Carson on Prayer

As I continue to study the prayers of Paul, I continue to be struck with how much my christian life is concerned with the worries of the day and not with the coming of the Kingdom. D.A. Carson succinctly summarizes the reality in my own life. Does this apply to you as well?

"To restrict ourselves for a moment to the petitions in the prayers of Paul, we must ask ourselves how far the petitions we commonly present to God are in line with what Paul prays for. Suppose, for example, that 80 or 90 percent of our petitions ask God for good health, recovery from illness, safety on the road, a good job, success in exams, the emotional needs of our children, success in our mortgage application, and much more of the same. How much of Paul's praying revolves around equivalent items? If the center of our praying is far removed from the center of Paul's praying, then even our very praying may serve as a wretched testimony to the remarkable success of the processes of paganization in our life and thought."

from A call to spiritual reformation, pg. 96-97.

What is the solution out of our predicament? It is the Word of God, the living Word of God - Jesus Christ - whom we need more and more, and whom we can learn about and experience and draw near to in the Holy Bible. We need Jesus to conform our lives to his life as revealed in the Bible. And that is going to take more time in Scripture and a willingness to repent when our life is at odds with the life of Christ revealed there.

Abandoned Babies and the Slums

Many of you are familiar with our previous work with InterVarsity, our passion for missions, and our desire to see children adopted.  A good friend of mine is on staff with IVCF and is currently in Kenya working in the slums with some students.  Let me quote from his most recent prayer letter to give one more compelling reason why Christians must consider adoption:

"This week, there were 2 new babies brought to the orphanage. One (Sophia) had been dumped naked by a river in the slum and left for dead. The police brought her in with bruises, scratches, and rashes. The second (Jinci) had been left all day in the hot sun outside of a church. Nuns from that church brought the baby to the orphanage. They are both doing well and recovering from their injuries. All of the children in this orphanage have similar stories and it is a blessing to be able to serve these kids whom God has rescued from terrible circumstances."

Now, I am told by many people, it is better to support a bunch of kids than to adopt them into our homes in the USA.  If that is the case, you tell those children it is better for them to be one of hundreds of children dumped by the river, or scalded by the sun, in an orphanage where a handful of adults serve them and the adult:child ratio would cause any school-board to cringe.  Where are they going to receive the love they need in order to grow up healthy?  Sure they get more in the orphanage than they had before, but they would be even better off inside a christian family and home.  Just another compelling reason to consider adoption.

If you are interested in learning more about the Schenk's work training students to be missionaries at home and abroad, you can email them here.

A Review of Paul's Intercessory Prayers

I just finished reading Gordon Wiles Paul's Intercessory Prayers.

This is not a book for the faint of heart, it is full of greek phrasing and plenty of footnotes. That said, the author's main points are as follows:

1. Paul had an intercessory prayer life which he adapted to Roman epistolary form through 1) wish prayers and 2) prayer reports. The wish prayers are hopes for what God will do and the prayer reports are descriptions of what Paul has been praying for until now.

2. While stylistically different, both serve the same purpose, to enhance the main point of their respective books. The prayers serve to wrap up sections or introduce them, but are intrinsically related to the core themes of the letter.

These conclusions seem fairly obvious to anyone who has read Paul's letters and who has a prayer life themselves. Aside from some grammatical information and literary/textual criticism, the text was a long hard slog for me and the average reader will get more out of a good devotional on the prayers of Paul like Carson's A Call to Spiritual Reformation.

Educating our Children

When it comes to educating our children, many churches have taken the opinion that all options are equal and that the final decision is a parents, with no input to be offered by the local church and its leadership structure.  I would like to offer up a quote from a recent article on 9 reasons to avoid public education:

"The Bible says, "Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it." (Proverbs 22:6) There is simply no easy way around the fact that putting our children in an anti-Christian education system is not training them up in the way they should go. Many parents want to say, "But we are giving our children Bible training at home." Really? Are you going back to all subject matter your children are taking and giving them a scripture-based education to correct wrong teaching? If so, you are in essence homeschooling them, so why continue to have them enrolled in the public school? If you mean that you are giving your children moral training, and letting the public school give them 'academic' training, you are simply denying them a Christian worldview. Your children are being given an anti-Christian worldview in all subjects at the local public school."

Might this be part of the exodus of our youth from the Christian churches?  

The Bible on Adoption

Here is a great interview with Russell Moore on the biblical view of adoption.  Rev. Moore is author of Adopted for Life.  I highly encourage everyone to listen.

