Tag: God

5 Ways to Know if You Pray Like a Consumerist…

Do you Pray like a Consumerist, and don’t know it? Many of us have slipped into a consumer mindset, and don’t realize it. (It’s a North AMerican speciality!) It could be hurting our spiritual growth.

Here are 5 questions to ask yourself to see if you may need some kind of revision in your communication with God.

 

busy day

 

You may be praying like a consumerist if…

1. Your praying resembles window-shopping, or a trip to the superstore with a credit card.

2. If you imagine God a bit like a waiter, or butler in the sky.

3. If bargaining or haggling seeps into your communication to God.

4. If waiting for answers to your prayer requests is just as awful, or feels eerily similar, to waiting in a long checkout line.

5. If your prayers tend to be mainly focused on you, and your concerns, and often do not include worship, praise, gratitude, or…and this is a big one…listening (because communication doesn’t consist of just talking).

If you answered “yes” to 2 or more of these questions, consider revising how you view and engage in prayer, and communication with your God: Creator and Redeemer.

The Takeaway– Prayer is communication.

It changes us because through it we may become more like our God, if we yield to God and allow him to work in our hearts. When God is the primary focus of our prayer life, more growth is possible. And like I mentioned, this involves both speaking and listening to him.

(For a new way to engage in prayer using Scripture, and a focus on listening to God, do a search here for Lectio Divina.)

Thanks for reading!

Leave your responses. Was there ever a time when you prayed like a consumerist?

Free Book- "Embracing Soul Care: Making Space for What Matters Most" by Stephen W. Smith

Book excerpt from page 129: “[A walk with God]…is an encounter and experience when we become aware of his presence, and this experience reminds us that we are not alone, that “God is with us.” The movement from being alone to be being with God is a life-giving step in soul care.”  

This goodie this month is a book give-away available to visitors from now until the end of September. To be eligible, simply leave a comment below stating your interest. One recipient will be picked at random. (Detailed book information below.)

"Embracing Soul Care" book image

(info from Barnes & Nobles dot com)

Synopsis

 

We live in a high-maintenance world; cars, homes, computers, and even relationships need continual attention. But what about our souls, the center of our selves where our passions, gifts, and individuality unite? Do we ever consider what it means to care for our souls? In a world where the quick fix and instant gratifications are many people’s most immediate focus, author Steve Smith invites the reader to focus on what truly matters most; the lifelong process of nurturing our souls by focusing on relationships, spiritual and personal growth and healing, and living out God’s purpose for our lives. Step off the hamster wheel of endless activity and purposeless action to find a deeper sense of self and spiritual transformation. Foreword by Dr. Gary Chapman.

 

Publishers Weekly

Smith, a confessed former workaholic, introduces readers to the unique joy of caring for the soul, which he says “contains the deepest part of who we are.” This founder of the Potter’s Inn Ministry, which helps people experience soul transformation, shares his wealth of knowledge about the soul in 92 brief chapters presented in 13 sections that address issues such as soul identity, soul formation and threats to the soul. Each chapter includes several questions to help readers address their own soul struggles. Smith certainly covers all the bases of the soul, but one wishes for more depth. Staccato chapters whet the appetite for deeper exploration, but Smith moves on quickly to new topics. The book, however, does bring important issues to light. He speaks often of the need for those who believe in God to slow down; he urges readers to use their senses to nurture the soul and highlights the importance of companionship on the soul journey. Studying the soul, he says, “is an incomparable journey to explore the depths and heights of the soul, for we travel the contours of a holy land.” (June) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

 

Biography

 

The founder of The Potter’s Inn, Stephen W. Smith has been involved in Christian ministry for more than twenty-five years. He and his wife, Gwen, are frequent speakers and retreat leaders who focus on the spiritual growth and transformation of individuals, couples, churches, and organizations.

"Is God Knowable?" (Response to reader)

Can we know God?

The easy answer would be to come out right away and say, “Yes!”

But, I won’t. I think the more honest answer is, “Yes and no.”

For one thing we can’t even know people that well. We can live with a spouse, or family member for years, and still find out new things about them, time and again. People are deep wells of information, experiences, natures, and characters… but through time and devotion, we can get to know them…. We never know them completely. What I mean is, we become thoroughly familiar with those we’ve spent plenty of time with, but it is naive to say we know them fully. 

BUT- what about God? God is SO different, right? He is UNFATHOMABLE. He created everything, and is everywhere, all-knowing, all-powerful, so says the Bible, right? How can we REALLY REALLY possibly KNOW him, right? He is beyond language. Correct? Well, the short answer is “yes, kind of.” 

God made it possible for us to have an amazing book in our reach called the Bible which talks all about him. It can’t capture him fully with words, but the narrative that runs like a river through the whole council of the Bible can loosely give a good contour of the Supreme Being that is all at once Almighty God, Father, Savior, Friend, and much more. We can’t sketch a sunset with pencil, but we can get some shapes down. We can’t use words to describe what tasting coffee is truly like, but with words, we can outline a bit what the aroma is like, and how good a warm cup tastes and feels when it is drank. One can imagine well what it is REALLY like based on a word description. So too with God. The reality of him can be known, but not fully grasped. He is knowable, but not fully comprehendible. It is limited knowledge, but entirely useful.

