Tag: pray

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Running away from “Why Me?” and toward “What Now?”

RayHauser2013_09-22 This Sunday @LosAltosGrace, our beloved Ray & Char Hauser joined us. Ray has battled brain cancer while serving with his wife Char in a hospitality & discipleship ministry with military men and women stationed in Hawaii.

Ray shared an emotional and powerful message about the spiritual wisdom they have gained through this trial. His text for the day was Psalm 73 which tracks the “whining” and “reality” of the writer all the way to the “right” conclusion:

 

But as for me, it is good to be near God.
I have made the Sovereign Lord  my refuge;
I will tell of all your deeds.      (Psalm 73:28 NIV)

 

Ray candidly challenged us not to run to the typical “Why Me?” question that is the normal response. From his experience, he encouraged us to ask a different question “What Now?”

In a poignant moment, Ray confessed that they pray with both hands lifted high to the Lord. The one hand is lifted up to God full of their prayer requests.  And the other hand is lifted to receive whatever the Lord decides to give them.

May I be a man that seeks our Lord like my brother Ray.

 

Ray’s message is worth hearing again, not because it’s so polished, but because it’s from the lips of a man who has walked the hard road with our Lord and is sharing his advice:  Listen to this message online or on iTunes

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Praying for the “New America”

On this eve of the “National Day of Prayer,” I wrote a little ditty for @LosAltosGrace and compelled folks to actually pray on this day… and even tried to create some white space to help it happen.

Then I was scrolling through my email and came across a forward article about our nation from a patriot in our @LosAltosGrace Church family.  The title of the email article was “We Are Not Coming Back.” It caught my attention because it was written by a Rabbi…

It was written originally in the days following the 2012 Presidential Election (Read it on his blog here). It certainly talked about politics and was very insightful. The part that grabbed me was this paragraph:

Obama also knows that the electorate has changed – that whites will soon be a minority in America (they’re already a minority in California) and that the new immigrants to the US are primarily from the Third World and do not share the traditional American values that attracted immigrants in the 19th and 20th centuries. It is a different world, and a different America . Obama is part of that different America , knows it, and knows how to tap into it. That is why he won.

The bigger question for me is not how the elections will go in this different and new America, but how can we see the Gospel and disciples of Jesus penetrate this different…and new America.  This “new America” has long been rooted in our urban areas. I saw it for 8 years as I lived in downtown Columbus, Ohio.  And now I’m living in one of the largest urban areas in the world…I’m still praying and wrestling with what is it gonna take?

This different or “new America” provides us with great challenges and opportunities for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Let’s take our energy, prayers and creativity and leverage them toward seeing our Jesus draw many to Himself!

Many prayers in the next 24 hours will be made for “revival” and I’m in favor of that.  But what about our prayers for the thousands of people in our country who have never had a “__vival”; that is a “first life with Christ”, been “born again” nor even known about Jesus. We must pray for these and for the church and Jesus’ disciples to sow the Good News!

We see the fields white for harvest. Isn’t that what we should see in this different and new America?  God is bringing the world to us and let’s see Jesus bring the world to Himself through US.