Did it make any difference?

Jennifer and I prayed for Rita to sit offshore and die. We traded information about the windspeed and position during that praying. When it landed it was Category 3 instead of Category 5. But by one report it wiped out 90% of the homes in Cameron Parish, the far southwest parish in Louisiana.

Did God answer our prayers? Is the primary purpose of praying to influence God? If you look at the model prayer, I think you get a very direct answer to this question:

^{Matthew 6:5-15 NIV}"And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. ⁶But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. ⁷And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. ⁸Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

⁹"This, then, is how you should pray:
" 'Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
¹⁰your kingdom come,
your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
¹¹Give us today our daily bread.
¹²Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
¹³And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.'

¹⁴For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. ¹⁵But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Jesus provides us both a theological framework for prayer and a quotable prayer that can be and is used for public prayer. Some evangelicals get squeamish at using a 'model' prayer for public purposes. I am convinced that Jesus gave us this prayer as an example to be prayed.

If you've heard any sermons on this passage, you can almost follow along point-by-point with how I understand this passage:

1. Jesus starts with focusing on and praying to the Father. I'm going to borrow from the Greek Interlinear at Scripture4All.org:

v9 "Thus then be praying (you): Father of us (THE) in the heavens let-be-holy(ized) the name of you"

You can already hear in this rendering a calmer, more casual voice. The praying is in the present tense. But the "holyizing" is Aorist Passive Imperfect. Aorist implies immediate action. Passive suggests that something other than the actions of the subject leads to the action...perhaps even other than the actions of the object. Imperfect connotes continuation of action/occurrence. This is the purpose of worship: that God's name will be made/kept holy as we understand our relationship to Him and as we honor him.

As I read this, it gives me the sense that we are called on to pray that God's essential character would shine through and cause his name to be made holy.

2. Jesus emphasizes the Father's pre-eminence over the universe. Jews often refer to God as the "Master of the Universe". This model prayer emphasizes both the arrival of God's Kingdom and the realization of God's Will:

v10 "Let be coming the kingdom of you; Let be-being-become the will of you as in heaven and on land"

The kingdom is arriving. But God's will is being brought into being or, if you will, being rendered/realized (greek ginomai). And the prayer asks that it not just occur in heaven (it WILL occur there) but also on the earth.

3. Jesus recognizes our temporal needs in this eternal cosmos. He instructs us to ask that our needs be met:

v11 "The bread of-us (the) on-being be-giving to-us today"

The word that gets transliterated "on-being" is epiousios. There is controversy regarding the specific meaning that dates back to early church days. Perhaps the best way to view it is as a measure of sufficiency. Then you might translate this verse "Give us this day sufficient bread for the day." This of course alludes to the manna (literally "what's this?") that God provided the Hebrews on their trek from Egypt to Ha'aretz Yisrael where they became Israelites. If you recall, they got upset at ONLY being provided with manna...they weren't satisfied with God's daily Providence. This verse suggests both asking for and expecting and accepting precisely what is necessary.

I think the most important part of this verse is that Jesus has us pray to the Father for daily needs. The emphasis is on needs, but it is also on every day. God desires to hear from us daily...about everyday things.

4. Not missing a beat, Jesus transitions from physical to spiritual necessities. The conjunction between these two verses suggests that they cannot be separated but MUST be seen as a single request:

v12 "And from-Let to-US the owes (debts) of-us as and/also we from-let to-the owers (debtors) of us." (the 'from-let' is translated 'forgive' in most English versions)

Which is worse? To go without bread or to owe something to a brother or for him to have owe us (either materially or spiritually)? We think of this in terms of sin and forgiveness. But the emphasis is on who owes and who is owed. The verse reminds us of the very memorable Parable of the Unforgiving Servant in Matthew 18:23-35.

We tend to mentally separate bread and debts. But if you consider the two together, you realize that it points to our interconnectedness with each other. As God provides for one...often in abundance...we are able to provide for another...acquiring the opportunity for obligation but never REQUIRING a return obligation. In God's economy, God's Providence overflows...and we are openhanded in receiving it, in sharing it, and in blindly allowing others to participate in our abundance.

In treating God's Providence to us with an open hand, our spirits align with his Spirit. He gives freely to us...and we give freely to others. He doesn't expect us to repay HIM for his Providence...neither should we expect others to repay our generosity. We should instead hope that generosity cascades into the lives of others and frees them to also be generous.

