students of jesus

Just because I can cite the Lord’s Prayer from memory doesn’t mean I understand it. But still I pray. And sometimes, after years of repetition, a small bulb sparks to life with new light. It’s slow, but it’s progress; and I have a very patient teacher. Apparently some lessons are so deep they take years to sink in.

As I understand it, Jesus gave us a pattern: our prayers should be adoration followed by four requests: the in-breaking of God’s kingdom; daily provision; the grace to forgive; and guidance that keeps us from evil. (You may see it differently—in fact, I must confess that I’m no expert on prayer, merely a fellow-traveler.)

Here are a few notes from my (admittedly inadequate) prayer life:

Hallowed be your name: we start with praise and adoration because it’s important to understand who’s God and who’s not. Does the Father need our counsel or direction? Do we know our circumstances better than he? Yet, when I dive straight into my requests it’s easy to engage in a subtle role-reversal. One side effect of prayer is sanity, and the beginning of sanity is to recognize that he is God and I am not. We hallow his name not because he needs the praise but because we need to see him for who he is.

Your Kingdom come, your will be done: just because we take a breath between phrases doesn’t mean there are two requests. His kingdom is made real whenever his will is done, whether up there or down here. I need to be reminded that his kingdom is breaking into the here-and now, and that I am the agent of this in-breaking. These words are not a passive recognition that God will do whatever he wants, they are my way of joining him fresh each day; it is a commitment to seek out and join the Divine plan. It is not in any sense surrender, it is the highest form of volunteering. When we pray the pattern Jesus gave us, we should consider: who will hallow his name or who will do his will?

Our daily bread: “Don’t worry about this, God—I’ve got it covered” Who in their right mind would say this? But honestly, now: if you live in North America, when’s the last time you asked God for today’s food? If I’m brutally honest, I usually don’t worry about my next meal. (Now, money I worry about—but is that what Jesus is telling us to ask for?)

Forgive us our debts: I dunno. Jesus is pretty sneaky: what if our daily bread is actually the grace to forgive each and every day? Can you imagine how your world would change if you were supernaturally assisted in daily forgiveness? Your spouse, your kids, your co-workers, and even that jerk who “deserves” everything he gets: we could change the world one forgiving act at a time.

Lead us not into temptation: I’ll be honest, if I’m praying hard I usually get tired before I get to this one. In fact: I’m exhausted just writing this post, so I’ll let the Calvinists and Arminians duke this one out on their own.

For Thine is the Kingdom, the power, and the glory . . . You realize, of course, this was added to the prayer later on, don’t you? How would your prayer life change if you simply told God what you tell your friends: “I’ll see you later.”

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As the Prodigal son returned home he prepared a dreadful speech. He no longer wanted to be known as a son. He wanted to live among the servants. He wanted to earn his wage. But sometimes the most gracious thing Grace can do is refuse to listen, so the Father ignored the speech and interrupted his son by calling for new clothes, the family ring, and lavish feast. The prodigal son never got to the end of that speech.

God’s grace won’t allow anyone to speak ill of the family—not even the family members themselves. Grace turns a deaf ear to our self-pity and offers us a banquet of joy. Grace is far too kind a host to turn the conversation to what we deserve. If someone else brings up the topic grace will certainly change the subject.

Grace doesn’t kill the buzz. Grace doesn’t leverage the past in order to get what it wants in the future. Grace does more than live in the moment: it is the moment. It fills every glass and raises a toast to the days ahead. Grace creates a welcome the prodigal will never forget.

And yet grace is not some second-hand Greek god of wine, all celebration and no reflection. Grace is patient and wise in ways we do not expect. Grace is well aware of the years to come, the wounds to mend, and the work of rebuilding a life in the Father’s house. After the welcome, after the tears, and when the fancy dishes are put away the deep work of grace begins: learning from past and shaping the future. There is a time to hear about the days gone by, and when that time comes grace is good listener. The right time could take weeks or months to surface. It could be over quiet morning coffee or after the children fall asleep. Grace waits for the moment. Grace asks gentle questions, and grace redeems the past.

Grace is no mere metaphor: consider the hateful, murderous heart of a man named Saul, who attacked the church of Jesus, imprisoned followers of Christ, and lived a life of religious violence, all in the name of God. Years after the God of grace confronted him on that Damascus road, he spoke of the present and his past:

I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. (1 Corinthians 15:9-10)

Grace worked powerfully in the life of the Apostle Paul. He reflected on what he had done and who he had been. The result of grace-filled reflection was not a past ignored but a life redeemed.

This is the way of grace: she allows her guests to choose when and how they will speak of their past. After the shame has subsided and the fear has turned to mist, grace allows us to tell the truth about our past. It transforms secrets into stories of hope. In the quiet moments of grace, you may find your hope buried in the rubble of the past. Grace will listen, and you will learn.

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Over at YouTube I've launched a Students of Jesus channel.

The latest upload is a 90-second reflection "The Essence of Christian Leadership":

Since this is a brand new effort, I'm looking for feedback: yours is welcome!

