Continue in Prayer...

That is my motto for 2013: "Continue in Prayer." 

No matter what this year brings, good, bad, or indifferent, I will continue in prayer. One devotional I started this year is from Charles Spurgeon. It is an iPhone app that has a morning and evening reading for each day. I am a big fan! I read some from it last year & I always get a lot out of the short readings. Yesterday he wrote about prayer and through that I realized that is what I am focusing on during my fast & throughout this new year. Spending more intimate time with God in prayer. When I am fasting I LOVE to have a scripture that reflects what I am focusing on, this time it is:

Colossians 4:2 "Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful & thankful."

Here is the Charles Spurgeon Devo:

Continue in prayer.

Colossians 4:2

It is interesting to remark how large a portion of Sacred Writ is occupied with the subject of prayer, either in furnishing examples, enforcing precepts, or pronouncing promises. We scarcely open the Bible before we read, Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord; and just as we are about to close the volume, the Amen of an earnest supplication meets our ear. Instances are plentiful. Here we find a wrestling Jacob-there a Daniel who prayed three times a day-and a David who with all his heart called upon his God. On the mountain we see Elias; in the dungeon Paul and Silas. We have multitudes of commands, and myriads of promises. What does this teach us, but the sacred importance and necessity of prayer? We may be certain that whatever God has made prominent in his Word, he intended to be conspicuous in our lives. If he has said much about prayer, it is because he knows we have much need of it. So deep are our necessities, that until we are in heaven we must not cease to pray. Dost thou want nothing? Then, I fear thou dost not know thy poverty. Hast thou no mercy to ask of God? Then, may the Lord's mercy show thee thy misery! A prayerless soul is a Christless soul. Prayer is the lisping of the believing infant, the shout of the fighting believer, the requiem of the dying saint falling asleep in Jesus. It is the breath, the watchword, the comfort, the strength, the honour of a Christian. If thou be a child of God, thou wilt seek thy Father's face, and live in thy Father's love. Pray that this year thou mayst be holy, humble, zealous, and patient; have closer communion with Christ, and enter oftener into the banqueting-house of his love. Pray that thou mayst be an example and a blessing unto others, and that thou mayst live more to the glory of thy Master. The motto for this year must be, Continue in prayer.

2012 Fast

I cannot forget & hope to never forget the feeling I had in my heart and stomach about a year and a half ago, when I left my shoes and brand new shirt in the front of the room to be given to women who needed them more than me.. I had went with my Mom and her church (First Baptist Skiatook) to a Baptist Women's Convention at Falls Creek. I had no idea who the speaker was going to be but I just went because my Mom invited me and also because I was getting ready to start what felt like a whole new life going from corporate America to being employed at LifeChurch.tv. So we got there, listened to some praise and worship, typical women's event. Then this cute sassy girl gets on stage and starts talking about living and serving as Jesus did. (You can read more about her and her amazing story here: http://jenhatmaker.com/) Wow, I had never realized how un-like Him I truly lived. I never realized how consumed with myself and "the american dream" that I live. Toward the end Jen told us her story of how God brought them to a place she never thought they would be and on Easter Sunday night they were at a tiny run-down church in Austin and the pastor asked them to leave their shoes at the alter because good shoes were the biggest need for the homeless. She left her brand new really expensive cowboy boots at the alter. She then challenged us to bring our shoes and anything else we would like to donate to the front and leave it there and they were going to donate it all to the DaySpring women's shelter in Tulsa. My eyes were bursting with tears and I knew God was messing up my heart as I walked down that aisle and left my sandals (it was summer) and my brand new shirt I had bought just for that trip at the front for someone who truly needed it because lets be honest, I didn't NEED it. Jesus jacked me up that day, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I came home and immediately read her book, Interrupted, An Adventure in Releasing the Essentials of Faith.
Jen challenged me in this book to pray a simple prayer, and I do have to admit, it said in bold letters at the top of the section, READER BEWARE: LIFE-ALTERING PRAYER AHEAD. 


Her prayer was simple, "God, raise up in me a holy passion." and that was what started God's transformation of her life. I am 100% sure that God brought me to that conference on purpose. I can look back now and see that he used that time to spark a change in my life. But let me be honest, it was only a spark, I did not come straight home and sell everything I had to feed the poor.. I finished reading Interrupted, started my new job at LifeChurch.tv, and went on about life. The entire time knowing I was ignoring something but not ready to really listen. I can of course make excuses, I was insanely busy learning LifeKIDS, making relationships, scheduling leaders, it was a crazy, extremely awesome kind of crazy, time in my life. Jesus continued to work on me throughout the next year, we took tiny baby steps forward, we leased our house and moved into an apartment to save on gas and to pay off some debt. God continued to work subtly through relationships and messages at LifeChurch. Then we would take BIG steps backwards and would go on spending sprees. Ughhh. 


Read John 21:15-17.


