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I initially woke up
around 4:15am this morning but stayed in bed. Most mornings this is where I begin my
time of prayer. (By the way, the
guy in front of me just reclined his seat into the already cramped space
causing it to be almost impossible to type. A couple of not-so-nice thoughts went
through my head. I guess I’ll have
to get up earlier to work on my prayer time a little more.) I’m not sure what it is about this
early morning time but my mind is extra clear and creatively it’s my best
time.
I have a few specific
individuals/situations that I pray for daily. One prayer concerns Bill and Beccy
Lanier. Bill has a single,
transplanted kidney and his body has begun to reject it. This puts him back in need of another
kidney. That’s not an easy
process. Beccy is one of our board
members and leads STS in focused prayer.
As I, hopefully, mature in my faith, I pray for the “who” and the
“what” but not the how. If God
miraculously heals Bill or uses new anti-rejection drugs or provides the
perfect donor, it doesn’t really matter to me. I simply pray that God will heal (the
“what”) Bill (the “who”).
It’s not unusual for
me to dose in and out of sleep during this early prayer time. I know some of you are thinking less of
my prayer time already but for me it works well. For about the last month or so I’ve
also spent time praying through the Model Prayer that Jesus used to train
His disciples. Surprisingly it
doesn’t address what we call intercessory prayer specifically. Here’s a few things that I work through
in this part of prayer.
1. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy
name.
God as father has such warm and caring
connotations. Having enjoyed a
relationship of respect for my father and having always known that he
loved me has allowed me to appreciate, in a small way, what it’s like to
have God as my father. The fact
that He is in heaven reminds me that He has control of all that affects
me. Finally, I am reminded that
God is worthy of my full devotion and I am to be in awe of the very
mention of His name.
2. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it
is in heaven.
It’s important for me to remember that I am to be
concerned with God’s kingdom, not this kingdom of this world. The earthly kingdom is passing away and
God’s kingdom is forcefully advancing.
I also am reminded that it’s God’s will that matters, not my
own. This is one of the biggest
obstacles that I have to fight through each day. God not me. I’m also brought to wonder about how
things work in heaven. With the
multitude of heavenly hosts, how does God manage such an organization.
3. Give us this day our daily bread.
The first thing Jesus teaches His disciples to ask
for is daily provision. I’m not
much good at depending on God for my provision every day. I prefer to have my provision insured
as far into the future as possible.
Yet Jesus knew that His disciples (and we, ourselves) can’t
understand faith the way God wants unless every day is dependent upon you
in every way.
4. And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors
I’m not sure about each of you reading this have
experienced in church but the churches that I have been part of did a
good job of letting me know that I am a sinner and need God’s forgiveness
often. But just like the man
forgiven of a huge debt, if I don’t forgive others then I am in danger of
God’s wrath for not sharing His forgiveness just like, I believe, we are
at risk when we don’t share His gospel.
5. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the
evil one.
I have a specific sin that has plagued me
throughout my life. God has given
me relief from this sin but each day I ask Him to keep me as far as
possible from anything that might lead me back to this sin. It’s like taking a pill each day that
prevents a disease from reoccurring.
I am aware that Satan has been defeated and that I have victory
over him through Christ. I’m also
keenly aware that being sifted by Satan is more harsh than I want and,
perhaps, beyond the bounds of my current faith to endure. So I ask God to protect me from this
evil one.
6. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory,
forever.
To me, this is the most wonderful part of this
model prayer. The kingdom is
God’s, I get to participate in it because I belong to Him. God has (all) the power. He is not limited by the weaknesses
that I have. If I am on God’s path
(my purpose) then I have access to God’s power. That’s a good thing. Finally, I am reminded of what a pastor
said one day. “God will share
anything with you except His glory.”
I know that everything good is from God and that I must never act
as though it’s about me.
I noticed that Fred
was waking up around 5am and then Cathy got up for a few minutes. I slipped out of bed, picked up my
laptop and went downstairs to the breakfast area to work a little on this
journal. Soon Fred came down with
his laptop and we both sat at a table drinking green tea and working on
stuff.
I should tell you
that Gayla and I, and now Fred and Cathy, are on a eating lifestyle
program by a guy named Asa Andrew as documented in his book called “Empowering
Your Health”. The phase we’re in
right now has a fairly limited group of food. But eggs are okay and they had
scrambled eggs on the buffet. I
was excited until I got closer and saw that cooked in the eggs were ham
and cheese. Bummer.
Finally Fred and I
went back upstairs to make sure Cathy and Gayla were up and getting
ready. They were. We got ready and got our (many) bags
packed to leave on the 8:30 shuttle so that we could make American
Airlines flight 1826. Fred and
Cathy took their bags down to the lobby and I decided to make a last
minute check to find out what gate we should go to. I began to have a bad feeling when the
AA website didn’t have the flight listed for today. Not good. So I called the AA 800 number and spent
several minutes trying to get to a real person. Finally (more frustration) I got a
person and found that yes, in fact, there was no flight 1826 today. She looked up our reservations and, thankfully,
we did have reservations but on an American Eagle flight that left at
1:20pm. So we were able to wait in
a more comfortable location and have a shorter layover in Chicago. All good things come from God, which
means that my initial attitude about this was not from Him.
Fred and Cathy
stayed down in the lobby just to have more openness and Gayla and I
stayed in the room where she rested and I worked on the website.
Finally it was
really time to take the shuttle to the airport. I think the shuttle driver was
overwhelmed by our luggage. He
dropped us off at the AA terminal and unloaded our baggage onto the
sidewalk. We immediately rented
two luggage carts at $3 each and only had about 50 yards to take the
bags. Upon check in we weighed the
6 bags we were checking. They
totaled just under 300 lbs. About
100 lbs of that was autoparts that we’re taking for 2 trucks in Monrovia.
One of the check in
ladies was getting a good chewing out by a supervisor when we walked up
and she wasn’t being too friendly to Gayla or Cathy during the check in
process. Cathy commented later that,
“she needed a good dose of southern hospitality.” I was think that she needed something a
little more direct but then, Cathy is nicer than I am.
We sat around Gate
T11 for a couple of hours and it was finally time to leave. We flew to Chicago where we had about
1.5 hours before the flight left for Brussels. No enough time to get something to eat
at the Chile’s Too but plenty enough to get hungry. I peeled a couple of oranges, we ate
some almonds and managed to stay alive until the flight took off.
Currently we are
over the Atlantic approximately half way through our flight to
Brussels. We are scheduled to
arrive in Belgium at 7:30am local time.
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