Intentional Fathering begins in Seeking God

Intentional Fathering is a hard task.  I began outlining that in one of my last posts.  Today, I have been reading a short ebook by Mark Driscoll entitled, Pastor Dad.  The first chapter strikes home with me as the core of fathering.
"before any father disciplines his children, he is commanded to delight in them. practically, this means that most of a father's time is spent enjoying his children, encouraging his children, laughing with his children, being affectionate with his children, and enjoying his children so that there is a deep bond of love and joy between the children and their dad."

Delighting in our kids.  Do we delight in them enough to work less, to be home more?  Do we delight in our kids enough to want to have their help in our daily tasks, even if it takes longer to finish the task at hand?  Do we delight in our kids enough to tell them how we feel about them and to hold them, embrace them and love them?  Do we delight in our kids enough to allow God to discipline us?  If the first questions were hard, this last question is the hardest.  Are we willing to pursue God in such a way that we will allow him to rewrite our lives, to correct our sins, to rebuke us?  Again Driscoll writes, 

"practically, this means that a good father lives out the gospel every day in fellowship with god and his child, and that he knows what to do about sin in the life of his child because he's been dealing with his own sin in his own life first...proverbs 20:7 says, "the righteous who walks in his integrity—blessed are his children after him!" similarly, paul tells the corinthians that when he was a boy he acted like one, but when he became a man he put childish ways behind him (1 cor. 13:11). it is imperative that christian fathers repent of their childish ways (i.e., laziness, lust, whining, drunkenness, juvenile antics, neglecting family in the pursuit of hobbies, foolish spending, and so on) because their sins impinge upon the lives of their children and grandchildren."

This may be the hardest part of fathering, actually repenting of our sin - the long hours, the struggles with sexual lust, the covetous desire for more.  It is one thing to agree these things are wrong, and quite another thing to be willing to change our lifestyle, but that is the true heart of repentance and fatherhood begins in repentance.  So fathers, are you ready to begin intentionally father?  If yes, then ask this question, "Do I want my child to have the spiritual life that I have?" "Do I want my child to struggle with the same carnal struggles that I struggle with?"  Wherever you answer "No", set that before God and truly repent and change.  Your fathering begins here.

Do you relate to the Biblical World and it's characters?

In a wonderful post at Feeding on Christ, I read about the Puritan Principles of Biblical Interpretation posted by Nicholas T. Batzig on June 23, 2009.  In it he writes,

"J.I. Packer, in his masterpiece A Quest for Godliness , highlights what he believes to be the three major principles of biblical interpretation in Puritan expositions. These are three principles we would do well to imitate:

"1. Puritan exegetes…do not bring to the Bible the pervasive sense of difference and distance between cultures and epochs that is so much part of today's mind-set; nor do they bring with them the imaginative ideas of religious evolution that cripple so many modern biblical scholars and corrupt so much of their expository work. Instead of feeling distant from biblical characters and their experiences because of the number of centuries between them, the Puritans felt kinship with them because they belonged to the same human race, faced, fear, and fellowshipped with the same unchanging God, and struggled with essentially the same spiritual problems."

"2. Puritan grammatical-historical exegesis of texts, though often naively expressed, is remarkably competent, as any knowledgeable reader of Matthew Henry's great expository commentary on the whole Bible will soon see."

"3. Puritans exegeted Scripture in order to apply it, and as application was the focus of their concern so it was the area of their special strength…"

It is point #1, which I would like to address to us personally.  Do we relate to the characters of Scripture? Do we understand their struggles and pains, their joys and excitements?  If not, why? Might it be we are afraid to see ourselves in their lives, for then the answer might terrifyingly be staring us in the face?  Might we see our sin too clearly?  Or maybe we will see God's demands so plainly before our eyes and we don't want to see or know these truths?  But equally important are the questions, "Do we understand our neighbor next door?  Do we see ourselves in their struggles and vice versa?"  This seems to be a corollary to relating to the characters of the Scriptures.  How many of us feel distant and like we can't relate to another person's position?  The truth is, we are not that far apart.  Their sin is ours and our sin is theirs.  We are very near to one another and we all share the same struggles in life, albeit expressed differently, but the the same nevertheless.  As we come to see ourselves and our nature and God's desires for us in the Biblical narrative, we will also be able to see ourselves in our neighbor and express greater compassion and understanding to them, as well. We would do well to read the puritans for our own spiritual lives and apply their insights to our world and the characters whom we meet.

Intentionally Parenting

Deuteronomy 6:6-7 "And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise."

