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  A Prayer Diary

"Thy will be done" -- I'm trying.

2/28/2011

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        I just posted the following quote by Oswald Chambers, a Scots minister and teacher who was active during the first half of the twentieth century. I believe that his work is still being published. "My Utmost for His Highest:-Selections for the Year" is one of my favorite devotionals.  

        "Intercession means that we rouse ourselves up to get the mind of Christ about the one for whom we pray."

      Chambers language is a little ambiguous, but ambiguity seems to be a mighty useful tool for this prayer journey, especially intercessory prayer. It’s the mind of Christ that I pray will surround someone, not my own mind, my own ideas, my own judgments. It just does not make much sense for me to pray for what I want for a person, unless I am very clear that it is my will be done that I’m asking for. Then God and I can have a little joke about it. Sometimes I say, “Well, God, here’s what I want for so-and-so, and then, if I remember humility, I say, “but, thy will be done.” I know better, and of course so does God, who is most forgiving, or shall I say accepting, of my humanness.

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Retrieving prayer

2/27/2011

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My husband and I saw "The King's Speech" yesterday and then went out to dinner-- lovely time. But my praying without ceasing got lost along the way, just dropped from my consciousness, and what's more, it was hard to retrieve when I finally did remember it.
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Start the day with prayers of thanksgiving

2/26/2011

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What a gorgeous morning here at the cottage. No clouds blocking the sunrise; moonrise just before morning twilight; morning star as big as the street lights across the bay, but much brighter. I'm starting the day with prayers of thanksgiving.
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Whether to pray for weather~

2/25/2011

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It's snowing like mad here at the cottage. It's tempting to pray for no more snow, but  theologically that doesn't seem right. That's my early morning though. I'll send something more substantial later in the day after I shovel. One thing I'm certain of: God doesn't shovel.

    On and off all day I’ve been thinking about whether to pray for the “right” weather. In fact I gave it a try, but I couldn’t get into it. It’s just not the way I pray. In fact, I really can’t get serious about the idea. For example, here I am along the coast praying that God stop all snow for the rest of the season, but up there in the mountains there is probably a guy running a ski resort and thanking God for all those extra inches.

     As a kid, when the Brooklyn Dodgers lost one more time, I wondered if God was a Yankee fan. Sometimes I want to pray that I can be a kid again, but that feels about the same as praying about the weather. It’s just not going to have any effect.

     We could write a book about this, but why not try the Book of Job. When Job and his friends complain and challenge God, God responds, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding” 38.4.

      God is bigger than any of my little problems, but I am big enough to respond to them in the best God-like way I can.


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God's magnificence

2/24/2011

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Good morning,
    The sun has just appeared over the horizon here at the cottage by the sea. I am in awe once again. As the song goes, “There’s Gotta be a God Somewhere.” I’ll write more later today, but I had to put that—God’s magnificence-- out there at the start of the day, and the start of this blog.

      I’m just had what I call my ‘prayer nap’. Here’s how it goes. I lie on the chaise in the living room (which I call the deck) of the cottage that I’m renting. If I keep my eyes open I have a beautiful view of the ocean; but I close them and even put sun visors over my eyes. The challenge is to stop all the chatter in my head, so I concentrate on the Jesus Prayer and slowly fall asleep; miraculously that always happens. Usually after the sleeping part of my prayer nap which is no longer than a half hour, I wake up to one of my best prayer times. My mind is pretty much free of what I call “ego chatter”--planning what’s for supper—that kind of thing: and of judgments about what I think that the people I’m praying for should do. How easy it can be to let “my will done” slip in.
          You may be wondering why I’m giving you all this detail. Well, it’s because I would love to hear how other people pray, what they do, what they think about, and I figure I’m not alone. There isn’t much written about this kind of thing. Even Jesus doesn’t give us much. Aside from the Lord’s Prayer, scripture tells us that Jesus went off and prayed. But what did he do, what did he say?
        Finally, you may notice that I don’t seem to pray in any orthodox way. I don’t follow any rules. For example, “they” say that one should not lie down, close eyes, or do anything to encourage sleep when praying. But that pretty much what I do. Just me and God.


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Remembering to pray

2/23/2011

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        Yesterday was a strange prayer day. I did fine with my morning routine but then a friend and her two children came to visit. We had a wonderful time walking the beach and having lunch, but I got caught up in the moment and so prayer and God disappeared from my consciousness. Now, that’s not a bad thing (it actually happens a lot), but I am trying to pray without ceasing, which is mighty hard to remember to do. It’s the remembering that’s the problem, not the desire.
      I’m reading (for the second time) “The Way of a Pilgrim” written in Russia in the nineteenth century by an anonymous pilgrim who wanders about the country side saying and studying the prayer of the heart, also know as the ‘Jesus prayer’: “Lord Jesus Christ have mercy upon me.” The idea is to say/think the prayer continually so that it becomes part of you--going from something you repeat in words to something you say in your heart.
     The idea intrigues me, actually appeals to me, and so I say it whenever I remember. It helps me become calm and remember God and my purpose. It also gets me out of all that right brain thinking, or as I say, it gets me out of my head. Again, the challenge is to remember. One of my best remembering times is when I wake up in the middle of the night. Saying the ‘Jesus prayer’ helps me stop thinking about all that’s going on in my life and thus I fall back to sleep more easily.

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