In order to remain in constant communication with the Father we must abide in the Son. McHenry’s first sentence in this chapter is that “prayerstreaming is a form of abiding in Christ.”
So I went to John 15 and took a good look at what it means to abide in Him.
Verse 4: “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.
So if we abide in Jesus we will bear fruit. Branches connected to the vine can pull at any moment on the nutrients and water delivered by the roots. They don’t have to wait for a quiet time or a weekend service. His constant resource is available to me night and day, and when I draw on that I become fruitful.
Verse 5: “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.
Yep, I know what it means to not be able to get anything done. I want my life to be productive rather than the way that I feel on unproductive days like yesterday. I got up with a check list I thought I’d take care of during the day and didn’t even get half way. I just felt sleepy and blicky.
So would yesterday have been different if I’d spent more time with Him that doing what I thought needed to be done?
Verse 6: “If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. Don’t want to get thrown away! “Then keep close”, Jesus says.
Verse 7:“If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
Ahh…there are two things in this verse that lead up to me being able to access unlimited provision for what I want and need. The first is abiding in Him – the constant flow of uninterrupted prayer. The second is His words abiding in me. The necessity of the Word becoming a part of me will take some work, but saturation in it is like Miracle Grow to my life.
Prayerstreaming/the Abiding Heart is my access all the resources and nutrients I need for a productive life that bears fruit, keeps me in the presence of God and makes it possible for me to ask and receive whatever I need from the Father.
totally not my favorite anymore. I am very disgusted with these two, because of a bullying incident that may have murder charges filed pending investigation.
I came into the coop on Thursday night out of the cold rain and discovered the turkeys in with the chicks. (Score card for those of you not up to speed: Rooster – 1, Medium sized chickens – 2, Turkeys – 2, Baby Chicks – 117) And the turkeys were in with the chicks; as I watched one turkey was pecking at this one very small chick who was hideously battered. (Important details: everyone who is in on the chicken project was not at home, so that left me and Tom to deal with the crisis)
We scooped up the turkeys and took them to the barn. But as we were trying to settle them in we got passed by wild cats who were freaked out by our presence. So even though I was really mad, I couldn’t leave the turkeys in with the resident evil ones. But I was REALLY, REALLY mad at the turkeys, so Tom and I penned them into total darkness in the spare garage. Talk about being cast into the outer darkness – but wrath had risen up in me.
We went back to the coop and took the baby into the house. Where we wrapped it in warmed cloths and forced electrolyte fluid into it. After about an hour, the baby had stopped shaking and was perking up a bit. So we took it back to the coop for the night. Friday morning, nobody was dead, so I think we saved its life.
The turkeys on the other hand are not off the black list. I am finding it very easy to think of cooking them now. Chickacidal (feathered form of homicidal) monsters.
In this chapter McHenry examines the life of Teresa of Avila. Teresa’s greatest revelation was the revelation of how her sin seperated her from God and prevented the unbroken dialogue she longed for.
When I read this I kind of snorted out loud, because the quote was, “On one side, God was calling me; on the other, I was following the world.” That struck me as funny because she was living in a convent in the 1500’s. I didn’t think that the “world” there and then had any comparison on the “world” today. But what I discovered is that Teresa wrote about how she did all the prayers and worship leading at the convent, for the praise of others. That she often posed as praying, but would actually just be counting the moments for prayer time to end.
Ah, conviction. Do we do what we do in a religious context to look good to others? A form of godliness (2 Tim. 3:5) where Jesus said, “Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.” Matthew 6:1.
So how do I ponder this in prayer? McHenry writes it this way: “praying is the awareness that God sees us. He sees our willing hearts, certainly, but He also sees the shadows over them that inhibit the intimate realtionship we say we want.”
Here are some questions to take with you to prayer and allow the LORD to help you see the answers:
What keeps me from God’s presence?
What problems distract me?
What emotions or personal struggles bog me down from feeling close to God?
Is there a root weakness that causes these to rise and trip me up as I try to pray?
Do I struggle with anger, fear, worry, jealousy, bitterness, insecurity, lust, self-centeredness …or something else?
If the God we are listening to loves us so much, will He not tenderly reveal and work with us to remove everything that hinders love?
I had never noticed this verse before it popped up on the Elijah List today.
Return to your fortress, O prisoners of Hope. Zechariah 9:12
I Love that verse. Allowing God’s perspective on what I see as a prison is really the fortress where He safely keeps me until appointed times is like medicine for my soul. And the last part of this entry has this sentence: You may feel hopeless, but really it is the condition of helplessness that is causing you pain. God wants you completely dependent on Him, and He will keep you a prisoner of hope until you are. That puts so much of what I think is happening to me into perspective.
Go read today’s post featuring this verse here. You will have to scroll down a bit to find it, but it worth the read.
Prayer Streaming – The Loving Heart (con’t from yesterday)
Praying without ceasing becomes easier when we see God as our loving Father. This chapter in McHenry’s book also talks about seeing God as our Shepherd, Physician and Beloved.
Shepherd - Hmmm…Jesus said that his sheep know his voice. I guess that whole part from the other posts about listening to God’s voice came first so that I would understand the reason why I need to listen. Psalm 23 is so good for meditation in prayer, because it tells me the things that my shepherd does for me. Take time to sit with this Psalm today and listen phrase by phrase to what God wants to tell you about the way that He cares for you.
Great Physician – There is a song that ministers to me so greatly based off of the account of the woman who was healed by touching Jesus’ garment. The words are worth meditating on:
If I’m healed by just one touch of your garment, Lord
Then how much more of your love is for me than I’m tasting, Lord.
When I first read the title of this chapter, I figured it would be a chapter about loving people. So it was going to be about the work I need to do. I was wrong. This is a chapter about loving God. I love to love God! And I know that as His love works in me I’ll get better at the other.
