More Than Bread

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Be honest, there is at least a bit of our heart that sees the title, "I surrender..." and thinks, maybe I'll just pass this prayer by...get back into it tomorrow. Matthew 26 contains a prayer of surrender made by Jesus before he went to the cross. "Not my will, but your will be done." That was his prayer. But I love what the writer of Hebrews would later write, "For the joy set before him, Jesus endured the cross." For the joy set before him, Jesus surrendered control. Jesus surrendered his plan. Jesus surrendered his will. What if the greatest joy we can imagine begins with the words, "I surrender."? 

I'm sure I haven't studied them all, but of all of them that I have studied, I would say that every great move of God starts in a moment of surrender. That's our prayer today!

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Matthew 15 contains the prayer of an outsider. She doesn't have an inside track to Jesus. She's an outsider and as far as Jesus' disciples are concerned she's an  outcast. She knows it so when she comes to Jesus, she comes with the traditional words of a beggar. "Lord, have mercy on me." And she gets ignored and in some respects pushed back. She had to have wondered, at least for a moment if God cared. Maybe at some point you've described your prayer life with the words, "I feel ignored." What do you do then?

Well what this outsider did...led to Jesus amazed at her faith. This is a challenge to go from "does God care?" to amazing faith in our prayer life.

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If I could sum up in a single phrase what I want to leave you this episode; what I long for us to walk away certain of today, it's this: "God is a Father who loves you like only a father can love you." That's the most compelling point of what we know as "The Lord's Prayer." Jesus was born into a religious culture based on stories and images of the God who came to Moses in fire and smoke; the God who delivered them from Egypt with plagues and miracles; a God who was unapproachably mysterious and fearsomely holy. God was not the big buddy in the sky. God was  holy. He was not their buddy, He was their creator-king. 

Then Jesus comes along and calls God Father...and invites us to do the same. This is the foundational truth of prayer. When you pray...call Him Father!

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Malachi 3:10-12 is not a prayer, but it shapes a prayer that I've been praying for a few decades. "God open the floodgates of heaven and pour our your uncontainable blessings on your people!" But the prayer comes with a challenge from God. It wasn't a pray-more challenge, it was a generosity challenge. God basically said, "I dare you. I dare you to dare me. Be more generous and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room to contain it.”

As I was working on this episode, an old Keith Green song kept humming in my heart… "Make my life a prayer to you. I wanna do what you want me to. No empty words and no white lies; no token prayers no compromise." Make my life a prayer to you, it’s not just about my words, it’s about my life. Make my life a prayer to you. 
I wonder if sometimes our generosity is a prayer. 

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This episode is all about Jonah's prayer from the belly of a fish at the bottom of the sea. We could talk a bit about whether or not it was a whale or a big fish, or is it even a true story, I mean the science of a guy being swallowed by a whale is a little bit undeveloped, right? But if that’s what you are thinking you are missing the point. The point is not that it’s a whale; the point is that it’s a miracle. And our greatest “save me” prayers come when we need a miracle, right? We need a great God who is able to save. 

And I want to tell you. Our God is able…He is more than able. God is the Hero of our story. Remember that point from Daniel’s prayer? God is the hero of this story. And so we cry out in our darkness, in the pit of a whale at the bottom of the sea, "O God save me."

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Daniel (of Lion's Den fame) was an amazing man, but if we were to sit down with Daniel, he wouldn't have any time for our hero worship. He would simply say, "I'm sorry, but you missed the point. I tried to make it clear over and over again, but let me try again; God is the Hero of my story. God is the one who preserves young men from impurity and old men from lions. God is the hero of the story...which is a good thing. Because when the lions roar if all we have is Daniel's example, Daniel's instructions; if all we can do is call out for Daniel to save us, we are lost. 

What we need is Daniel's God. So let's pray to the hero of our story!

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Ezekiel’s vision and prayer conversation in Ezekiel 37 is about as close as the Old Testament gets to Easter. How do we pray for more life?  Perhaps it begins by understanding that resurrection is the work of a force outside of ourselves. I think we could all agree that in death I am helpless, out of control and unable to change my circumstances. I cannot resurrect myself. Ezekiel’s prayer session begins and ends with the Words of God, but it’s ending looks forward to Easter’s beginning, as  God says, "I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live... Then you shall know that I am the Lord."

God says I will do it and when I do it, you will know that I am God. If you are in a dry bones season, this prayer is for you!

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Isaiah 64 begins as a lament. It is a fight with God for more of God. But the lament becomes travailing prayer, as a sense of expectancy is added. We are covered in sin, wanting to do our own thing in our own time for our own glory, so God turns his back on us; gives us over to our sin. But when we lament; when we cry for his presence, something shifts. And yet, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, and you are the potter. Do you hear the shift?  Isaiah moves frm asking the nation-scaring God to rend the heavens with fearsome fireworks to now asking Father God to put his hands on our hearts and shape us in here.  

The picture of the Father as potter and his people as the clay breaks this lament wide-open. It's the New Covenant leaking into the Old Testement. It's a yada relationship. Rather than God bursting forth, God is invited in. That's a pray I want to pray! Father Potter, come!

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Did you ever feel like you were all alone?  Like nobody sees you or cares about  you.  Nobody wants to know you.  Nobody is paying attention to you. Psalm 139 is a psalm that resounds with this truth, "God is paying attention to you." God knows when we sit and when we stand. His eyes were on you yesterday when you sat down to take a break, and He knows your schedule; how busy you are, all the places you have to go and things you have to do. He's charted our path. He's familiar with all our ways.  He knows the hidden paths we walk; our unseen attitudes, and secret wishes.  He knows more about us than we do.  

And here is the most astounding, heart-filling truth, "the one who knows you best, loves you the most." That's yada. Let His yada shape your prayers.

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Psalm 77 is the heart cry of a person who is waiting for bad stuff to stop and good stuff to start. The first half of the Psalm is a lament, a cry to God to show up and show off. The psalmist is stuck in deep trouble. But there is a turning point. It doesn't come when the current circumstances change, that's what many of us are waiting for...insead it came when the perspective changed. Instead of looking at his circumstances, he started gazing upon and pondering his God.  He started to remember the works of God. And it led to gratitude.

When we become aware of the goodness and greatness of God, gratitude happens. And few things will change your heart, soul and mind while you are stuck in deep trouble, like gratitude! Today is a day to tell God thank you!