Monthly Archives: July 2012

Lessons in Floating

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Last Year – When I was here at the beautiful Adriatic Sea last year, the Holy Spirit told me to go for a swim.  I loved the beach when I was a kid—what kid doesn’t?  But as an adult, I had come to associate the sea with many discomforts: the itchy feeling of salt water dried on the skin, oily sunscreen crusted with sand, fair skin that burns despite the use of sunscreen SPF 45, the sand that gets into places it shouldn’t, and a body that’s white and lumpy and looks better clothed than in a swimsuit—intense body shame.  So it was with all that beach-hating baggage that the Holy Spirit told me to take a swim.

Despite my bags and baggage, I did take a swim.  Leaving my glasses on top of my towel, I walked toward the water.  I saw something washed up on the beach that looked like a dead jellyfish.  I’ve been stung by jellyfish.  It’s like being stung by an electric wasp—definitely an experience I don’t want to ever have again.  But instead of turning back, I just laughed.  If God wants me to swim, then He has a purpose.  “Besides,” I told myself, “it was probably just a plastic bag from somebody’s beach lunch.”

I had decided that my act of obedience meant that I should get completely wet.  So I got about waist-deep, then dove into the waves.  After paddling around for a few minutes, I thought that I was finished.  But the Holy Spirit told me: “Lay back.”  I did, and discovered something wonderful: I float like a cork!  I am so buoyant that I can even float with my head above the water, toes above the water, and bottom down.  But laying back with my ears under the water was incredibly peaceful, and little by little I felt my limbs release their muscular tension.

I took that first swim fully clothed because I didn’t have my swimsuit with me.  I understood that swimming would be something I should do every day while I was here, so I knew I needed to buy a swimsuit.  The only thing I’ve hated more than the beach is buying a swimsuit.  The last one I bought online, and it covered so much of me that it was almost a throwback to the old swimsuits they used in the early 1900’s.  I knew that if I thought too much about it, I would talk myself out of buying one, so I just plunged into a swim shop and bought one.  It’s not bad looking.

A few days after that first swim the wind kicked up, bringing bigger waves.  Thanks to a breakwater, the big waves are tamed into choppy little wavelets before they reach the swimming area by the beach.  During my floating session that day, God (who had never repeated Himself to me before) told me: “Relax!  Relax!  Relax!”  And the little wavelets shook each limb with a different rhythm and out of synch with one another.  It reminded me of a Lamaze exercise in which your coach takes an arm and your teacher takes the opposite leg and they shake them in differing rhythms.  You are supposed to practice releasing the tension in those muscles and all the others in between.  And that memory tickled me so much that I laughed out loud—and a more profound relaxation followed.  God has the greatest sense of humor!

The lesson in physically relaxing taught me to relax when I’m worried about things going wrong.  Without going into detail (which you can read about in my book “Look, Listen, Love,” available from http://www.lulu.com/), I learned that I can relax and let God work out the things that I have no control over.  And when I do really relax and release those worries, God not only works things out, but blesses me in unexpected ways.  And one of those things, you can read about in my blog post: https://europeanfaithmissions.wordpress.com/2012/06/17/god-meets-radical-faith-with-radical-provision/.

This Year – I have returned to the beach, bringing two very dear friends with me.  The three of us have gone to the beach each day, floating and swimming, talking and laughing, praying and praising our Heavenly Father.

A lesson that God has been teaching me recently is to let go of the past—particularly past offenses and betrayals, but also past mistakes or bad choices that I need to forgive myself.  I have been working on it, releasing those people and things to God, forgiving and letting them go.  But every once in a while, the memory of these things comes to mind, robbing me of my focus and trying to rob my peace.  Whenever this happens, I try to release the memory as quickly as possible.

While floating yesterday, the Holy Spirit told me that, just as I had learned to relax my worries into God’s hands, I also need to relax my memories into His hands.  And lying there on the bosom of the sea, I did exactly that.

This morning during my prayer time, once again I found my attention wandering to a painful event.  Immediately, I said, “Let it go!  Let it go!  Let it go!” and I released the memory and returned my focus to God, my Peace.

