To be honest, I’m not quite sure where to start with this rant.

It seems there has been a need for prayer automation since we Americans are so busy these days! “No time to pray? NO PROBLEM” is the tagline of http://www.informationageprayer.com/ who, for a monthly subscription fee of $5.00 will translate your uploaded text prayers into speech so you don’t actually have to speak your prayers anymore!

I remember a former friend who gave me one of the few gifts I found almost completely useless. It was a book of prayers. He had gotten one for himself a while before and had given his book the power of prayer in his life. He would record prayers he read from the book and publish them online as if they were going to achieve some great connection with the spiritual realm because they were so well worded. He would even have his children read the prayers while he recorded them. To me that was just creepy. Now, here I was with my own bright red book of prayers and I didn’t know if I should offend this guy and decline it or just accept it with a thank you. I chose the latter.

I confess, I would sometimes thumb through the book to see what was in it. I suppose someone sat down and wrote out a prayer for just about any situation a person might face. The motive of course was to sell a book but I think the outcome proved much more dangerous.

As with my former friend, I would wager that many immature believers have put their faith into that or a similar book hoping their great sounding prayers will reach the throne of God and their needs would be met.

What I actually have witnessed in this person’s life is a rapid decline. From the outside looking in it would seem that the power of prayer had completely left his life. Where God would move, provide, and prove himself was now a place of loss. Today he is still fighting the same old battles wondering why things aren’t changing in his life. Where there used to be a blossoming heart of service and a strong witness is now just a shell – a facade that he has created to project an image of what could have been but it is all man-made. All power and credibility is gone.

I can’t say that the book of prayers in completely to blame but I am convinced it was the point where the wrong path was chosen in his life. The sad part is that now he is unteachable and unwilling to listen to reason. Once we get to that point, no one but God can fix what’s broken.

With all that said, why is it people have so much trouble realizing that prayer is not a ritual? Is it that we do not believe Jesus lives? If we believe Jesus lives, we should believe that we can have a relationship with him. We should believe that we can sit and talk with him, confide in him, love him, praise him, and even share our troubles and needs with him. THAT IS PRAYER!

Think about this;

Let’s say I sat one of my sons down and just talked to him for a few minutes about stuff. You know, just talking. Maybe I would tell him how proud I am of him or how he makes my life better by being my son. I know we would both love and cherish that time spent together.

Now think of the same situation except we did not actually sit down together. I’m in the living room and my son is in the kitchen. I pull out a book and read to him a letter that another man wrote to his son. How would that effect our lives? Would either of us find the experience of any benefit? Not likely.

So, do you think God would prefer that you devote a little personal time to him engaged in meaningful conversation or would he equally appreciate that you had a computer speak your prayers because you did not have the time? Would the words someone wrote in a book be sweet music to God’s ears because you read him the book instead of praying from your heart?

I just want us to think about this for a little while. God does not require much from us. Just 10% of our best. That begins with time. Is a couple hours a day so much to give consider what has been given us? 6 minutes per hour meditating of God is pretty easy to do and God loves that time with you. While we work we can take just a few minutes now and then and just praise God for all he is. No rituals, just words spoken from your heart wherever you may be is the sweetest sound to God’s ears. Just give it a test and see for yourself. Ask God to show you and you will know.

Thanks for listening & I hope no one signs up for informationageprayer.com. If you need to let go of $5 per month, We sure could use it for the ministry!

John

Posted under RANTS & RAVES

As many of you know, Richard Mills and I went to Daytona Bike Week this year in search of those in need.

We rolled in about 7:30pm and met up with our friend Pyro from Columbia, SC in a vacant lot at a busy intersection where he had set up the tent where we had church services each evening. That’s Pyro in front of the tent. Check the banner. That sure got a lot of attention from the cruisers all week.

