that it does not.  Some have said, “I have no words to pray now, then I am just going to let the Spirit take care of it”.  Sometime we could use this passage as a cop out to not pray for the things that we need to be praying for.  We should come to the place where we understand that this passage is about having a prayer in the heart but being unable to get it out.  This is not about just not praying because something is uncomfortable to pray for.   

Wendy’s heart and my heart were filled with prayers for our little girl.  Wendy and I slept in the hospital room at the University of Virginia Medical Center with her for five days, never leaving.  We watched her go through test after test.  We had a steady stream of doctors coming and going.  Mckayla had in terrible pain in one leg and being doctors they had to touch it and when she would be in pain, we would be in pain.  Her heart rate raced for days.  Her heart raced at 150 beats per minute or higher for about 3 days straight.  The brought an echocardiogram and checked her heart.  The doctor was checking her heart and she looked up at him and asked “do you see Jesus in there”.  After five days of being there she was discharged.  She was discharged and we had no answers.  They had done every type of testing you could imagine including genetic testing.  They could not find anything.  Every time she would get sick, we would live in fear that it was going to happen again. 

A couple of months later we moved to the
Baltimore area.  We thought for sure that we would find answers from the medical staff at Johns Hopkins.  We again were brought to the point were we were left with no answers from anyone, anywhere.   

During this time, Wendy and I had no words to pray.  The doctors had no answers and nothing really to say. Our gratitude was to the Spirit of God who expressed our daughters needs with groans to the Father. 

What do you do when you stand speechless before God? 

When you think that your inability to pray would be a hindrance to God working.  Remember the Spirit Hears, the Spirit intercedes, and the Spirit groans. 

In 2008:Pray more when God is silent.Pray more when God answers unexpectedly.Pray more from day to day.Pray when you are speechless before God.

 “Is she breathing?” the nurse said to me frantically as I ran past her carrying my daughter’s limp and listless body.  “Yes, I think so”, I yelled back as Wendy and I were sprinting through the hospital.  I handed off her to a nurse and Wendy and I followed them into a room.  We watched stunned as a team of about of nine doctors and nurses began hovering our little girl and worked feverously.  We were both at the same time praying without ceasing and at the very same time we had no words to pray. Have you stood speechless before God? Have you ever been unable utter a single word of a prayer?   Has something happened in life where you had to think about taking each breath and there was no way you could think about crying out to God? 

What do you do when you need to pray but you are speechless?  What do you do when the words do come out or there are no words to pray.  We have all faced times in our lives where this was the case, where the words escaped us.  Maybe it was when you were angry, grief stricken, confused, felt the pain of loss, or it was a time that you doubted.  Think about these questions:Has there ever been a time that you were so angry that you could not speak?Have you ever had so much grief that you could not get one word of a prayer off to God?Are there times that things got so confusing that you did not know what to pray?Have you ever felt the pain of a loss of a loved one, a job, a marriage, a friendship or some other area of your life that you could not say anything to God or to anyone else?Have you ever been so full of doubt that words to a prayer would not come?  What do we do when stand speechless before God? Romans 8:26 - 27 In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. Earlier in Romans 8 Paul writes:Romans 8:22 – 23 For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. 

Paul is letting us know that creation groans for redemption and that we also groan for redemption.  The Earth awaits the freedom that will come to it when its bondage is set loose.  We ourselves are spiritually redeemed but our bodies are suffering and they groan for that day when the suffering will end. Think about it this way we groan and nature groans and this groaning is a reminder of the promise yet to come.  The Spirit groans as we will see are not for a day to come but are for us this very day. Many times in our lives we are in situations that we do not know how to pray or what to pray.  In these times we have the Spirit that comes to our aid and intercedes on our behalf.  We need to recognize first of all that the Spirit Hears.   The Spirit Hears – In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should… Hearing is one of those things in life that some do better than others.  Men have the tendency to be selective hearers.  I can quote movie lines perfectly but when it comes to doing simple things my wife asks me to do I have no clue.  Wendy on a weekly basis will say “before you come to bed, all you need to do is take the kids uniforms which they need in the morning, out of the washer and put them in the dryer” or “all I need you to do is take the clean dishes out of the dish washer and put the dirty ones in” for some reason I never hear these.   

Take heart though, the Spirit, even when we have no words to express, He hears perfectly. “In the same way” refers us back to verses 18 -25 to the hope that sustains us in the middle of suffering.  The Spirit helps us out or sustains us in the same way when we are weak.  We have help in those times of struggle and trial.  There are times that all of us will be weak.  In these times of weakness we have the knowledge that the Spirit is there to help.  When we think about the spirit helping, we need to think about the fact that He hears us.  In those times when we do not have the words to say and nothing will come out, He hears us.   This is a question that arises, what does the Spirit hear?  The Spirit hears those longings in our heart that we are unable to speak.  Those things that are deep down inside of us that cannot for whatever reason come out, the Spirit hears this.  “For we do not know how to pray as we should” this could have a couple of different meanings to it. It could have the notion that we are found many times praying selfish, ignorant, or narrow prayers.  In these times we have the Spirit who is there to help us get our prayers on track to where they should be.   Then there is also the notion that we have no idea what to pray in a given situation.  This would be the direction that I would lean as far as what this verse means.  I say this because I have been one who has stood before God not knowing what the right way to pray was?  Standing at the bedside of someone on life support who is struggling, do you pray that God would take them and relieve there pain or do you pray that God would do a miracle.  Sometimes you do not know what to pray for.  I have also stood before God not having the words. 

Wendy and I watched a team of doctors and nurses trying feverously to get an IV into our little girls arm.  The veins in the arm had collapsed because of sever dehydration.  Then one nurse told the others to step aside, stepped up and found a vein where there seemingly was not one to find.  The Spirit heard the words we could not speak and interceded.

More later.