When it comes to relaxing my grip on those memories, would it be wrong to say that I’m working on it?  I’m grateful that God is a patient Teacher.  God is good!

Rebel No More

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Greetings from southern Italy!

Last night I was walking past a shop selling tourist stuff and they had a Confederate Rebel flag (Dixie) out there for sale.  So I went in and talked to the owners of the shop.  I told them about the hateful symbol that it is for Americans, especially for black Americans.  I told them that I know it is not part of their culture, and that is why I had stopped to explain to them what it means to Americans.  They said that they just liked the way the flag looked.

I find the Dixie flag offensive because it is a symbol of the enslavement of an entire race of people—people who were kidnapped from their homelands.  Slavery is wrong, and I believe that it is demonic.  Take human trafficking, for example.  How is the historic enslavement of the African people any different from human trafficking today?  I believe that the answer is that it is not.  Yes, human trafficking involves prostitution, but African women were also frequently used for sex by their white masters.  Besides, prostitution is by no means the only form that human trafficking takes.  There are people working in slavery all around the world that you never see because the majority of them are kept hidden.

The facts of the American Civil War are history—ancient history to this generation of Americans.  Many people wonder why that flag is so controversial, and say that we should simply get over it because it is an historical fact.  I think that the people who don’t have a problem with the Dixie flag need to ask themselves if they also have no problem with the Nazi flag.  If they also see nothing wrong with the Nazi flag, then they are clearly racists who are more interested in spreading hatred than understanding.

Obviously, we all need to get past old offenses and get on with the business of life in the 22nd century.  But some wounds run very deep.  They need the patient understanding and need a sensitive and considered approach.  The government has debated making reparations and apologizing for slavery.  I don’t know how you can possibly repay for such a terrible offense, but something would be better than nothing.  Did they ever do anything in the end?  I don’t know.

But here’s what I do know:  today I walked past that same shop, and in place of the Rebel flag was an American flag.  I turned to my friends and said, “Now these are good people here!”  I knew all along that they probably just didn’t know what the flag symbolized.  God is good, and He puts good people in my path.

The Panic in Their Eyes

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I don’t think of myself as a scary or intimidating person.  But with one word I can strike terror into the hearts of people in many countries throughout Europe.  And it doesn’t matter what that word is or what language it’s in.

Last evening was a perfect example: I was having dinner in the hotel restaurant here in Budapest.  Like most hotels and hotel restaurants in cities throughout Europe, the staff speak English—at least enough to do their jobs.  The restaurant was empty for a while, so it was just me and the two waiters.  One waiter, let’s call him Neo, had served me coffee earlier in the afternoon.  He spoke excellent English.

The other waiter had seated me then skittered off and busied himself with the task of removing one fork from each place setting on each table.  When Neo emerged from the kitchen the frightened waiter whispered something to him.  Neo came to give me a menu, then joined the other man in the task of fork removal.  I quickly made my choice and then watched as both men worked their way closer and closer to me.  The frightened waiter worked his way to me, skipping my table and moving on without once looking directly at me.  Neo, seeing that my menu was closed, came and took my order.

The thing I had done to so frighten the other waiter was this: I spoke English.  The poor man was terrified that I might speak to him in English.  I have seen this reaction many times in Italy.  I am fluent in Italian.  But even if I speak Italian, many times people will panic when they hear my English-accented Italian, fearing that I will switch to English.

And guess who is the most frightened of all: my own English students.  Some students who stopped coming to me for English lessons years ago will get that look of terror in their eyes when they see me enter a room.  When (if) they speak to me, they will speak only Italian.  Some won’t risk speaking to me at all.  In non-classroom settings, I have never insisted that my students speak English with me.  I prefer my social interactions to be relaxed and stress-free.  But most of them have never given me the chance to tell them that—in any language.

That’s not to say that all my English students are afraid of speaking English.  Many brave souls will speak English with me.  A few will actually seek me out for English conversation.  But those lazy ones who didn’t want to study, instead wishing that I would just open their skulls and pour the language inside.  Or maybe they want me to find the USB port in their brains and download the English language file.  Sorry to say, it simply doesn’t work that way.

