Jesus lived out the B.L.E.S.S. practices in His daily life on Earth, and He did that by beginning with prayer. I know it's risky and can feel uncomfortable, but only God knows the impact you and I can make in someone's life when we choose to be a B.L.E.S.S.ing. And it all begins with prayer. + B.L.E.S.S.: 5 Everyday Ways to Love Your Neighbor
To close 2022, Emmaus City Church will finish the year focusing on living into the Way of Jesus through B.L.E.S.S. practices. The first found in B.L.E.S.S., is Begin with Prayer:
In prayer, we open ourselves to God and the leading of His Spirit. In prayer, we focus our minds to recognize His promptings. In prayer, we receive the direction we need to discover the people God is calling us to bless. + pg. 47
Following the message last weekend, each person in Emmaus City Church was encouraged to shape each day with 3 prayer practices:
1) Morning Wake Up: Pray "Our Father" or Lord' Prayer to anchor in your child of God identity and Kingdom of God purpose for the day
2) Midday Mission: Thank the Lord Jesus for saving you and pray for Him to save someone (and ask how He wants you to be a witness to that someone)
3) Evening Examen: Practice offering gratitude for grace-filled moment(s) in the day, and ask the Spirit to help you see the grace you might have missed
The second prayer focus has also been a practice this week for our Surge Tables from various congregations throughout Worcester County. The intentionality and opportunities to act in faith given from this practice have not been lost on me or others I have heard from. In many ways, each day has fulfilled this quote:
When you begin with prayer, God begins to change your heart, and you begin to feel what God feels for other people. When God's Spirit allows you to feel what God feels, you get ideas that come from God, like "Send a text to your neighbor to see how he's doing" or "Ask your friend if she's got time for coffee this week." ... If you and I are going to be blessings to the people around us and take the mission of Jesus seriously, we are in for an adventure. + pgs. 42, 46
While my experiences with my neighbors and friends in Worcester are stories I'm game for sharing in person, for the sake of honor and anonymity, this post will feature a few stories from B.L.E.S.S. in the section, "Crazy Things Begin with Prayer" in Chapter 3: B: Begin with Prayer that I hope encourage you today. And remember, if you sense Jesus inviting you to join in this fun and sometimes a little crazy adventure:
We never know how God will answer our prayers, but we can expect that He will get us involved in His plan for the answer.
+ Holocaust survivor Corrie ten Boom
Louie's Story: "Go Tell That Guy God Loves Him"
One day Louie went to the mall, and for whatever reason he noticed a guy sitting on a bench. He said he had a strange sensation: Go tell that guy God loves him. Of course, Louie didn't want to do that. (Would you want to walk up to someone you don't know at all and say, "Hey, God loves you"?) So he did what most of us might: he shrugged it off and kept on shopping.
When Louie came out of a store in another part of the mall a bit later, there was that same guy again. Again, Louie felt an inner nudge. Go over there and tell him God loves him. He blew it off again. Then a third time, he saw the same guy. Again, he got the same prompting. Finally, he said, "Alright!" He walked up to the guy and said, "I don't want to seem weird or anything, but I feel like I'm supposed to tell you that God loves you."
Immediately, the stranger's eyes filled up with tears, and he said, "This morning I was at the end of my rope. I told God, 'If You're real, show me You love me today.' I don't know who you are, but you're the third random person in the mall today who's come up to me and said 'Hey, I don't know you, but God loves you.' No one's ever said it to me once before, and now it's happened three times in one day."
Dean and Janice's Story: "Send Someone to Tell Me How to Be a Christian"
My friend Dean, who works in college ministry at a large state university, has made it a practice over the years to begin every day, instead of waiting for God to grab his attention, to be intentional in giving his attention to God. He begins each day with a prayer to be a blessing to his neighbors and asks God for divine appointments. His prayer is very simply that he would meet and talk to people God wants him to bless. And then he just goes through his day assuming whomever he talks to might be that divine appointment.
I remember one story he hold me about someone canceling an appointment with him. Instead of filling the time with emails or an Instagram post, he decided to pray. He asked, "God, how do You want me to use this time?" As he sat still, listening to God, the name of a student, "Janice," came to him. He sensed he was supposed to talk to her about Jesus. Janice had never been with a local church and was not a Christ-follower, but she had been to a college small group a couple times. So he called and asked to connect over coffee. She said, "Sure."
When they met, he just told her, "Janice, I was praying and your name came to mind, and I felt like I was supposed to share with you how you can become a follower of Jesus." Janice stood there in silence. First came a tear ... and then sobbing. Dean immediately recoiled and said, "Oh, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have just blurted that out ... did I say something that offended you?"