Jen described the feeling she had after reading this scripture like this:
         "I think our natural tendency is to treat our spiritual lives as endless efforts in trying harder. But we rarely stop to question whether we're trying hard at the right thing. That's why I was so shocked by what came next. I told Him one last time: 'I thought I was feeding your sheep, but I'll try harder.' And this is what I heard in response: 'You do feed souls, but 24,000 of My sheep will die today because no one fed their bellies. Eighteen thousand of them are My youngest lambs, starving today in a world with plenty of food to go around. If you truly love Me, you will feed My lambs. My people are crumbling and dying and starving, and you're blessing blessed people and dreaming about your next house." 


Ouch. So that hurt. But apparently not bad enough, because I went on with my life, I mean I work for a church, I help when I can, I read my Bible and I LOVE LOVE LOVE God. Must be doing pretty good. Nothing to worry about. 


Okay let's fast forward to 2012. We started out our year fasting, I couldn't be more thankful that our Pastor taught us the importance of fasting, especially starting out the year with a fast. So I will be transparent, I prayed for two specific things during my fast, one was for Jacob, my hubby, to deepen his relationship with Christ & be able to truly hear Him and then for a specific verse for me (& us). I prayed to live this verse and it be alive in my life: Romans 12:1-2 MSG
"So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life-your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life-and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out."
And changed from the inside out is exactly what is happening to me. Let's go back to Jen Hatmaker, she released her latest book, 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess. I thought this would be a great book to read while I was fasting and starting a new year... And Bam, God ROCKED MY WORLD again. I truly have a love/hate relationship with Jen. I needed this reality check, but it's not easy to swallow. Talk about my verse "Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking." Umm that's exactly what I have been doing and exactly what Jen teaches practical ways to stop doing and truly important reasons why. I could quote the ENTIRE book of 7 to you but I would rather you just read it :) 
One specific part that rocked my world, she talked about imagining a family in Ethiopia, and she says "As I gaze upon their hopelessness, I imagine them calculating what I've spent on clothing alone, realizing that same amount would've kept their family fed and healthy for thirty years."
Is my closet full of clothes that I don't even wear really truly more important than an entire family being able to eat?! What is wrong with me? 
And because God knows me so well and knows I need to hear Him in multiple ways to truly "get it". He so nicely worked it out where Pastor Craig did his message series "Better" at the same time that I am trying to process 7, fasting, and praying for Him to radically change my life and ignite a holy passion within me. Man, God has turned my world upside down, he's changing me from the inside out and helping me to truly see that it's not only about doing my devotions & checking all the boxes, but living like like He did. Craig said in week 2 of "Better" "My life is too valuable, my calling is too great, and my God is too good to waste my life and resources on things that DONT MATTER." He then said "You will never change the world watching re-runs." Why do I feel like it's okay to spend countless HOURS every day watching t.v. that isn't real?! Sometimes I feel like I have a better connection with characters on shows than with REAL LIVE people. People who need God's love and light in their lives. My family who God has blessed me with, they are so much more important than a show. 


I am so thankful that God heard my prayers during our fast, He is teaching me how to live a life with one handful. He is teaching me how true it is that "One handful of tranquility is better than two handfuls of toil." He is taking Jacob and I to a whole new level of simplicity and devotion to HIM & His mission! As we finished our fast I could not get Isaiah 58 or Matthew 25 off my heart. Man those have to be two of my favorite chapters of the Bible. The kind of fasting & life that Jesus truly called us to. 
So we are getting rid of stuff, because stuff doesn't matter, we can't take it with us! We are paying off debt, because we want to be able to give everything we can when He asks us to. We are treating His creation with respect! We are treating our bodies, which are His temple, with a kind of respect that we have never known before, eating better, watching what we put in, and taking care of ourselves. We are applying for adoption! And we are serving. Jesus was serious when He said that "Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me". He was serious in Isaiah 58 when he said "This is the kind of fast day I'm after: to break the chains of injustice, get rid of exploitation in the workplace, free the oppressed, cancel debts.7 What I'm interested in seeing you do is: sharing your food with the hungry, inviting the homeless poor into your homes, putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad, being available to your own families."


God confirmed to me this week that we are following where He is leading us and that this isn't just an emotional thing for me, when Jacob texted me out of the blue to tell me that he had sold his xbox (if you know us, you know what a big deal this is) and wanted to put that money towards debt. He texted me all nonchalantly while I was about to burst into tears yet again :) God is doing something in our family and I have never been so excited to get rid of the excess and focus on the things that truly matter!! I don't think it's any coincidence that God has brought us to this place right before we launch a brand new LifeChurch.tv campus in Broken Arrow! He is clearing out the crap in our lives so we can hear Him even more clearly and serve as He would serve in the Broken Arrow community! He has called us to serve and love the families, especially the least of them in that community and I CANNOT wait to see what he has in store!!!