One time I saw that terror reaction from one word to an American boy in his early 20’s.  He was sitting beside me in an airport restaurant in the US.  He asked where I was going, and I said, “Milan.”  He asked what I do there.  At the word “missionary” I thought he was going to throw up.  He quickly finished, paid, and left.  I’m not going to speculate on why he had that extreme reaction, but I do pray for him from time to time.

Then today at lunch the tables were turned on me.  I had ordered in English, and so enjoyed my lunch (chanterelle mushroom soup—yum!) that when the waiter took my plate and asked how I liked it, I answered one of the dozen or so Hungarian words I know: finom (delicious).  He answered something in Hungarian.  And every time he came back, he spoke to me in Hungarian.

When the frightened waiter from last night came to start his shift, my lunch waiter whispered something to him.  Now I was the one with the terrified look.  Here’s how my imagination translated that whispered sentence: “You’re wrong, Laszlo, she does speak Hungarian!  She’s been holding out on us!”

Mourning—The Second Time Around

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Grief is a process, and not an easy one.  This morning I learned that my father-in-law died.  This is the second time I’ve mourned his loss.  And I can tell you that it hurts just as badly the second time.

Let me explain: I was divorced in 2008.  I noted at that time that divorce is like a death in the family—multiple deaths in my case, since my ex-husband’s family has been cut off from all contact with me.  We had been married 33 years—all my adult life.  I had embraced my husband’s family and loved them as my own, so losing them made divorce all the more painful.  At that time I mourned the loss of each member of his family, including my father-in-law.  Now I ache at the thought of how these people I loved (in truth still love) are suffering the loss of this sweet man.  But they are as dead to me as he is, and that makes it very hard to endure.

My sons, although grown at the time of the divorce, have been caught in the middle.  We are all doing our best to learn how to live with the fact of divorce.  They’ve been told not to talk to me about my ex or any of his family.  At first, I had also asked them not to talk to their dad or his family about me.  But when I saw the difficult position it had put them in, I relented.  It has been said that to truly love, you’ve got to be willing to be vulnerable.  For my sons, I am willing to be vulnerable.  I would rather suffer than cause my sons to suffer.  But I can’t do anything about what they’re going through now.  I can only stand by and watch them in their pain.

When my younger son called this past winter to tell me of his dad’s impending heart surgery, I could only listen sympathetically.  His voice was constricted with pain at the possibility of losing his dad.  At the same time there was another worry: he told me that he had gotten his dad’s permission to call me only after promising to make me promise not to try and contact his family.  Of course I assured him that I wouldn’t try to contact any of them, while also trying to reassure him that his dad would be fine (which he was).

But there’s more to my pain than all this: I was the one who initiated divorce proceedings.  That’s a fact that I don’t share with everyone because Christians can be very judgmental about the issue of divorce.  My sons know that I divorced their dad, and not the other way around.  No doubt his family all know that, too.  At times like this I sometimes wonder: if I had known the pain it would cause my sons, would I still have divorced their dad?  But I know the answer.  I had to divorce him.  Knowing that doesn’t make all this any easier.  This is the path I’ve got to walk, and unfortunately my sons share the suffering.

Most of the time I live my life in the present, facing the future, and busily focusing on the tasks God has for me this day.  But when something like this comes it’s an emotional blast from the past—in the explosive sense.  And the pain, self-doubt, and loss are fresh and new.  And yet in the midst of all the suffering (mine, my sons’, my ex-family’s), I know that God is good.

A Heartbreakingly Beautiful Girl

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When Clara (the pastor’s wife and my hostess) tells me the ugly truths about life in Romania her voice and face are drained of all emotion, while mine are breaking up from emotions that can’t be contained.  That is how she told me about Sandy.  Clara and Leo have four children, and care for two other girls.  I had met one of them, Ruth, last year.  Ruth’s parents left her with her grandmother while they were divorcing.  When each parent re-married, neither wanted Ruth, so she stayed with her grandmother until the grandmother’s death.  At the time of the grandmother’s death, Ruth was six years old, and both parents had children with their new spouses.  Clara and Leo took her in.  The parents visit Ruth periodically, but Clara and Leo have legal guardianship of her.

