Category Archives: Christ Displaces Worry

Prayer Works

Posted on by
Reply

God amazes me with his answers to prayer. Let me share one example. My mother lives in a nursing home in Albuquerque, far from my sisters and me. She has macular degeneration and has been legally blind for seven or eight years. Recently her vision deteriorated further and she lost the ability to read large print books. She was very discouraged, especially because she couldn’t read her Bible.

About that time, my mom’s roommate died. I prayed for her next roommate to be a good fit. A few days later her new roommate, Donna, answered the phone when I called. She told me she’d served as a missionary in Indonesia and had read to blind people. I asked if she would read to my mother. She said they had already talked about that. I had prayed for a kind roommate and God provided someone who can read to my mom. No wonder the apostle Paul describes God as the one “who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine…” (Ephesians 3:20).

God’s astonishing power and his gracious answers to prayer encourage me to pray instead of worrying. My mom’s new roommate is only one answer to recent prayers. Some answers have come almost immediately—a friend’s daughter who was facing a 90-day residential treatment program for substance abuse issues improved the day my small group prayed for her, so she can be treated as an outpatient. Other answers have taken longer, teaching me to persevere in prayer.

I’ve started praying about issues at work also. For example, I helped coworkers develop a complex database. At one point we hit a brick wall. No matter what we tried, we couldn’t get certain fields in the data entry form to automatically fill. Our frustration level skyrocketed. On the way home I prayed about the problem. A day or two later I woke up in the middle of the night with the phrase “auto-fill” in my mind. I wrote the phrase down, did a Google search the next morning and found detailed instructions with a worked example. Those were sufficient to show us how to redesign the tables and their relationships and produce a query that worked. This sort of thing has happened so often lately that both my supervisor and I recognize that Romans 8:28 is true: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him….”

Knowing that God can solve problems I can’t has set me free from much worry. Paul’s words to the early Christians at Philippi are spot on: “Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life” (Philippians 4:6-7, The Message).

As Christ becomes the center of my life, my natural pessimism is giving way to a brimming optimism. God truly can accomplish far more than anything I can ask or imagine.

One Thing — Part Two

Posted on by
2

How can we spend our days with Jesus? We start in the morning, when we first awaken, remembering “When I awake, I am still with you.” (Psalm 139:18). We thank God for the gift of a new day and life itself. We ask for his help to stay awake and aware of his presence.

Throughout the day we use external cues to remind us to pray—one friend prays every time she stops at a traffic light. If we feel worried about something, we let that remind us to pray. That way worry will not drive us away from God, but rather into his arms.

We end each day in prayer, asking the Holy Spirit to guard our minds and hearts through the night.

Our ultimate goal is to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17), as Ruth Ann mentioned in her comment on my previous post. Frank Laubach, a missionary and founder of the Each One Teach One literacy program, accomplished this through his Game With Minutes: “Try to call Christ to mind at least one second of each minute. You do not need to forget other things nor stop your work, but invite Him to share everything you do or say or think.”

As we train our minds to pray continually, we will find the God whom we’ve been seeking and discover that he was the initiator; he was the one seeking us.

One Thing

Posted on by
2

At a recent retreat I was introduced to lectio divina, the practice of contemplative praying of Scripture. The facilitator read the following passage, stopping after the reading for three minutes of silence.

“… Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.’ But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her’” (Luke 10:38-42, ESV).

This is a familiar story; I’ve heard it dozens of times. I’ve read Joanna Weaver’s book, Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World, which focuses on this story. But I had never heard this particular translation. I was struck by how spare and simple the story is. Previously I had imagined a house full of people, but hearing this version I saw only three: Jesus and the two sisters, Mary and Martha.

After the passage was read a second time, I was struck by Jesus’ words to Martha, “…you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary.” One thing. I could see those words as if they were emblazoned on a sign. One thing. How simple.  Not two or three things or the eight or ten things I often put on my to-do lists. Only one thing is needed—spending time with Jesus.

In his book Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, C. S. Lewis wrote, “We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito. And the incognito is not always hard to penetrate. The real labour is to remember, to attend. In fact, to come awake. Still more, to remain awake.”

If we focus on the One thing, remaining awake and aware of Jesus’ presence, then everything else will fall in place. We will worry less because we will be living from a center of purity and simplicity.

Are you able to remain awake and aware? What reminds you of Jesus’ presence?

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.