Throwing Pebbles in Guatemala

Oswald Chambers says, “Prayer does not equip us for greater works—prayer is the greater work.” As I blog about tossing pebbles out into the world that ripple change, I’m encouraged to see God at work through prayer.

• God open doors for the Gospel through prayer.
• God heals through prayer.
• God convicts and restores relationships through prayer.
• God sets captives free through prayer.

Today I’d like to do two things. First, let me introduce some pebble throwers down in Guatemala. It’s the yellow/gold country to the left of Honduras (purple):

Meet David and Regina White and their children, Cruz and Ben.

They are on mission in Guatemala loving people and sharing the Good News. Second, let’s do the great work of prayer and partner with them as they bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the people of Guatemala. Please pray for:

1)  Anointing of the Holy Spirit as they teach Bible studies in Muyurco, Lagunetas, and Nearar. Pray for the hearts of those in each village who will be hearing God’s Word.

2)  Regina as she homeschools their boys. For God’s power, peace, and patience as she juggles home, school, and ministry.

3)  Ministry partner Miguel as he takes seminary classes and for his bold witness to his family, neighbors, and friends. For God to meet his physical, spiritual, and financial needs.

4)  Village leaders: Rafa, Julio, Anacleto, and Reyes to stay strong in their faith despite persecution from neighbors and community leaders.  For God’s protection over them and their families lives.  For filling of the Holy Spirit to boldly share Christ.

David shared recently that “We cannot think of anything else we’d rather be doing with our lives.” What a joy to see the satisfaction that flows from tossing the exact pebbles God prepared in advance for this family to throw. Glory to God!

How a One-Minute Prayer Can Save a Life

I love talking about prayer. But even more than talking about it, I love to pray. So, I was ecstatic to receive this very practical and powerful tip from fellow blogger, Lynn Donovan. Lynn and Dineen Miller encourage and equip a fantastic community of pebble throwers over at Spiritually Unequal Marriage.

Last week, Lynn challenged us with a 30-day, One Minute Prayer.

Today, I am tossing a pebble in your direction by extending this challenge to you.

Several years ago a Christian leader urged churchgoers to choose one person whose salvation they could pray for through the season of lent at 1:00 PM, every day, for One Minute. 

ONE PERSON FOR ONE MINUTE AT 1:00 PM.

Wherever they were, those participating, prayed at 1 pm. It wasn’t long into the daily prayers that those being prayed for were repenting and being saved. Hallelujah!

I’m wondering if, as a group of SUMites, we could do this?

I’m excited to see all that would be possible if we came together as a group and prayed daily at 1:00 pm. Thoughts, Fondly, Karen from Ohio.

Consider the ripple effects of hundreds, maybe thousands, of pebble warriors who set alarms on their phones and commit to stop and ask God to bring one unsaved person to mind, and then pray for one minute.

Don’t you want to be a part of that??

The day I read Lynn’s post, I began the challenge. Just to keep things real, when the alarm went off the first day, I was riding in the car with my husband with the radio blaring. It wasn’t exactly the perfect prayer setting. But at the heart of this challenge, and at the heart of pebble throwing is stepping out of your normal routine and your comfort zone to commit to do a tiny act of love that matters.

With radio blaring, I shifted my gaze out the car window at the beautiful Charleston salt marshes, and turned my heart to God:

Father, who do you want me to pray for today?

I was surprised by who God brought to mind. Another day, I was sitting at my writing desk deep in thought. When the alarm went off, I looked up and a neighbor’s house was the first thing I saw. So I prayed for my neighbor asking God for opportunities to talk to her about Jesus.

Will you sacrifice 30 minutes—one minute, per day, for 30 days—and ask God to place the person on your heart who needs your intercession? I promise that the ripple effects will be worth every precious second. If you’re accepting this challenge, please say so below. Let us know the first name or initials of an unsaved or hurting loved one you’d like us to pray for.

Why God Detests Fancy-Pants Prayers

In the foreword to Jon Bloom’s book Things Not Seen, Ann Voskamp shares a story about a man who labors long and hard weaving baskets. It takes him years to cut trees, plane lumber, sand, refine the reeds, and weave a mountain of baskets. As he weaves each one, he prays. When he’s finished, he takes a match to them. They turn to ash. Years of work vanish in an instant leaving the weaver with nothing to show. Nothing in the seen world, that is. Because his real work wasn’t in the seen world of weaving but the in the unseen world of praying.

photo credit: Chris RubberDragon

Never underestimate the ripple effects of the hidden work of prayer.