When I heard Ruth’s story last year, I wondered how heartless people could be toward their own child—until this morning when I heard Sandy’s story.  Clara and Leo took Sandy into their home on weekends two years ago after her mother died and her father left her with her grandmother.  Clara asked about the mother’s death and learned that she had been forced into prostitution by her husband, and had died after a few years.  She didn’t say what she had died of, but considering all the risks of prostitution it could be anything:  AIDS or another STD, a drug overdose, murder, or suicide.  Clara didn’t say, but it really doesn’t matter, it was a result of prostitution.

When she saw the look on my face, Clara said, “I don’t know if he tried to get work or just wanted the easy way.”  I marveled at her refusal to judge a man who had prostituted the mother of his children.  She went on to tell me that the grandmother is in poor health, and that Sandy has a handicapped brother, so she helps them after school, but stays with Clara and Leo on the weekends so that she can go to church and have a chance to be a kid.  Knowing Clara the way I do, she probably also gives the grandmother money to help buy groceries and pay the bills.

But I wasn’t prepared for what came next.  Clara told me that she worries about Sandy’s dad returning to take her and sell her into prostitution because she’s tall and pretty like her mother was.  Sandy is twelve years old.

Again my face betrayed me.  Clara shrugged and said, “This is a common story in Romania.”  She said that some of the older girls from church send her notes, asking her and Leo to pray for them.  They respond to advertisements for well-paying summer jobs in Budapest, and go with their parents’ blessing.  Then when they arrive they learn that the work is prostitution.  Too ashamed to tell their parents, they work as prostitutes for the summer, then come back home with much-needed money for the family, and resume normal life as a student.  The notes always end the same way: begging Clara and Leo not to tell their parents.

Last year I had asked Clara about the issue of human trafficking.  I had heard that Romania is one of the places where the women enslaved into prostitution come from.  She told me about a little girl from their little city, Biberon: Christina was a pretty little blonde with blue eyes who her daughter, Elizabeth, knew from school.  One day Christina was walking home from school with a friend.  Just two blocks from home a man in a car pulled up to the curb and with urgency in his voice said to Christina, “Hurry! Get in the car!  Your mother sent me to get you!”  She got into the car and has never been seen or heard from again.  Christina’s friend hadn’t thought to notice anything about the man or his car because she had also believed his story.  This happened two years ago, when Christina was only ten years old.  Most likely Christina has been raped, beaten, and trafficked to a country in Western Europe because she doesn’t need a passport to move about within the European Union.

Human trafficking is a multi-billion dollar a year industry, and slavery is illegal in virtually every country in the world.  There are estimated to be more slaves today than in all the years of human history added together.  And if you think it’s not happening where you live, think again.  Check out your hometown on the slavery map:  http://www.notforsalecampaign.org/.  To read more about human trafficking, see: http://humantrafficking.org/.

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”  Edmund Burke

Getting Over Myself

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One of the hardest things to do when I pray, especially Centering Prayer, is getting over myself.  I wrote about Centering Prayer (also called Contemplative Prayer or Christian Meditation) in my recent post, Prayerlife Revolution: https://europeanfaithmissions.wordpress.com/2012/07/10/prayerlife-revolution/.  God showed me a handy tool, a place to put those pesky thoughts about myself that intrude when I’m trying to focus on Him.  This tool is The Table.

I wrote about The Table in the likewise named post: https://europeanfaithmissions.wordpress.com/2012/07/11/the-table/.  But in that post I didn’t give the full history of The Table.  I’ve actually seen The Table, or at least a description of it.  If you follow this link and scroll to the bottom of the last page, you can see a drawing of what The Table looks like:

EZEKIELS_TEMP25

The Table came to my attention as a rhema word that God had given me many years ago.  [A rhema word is a word from the Bible specifically for you.]  At that time my son was living on his own and experiencing many difficulties including losing his job and losing his apartment.  Without an apartment, he also didn’t have a phone where we could call him.  After not hearing from him for a couple of months, worry plagued me so badly that I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t function.