 

Increasingly, I have been contemplating these words and realizing how poorly I actually take this commandment of God.  What I mean is, I am intentional about discipling other people, even other people's children; I am frequently on the lookout for ways to share Christ, train in godliness and open up the Scriptures to them, but, when it comes to my own family, and my children in particular, I seem to take a more laissez-faire approach. 

 

Why is this?  I am not sure, maybe because they are always with me and I can get to it another day; maybe because I am tired, maybe because it feels too much like work to do with my family, what I do for my vocation.  I am not sure, but one thing I am certain of is this: God commanded intentional parenting.  God wants families that take seriously the call to instill the Words of Life, the Life of Christ and the Spirit of godliness into their children. 

 

And others can't do that.  While many Scripture passages are spoken of in the plural, all of the you's in these verses are in the singular.  It is a parental responsibility.  Youth groups, Christian schools, pastors, Sunday school teachers and the like, while contributing to this, are always secondary reinforcers of the parent's role in the primacy of training their children.

 

Why is it that so many parents are eager to delegate these responsibilities to others?  Why is it that so many parents like me, approach this task with such lackadaisical passivity?  The answer resides in the idea of difficulty.  It is difficult to train up a child in the Lord, for that requires me to actually know the Lord myself and to know another intimately enough to bring God to bear upon their life.  That takes work, difficult work. 

 

So what am I doing?  So far my feeble attempt at being more intentional has been to read my kids a bible story each night and to ask one of them to pray at a meal each day.  But I have been fiercely independent in doing my devotions and prayer times.  I haven't invited them into these?  Why not?  I don't know? But how else does one disciple a child to pray, or read the Word, or study it? How does one bring Christ into every activity of life? 

 

The answer seems to lie in the invitation to open our lives up and let our kids participate in every aspect of our relationship with God and others.  And that means we must spend copious amounts of time with our children. Maybe the urban world has actually contributed to the degradation of family  by separating our lives more and more, culling fathers to the workplace, and mothers to the soccer field instead of wedding our lives to greater and greater degrees.  Maybe we are in need of a return to rural lifestyles and ways of life, where our children can participate in every area of our life, where our work is the field and the shop.  Maybe the home-school movement is one such counter to the pressures of society, are there others?  Is the church cognizant of these realities and do our structures contribute to our detract from the call to intentional parenting?

 

These are the questions I am struggling through.  I hope you will share your thoughts on them with me.  Let's be intentional parents, regardless of our age, or the age of our children.

Disabilities and Emergency Preparedness

The office of Disability Concerns in the Christian Reformed Church has a wonderful collection of articles available in their most recent periodical.  They can be viewed here.

This quarter's issue contains the following articles: 

Coping with Disaster

A guide for families and others who support adults with cognitive disabilities

Emergencies, Disability, and Churches

Barbara Vos

Emergencies and People with Disabilities

Barbara Vos

Resource: Entire Issue of the Journal Impact

An entire issue of the journal Impact was devoted to disability and emergency preparedness and is an outstanding resource.

Is Fatherhood a choice

What is happening in our world?  Fatherhood is on the decline, even well intended men like myself, are finding it harder and harder to understand what it means to be an intentional father who trains up our children in the Lord.  I was reading an article by Andrew J. Peach, an associate professor of philosophy at Providence College in Rhode Island, entitled On the Demise of Fatherhood and he brings up some serious critiques of society at large and why the decline of Fatherhood is occurring.  In short, he attributes it to voluntarism and functionalism.  The following quote aptly illustrates voluntarism:

"If women have the Constitutionally sanctioned individual liberty to terminate their pregnancies, as Justices Brennan and Kennedy affirm, then it can hardly come as a surprise that men, too, see no reason to be bound by unplanned parenthood. David Boonin, a philosophy professor at the University of Colorado, is forthright in his embrace of voluntaristic fatherhood: "If the man took reasonable precautions and made clear to the woman that he was unwilling to become a father, then while we may still be justified in saying that he is now behaving selfishly or callously, it may seem less clear that we would be justified in saying that he is violating the moral rights of the child or the woman." And although the law persists in hypocritically pursuing dead-beat dads, the logic of Roe and Casey has not been lost on men: What makes a woman a parent is not that she is, in fact, a biological mother but, rather, that she chose to be a parent. And why shouldn't men have the same choice? Why should they be tyrannized by the happenstances of biology?"