This is NOT a call for socialism by the way. Socialism is the expectation that others (presumably that have more) would see the benefit to themselves of being generous (to the less fortunate...or perhaps even to us). A Christian comes at it differently. Instead of expecting someone ELSE to "get it", when we put Jesus in charge it is up to US to "get it."

It is like standing under the shower of blessings and giddily inviting others in...splashing blessings onto them to bring them into the shower. If you ask of God and he blesses you...don't you see that as the source of blessing he is able to bless you more than he already has...and not just materially?

5. Jesus connects trials with deliverance from the evil one. This next verse gets translated "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." But follow the transliteration:

v13 "And no (not) you-may-be-into-carrying us into trial, but rescue us from the wicked one."

I think the way I would interpret that is something like this: "Don't just bring trial after trial on us, but deliver us from the one that thinks enough trials will break our spirit...don't let us be broken." You can't help but believe Jesus is thinking of Job's trial as he offers this phrase. And you get the feeling that it is more generic than simply temptation...any trial of life.

6. The prayer ends there, but Jesus provides his OWN commentary on forgiveness. The Greek text skips "For thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever, Amen." Jesus comments with the heavenly perspective:

v14 "If ever (conditional) for you-may-be-from-letting to the humans (anthropos) the beside-falls (offenses) of them, shall-be-from-letting and/also to you the father of you (in) heaven"

Very simply...your expectation that God will forgive YOUR sin should be based on your willingness to forgive others. You have no hope of forgiveness until you are willing to forgive others. In case we miss the obvious meaning, Jesus reconstructs the same verse using the negative condition in verse 15. "If you don't forgive others, the Father won't forgive you."

As I read through this, I am struck by its freshness. From depicting God as BOTH fatherly AND heavenly (radical) to basing forgiveness on the willingness to forgive, Jesus rewrites human expectations. And yet he does this in teaching us to pray...to beseech God. He is throwing out the old ways and introducing a new way...and yet you sense this was always the original way that God wanted it to be.

When we honestly approach God...no gamesmanship...I believe he thoroughly hears us. When we come to game rather than to let down our guard, I believe he still hears us, but it isn't the same. Again I think of the biblical comment about David: being a man after God's own heart. And then I think of Jesus's comment about Nathanael: "here is a man of no guile." These men somehow came before God with whole hearts...nothing kept to one side.

When we come to pray that way…no guile …no gamesmanship …according to the will of the Father …we really can expect God to answer. I don't even think we have to try to overspiritualize this. We can expect God to answer according to what we prayed.

So why are we so surprised when the hurricane dwindles just as we have prayed for it to do?

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The job I don't want...

Jen's parents live in Clear Lake just off the Gulf Freeway (I-45) between Houston and Galveston. If you have read the Drudge Report today you might have seen the exit before theirs on the way out of town. They are in the process of boarding their rear-facing windows (not enough lumber or time for the north-facing) and putting keepsakes and momentos into the car.

If you remember my post from August about making tough choices, it is strangely prophetic of what they are doing today: sorting through the house and choosing what will survive and what might be lost. Please pray for them and for the residents of the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast as another monster storm tests the character of our nation.

If you are like me, you want to pray this thing away. But where do you pray it to? Of course, the greatest hope is that the Gulf will cool overnight and that Rita will lose her fury. But if that doesn't happen, then what? I have friends all along the Gulf Coast from Corpus Christi to Alabama. To whom do I send a hurricane with my prayers? Away from Jen's parents? To Cheri's house in Corpus? Back to Roy's stomping grounds near New Orleans (potentially completely destroying that city?)

How should I pray?

The awesome fury of a storm brings us face to face with God's Majesty. It defies our human sensibilities to be able to judge and to choose and to allow some to suffer and some to die and some to be saved. We are not capable of deciding that. We shouldn't try. God's compassion should restrain us from desiring to choose one over the other.

This sentiment should apply to all of life. Favoritism is a tricky thing, and it must be avoided at all costs. We help those who need help without checking their religious creeds, their skin color, their ZAG (ZIP Code/Age/Gender), or even their righteousness. In doing that, we respond to the calamities of life exactly as they happen: treating everyone the same...just as calamity does. God allows the calamity...we help him respond with HIS OWN disaster recovery plan.

