Can you hear me now?

The husband looked longingly at his bride, observing every detail of her face, understanding every emotion and every thought, watching every movement as she hurried through her tasks. The bride looked at her groom and said: "I've got alot going on today. Can you help me out with this list of chores? Thanks." The groom, without losing eye contact, smiled and said: "No problem. I love you... very much." But the woman walked quickly out the door without waiting for a response, oblivious to the expression of love that her groom had just uttered. This is a story from my life, but it's not me and my wife in the above interaction. It's how I used to look at prayer: one-way communication of what I wanted done. But prayer is so much more than that. It is two-way communication; it's time spent with the spiritual Bridegroom; it's the foundational building block of our relationship with God.


It's not that we have to pray... we GET to pray! If we stop to listen to God, we get to hear Him express His intense love for us. Sure, we need to attend to certain tasks, but like the story of Mary and Martha, we choose the BETTER thing when we sit at His feet and just listen.

"Don't just do something; sit there!"

Popular posts from this blog

What is Alpha?

Image
I want to tell you about the Alpha Course.  Around 30 years ago, I had the privilege of attending an Alpha course at Truro Church in Northern Virginia. I was already a believer in Christ, but I've always struggled connecting with others. Some people may be surprised by that fact because I've been blessed with so many wonderful relationships, but the Alpha Course was special in that it opened the door to lifelong, family relationships. The people in our Alpha group kept meeting until we were pulled to different parts of the country. Yet even after that, we've had reunions, attended the weddings of our daughters and even met remotely during the COVID lockdown. I can't say that every Alpha group is as special as ours. The reunions and remote gatherings were in large part due to one lovely lady in particular who has continued to pull us back again and again, and it was my privilege to see her enter into a relationship with Jesus 3 decades ago, a relationship that has poure
Read more

If I were an Atheist

Image
My Life / My Will If I were an atheist, reality would be centered around me. I would judge things as good if they were in my best interest, and I would judge things as bad if they were not to my advantage. If I were an atheist, all relationships would exist for my pleasure and for the pursuit of my best interest. I would be at the center of the universe, and all others with circle around me. It would therefore be important that people agree with me in all things. Depending upon my level of sophistication, I would get people to agree with me without even realizing how I was manipulating them. In fact, I would take great joy in converting people to my way of thinking, and if I changed my thinking in any way, then I would want others to join me in this new enlightenment. If I were an atheist, I would want people to think of me as somehow “good“, so I would probably have some story to tell people about my “goodness”. It could be around my generosity, which would be just enough to have peop
Read more

Challenges of a Father

Image
I haven’t written in a while because I’ve been trying to form my thoughts for a topic that I’ll post later this month, and like our society in general have considered Father’s Day only as an afterthought. Our society celebrates Mothers pretty easily, and that’s a good thing. But it seems harder to celebrate fathers. Why is that? The message at our church today was a really good one but reflecting upon the content I realized that it was mostly describing fatherhood wounds, the impact of a bad father figure and how God brings restoration. So I could choose to write about the qualities of a good father, and that would also be a good thing to share, but instead I thought it might be better to share my challenges as a father. Assuming that others may be challenged in similar ways, maybe someone would benefit from knowing that we’re not alone. As the father of five children, I know I’ve made mistakes and that I’ve also done the right thing. No one is perfect as a parent, and that shouldn’t
Read more