To understand functionalism, this quote will suffice, 

"What began as the necessary and commendable move in law and the culture at large to equate biological and adoptive parents for reasons of stability (as well as to defang abusive or absent parents) has led to the view that blood relations are insignificant in regard to families. As a consequence, a barrage of alternative arrangements—intentionally mixed families, artificial insemination by donor (AID), heterologous surrogacy—is now being justified on the grounds of the irrelevance of biology... the message here is clear: To father is a function, and with the proper planning, procedures and safeguards in place, this function can be filled, at least in principle, by anyone."

Fathering, no longer requires a father. While Peach's article doesn't outline a solution, he starkly paints the picture of modern society in which we live.  Now, we need to return to Scripture and reclaim the nuclear family which God ordained.  To which I ask - How are you intentionally fathering your children and training them in the ways of the Lord?

More on Prayer

As I continue to study and read on prayer I am struck by the prayers recorded in the Word of God.  Three such prayers have caught my attention this week.  The first two are Pauline prayers.  They are found in Ephesians 6:18-20 and Colossians 4:3-4.  In each of these prayers, Paul is asking for prayer but what he asks for is not what I would ask for.  My prayer requests, the things I ask others to pray about are health, financial solvency, release from specific issues in my life.  And all of these were undoubtedly on Paul's mind, he was imprisoned, probably sick, wanting to be freed and yet he asks that other believers pray for his speech.  That it be God-directed so that he can continue to proclaim the message openly, publicly, fearlessly.  He wants a chance to keep speaking about Christ in every and all situations in which he finds himself.  This astounds me, and it challenges my feeble attempts at prayer.

The third passage is from Nehemiah 1:5-11.  In it we find Nehemiah praying to God for success in approaching the King about the plight of Jerusalem.  I believe Arturo Azurdia III gives us a succinct definition of prayer taken from Nehemiah's example.  He writes, "Prayer is more that "simply talking to God."  It transcends meaningless chatter, repeated platitudes, and even the artful stringing together of religious sentiments.  It is the conversation of adoration, the intimacy of intercession, the dialogue of dependence, and the humility of confession.  Simply speaking, prayer is talk that honors God." p.109.  Oh that I would learn to pray in such a way.  Lord, Teach me to pray in dependence upon you, in humility, in adoration and intercession.  Teach me to pray as Christ prayed.  

You can find Azurdia's thoughts in Chapter 16 "Characteristics of God-honoring prayer" of Giving ourselves to prayer, pg. 108-113. 

Heart of Darkness

I just finished reading a copy of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, written in 1899.  What a great novella on the human condition set in 19th century colonial Belgian Congo.  The main character, Marlow, is a river boat captain headed to an outpost where he meets Kurtz, a trader who has become enamored with power and the desire to have others worship him.  Along the way we meet an impeccably dressed accountant in the bush whose office is overtaken with 1 sick customs officer, he says, "The noise of this sick person upsets my concentration.  Without my full attention, it is difficult to avoid mistakes in this climate." How often are we like this, set on our own needs and desires, oblivious to others and their suffering?

Or there is the moment Marlow chases after Kurtz in the dark while surrounded by 'savages' who could kill him at any moment if Kurtz just says the word.  "Do you understand what I was afraid of?  It was not the possibility of getting hit in the face or knocked on the head, although I admit I was afraid of that, too.  I was frightened because I had to deal with this man, this creature who did not now accept the rules of God or man.  He was not connected to this earth, and I, like the savages around him, had to pray to him - and to his own new, exaggerated, unimaginable inhumanity..." How many of us are like Kurtz enamored with ourselves and refusing to accept the rules of God or man? How many of are like Marlow, afraid of the world out there and the men and women who refuse to 'play by the rules'?

In the closing pages, Conrad succinctly summarizes the human condition with these words, "And what kind of soul was it [that Kurtz had]?  One that had been filled with savage emotions and had searched for fame, recognition and the appearance of success and power, while knowing that they were all false." How much to we struggle with these same searches?  And do we realize that they are all false, or have we deluded ourselves into thinking they can provide what we desire.

I would recommend this book highly.

The Exclusivity of Christ

Here is a great sermon on the Exclusivity of Christ from Acts 4.  It is an hour long, but Dr. John Carrick present a great apologetic for Christ's exclusiveness in a world enamored with pluralism and universalism.  And he has a wonderful accent to listen to as well.

I highly recommend it.  If for some reason the link doesn't work, then you can find the sermon here.