I posted that God had a disaster recovery plan that included a spiritual response to very specific needs of every single individual...that not one person would be forsaken by Heaven. I posted that prompted by God's Spirit, not just guessing. I am humbled as I read over and over and over again about the amazing outpouring for Katrina. Now Rita is upon us and we risk weariness in the working of righteousness.

May I offer this prayer for this situation:

O Master of the Storms, O God of the Winds:

You and you alone plot the path of the typhoon.
You know who will be stricken and who will be spared.
You can count the drops of rain in the deluge.
You can measure the electrons in a lightning bolt.

You know every person that is in harm's way
You carefully choose the path accordingly
Your plan for each is carefully considered
Each one gets an audience before your Throne

And as you ponder the fate of that person
That moment of attention ennobles him
That moment of consideration crowns her
And each one is made personal to you

You know of the child whose parents are lost
You comfort the mom whose newborn dies
You weep with the man who loses his wife
You shelter the family that loses their home

Nothing has ever escaped you
And nothing ever will
You can recount every story
Of your great compassion for mankind

We ask but one thing Almighty Lord
That you would reach out
With your strong right arm
And touch us with your right hand

That we would endure more struggle
That we would endure more suffering
That we would still reach to others
That we would minister renewal and revival

Our nation's greatest moment has come
As we respond to great devastation
And reach out our arms to our own nation
And it is now that we must not tire, O Lord!

In the precious name of Jesus
May it be as I have requested!


UPDATE: After 17 hours of driving, I understand my in-laws had reached the outskirts of Austin on US 290 (normally about a four-hour drive) and were nearing the home they are riding out the storm in. Pray for them as they try to calmly wait out a storm that continues to threaten their home in Clear Lake.

UPDATE 2: Rita is down to 125 MPH winds and has been downgraded from category 5 to category 3. Keep praying!!

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Oddly enough...

I needed to play with some ideas from work and the blog gave me a way to think through a lot of that. The result is that I am going to shorten the "blurb" on the main page and link to the article. If you leave the main page, you can use the browser "back" button or right click over the browser and select the "Back" option. The goal is to put a teaser on the main page AND to avoid overwhelming readers since I don't have an editor keeping me concise.

Well...as you can see...there is MORE text on this page than on the index page. Look for the 'left arrow' under the "File" menu to go back to the index.

UPDATE: I completed reformatting the Salt Mill back to the original post. You should be able to more easily glance at a month and find a specific post.

Then click "Go to full post..." to see that posts page. The goal is ease of reading and navigation. I'll continue to work on both. Notice that the title also links to the specific post's page as well.

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Business and busy-ness

I'm in the middle of a crunch at work that is mentally draining. The progress has been slow but good. I long to post, but I know I can't afford the mental attention that it requires. I apologize if you've made a habit of coming here regularly and have been disappointed.

I intend to finish the current work project by the end of this week. I may have time to post once or twice before then, but I doubt it. Having work that must be done is what I like to call "a good problem to have."

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Essay on human theology

My desire for all of the dispersed communities of faith--the Bride of Jesus--is that we seek for the unity that Jesus prayed for in his high priestly prayer in John 17. While I am sensitive to and appreciate the distinctiveness of certain, Bible-based traditions of fellowship, I also am grieved by the divisions within the Bride.

I honestly believe that any who call upon the name of Jesus (or...in more generic terms...seek deliverance/salvation from THE Supreme Being) will be heard based on the sincerity and truthfulness of their search. What happens next is between God and them. Perhaps God will accept their worship just as--according to the epistle to the Hebrews--he accepted the Law-based worship of the Jews before Jesus came: through the lens of hope for God to provide an eternal solution to sin when they could no longer sacrifice animals.

I specifically lift up Jesus Christ (and him crucified) precisely because I am instructed to do so by the Bible. I look for signs of faithful pronouncements of trust in God above all else and I HOPE for signs of trust in the blood of Jesus. I encourage an outright, PUBLIC statement of faith and continued living of a public life centered on Jesus Christ. Not showy....just in front of others.

But I won't sit on the Throne of Heaven and determine who is in and who is not. We know who does that, and we know that there is a sword coming from his mouth that splits asunder the flesh and the spirit...and he and he alone is worthy to judge.