Let us not dismiss some of our best ways to encounter God by calling them shoddy when we use and trust language for so much else. It is on the basis of language, words, and propositions, that we first encounter all our initial ideas before they are incorporated into our lives. They are a starting point, not the end all be all to knowing God. Like any complex relationship, knowing God involves invests of time and devotion, not just mere research.

Do you know God? How have you encountered him? Feel free to leave your comments.

Afraid of God

normal_FrightenedLady001 I was speaking with “Gwen” not that long ago, and she was telling me about an emotional subject. The words, “Oh my God” escaped her lips. She stopped. She looked around, and then with a look I would have to describe as panicked, she said, “I’m so sorry. I know God doesn’t like if I do that.”

I didn’t want to make anything of it, so I encouraged her to continue her story, but later I starting thinking about what happened. She was feeling afraid. It was fear she felt toward God when she apologized. 

 

Because God made us as relational beings, I wonder if we need to do better than being afraid of God. I know as a parent, I want to love my children and have them love me, not fear me. I want them them to respond to me and with me, not just respond out of fear of something happening to them. I enjoy my place as parent, rather than their peer. I do want honor and respect, and I try to offer that to them. But, if they operate in a way where they look over their shoulder every time they do something, I think I sense I have failed in some major way in relating to them, and parenting them. I will not have established a relationship of trust, and healthy love and caring.

I wonder if Gwen will feel close enough to God to feel unafraid one day. I wonder if she will feel he loves her dearly, and knows all about her, and still loves her just exactly the same. The fear comes from her own expectations, and probably what she has been told about God, but not God’s nature, and what God desires for her. He wants closeness, intimacy, and free reciprocal communication. He doesn’t want a cowering servant, always afraid to do or say the wrong thing that may displease him. Pagan gods were temperamental, but in contrast, Yahweh was and is not. I think the God image in her mind might look close to the dad she had, or some authority figure. But, the Lover of her soul, cares for her so deeply it would blow her mind.

Have you been afraid of God? Do you know someone who is? What has been the effect?

Response to Reader (New Age)

Delta asks:

I brought up the subject of Lectio Divina to my friend, thinking that we could use it together. Once a week we meet as prayer partners, and I thought this practice could be a really neat way to begin our time together. When I mentioned it, she hesitated and said it sounded like “New Age” stuff to her, not Christian, and it wasn’t in the Bible. She seemed really reluctant to give it a chance. What should I say to her, or should I let it go?

Lisa’s response:

The name “Lectio Divina” might do some of the scaring for your friend, but really the “Our Daily Bread” devotional is set up quite similarly to the basic movements of L.D. read, meditate, pray, rest/listen (or dwell/abide/apply) If it was just called “Reading with focused prayer”, maybe no one would care. The tradition of L. D. goes back to very early church times when the first manuscripts of scripture were made available, and Christians could read them out loud and ponder them, pray on them to God, and rest in God.

The nice fit for Evangelicals, for instance, as the major focus is on the Scripture, which Evangelicals LOVE. It puts the Bible in prominence for prayer, worship, and hearing from God. Meditation is Christian (of Yahweh). Personally, as someone in the Christian tradition, I refuse to let other religious/or spiritual sects rob me of what God has given us to grow, and adore and worship him. I think we are cheated to section off practices, used by other groups for other purposes, when they are there to use for our own loving of God. He is the object of our praise. He is our glory. The Christian tradition is rich with meaningful spiritual practices that may be less than cut and dry, or formulaic, but it doesn’t mean God hasn’t and doesn’t use them powerfully to change us into his likeness. The unfamiliar here is only unfamiliar to some, in our current culture and time. 

To be clear, I don’t submit that L.D. and contemplative ways, are a WAY to God, only one of many tools, or vehicles, available to ready our hearts for His good work.

The Contemplative part (movement 4) may be the hardest to understand for your friend, (i.e. most unfamiliar) because it’s more common in the Catholic tradition. Again, some like to think, and reason all spiritual actions out, and figure out the formula of it all. If it’s just being, and resting, enjoying God and listening…how can it be “working”? Where’s the doing part? What good could it REALLY be? So, I like to explain it as resting, and yielding to God. We learn our place. He is God, we are not. We are dependent on Him. We don’t have to *do*. That is the whole point. When we complete this discipline this way, the reorientation can be quite beneficial.

Should you bring it up again? Probably not if it’s a big stumbling block for her. I suggest you enjoy God privately with this enriching practice, and if you would really like to engage L. D. with another, send them here to learn about it, (do a search here for more on the topic) or explain it in terms that they might be more comfortable with, such as “Scripture Reading and Focused Prayer.” May God Bless you as you strive to walk closer to him.