Media and its Effects on Worship

Have you ever wondered how Media, and electronic media is affecting the worship life of the Church?  Dr. T. David Gordon has spent years researching how various media forms through history affect the way people worship.  You can listen to his lectures here.  I listened to all 4 and they are some of the best lectures I have heard on the topic.  Be prepared, the lectures are long and while his views may be considered extreme by some folks, I believe he raises some very good points to consider and cautions to be aware of.  My personal favorite is the 3rd lecture on how media has affected the sacraments, prayer life and hymnody of the church.

What is prayer?

As I continue to explore prayer in my readings and personal life, I am struck by this quote, 

“Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God for things agreeable to His will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins and thankful, acknowledgment of His mercies...Prayer is simply ‘the turning of the soul to God.’” 

-The Kneeling Christian, pg. 40

Later on, in this book, this unknown author writes about praying in the name of Jesus, 

“to pray ‘in the name’ of the Lord Jesus is to ask for things which the blood of Christ has secured - ‘purchased’ - for us.”  pg. 51

This is key to understanding prayer, so much prayer is based on our whims and desires, not on the promises of God in Christ.  So much is based on our wants, instead of grounded in the working of Jesus Christ.  We want wealth and health, he wants holiness and generosity for us.  We want miracles, he wants obedience and trust.  This is not to say that these things are necessarily opposed to following Christ, just that we ask without taking Jesus’ desire seriously that “if anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24).

Prayer is nothing less than the turning of our life and soul, heart and mind, strength and will to the God who made us and is immensely interested in our welfare.  When we remember this, our prayers will begin to be filled with adoration and thanks for all God has already given and selfish desires will begin to wane as thankful hearts replace our lust for more.

Why Scripture meditation is important

There is a difference between devotional reading and Scripture meditation.  In devotional reading, we come to the text, take a few thought which may be out of context and run for the day, while in meditation, we read the text and let it ruminate in us and challenge our understanding of the text and life itself.  We are all in need of scriptural meditation.  Let me take a few minutes to illustrate the difference between the two from my own life.   

A few days ago, I was reading a passage from Isaiah 66.  In verse 3, God says, "He who slaughters an ox is like one who kills a man;"  At first glance, I must admit that I walked away saying, yet another reason to be and stay a vegetarian. (There are many who incorrectly use this verse in this way.  This is not to say that vegetarianism isn't a good lifestyle, it is, but that is for another blog entry.) But that was an incorrect reading of the passage and had I just walked away and not meditated and ruminated on the passage, my understanding of the text and God's message for my life would have been faulty.  After further reflection on the passage (as I was driving, on my way home from the dump later that morning) it came to me, everything God uses to illustrate his point in the passage is related to sacrificial acts: 'slaughters the ox', 'sacrifices a lamb', 'presents a grain offering', and 'makes a memorial offering.'  These are acts of worship and God is saying the one who worships and doesn't let their life be affected by that worship is a heinous sinner: 'kills a man', 'breaks a dog's neck', 'offers pig's blood' and 'blesses an idol.'  

Worship in all of Isaiah, or for that matter, all of Scripture, changes our very life.  It is to change the way we live and the things we do.  For all of life is an act of worship.  To worship as an act is to miss the point, it is to sin.  But to worship as a lifestyle, allowing the act to change our very life, this is true worship.  So that leaves me asking, "Where does my life need to be changed by the act of worship?"  For I truly desire to live a life of worship instead of performing an act of worship.

So the next time you read your morning passage of Scripture, ruminate on it, meditate on it and see how God changes your initial understanding of the text.  To God be the Glory, great things he has done.

God's provision for his children

Many of us have heard the words, "God provides" or sung the lyrics "My God will provide all your needs according to his riches in glory..."  But when it comes to real life, how often I wonder if that is true.  This morning I want to take a few moments to recount a story to you that happened yesterday.  It is a story of how God provided for our family even when we hadn't asked for it.

In our family, we do things economically.  We have to, 5 kids makes it a necessity.  So when it comes to haircuts, my wife cuts everyone's hair.  That only leaves one person in need, my wife herself.  For some strange reason, she doesn't trust any of the kids to cut her hair (the 5-year-old recently cut two big chunks from each side, saying "They matched, daddy!") and my jokes about Sinead O'Connor leave her uneasy.  Over the past few months, she has been mentioning her need to go to the hairdresser, but due to a variety of family issues we just haven't gotten around to it.  So we decided to ask one of our neighbors, who is a hairdresser, if she could cut my wife's hair here at the home in trade for something.  She couldn't because of a business agreement she had with her salon not to moonlight.  Fair enough, so we dropped it.  Last night, she called to tell us she had entered my wife in a drawing for a free haircut at the salon and she won it.  So this morning my wife is off getting her hair cut.