If by God's grace he judges that ALL will be saved, I will rejoice with Jesus in that decision. If by God's grace the portrayal that Calvinist-leaning Baptists and Reformed most often use of a special portion...a remnant that is determined in advance...is all that is saved, I will rejoice with Jesus in that decision. If by God's grace the portrayal of the Arminians--everyone who WILL come of their own faith struggles because God is not WILLING that any should perish--then I will rejoice in that! I lean towards the Calvinistic view, but I don't preach it.

I trust God to figure it out. I feel led by him to not worry about it. I also feel led by him to live my faith--based on Biblical patterns of living and worship alone--aloud for the sake of others. I don't try to hide who I am and I try to emphasize precisely what we are asked to emphasize by the Bible.

The distinction between a "regenerated" person and an "unregenerated" person just doesn't get a lot of Bible time. The term "free will" seems notably absent as well. The concepts of "sacramentally administered grace" is especially difficult to find in my opinion. But coming as children and confession and repentance and faith gets a LOT of discussion. Election is there, but it seems to me to be a a matter of confirmation rather than a method of selection. We can TRUST in our membership in this body because God's intention puts us there and keeps us there.

We are confirmed as part of the elect because of who we put our visible faith in. I still firmly believe in God's sovereignty, though, so I personally read that the 'elect' is 'selected' from the beginning of the universe. As someone who leans towards Calvinism, I'm willing to be wrong on that doctrine. I don't view it as being of pre-eminent importance within the body of doctrine we are called on to preach and to teach. I even wonder if it is one of those Mysteries of God that we really shouldn't be tampering with or talking about at all.

Jesus didn't tell us to figure out who is and who isn't in the elect. He asked us to broadcast the seed onto all of the soil. He asked us to baptize and to disciple ALL who we can. He didn't write down his systematic theology. He LIVED it aloud.

This post is a call for a return to the simplicity and clarity of the Good News that Jesus lived for us. Eschew contentious religious debate among believers. Seek unity if at all possible. Let's be part of those who desire that the High Priestly prayer is fulfilled instead of seeking reasons to parse words and shade meanings and divide the Bride.

That's where Yancey's "What's So Amazing About Grace" really hit home for me. What's so amazing about grace is that God's grace never runs dry. More of it pours out every day and bubbles joyfully into our lives...all of our lives. I believe that just as the rain falls on the good and the bad, so God's grace affects everyone. In SPITE of the things we do wrong (but not to spite us), God rains down grace daily.

That isn't to say that everyone comes to a saving knowledge/faith in Jesus because of it, but what skin is it off of MY nose if God chose to save everyone? None. I'd be delighted if he found a way to do that without violating his character or our free will. Nay...I'd sing songs to him for ETERNITY if he did!! I have many unsaved friends...MANY. I want them to come to know Jesus as Lord and as Savior. I grieve that some might not.

That is the heart of Jesus in me loving HIS creation. It's the Father sending me to gather the bride for HIS son. It's the Spirit motivating me to emphasize love above all else. It's a God thing through and through.

I'll leave the Mysteries of God in God's hand until he chooses to fully explain them to me. I'll contentedly see through a glass dimly until then. I'll wait with GREAT expectation for the AH-HA!! surprise when we arrive at the wedding feast.

I won't be dour. I won't emphasize works. I won't add to the clear word of Scripture in order to feel smart or grown up in my faith. I'll be enTHUSiastic because THEOS is in me. And I'll pour out grace wherever I'm allowed to administer the Gospel to a dead and dying world.

Yes...sin is real...yes it must be confronted. Perhaps the only way to really appreciate God's grace in the final hour is to realize how much God has done and how little we do to achieve salvation.

But that's not the Gospel Jesus preached: "Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." (John 18:3 ESV). When I talk to my children about salvation, they don't mention sacraments or the Trinity or regeneration. They talk about God caring for us as his PRIMARY attribute.

For some reason...I agree with them.

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Jesus and Mary

My younger daughter is standing over my shoulder as I write this. I asked her for an idea to write about this morning. She suggested that I write about the relationship between Jesus and his mother Mary.

