rolling hills hs

rat race

Steve Jobs. Started an iconic company, 313 patents to his name, and an impressive resume besides. Would I trade places with him? No. Why? Because he's dead.

I feel like a lot of us have created artificial benchmarks by which we validate ourselves. Whether we get a graduate degree from some prestigious school. How many papers we publish. How far we're advancing in our careers. But it's all meaningless. And it's so obviously meaningless. It's so obvious, that it's unbelievable how non-obvious it is. Why are you even doing what you do? Do you realize that when you die, none of this will matter?

sharing the gospel

I think we have a tendency to choose who we want to share the gospel with, and be super persistent about it. We try to show God's love to them in the hopes that they'll eventually see the truth. We might even drop bits of the gospel here and there. We pray for them, and earnestly hope that God will bring them around.

I'm not convinced this is the best way to go about it.

First, we are not called to make the gospel more palatable to those who might hear it. Jesus alienated a lot of his followers by telling them to hate their families to follow him (Luke 14:25-27). More left when he told them that they must eat his flesh (John 6:56-58). When questioned, he responds somewhat cavalierly, asking "Does this offend you?". He tells a man he cannot bury his father, and another that he can't bid his family farewell (Luke 9:59-62). He tells a rich man that he must sell all his positions (Matt 19:21-22), after which the rich man leaves.

Second, there doesn't seem to be any precedent in the bible for being persistent in going after specific people. After sending out his disciples, Jesus tells them that "if anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet" (Matt 10:14). Preach the gospel, but upon rejection, don't stay to argue or do anything else, just leave. I feel like persistence in this case often leads to the stumbling block of self-glorification in the event that God does deign to save the person whom you were persistently pursuing.

If God is so concerned with separating the wheat from the chaff (Matt 3:12), then why are we so concerned with picking up every bit of chaff along with the wheat? "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few" (Luke 10:2), so shouldn't we stop wasting our time with some people (let God do what He will with them), and look for those whose hearts are fertile? There doesn't seem to be a lack of those people, from what I've heard, and to a certain extent, seen.

We should stop asking God how to share the gospel with the few people we choose; and instead ask that He show us with whom we should share the gospel with.

"Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces."
- Matthew 7:6

prayer

I've learned how to pray by listening to others pray, and I've heard people pray in many different ways, but by and large there seems to be a similar vein among all the prayers, a similar structure. I can't help but wonder, though. Is this is how we should pray? Is this how David prayed when he cried out to the Lord? Or how Jesus prayed when he walked the earth?

I've also wondered how appropriate it would be to pray for an event that has already occurred. If God exists outside time, why couldn't He hear my prayers for something that happened last week? Suppose someone has a test at 8am tomorrow. I plan to wake up early to pray for him, but instead I oversleep. Is prayer so rigid a device that any prayer I now pray is no longer effective? Or am I simply punished for my lack of discipline?

A part of me knows these are silly questions. Prayer isn't a device, or a tool, to be used. It isn't something where you have to follow rules about its usage. Prayer is something else entirely. But too often I fall into the habit of praying a wish list in the hopes that God will grant at least a few things on that list.

We should pray for the eternal. When we intercede for someone, we shouldn't ask that they do well at school, or find a job by such and such a date. We should ask for peace that can come only from God, for a genuine change of heart, for humility, for complete surrender. 

We should pray for the present. That God's spirit would guide us in every moment. That it would guard our hearts, and nudge us in the right direction in our day to day activities. The Lord's prayer deals with today, not yesterday, and not tomorrow.

We should pray that His will be done. In His own time. Not on our own sense of schedule.

And in all these cases, the question of whether or not we can pray for something that has already happened ceases to be relevant.

Am I even praying correctly? Does He hear my prayers, and do they please Him?

"...we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words."

- Romans 8:26