God is good, and even answers prayers we don't pray.  It humbles me and brings me back to the passage in Matthew where Jesus says, "Are you not much more valuable than they [the flowers of the field and the birds of the air].  Your heavenly Father knows what you need."  May you be encouraged this day, that God is aware of all you need and he will provide it according to 'his riches in glory.'   

Listening to God

Yesterday, I was meeting with a friend of mine who asked me, "How do
you know if God is speaking to you?"

Wow, what an amazingly difficult question to ask. I wish there was a
simple answer, but there isn't. Here are the thoughts I shared with
my friend:
1. God speaks to me through his Word. Study of the Bible will yield
direction and discernment in hearing God when we pray.
2. God speaks to me through gut feelings. I will just have a
pressing sense of what to say or pray or do. I always check these
gut reactions through the Word to ensure they are congruent, and
usually they are.
3. God sometimes speaks to me in visions and pictures, and even rarer
in an audible voice giving me choices. There have only been 3, maybe
4 occurrences of this in my entire walk over the past 20 years.
4. God speaks to me through others who reaffirm a direction or even
challenge a thought or action by their words.

How does God speak to you?

Persecuting Christians in San Diego

On Sunday I preached on the persecuted church from Acts 4.  A friend of mine forward an article to me discussing how the County of San Diego is considering legal action against a couple who is hosting a bible study in their home each week.  The county claims a "Bible study does not constitute religious assembly under the county's land use regulations, which refer to religious assembly as religious services at synagogues, temples and churches."   They are claiming the couple must seek a permit to gather with other believers in their home.  This happens every few years in some city or county around the USA.  Thankfully each of these cases has always been found in favor of the first amendment's freedom to exercise religion.  Yet the persistence of such attacks goes to show that even in America, the foundations are being laid for a full fledged persecution.

See this article for a similar challenge in Fairfax, VA in 1999 and 2001.

On a side note, the county's land use regulations betray a common misunderstanding that even Christians have about the church.  Many believe that the church is a building, an edifice where people gather.  This is erroneous.  The Church, ekklesia, is never referred to as a building or structure in the Bible, but always as the gathered people of God.  If we inside the church would grasp this line of thought and transform our language to reflect such understandings, then even a challenge to a bible study could successfully be defeated because a bible study is literally the Church, for believers are gathering to worship, study and pray; it has nothing to do with the building.  

Prayer and Spiritual Gifts

I was reading an article* by Alice Smith this morning and she had some wonderful thoughts on how our spiritual gifts may affect our prayer lives.  While I don't know anything about her ministry at large, her words were an encouragement to me.  Here is an excerpt:

"Concerning the spiritual gifts listed in Romans 12, a person who shows mercy would likely pray more passionately than an administrator, who'd pray in a more structured, organized way.  A giver might pray for funds for missions; while a teacher prays the Word.  Those mentioned in Ephesians 4 will pray differently as well.  A pastor will pray fervently for his people; an evangelist will tend to pray for lost souls."  - pg. 83

What a marvelous thought that I have never considered. But it makes wonderful sense to me - our gifts would affect our prayer life.  That said, should we be content with simply our little piece of the Spirit, or could we possibly learn from others to pray in more ways  than what comes naturally from our specific gifting?  Paul says, "eagerly desire spiritual gifts" in 1Cor 14:1.  From this and in line with Smith's thoughts, we should pray as we are gifted and then desire, eagerly desire that our gift base grows and expands and hence our prayer life grows and expands as well.  For this will cast us more upon the power of God in ministry and life and will allow us more ways of seeing his glory at work in the world.

Recently I have been praying for God to expand my faith, to break down my unbelief and distrust.  I desire to be able to wholly trust God and his promises, to pray in faith for the miraculous provisions of God, whether they be financial (supplying the resources for 100 children to be adopted at Hope in Christ) or physical (to see God heal the sick and testify to his power over illnesses of all kinds) or spiritual (seeing my neighbors come to Christ).  You see, I am a teacher and I can pray the Word, I am a giver and I can pray for missions and funding for it, but I want to see the gift of faith grown in me, I want to see the gift of evangelism blossom in me, I want to see the gift of pastoring flourish in me so that in all things God can receive glory and I will be cast upon his feet.

*The article comes from Giving ourselves to prayer, Dan Crawford, compiler.