Oswald Chambers says “prayer does not equip us for greater works—prayer is the greater work.”

I will be blogging about “the greater work” of prayer for the next few weeks. It’s a practice near and dear to my heart and perhaps the most powerful method of throwing pebbles to impact change.

“I strongly suspect,” says Dr. Peter Kreeft,“that if we saw all the difference even the tiniest of our prayers to God make, and all the people those little prayers were destined to affect, and all the consequences of those effects down through the centuries, we would be so paralyzed with awe at the power of prayer that we would be unable to get up off our knees for the rest of our lives.”

You probably know that the ripple effects of our prayers have little to do with the eloquence of our words. Even though we know this, we… okay, I sometimes fall into this trap. Prayers peppered with holy words and phrases like “for your glory” and “empowering” and “sanctification” are no more powerful than simple, honest prayers.

And yet, many would rather go to the dentist than pray out loud. Excuses abound:

“I can’t pray. I’m not good at it.”

“Other people’s prayers just roll off their tongue. But not mine.”

“I can never think of the right words.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

I’ve prayed in groups, classes, on streets, at conferences, over meals, and in church services with the most seasoned of prayer warriors and some true giants in prayer. Through these experiences, I’ve come to believe that God’s heart sings when He hears a fumbling prayer. That prayer is a sacrifice. It’s an “I-can’t-lead-your-people because-I-have-sp-sp-sp-speech-impediment” kind of prayer.

If you can’t stand to pray out loud for fear of:

screwing it up,

or pausing too long,

or forgetting what you wanted to say,

this post is for you. Moses gets you. And so does God.

God loves your prayers because those who offer reluctant prayers with knees knocking need Him. They aren’t self sufficient. They are God sufficient.

But don’t just take my word for it. Listen to what Jesus said about a self-righteous man who prayed fancy-pants prayers. The Pharisee’s prayer exalted his own “righteous” acts—what he was doing for God. But Jesus praised another man for his prayers, a tax collector, who begged to God out of his desperation. The tax collector needed God. The Pharisee, not so much. Jesus also warned his disciples not to pray for the sake of being heard or seen by others.

People like Janine remind me of how Jesus wants us to pray. She is not an eloquent, “I’ve-got-this” kind of prayer warrior. But Janine’s prayers touch my heart more than most seasoned pray–ers. When she prays, she simply talks to God about her needs and concerns, for herself and for others. Janine’s raw, honest prayers move my heart because I believe they deeply touch God’s heart.

It’s sweet music to God’s ears when we allow our desperation for God’s intervention to win out over our need to be certain or comfortable. It’s not about the prayer. It’s about the coming. And being with Him. He already knows what we’re going to say. He doesn’t need our prayers. God doesn’t need anything. But He desires for us to come. He chooses to weave our prayers into His divine and perfect plan so we recognize that our prayers have purpose. And so we will keep coming back and persevering in prayer. John Piper even says God wants us to “badger Him in prayer.”

So come. Throw a pebble. Say an awkward prayer. Badger God. And take courage in knowing that He delights in choosing to involve you and every fumbling, bumbling word in His powerful Kingdom work.

What Worship and Water Fights Have in Common

You do the math. Three sweaty boys, plus one water feature, plus a 75-degree March day equals?

I sat in the designed-for-solace prayer garden behind my church and next to a playground. The boys were unsatisfied to simply splash in the garden’s water fountain. It wasn’t enough for them to toss a few rocks into its base. Nope. Instead, it added up to some major water play.

I couldn’t help but giggle as I watched:

First, the red-cheeked boys tried plugging the water flow with their finger. Then they sprayed each other with the spout. Then they began inserting different sizes of sticks into the opening of the fountain desperately hoping it would cause a rocket-like explosion. Much to their dismay, the mom in me intervened asking them politely to refrain from inserting said twigs into the church’s water feature.

I just love boys. They always seem to go all in.

Adjacent to the fountain, I noticed an empty bench. All at once, a thought came: I wonder if Jesus is sitting here right now watching these boys. Perhaps He’s smiling. Maybe even laughing. And maybe even getting wet.

It made me think of the other well where a thirsty Jesus sat with a woman at high noon. When Jesus met her at the well, she wasn’t frolicking in the water, but drawing water. He asked her for a drink. Then, God invited her to partake of the living water and promised she’d never thirst if she drank the water He offered.