Early one morning after another sleepless night I was having my regular Bible and prayer time.  At the time I was reading through the Bible for the sixth or seventh time, so that day’s passage was one I had read before.  It was in Ezekiel, where the angel is leading Ezekiel through the Temple in Heaven.  The angel is measuring and explaining everything, and Ezekiel is writing it all down.  Then in chapter 41 they enter the Holy of Holies where there is a wooden altar.  In verse 22 the angel says to Ezekiel, “This is the table that is before the Lord.”  Those words jumped off the page, and God told me: “Put him on The Table and leave him with Me.”

It sounds easy to do, but relinquishing control like that is actually pretty hard, and in those days (about 17 years ago) my faith was still in its young phase.  When I finally did put him on The Table, I released him so completely to God that I literally left him there for dead.

Instantly, peace flooded my heart.  Every time I started to worry again, I put him back on The Table.  A few days later, he finally called, with the news that he had gotten a job and found a place to live.

The Table has become my place to put those things that plague me: worries, people I love, and all the things that are out of my control.  When I have thoughts that pester me and try to draw my attention away from God, I do two things simultaneously:

  1. I softly sing the chorus to “I stand in Awe of You” (http://www.lyricstime.com/hillsong-i-stand-in-awe-of-you-lyrics.html), which helps get my focus back to God
  2. I put the distracting thought on The Table

Distracting thoughts are almost always focused on myself.  Lately, I’ve gotten a few prophecies from various sources, saying the same thing: get over yourself.  If you want to receive more from God, get over yourself.

I don’t just want to receive more from God, I want it ALL.  The Table is full of blessings, healing, renewed relationships, guidance, provision, etc.  God is in each gift that is on The Table.  He is on The Table.  We are invited to come take whatever we need from The Table.  And The Table is also a place where we can leave those worries, people, and thoughts that trouble us—a place to get over ourselves.  So for me, The Table is also where I can get over myself.

God is good!

The Table

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I was going through my computer documents and, I came across the following piece that I had written in October 2011, while I was at the 24/7 worship celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles in Poland.

A theme that kept recurring during that weeklong celebration was The Table.  About six months before I went to Poland I was in Alessandria, Italy, visiting a small church there.  My friend, Pastor Matteo, was guest-preaching that evening, and after the sermon he gave three altar calls:

  1. For anyone wanting to receive God’s free gift of salvation in Jesus Christ
  2. For anyone needing healing or other prayers
  3. For anyone wanting more from God

At that third invitation I leaped to my feet.  Pastor Domenico and his wife prayed for me, and then he told me: “God says that He has put a big Table before you, and it is full of everything you could ever want or need.”  Then he added, “But of course, you need to share with God’s people.”  He didn’t need to add that because it is my heart to share with God’s people.

So in Poland six months later, when there were several teachings that mentioned The Table, I knew that I had to share the Word that God had given me through Pastor Domenico.  And when I did, I told the people there that I believe The Table is for all of us, not just me.  And the next day, the following is what I wrote:

Last night the French team was leading worship and I suddenly became overwhelmed and scared by the task ahead of me: five months of speaking to churches and at conferences all over the US about missions in Europe.  And I said, “God, if You don’t help me, I’m in big trouble because I don’t know what I’m doing!  I need You!  I need You!  I need You!”  And I began to cry in my desperate need for God.

I tried to calm down a bit, but then the thought came: “If Europe’s future depends on me, then Europe is in big trouble.”  Of course I know that Europe’s future does not depend on me, but such is my burden and call for Europe that I cried even harder because it wasn’t my own embarrassment and failure, but Europe and her missionaries.  So I cried and cried some more.  While the French team was singing songs of love and praise to God, I was weeping from a broken heart for Europe.  And I continued to beg God: “I need You!  I need You!  I need You!”

Finally, I calmed down, remembering the table full of everything I could ever want or need.  And I said, “Lord, the gifts are great, but I don’t want any gifts!  I want You!  I need You!”  And I began to cry a third time from my desperate need for God.

Then God spoke, and in a very tender voice He said: “My child, I am in every gift!  I am on the table!  Every gift is simply more of Me!  Why do you think I keep inviting you to take everything you need, everything you want from the table?  Because I am everything that is on the table!  Take all you want of Me!”  And I said: “Lord, I want ALL of You!”

