Patterns of Prayer - Week 3

This week our focus of prayer takes one more "ripple" out. We will pray for people that still live around us, though perhaps not as immediate as our friends, family and neighbors. This group of people may be easier to pray for, but it may be more difficult to break our patterns of behavior toward them.

I was challenged this week by a quote from a book:

“I know what it’s like to move around in the world, but not really be a part of it. And I know what it’s like to have people stare right through you, and not believe what they are seeing.”.. (Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult)

It made me think of my patterns of behavior toward those who are "invisible" to me in this world - the poor, the immigrant, the elderly, even my enemy. They are invisible because my pattern is to look away or direct my eyes to see something else. I think about the guy who stands on the corner of the Costco parking lot holding a sign that explains his condition to me. I am much more comfortable not making eye contact with him, or looking right through him and getting on with my life.

Even when I give toward this group, they can still be invisible. I think many remain invisible to us because we tend to give to organizations that work with "them", but it allows us to still never really see them. Or perhaps we see them as a group, or clump them together, instead of seeing individual people.

Praying Lent:
Perhaps this is just my hang up, but I'd like to challenge all of us to look at our patterns of thinking, seeing and relating to people in this "invisible" category. (Maybe our first prayer should be for God to show us who is in this category for us!) And then, could we ask God how He sees those invisibles? What are His patterns of extending the Kingdom to these ones? How do our patterns not align with His and, through confession, we ask that we would begin to see more of what He sees and do more of what He does.

Living Lent:
This is a tough one, because our "invisible" people will all be different. I think we need to somehow SEE people in this category and interact with them. So maybe this means stopping and talking to them - really seeing them. Maybe it means offering a meal to them and joining them. What does it mean for you? What is God telling you to do this week, to live out His heart for invisibles?

Of Webs and Spiders

God says, “I am offering you life or death, blessing or curse. Choose life, then, so that you and your descendants may live” (Deuteronomy 30:19).

“Choose life.” That’s God’s call for us, and there is not a moment in which we do not have to make that choice. Life and death are always before us. In our imaginations, our thoughts, our words, our gestures, our actions … even in our non-actions. This choice for life starts in a deep interior place. Underneath very life-affirming behavior I can still harbor death-thoughts and death-feelings. The most important question is not “Do I kill?” but “Do I carry a blessing in my heart or a curse?”
— Henri Nouwen in Bread for the Journey

Father, we weave a tangled web in our interior lives. On the outside we look kind and loving, but on the inside we are the spider laying in wait for her next meal. Forgive us. Teach us new patterns that carry blessings to others, not death.

Patterns - Week 2

This last week, I've been struck by the patterns of 'what I've done and what I've left undone'. Some of you have too. One person shared with me that she wrote down the patterns in her life that God was showing forth and another wrote a beautiful blog in which she shares "It’s starting to be clear to me that the journey through Lent must start with me. It must start with looking at my own brokenness and my own sinfulness…and it must be a look that leads to repentance."

I have been stirred with thoughts about confession - that it is the broken place that brings vitality to our walk with God. It is a place of extreme humility but also of great freedom. I am convicted that I so often choose to 'fix it' myself, a pattern that sometimes renders God unnecessary.



Praying Lent:
As we move out in our concentric circles, this week we will look at and pray about/for the patterns in our relationships with our families, friends and neighbors. What sorts of patterns in those relationships do we 'do or leave undone' that need to change? Do we give and receive forgiveness with those in this circle? Are we actively pursuing reconciliation? Are we confessing to one another?

(WOW! Looking at the above questions, it might be one heck of a week between me and God and those around me!! Please pray for me...as I'll pray for you!)

Living Lent:
For those of you who like tangible prayers, how about this: Find a piece of patterned cloth that perhaps represents your Lenten journey. Find photos (or representative items) of the family, friends, or neighbors that God shows you that you need to change your patterns of relating with. Put them in the cloth and tie it up. Keep it in a place to remind you that this is what you carry on this week of the journey...and pray for insight and courage to change the pattern.