"No. Not at all," Janice said. "I just can't believe you said that. Last night I decided to go to a Bible study in my dorm. They were talking about what it means to be a Christian, and I couldn't stop thinking about it. All night, I couldn't sleep. I didn't know what to do about it. So I prayed this morning, asking God to bring someone to me today to tell me how to become a Christian." She smiled and said, "And here you are. I just can't believe it!"
Marco and Victoria's Story: "They Helped Me Find My Way Back to God"
Marco had heard me teach on the B.L.E.S.S. practices and began to pray for his friend Victoria. At a very young age her family quit attending church, and by the time she was an adolescent, she had experienced so much pain that even if there was a God, she reasoned, He wasn't a nice guy. So during middle school, she began to tell people she was an atheist, and her Christian friends ... were not very kind.
Her young adulthood was filled with searching for what was missing. She got married, but then cheated on her husband and destroyed the relationship. She decided to move far from home where she sought out happiness in sexual adventures that ultimately ruined her emotionally, relationally, and financially.
Victoria met Marco after moving back to where she grew up. He began to pray for her and listen to her story of searching. Their friendship was slowly turning into a romance. Marco had the wisdom not to push faith, Jesus, or God on Victoria. He understood that he was to be the salt of the earth, but also that rubbing salt into a wound like she had would be very painful. So he helped Victoria heal.
Victoria began to ask Marco questions about spiritual things, and Marco asked her if she would like to go visit his church with him. She was very skittish about being around Christians; the voices of her middle school friends still echoed. He reassured her it wouldn't be like that, and eventually, she showed up, unsure, but with an open heart. Over the next few weeks, Victoria not only went with Marco, she also joined a smaller group of people from the church that ate together every week. This group became friends, and in time it became a transforming community in her life. She later said, "What I found in that group were some genuinely amazing people. It was those people who helped me find my way back to God."
There are a couple reasons I will never forget the day that Marco baptized Victoria. First, because she courageously told the whole church her heart-breaking but beautiful story — and after she was baptized, the people she feared would judge her gave her a raucous standing ovation. And second, because I got to see Marco use simple, everyday ways of B.L.E.S.S.ing to love his friend to salvation.
That blessing turned into a mutual one when Victoria and Marco got married. And Marco's simple prayer for Victoria grew into a beautiful family with three children.
A Practice of Prayer: Plan, Prepare, Places, People
Plan: Perhaps you might decide to pray for five minutes before you get out of bed and five minutes at night before you go to sleep (ex. compline). Or you might set a reminder on your phone to pray during your lunch hour or some other time of the day. Plan to pray for your neighbors by name.
Prepare: As you pray, ask God to prepare your heart for the adventure. Ask God to give you eyes to see how He is leading and the courage to follow Him. Be bold: ask Him to give you divine appointments with each of the people named, as well as others.
Places: As you pray, make a mental map of the places you'll visit during the day. Ask God to help you be sensitive to your surroundings and guide you to places where He wants you to be a blessing.
People: Ask God to show you how to be a blessing to your neighbors (ex. your 8 closest at home or at work as described in The Art of Neighboring). As you pray, envision the faces of each of your neighbors and ask God to show you how you can be a blessing in their lives today.
What if instead of waiting for God to grab our attention, we were intentional about giving it to Him?What if we began each day with a prayer to be a blessing to our neighbors and asked God for divine appointments?Every day, we get to seek to find how God can use each of us to bless the world, and this adventure begins with prayer. Remember that when you pray for people you are already blessing them. There are people you come across every day who have never had someone pray for them. Pray for their physical health, their relationships, their emotional well-being, their careers, and their finances. Begin with prayer and there's no telling where Jesus might send you and what He might lead you to do. It's life-changing.
Let the adventure begin.
+ excerpts above from Chapter 3: B: Begin with Prayer in B.L.E.S.S.: 5 Everyday Ways to Love Your Neighbor
Here are links to other recent City Notes (CN) books:
A Time To Heal (Shalom); Red Skies; Story of God in a Sanitation Truck; The Artistry of What's Next; Days of Song on Spot of Scorched Earth; Seeds of Hope in the Rain & the Dark; The Church is the Most Corrupt Institution on Earth; The Seamless Life; A Good Calling; Inisheer Island; Wrestling with God in Doubt; Taste Grace in World of Seculosity; I've Seen What Hope Can Do; Ubuntu and the Family of God; Baptism as the Way of Life; Childlike Wonder; Listening to God's Voice; The Cross and Peacemaking Presence; Being with God; Pray As You Can; Knowing and Naming True Friends
With presence, peace, and many prayerful blessings,
No comments:
Post a Comment