Like a Shepherd Lead Us
Yo, yo, and hello to everyone out there! I hope and pray all is well with all of you.
I started reading a new book yesterday. It's called Like a Shepherd Lead Us. It's a collection of essays about spiritual leadership for elders, but I think anyone involved in spiritual leadership (preachers, youth workers, outreach ministers, deacons, and so forth) should read it too. I read the first chapter last night and found some very interesting stuff to talk about. It's called Spirituality For the Busy, Frantic, and Overwhelmed by Randy Harris (Bible professor at Abilene Christian University). He starts off telling a story about a minister who each month would seek spiritual guidance from a trusted Christian sage. Pretty soon he realized how busy he was getting, and thought about getting out of it. He was going to call in sick, but didn't want to lie to his trusted advisor. So he decided to just say he was doing great and leave. So the time had come for him to see his spiritual advisor. "How is your spiritual life?" his advisor asked. The man replied, "Great! Never been better!" The spiritual guide was very surprised by his answer and said, "I don't think in all the times we've talked that there was a time when everything was perfect. Maybe we should discuss what you are doing that is making your spiritual life go so well". He then saw that his plan was failing so he just came out with the truth. "The fact of the matter is, I really don't have time for this tonight. I have a meeting with the elders in a little while and then a Bible study to teach after that. Life isn't always like this but right now I just really don't have the time". His spiriutal advisor replies, "I see. In that case you better run along to your next appointment and we'll meet next month. Perhaps you won't be so busy". Usually the spiritual director would give him a list of Bible verses to read and study over, but this time he didn't do that. Before the minister left he asked, "Please give me my verse for the month". But his spiritual advisor refused, saying, "Your very busy. You won't have the time to look over them. Then you'll feel guilty all over again". But the minister persisted until his advisor finally wrote a verse down on an index card, gave it to him, and left. As the miniter huredly left and got in his car, he looked at the card. He didn't recognize it, so he pulled his Bible out and looked it up right then. It read, "Are you the Messiah, or should we wait for another?".
All too often we get busy, so busy infact that we hardly have the time to sit, read our Bibles (for ourselves and not for a sermon or class or anything else), and pray. We must realize we are not the Messiah. That job has long been taken by the only qualified person, our Savior Jesus Christ. There are 3 texts in the early part of Luke's Gospel that show what Jesus did when He got really busy. I won't write the texts out, but please go and read them yourself. I'll just paraphrase them. The first one is Luke 4:40-43. It says how people would bring so many sick and cripled people and layed them at Jesus' feet. He healed so many people in to the late night I imagine. But then in the early morning hours (perhaps even before the sun rises) He got up, and went out by Him self to pray. At least until some people found Him and asked Him to keep on healing. But He said that He had to leave so He could preach and teach else where. That, after all, was why He had come. Jesus' perpuse was to preach and teach, not to heal. Jesus prayed and after that He was able to say "no" to some great ministry opportunities in order to engage in the most important ministry.
The second text is Luke 5:15-16. It tells how large groups of people would come to hear Him preach, teach, and be healed. But He often went out by Himself and prayed. We need to take a break every now and then to refresh ourselves when engaged in ministry activites as well.
And thirdly is Luke 6:12-13. It tells us that one night Jesus went on top of a mountain and prayed throught out the night. When morning came He called all of His disciples and chose 12 of them to become His apostles. This, no dought, was a very important night of prayer to make these decisions about who would be His apostles. We need to spend much time in prayer over important decision making as well.
Next we see 4 ways that we pray. The first one being talking at God. That means our clique prayers (ie. "God is great. God is good. Now we thank You for this food"). Rote memorization prayers if you will.
The second is talking to God. This is where we develop a conversation of sorts with God. We tell Him what's on our minds. Our heart aches, our joys, our thanks, and so on. This is propably what we do the most of .