Richard and I rolled in and got the RV leveled up and water connected before walking up the block to a chicken place for dinner. The day on the road was a long one (we left with 6″ of snow and drove through Ice on I26 until Spartanburg) so we were ready to eat.  

After we all ate, there was some food left that we boxed up in case one of us wanted to go for seconds later on. Carrying our bag, we all started walking back to camp. We were about half way back when we met a young man on the sidewalk. As we passed we gave each other the nod and “how you doin” and walked on. maybe 20 or so yards between us I hear someone yelling “HEY!” I turn around and it was the guy we just passed. He yelled back and asked me if we were with that ministry down on the corner. I said yes and he immediately started to jog back toward us. Richard and Pyro turned to come back by now and we all got together about the same time.

The young man introduced himself as Howard and began telling us of his walk up the street. He said he walked up the street every night after work and tonight as he walked up the street he noticed our tent and read the banners as he walked. He explained that he felt conviction of his sins so strong he could not get away from it and he knew he had to repent and give himself to God right then! Howard confessed his sins to us right there on the sidewalk with hundreds of people passing by. Howard named the things that had control of him to the point I started to feel embarrassed and this guy did not know us at all.

We talked with Howard for a while there on the sidewalk – counseling him and finally joining with him in a great time of prayer and moving of the Holy Spirit. We left Howard with the food we were carrying and wished him well. I saw Howard a couple more times that week and he had a great smile on his face. It was great.

If Howard’s story was all that happened, the week would have been great but that was just the beginning.

Every night the bikers would be out late. The rumbling would go on until 4 or 5 am before it would stop. The early morning was relatively quiet. Most bikers were still asleep and traffic was predominately morning commuters. The very first morning I saw how alive the homeless community was in Daytona when the shelters returned the homeless to the streets. Homeless are handled differently in Florida than they are around here. Shelters are not open unless the temperature drops below 40 degrees. If the temp is above 40, there is no shelter, only the streets.

Each morning around 8am the homeless would be bussed back from the shelters and would march up the street. I liked pulling a chair out of the tent and sitting near the sidewalk in the mornings. The folks would just come sit down with me and we’d sit and talk about what’s happening. I met some really good people that way. I got to counsel a lot and pray a lot with people. I met some interesting people too. A couple were homeless by choice or by their own bad decisions but most, I mean MOST resounded the story I hear all over. That is that they are on the move and on the street in search of work and just trying to make it.  

Each day Richard and I would take a ride out to the swap meet to give our friends Preacher and Poo a break from their ministry tent. We’d work there for a couple hours a day to let them go get some lunch ro take a ride and rest a bit. Preacher and Poo are awesome servants. Their work never ends and they travel the whole country with their booth sharing the love of Jesus and giving away bibles and tracts.

Each evening we’d have a church service on the side of the busy street. The music was always great. A local lady comes each year to sing. What an awesome voice Nicole has. I could read the faces on the street clearly that they were liking it no matter where there heart was at that time.

The messages were great too. It was very nice to see people just coming in and taking part in a church service.

One night a group of about 20 college kids came by to talk to us. These kids would spend their time making sandwiches and snack bags then walking the streets giving them to the homeless folks. It was a nice mission they were on but when Pyro asked them why they did it, no one was jumping to answer. One kid finally said “it’s what we do. We may be homeless one of these days”. So we started talking to the kids. Pyro went and got a painting he had in his motor home of Jesus holding up an addict and talked to them about the picture and what Jesus has done for us. It was a great time indeed.

As I was talking to a couple of the kids, I was paying attention to some of the other cross-talk among the group and I heard a small group talking about how they liked these guys (speaking of us). What I hope is that through the time they spent with us, that they have found purpose in what they are doing. I hope that they have learned of the hope that they can share. It is so nice of them to give away food and sacrifice their time to help the homeless. To see college kids doing this is very refreshing. Now when someone asks them why they are doing this, they can answer, “It’s what Jesus would be doing if he were here today”.

Posted under WASSSUP!