In the PrayerStreaming book, McHenry details the life of Madame Guyon and her move into being able to pray without ceasing. McHenry notes that as this woman of prayer came closer to God she knew Him more deeply as Father, Shepherd, Physician and Beloved. Today I’ll post this longer entry and talk about the Father part and tomorrow post about Shepherd, Physician and Beloved.
FATHER: Just to spend time with Him! I find I am better able to touch this on a more regular basis. It is becoming easier and easier to simply enter His presence. Why? I have to guess it is simply because I’m making a practice of doing it more often. Finding the secret place where its just God and Me. Or maybe it is recognizing when He is whispering over me. I don’t understand every word yet, but I recognize more and more quickly and frequently.
McHenry uses Zephaniah 3:17 as the main passage to illustrate God as our Father. Which just happens to be one of my all time favorite Old Testament verses of all time! Here it is in NASB.
“The LORD your God is in your midst,
A victorious warrior
He will exult over you with joy,
He will be quiet in His love,
He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy.
Just let each of those phrases sit over you as you pray.
He is a victorious warrior. - What ever battle you face, He’s already won. He exults over you with joy. – He loves to be around you! Most of us do not get that! He will be quiet in His love. – There is a steady warm assurance with that one. This is a love that doesn’t end. And it invites you up to sit on the Father’s lap and simply rest and relax into Him. He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy.Now I missed this in NASB but the NIV puts it like this: He rejoices over you with singing. And there’s one of my favorite songs.
You dance over me
While I am unaward.
You sing all around,
but I never hear the sound.
Lord, I’m amazed by you.
How you love me.
“But listening for God’s voice can be much more difficult than talking to him.”
One of the things that the enemy throws at me when I need to listen to God is the fear that even though I talk to God, he might not be interested in talking to me. And so I avoid talking to God because he might not talk back. That’s scary!
Do I believe that He speaks today? Yes. Then I need to learn how to listen. McHenry gives some steps in learning to listen to God
#1 Open the door. Revelation 3:20 says that He stands at the door and knocks. Open the door. Believe that He is on the other side.
#2 Give Him a chance to speak. In other words take some time, ask a question, expect Him to answer, STOP TALKING and wait for Him.
#3 Allow Him to speak to you through his word. Whatever you are dealing with, there is scripture to go with it. Take the word, and then ask Him to enlighten your understanding.
#4 Allow your heart to be open to other trusted believers. The LORD frequently speaks to us through those He puts in our lives. Be sure you know who you are listening to because the devil will try to lead you astray and discourage you through well intentioned people. If you get something from someone else, and it doesn’t feel right then ask another person to help you discern truth and error.
#5 Train your ear. Listen to the testimonies of others as to what God’s voice sounds like. Then turn off the noise. No music, cell phone, etc.
The second quality of unceasing prayer is the quality of a listening heart.
McHenry writes about her study of the life of Frank Laubach. As she distills all that he had written and discussed about prayer the one quality that she came up with that revolutionized his prayer life was the quality of simply listening to God.
The testimony of Laubach’s life was that he knew he needed to listen to God and went through the exercises of working toward that end. He set a timer for 15 minute intervals but he could not carry through with the discipline. It took a real live encounter with the voice of God to change what was a duty like taking daily vitamins into enthusiastic expectation.
Today’s question for thought is this: Do you actually believe that God speaks today? Don’t answer that with the trite yes that religious training has ingrained in you. Do you really truly believe that God speaks today?
McHenry writes that perhaps the difference in Laubach’s experience was that he came to the point of expecting the LORD to speak to him.
Do you believe that God speaks today? Meditate and comment please!
As a female, I can get away with quoting this verse from 2 Timothy 3:6-7.
For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
I had my days as a stay at home mom and days when I flipped Oprah on when I got home from work. I’ve enjoyed her show and wished I had tickets. I’ve been there done that to quote the tired old phrase.
This new teaching came into the homes of Oprah’s predominately female audience and captivated them with its hypnotic trances and “new” ideas. They are learning, learning, learning absolutely nothing. From what I’ve listened to all I get is a bunch of words that run around in circles. Sounds deep and wise, but what the heck did you just say? Blibber blabber. Weak willed women are being suckered into a false religion/cult.
Allow me to be a prophetic voice here. This new religion may look freeing and liberating at the onset, but it will be a vain chasing of “the knowledge of truth” that will never be fulfilling.
I’ve read comments on other blogs where people are saying that they are not even going to waste their time commenting on Oprah’s foolishness, but here’s my point. There are women who are in our congregation and connected to women in out congregation who are embracing this teaching wholeheartedly. They are thrilled to learn more about “god” from their trusted talk show host. If we don’t comment on it, if we don’t point out TRUTH then how can we halt their rush towards the deception of New Age, neopaganism.
Paul tells us in 2 Timothy 3:5 That these false teachers would come at the end of the age and “hold to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these.” Ekhart Tolle and Oprah are endorsing a “form of godliness” that has no power. AVOID THEM!
I am my brother/sister’s keeper. It is the job of every believer to rescue the perishing.
“A prayerful stance of humility can be our choice, or it can be God’s project. Our lifetime circumstances are meant to develop our character toward that which will prepare us for heavenly service.”
I do not want to be God’s Humility Project! Makes me think of the verse in Revelation 3:19. “Those whom I love I reprove and discipline, so be zealous therefore and repent.”
So today I am praying Psalm 139:23-24. I am putting it on a notecard and I’ll work on memorizing/praying it over and over today. Unceasing prayer isn’t necessarily just my own words and prayers, it is also the Word of God prayed back to Him.
Search me O God, and know my heart;
Test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me;
And lead me in the way everlasting.