The third is listening to God. This is Bible reading. When we pray it's more of a one-sided conversation. So when we read our Bibles sometimes we'll see something that catches our attention and sometimes it can be the answer to our question. And sometimes we can talk to a trusted church leader about a problem and he can share some wisdom on the subject including a Bible verse or two that sheds some light on it for us. "Listening prayer is largely going to be done with the engagement of scripture. We read the Bible but do we really listen to God?" Randy says. He says that a trusted spiritual advisor said to him, "If I take this spiritual text seriously, what would I have to change in my life?" Now "suddenly the text got very interesting again. Now I wasn't introgating the Bible but allowing the Bible to interrogate me". And furthor down the paragraph, " at this moment our reading scripture becomes not just informative but transformative".
And the forth way we pray is being with God. That's just getting out in nature, just getting away from it all for a while. It's like, "waisting time with God" as Klaus Issler said one time. Of course anytime we spend with God isn't waisting time, you understand, but just getting out with Him and just hanging out doing nothing impreticular, shoting the breeze.
We need to be praying for our families, our churches, our leaders. We need to spend time with God in prayer all the time. At our high points. At our low points. At every point.
In 1 Kings 19 we see that God given Elijah a great victory over the prophets of Baal. Then the very next day Jezebel had sworn that Elijah's end would be same as there's. So Elijah ran scared. He ran as far as he could and was so exhaused he couldn't run any more. Then the Lord says to him, "What are you doing here Elijah?". And he says how zealous he had been in his service to Him, how his fellow prophets had been killed, that he was the only one left, and now he felt he was about to die too. Then there were three tremendous forces that occured, but the Lord wasn't in any of those. Then a gentle whisper came, "What are you doing here Elijah?". He told Him the same thing as before, then God told him to go back and anoint two men to rule over Israel and then to anoint his sucessor. And then that He had reserved seven thousand in Israel who hadn't bowed their knees to Baal.
We all must remember who we are and who we're serving. God is God and are not. He is all-powerful and we are not.
I guess that is all for now. Sorry this is so long now. God bless you all in Jesus' name.
Zack
ps. My Mavs lost last night. Maybe we'll have better luck next game. See y'all tomorrow.
I started reading a new book yesterday. It's called Like a Shepherd Lead Us. It's a collection of essays about spiritual leadership for elders, but I think anyone involved in spiritual leadership (preachers, youth workers, outreach ministers, deacons, and so forth) should read it too. I read the first chapter last night and found some very interesting stuff to talk about. It's called Spirituality For the Busy, Frantic, and Overwhelmed by Randy Harris (Bible professor at Abilene Christian University). He starts off telling a story about a minister who each month would seek spiritual guidance from a trusted Christian sage. Pretty soon he realized how busy he was getting, and thought about getting out of it. He was going to call in sick, but didn't want to lie to his trusted advisor. So he decided to just say he was doing great and leave. So the time had come for him to see his spiritual advisor. "How is your spiritual life?" his advisor asked. The man replied, "Great! Never been better!" The spiritual guide was very surprised by his answer and said, "I don't think in all the times we've talked that there was a time when everything was perfect. Maybe we should discuss what you are doing that is making your spiritual life go so well". He then saw that his plan was failing so he just came out with the truth. "The fact of the matter is, I really don't have time for this tonight. I have a meeting with the elders in a little while and then a Bible study to teach after that. Life isn't always like this but right now I just really don't have the time". His spiriutal advisor replies, "I see. In that case you better run along to your next appointment and we'll meet next month. Perhaps you won't be so busy". Usually the spiritual director would give him a list of Bible verses to read and study over, but this time he didn't do that. Before the minister left he asked, "Please give me my verse for the month". But his spiritual advisor refused, saying, "Your very busy. You won't have the time to look over them. Then you'll feel guilty all over again". But the minister persisted until his advisor finally wrote a verse down on an index card, gave it to him, and left. As the miniter huredly left and got in his car, he looked at the card. He didn't recognize it, so he pulled his Bible out and looked it up right then. It read, "Are you the Messiah, or should we wait for another?".