And I saw myself dropping all the things I had been holding onto: the desire for a home, the desire for a godly husband to share my life, the desire to spend more time with my new grandchild.  These things that I had thought were so important, I just let them go.  And I said, “Now I’m ready, and I want only You, and ALL of You!”

And after that I was exhausted.  So when the team leader took the French team back to the hotel, I went with them.  And I slept and dreamed:

Fire came down from Heaven and suddenly I clearly saw the way to go, but I held back because there was someone else there and I thought that person should lead.  But that person couldn’t see the way to go, so I had to lead.

Then I woke up.  There was my answer!  God will lead me during my five month speaking tour in the US!

And now, four months after my speaking tour of the US has ended, I can say that it went very well, but not because of me.  I spent at least an hour in prayer before each speaking engagement, yielding myself, and asking the Holy Spirit to speak through me.  And from those speaking engagements, I got several more intercessors, which is a very precious gift, indeed!

God is good!

The Scars of Communism Part Two

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As I wrote in The Scars of Communism (https://europeanfaithmissions.wordpress.com/2012/07/05/the-scars-of-communism/), just before coming on this trip to Hungary and Romania, I opened the box of books that I had gotten out of storage after a year, and the book at the very top was “Tortured for Christ” by Richard Wurmbrand.  The things suffered by Pastor Wurmbrand and the rest of the Underground Church really moved me.  After all, I could have been born in a Communist country, and had to suffer for my faith, too.

And in The Wild Life (https://europeanfaithmissions.wordpress.com/2012/07/07/the-wild-life/) I wrote:

Today there was a conference for the seniors of the church, at which Pastor H. Koraćs Gėza spoke.  I was told that I would have about five minutes to speak to them.  So of course I prayed about it, and here’s what I said:

Looking out here at all the gray hair, I am aware that many of you and your parents kept your faith in Christ under the oppressive rule of the atheistic Communists.  I have two things to say to you: First, I am deeply sorry that my country believed the lies of the Communists and did nothing to help you.  Secondly, I know that someday you will trade your silver crowns for gold crowns.  I am here to honor you for your faithful service to your Lord and mine.

To the young people here I say: learn from these elders, and share the love of Christ with everyone you know.

And finally, I would like to thank Pastor Gėza for coming.  It is an honor to meet you.

When Pastor Gėza returned to the platform, he observed that Christianity had actually flourished and grown under Communist oppression.  He said that Christianity now faces a far more dangerous enemy in the form of complacency.  I believe he’s right.

It is the danger of complacency in Eastern Europe is that it is following the same pattern that makes Western Europe such a difficult mission field.  Complacency has caused Western Europe to evolve from nominal Christianity through religious disconnection, cynicism, and xenophobia to become the secular, materialistic, humanistic, hedonistic, nihilistic, hopeless, suicidal people they’ve become, seeking answers in drugs and alcohol, Eastern Philosophies, Witchcraft, and Satanism.  Is it any wonder that abortion and human trafficking thrives in such an environment?  In Switzerland it is now possible to request physician-assisted suicide without any physical illness.

The most frightening thing of all is that the United States is following the unfortunate pattern of Europe.

What does complacency look like?  Complacency looks like Christianity, but lacks the power of the Holy Spirit, or as the Apostle Paul put it: “having a form of godliness but denying its power,” (2 Timothy 3:5).  Complacency seeks answers and help through human means instead of looking to God as the Source of all things.  Complacency seeks its own comfort instead of God’s way.

When Jesus says, “Follow Me,” Complacency answers, “But I have family responsibilities,” (Matthew 8:21).

When Jesus says, “Follow Me,” Complacency answers, “OK, but let me say goodbye to my family,” (Luke 9:61).

When Jesus says, “Follow Me,” Complacency answers, “But it’s dangerous,” (John 12:25-26).

When Jesus says, “Follow Me” Complacency answers, “But the food there is gross!  I can’t sleep on the floor!  There’s no electricity!  No internet!  No phone signal!” (Matthew 8:19-20).