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How about something completely random today? Here, like marbles across the floor, are 17 observations, without any unifying theme. All of them are from Matthew’s gospel, chapter 13. It’s one of my favorite gospel chapters, perhaps because it’s perfect for our modern brand of ADHD spirituality.

Jesus shared parables of the Kingdom of Heaven. We listen; the joy is in the discovery. Grab your Bible. It could take five minutes or we could spend an hour.

Verses 3-9: Why do so many people presume that an equal amount of seed fell on all four types of soil? Wouldn’t it make more sense that a tiny amount fell on the hardened path, and that lots and lots fell into stony or thorn-infested soil?

Verse 11: The secrets of the kingdom are given to disciples, not casual listeners. Really?—Would God actually conceal things?

Verse 12: Not only would he conceal things, he apparently entrusts treasures to those who have demonstrated that they will take care of them.

Verse 16: Yet he tells the disciples they are blessed beyond the prophets and “righteous.” He’s lavish with those who are following hard after him.

Verse 19: “Anyone” can mean me, too.

Verse 23: I remember Derek Prince pointed out that thirty and sixty-fold add up to ninety. He said the hundred-fold dimension is a kind of fruitfulness that exceeds the other two combined. After 30+ years I’m still not sure what Derek meant.

Verse 27: Why does everyone require the Master to explain himself? The implication is that it’s his fault. I wonder if I do that: do I demand that God explain why things go wrong?

Verse 29: Even in the presence of evil, God cares about the harvest. The wickedness of others doesn't throw God off his game.

Verses 31- 33: Jesus used little tiny “bookend parables.” Not everything has to be L-O-N-G.

Verse 36: People who hang around after the crowds go home usually get something extra. What’s my hurry?

Verses 44 & 45: Two more bookends. These are strikingly different. One guy finds the treasure, presumably by accident; the other guy has been purposefully looking for that one pearl. One guy recognizes what anyone can see—treasure. The other guy has trained himself to recognize something rare and precious. Both sell everything they have. Would I sell everything?

Verse 46: For the sixth time, “the kingdom of heaven is like . . .” Jesus is using images, not allegories. Where did these images come from? Well, what do you think he was doing those first 30 years of this life?

Verse 49: For the second time, “so it will be at the end of the age.” True, the Kingdom of Heaven is breaking into the here-and-now, but it is also about the end of the age. Do I live my life with the “end of the age” in mind?

Verse 51: Breathtaking! They answered, “Yes.”

Verse 52: Good news--we can be “trained in the Kingdom.” There’s hope for anyone who wants to be his student.

Verse 53: This should be the end of chapter 13. When Langton divided the scripture into chapters in the 13th century he got this one wrong.

Verse 53 (again): When you’re finished, it’s time to leave.

(Bonus observation, not counted in the 17: When Jesus uses the phrase "Kingdom of Heaven" don't think for a minute that he's talking about heaven as in "Go to Heaven when you die." He's not!)

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It turns out the serpent was right, which makes him the worst kind of liar. You remember the scene played out in the garden that provided seed for all creation: the serpent said, “You will not die; God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” It was all true.

But it was all beside the point.

This is the most dangerous kind of lie: misdirection. By the time the angel took up a flaming sword to guard Eden’s entrance, we began to see that the issue was fruit: God was concerned with the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil.

Generations later we’ve discovered that it’s precisely because we will not die that the fruit was so dangerous. It’s precisely because we would become like God that the fruit carried such power. God’s imagination reached beyond ours: imagine people who know the difference between good and evil, a people who judge everything they see, a people without the necessary love to temper such knowledge. We became beings filled with judgment and enmity forever and ever.

The fruit of knowing good from evil is that we really do become like God—and we think we are entitled to judge the world.

Generations later a repentant know-it-all named Paul or Tarsus tried to warn us: “knowledge puff up, but love builds up.” It turns out having a big intellect is no defense against having a small mind, or worse: a heart without the love of God.

The result—the fruit—of knowing good from evil is that we feel empowered and authorized to judge others. And who can withstand our judgment? We are correct! Only later, when the wheat is separated from the tares, do we realize that being right was never the goal. We were called to love. And indeed we have loved: we have loved knowledge, and the feeling of power it brings, more than we have loved God or our neighbors.

And love, as it so often happens, is the issue. Only love can temper knowledge. Only love volunteers to take judgment upon Itself. Only love has the maturity to handle the awful burden of certainty. The Creator wanted first to nurture in us the quality of his character (“God is love”) before allowing us to know good and evil. Only love can hold knowledge. Only love protects us from becoming the very monsters we feel privileged to destroy. The difference between knowledge and love is the difference between inflation and substance, between a hollow core and a hallowed heart.

It turns out God is many things and we can “be like him” in many ways. But the wise and loving Father knew that love is the first and ultimate calling if we desire to be like him. Perhaps grace second, maybe service third, and somewhere way down the line, knowledge.

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