Next, Jesus spoke words that have been written on my heart ever since I first read them.

“Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth” John 4:23-24.

As I read that passage many years ago, the Holy Spirit etched a prayer on my heart for my family:

        Lord, shape us into a family of true worshipers who worship You in the Spirit and in truth.

Whenever God gives me a prayer, my mind envisions one thing, and His an entirely better, higher purpose . As I slowly learn how to worship in Spirit and in truth, God is elevating and expanding my understanding of worship.

The same Jesus who gave truth and living water to the woman at the well thousands of years ago did the same with me by the water feature this week. My unexpected and spontaneous encounter with the Living Water taught me another aspect of true worship. Jesus and I caught those pebble-throwing boys in an act of true worship, a pure and holy moment of boys being exactly who God created them to be. When a child of God does exactly what he or she is made for, it glorifies God and makes Jesus smile. I believe this is one important aspect of worship.

As pebble throwers, our doing is an act of worship. It pleases the Father when His love spontaneously flows to another through a small act of kindness. But for pebble throwers who belong to God, just being is worship. Brother Lawrence embraced this truth. God is pleased when he watches one of His children being who He made them to be. For example:

• a mother nursing and bonding with her baby
• a percussionist hammering out a new rhythm on the xylophone
• a chef chopping, seasoning, and tasting a new creation
• beautiful, wrinkled hands stitching dresses for children in Africa
• children playing duck-duck-goose
• an entrepreneur conceiving a new business idea

Those sweaty boys may not realize that God shaped their water fight into a moment of true worship, but the ripple effects were significant. He used them to remind me that true worship is being. Come to the well and dive into the conversation by leaving a comment below.

How do you define worship? In what ways do you worship God by doing exactly what He made you to do? What ripple effects do you see as a result?

New Mercies

We say it all the time: God is good. But for some, the massacre at Charleston’s Emanuel AME Church threatened our belief in God’s goodness. He is all-powerful and He is sovereign which means He could have prevented this tragedy. But He didn’t.

I cannot argue with those who say, “It’s beyond me—to understand how a good God could let hatred take nine people’s lives? I don’t get it.”

I agree. It is beyond me to grasp why a good God allows this. But God is beyond me. “His ways are not my ways,” Isaiah 55:8. This doesn’t mean He is any less good. It simply means that His definition of good is beyond mine. (Itty bitty brain. Itty bitty definition of good. Vast, all-powerful, unlimited wisdom and knowledge. Higher, more complete definition of good.)

  Is it possible that amidst the ocean of sadness whose waves pummeled Charleston last month, our good God is using thousands of His children to toss pebbles of love—pebbles whose ripple effects are bringing one good thing after another?

Steven Curtis Chapman’s pebble was a song. His grief rippled a melodic promise that “Love will Overcome” across Facebook and Youtube.

I gathered with other pebble throwers at my church the night after the news hit. We joined hands, bowed heads, wept, sang, and wept some more. As we quieted our hearts to pray, my favorite hymn kept reverberating in my mind’s ear: “Morning by morning, new mercies I see.” A prayer rose to my lips: “God, Charleston sure could use some new mercies. In the days and weeks and months that follow, please send us new mercies so we can look beyond our hurt and see your love at work.”

I left the church and continued with my evening forgetting about the prayer. The next morning, as I typed away at my laptop, a movement outside my window lured my eyes from the screen. I craned my neck to see what was going on. I heard chatter in the driveway and noticed my neighbor getting out of his car. His very pregnant wife’s due date was last week. For the past few days, things had been quiet next door and we hadn’t heard any news.

As I watched the back door of their SUV open slowly, a God-breathed, new mercy emerged in an infant car carrier. Joy beamed across the young couple’s faces as they carried their new baby girl inside. I heard the excitement in their voices as they welcomed her home. Peace softened the ache of my grieving heart. “Thank you Abba, Daddy, for showing me this new mercy today,” I whispered. “ I really needed that.”

Charleston, my heart grieves for you. But hold on, because our God is faithful, His mercies are new every day, and He is good.

“Great is they faithfulness, oh God my father. Morning by morning new mercies I see. All I have needed thy hand has provided. Great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me.”

Be honest: how have such events impacted your faith? How have you seen God’s hand at work in the midst of evil?