Complacency makes all sorts of excuses for not following Jesus, and some of them seem appropriate and valid.  But there are missionaries all around the world who have said yes to Jesus even though it meant leaving family responsibilities, saying goodbye to family, going into danger, eating disgusting food, sleeping on the floor, without electricity, internet or phone.

But Complacency is worse than that.  Complacency doesn’t want to rock the boat by bringing Jesus into the school or the workplace.  Complacency believes in the separation of church and state.  Complacency won’t even talk about Jesus at parties with friends, for fear of offending someone.

Because of these attitudes, Jesus is no longer welcome in our schools or workplaces; Biblical Christianity has no say in lawmaking; and political correctness has become more important in American society than the salvation of souls.  Those people that you’re so worried about offending need to hear the Good News that Jesus died for them.  And the person you know with the hardest heart is someone who desperately needs Jesus.

Jesus was meek and gentle, and offensive to the people who rejected Him and His free offer of salvation.  He never backed down from telling the truth.  He is our Perfect Example, and like Him, we need to be ready to “offend” people with the truth.  But to do that, we’ve got to step out of our comfort zone.  We’ve got to give up comfortable Complacency.  We’ve got to pick up our cross and follow Him, even when that leads us away from family and friends.  And to do that we’ve got to trust God.

Here’s one last thought:  Have you ever read the list of the people who are going to hell in Revelation 21:8?  “But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars —they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur.”  Look who leads the list: not the murderers, not idolaters, but the cowardly!  Many times throughout the Bible we are encouraged to be strong, bold, and courageous.  Jesus said, “If anyone is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when He comes in His Father’s glory with the holy angels,” (Mark 8:38).

Prayerlife Revolution

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Greetings from Romania!

I was telling my hostess (Clara from my book, “Look, Listen, Love”) about how my prayers have changed over the past year.  But actually the change goes back before that.  I was divorced in 2008, and the thing about divorce is that it messes up your mind.  I was having trouble praying because every time I closed my eyes, my mind went back to the divorce, chewing on it like a dog with a bone.  So I got a notebook and started writing out my prayers.  For two years I wrote my prayers in notebooks, then little by little I was able to spend time in prayer without a notebook: five minutes, then ten, and supplementing those prayers with written prayers.  Finally about a year ago I was able to pray without using a notebook at all, and started spending more time in prayer.

Then I went back to the US last fall and stayed with my mom for five months.  Mom invited me to her centering prayer group.  I hadn’t heard of centering prayer, so I was intrigued.  Centering prayer is also called contemplative prayer, and could also be called meditation.  Christian meditation, unlike other meditation, does not involve emptying your mind.  Instead, it is contemplating God or an aspect of God’s character.  Actually, centering prayer has been practiced for centuries, and like many good things, the devil has his counterfeit version.

I went to the centering prayer group and found that it wasn’t difficult at all to pass 20 minutes contemplating God.  In fact, in later sessions I found myself disappointed at having to stop after only 20 minutes.

During my time in the US I went to a missionary conference in Tucson.  I stayed an extra day because I had never been to Tucson.  So I went to the Botanical Gardens and late in the afternoon I was just entering the Saguaro National Park.  There, just as I was entering the park was a sign: Desert House of Prayer.  I was intrigued, so I hooked a U turn.  I was welcomed and invited to evening prayer.

After evening prayer I returned to my original itinerary, Saguaro National Park.  By then it was sunset, and seeing the majestic saguaro cacti at sunset was absolutely spectacular.  There was a reverent feeling of being in a natural cathedral.

Since returning to Europe, I’ve continued centering prayer by myself.  I have found that in those times when I don’t bombard God with petitions, but just sit quietly at His feet, are the times of great emotional healing.  If you’ve never tried centering prayer, I recommend it.  Here is the official centering prayer website where you can find out more about it: http://www.contemplativeoutreach.org/.  But really, the best way to learn about it is to do it.

Here’s a website for the Desert House of Prayer: http://www.deserthouseofprayer.org/.

And here’s a website for Saguaro National Park: http://www.nps.gov/sagu/index.htm.

God is good!