All too often we get busy, so busy infact that we hardly have the time to sit, read our Bibles (for ourselves and not for a sermon or class or anything else), and pray. We must realize we are not the Messiah. That job has long been taken by the only qualified person, our Savior Jesus Christ. There are 3 texts in the early part of Luke's Gospel that show what Jesus did when He got really busy. I won't write the texts out, but please go and read them yourself. I'll just paraphrase them. The first one is Luke 4:40-43. It says how people would bring so many sick and cripled people and layed them at Jesus' feet. He healed so many people in to the late night I imagine. But then in the early morning hours (perhaps even before the sun rises) He got up, and went out by Him self to pray. At least until some people found Him and asked Him to keep on healing. But He said that He had to leave so He could preach and teach else where. That, after all, was why He had come. Jesus' perpuse was to preach and teach, not to heal. Jesus prayed and after that He was able to say "no" to some great ministry opportunities in order to engage in the most important ministry.
The second text is Luke 5:15-16. It tells how large groups of people would come to hear Him preach, teach, and be healed. But He often went out by Himself and prayed. We need to take a break every now and then to refresh ourselves when engaged in ministry activites as well.
And thirdly is Luke 6:12-13. It tells us that one night Jesus went on top of a mountain and prayed throught out the night. When morning came He called all of His disciples and chose 12 of them to become His apostles. This, no dought, was a very important night of prayer to make these decisions about who would be His apostles. We need to spend much time in prayer over important decision making as well.
Next we see 4 ways that we pray. The first one being talking at God. That means our clique prayers (ie. "God is great. God is good. Now we thank You for this food"). Rote memorization prayers if you will.
The second is talking to God. This is where we develop a conversation of sorts with God. We tell Him what's on our minds. Our heart aches, our joys, our thanks, and so on. This is propably what we do the most of .
The third is listening to God. This is Bible reading. When we pray it's more of a one-sided conversation. So when we read our Bibles sometimes we'll see something that catches our attention and sometimes it can be the answer to our question. And sometimes we can talk to a trusted church leader about a problem and he can share some wisdom on the subject including a Bible verse or two that sheds some light on it for us. "Listening prayer is largely going to be done with the engagement of scripture. We read the Bible but do we really listen to God?" Randy says. He says that a trusted spiritual advisor said to him, "If I take this spiritual text seriously, what would I have to change in my life?" Now "suddenly the text got very interesting again. Now I wasn't introgating the Bible but allowing the Bible to interrogate me". And furthor down the paragraph, " at this moment our reading scripture becomes not just informative but transformative".
And the forth way we pray is being with God. That's just getting out in nature, just getting away from it all for a while. It's like, "waisting time with God" as Klaus Issler said one time. Of course anytime we spend with God isn't waisting time, you understand, but just getting out with Him and just hanging out doing nothing impreticular, shoting the breeze.
We need to be praying for our families, our churches, our leaders. We need to spend time with God in prayer all the time. At our high points. At our low points. At every point.
In 1 Kings 19 we see that God given Elijah a great victory over the prophets of Baal. Then the very next day Jezebel had sworn that Elijah's end would be same as there's. So Elijah ran scared. He ran as far as he could and was so exhaused he couldn't run any more. Then the Lord says to him, "What are you doing here Elijah?". And he says how zealous he had been in his service to Him, how his fellow prophets had been killed, that he was the only one left, and now he felt he was about to die too. Then there were three tremendous forces that occured, but the Lord wasn't in any of those. Then a gentle whisper came, "What are you doing here Elijah?". He told Him the same thing as before, then God told him to go back and anoint two men to rule over Israel and then to anoint his sucessor. And then that He had reserved seven thousand in Israel who hadn't bowed their knees to Baal.
We all must remember who we are and who we're serving. God is God and are not. He is all-powerful and we are not.
I guess that is all for now. Sorry this is so long now. God bless you all in Jesus' name.
Zack
ps. My Mavs lost last night. Maybe we'll have better luck next game. See y'all tomorrow.
posted by Zack | 9:02 AM
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