I asked her to tell me about Mary. She tells me that Mary was a nice girl, which we know is true because the Bible says she found favor with God. My daughter can relate to who Mary is because she knows that Mary was a daughter, too!! She didn't know that Mary was probably the age of our eldest son when the angel came to visit. She tells me that she thought Mary was older...fifteen or so.

According to my daughter, she had baby Jesus. I asked her how that happened, and she said that God decided, because Mary was nice, to give her baby Jesus (again, corroborated with Scripture because she found favor with God). And when he was born, Mary took care of him.

My older daughter is reminding us of Joseph, Jesus's earthly father...actually a step father, like I am to our eldest son. The girls understand this to a certain degree, but it is a little confusing, too. My elder daughter tells me that before the angel came to Mary, Joseph and Mary were planning to get married. (Both girls giggle at the tongue-twisting of talking about Mary marrying or Mary getting married.)

We read Luke 1 together, the section about the angel coming to Mary. We discussed the meaning of the various terms. And I asked them if they could think of anything that it was impossible for God to do. I told them about the irresistable force and immovable object paradox, and told them that it was just a word game to think about things that are impossible for God.

I told them that we shouldn't care about those kinds of word games, and then asked them what God really cared about. They answered, in unison, that God cares about us. The youngest is saying, as she reads me writing this, "Well, yeah!! He ALWAYS cares about us!" She also believes that God loves all of his creation and that God still loves Satan.

I asked them if Satan could be saved, and they answered no...that he is too mean. I empathize with that answer, but it makes you wonder why God is so patient with Satan, doesn't it?

They've now lost their focus on this and both have wandered off. During the time we talked, I also showed them some things about using the keyboard, and they told me their favorite ways for erasing mistakes. The elder will use the mouse to highlight and delete. The younger uses the backspace key.

I told them about typewriters and the eldest asked how we "deleted" mistakes with typewriters. I told them about White Out and then the IBM Selectric correction features--first the strike-over tape and then the lift-off tape. That led to talking about my two years repairing Selectric typewriters in the 1983-1985 timeframe...first in the San Bernardino area and then in College Station as I finished my Bachelor's degree.

It was fun to share this with them this Saturday morning. It reminds me that in spite of my knowledge of the trouble and evil in the world, that there are still innocents. Praise God for continually giving us innocence--in the form of children--to enjoy and to learn from!!

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Enormity and perspective

I think it is safe to compare my situation to what we're seeing in New Orleans and conclude that we--despite deep troubles--were kept from great harm by God's Grace.

That is, of course, humbling and it drowns out the somewhat smaller thoughts that I consider on a daily basis and that have been the content of the things I've written.

Things we can do to help:

1. Prayer. That is always the starting point for the believer. Always. But it is only the starting point.
2. Look for immediate impacts within your community of faith and within your neighborhood. God may have a divine appointment planned for you that is easy for you to keep.
3. Partner with an organization like the Red Cross, the SBC North American Mission Board, or Texas Baptist Men (BGCT affiliated) and find out what specific needs YOU can meet.
4. Allow God to soften your heart through the hurt and difficulty of others...allow him to call you to personal action. The book of James--of course--explains why action is a proof of faith.

Instead of going past those general guidelines, I'm going to challenge you to approach God and seek his will for YOU in this situation. Let me put it this way:

God has a disaster recovery plan for Hurricane Katrina. It will deal with both the physical and the spiritual devastation that we see...and it will go beyond what is visible to us. That plan is more comprehensive than the plan that the local authorities put together, in part because it was planned with full knowledge of the event and deep understanding of the souls that are impacted.

Now imagine God wakes you up tonight and asks you to fulfill a specific role within HIS disaster recovery plan for New Orleans. As I've pointed out, I believe God is the one that brings out a unique relationship between each individual and himself. Many times it is based on one very simple thing: whether you obey him when he whispers in a quiet voice. Will you heed the call to serve in a specific way? Can you determine in your heart--right now--to do that if asked?

I asked Jen to be on the lookout for a way for us to help. I don't know, yet, what we will do. But I hope to start this evening answering that question. And I hope we can choose to do something as a family TONIGHT that helps in some specific way...to take a first step towards the full picture of how we fit into God's plan in this situation.

P.S. I can only imagine the sense of humiliation and loss of security these people are facing. But I can imagine it much better now than I could five years ago. Praise God for continuing to teach me!

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