I hate having to learn the same lesson over and over. The old saying that says, "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me." is true. It frustrates that I'm the one making a fool out of myself. Don't get me wrong, I'm used to making a fool out of myself and in some cases am OK with it; this is not one of them.
Last week I put up a post about prayer (it's the previous post if you are interested). I was basically whining about how I was struggling with my prayer life. I even asked for you to comment with your strategies of how to improve my prayer life. Thanks by the way for not commenting, it forced me to think it all the way through.
God has been guiding my devotional / journal time towards answering the questions, "Who am I?" and "What is true of me?". My jounal entry for August 14th (2 days after my blog post) was all about this. It's a question of identity. I listed out all the things that are true of me and make me who I am. On the positive side of things were words like: Christian, Husband, Father. On the negative side of things were words like: Sinner, Lazy, Prideful. All of these things are true of me on any any given day (most are true every day).
As I continued meditating on this topic I started flipping back through my journal. More words that describe me started showing up; words like Forgiven, Redeemed, Sinner/Saint. I found a quote from a friends blog too: "I am worse than I could ever imagine; yet I am loved more than I can ever comprehend." (Ryan Mobley,
Transformissionary blog, Novemeber 11, 2008). I also found my sermon notes taken from a sermon my Pastor Joe Thorn preached on March 15, 2009 on sanctification. In his conclusion Joe reminded believers of what they need to as far as sanctification is concerned. First, hope needs to be in Jesus and His grace. We also need to depend on Him for that hope. Second we need to invest in the Word. We need to work at it. Finally, we need to daily fight against sin.
What does does all this have to do with my struggle with prayer? What lesson am re-learning? It's about Joe's sermon topic, sanctification. Wayne Grudem, in his
Systematic Theology defines the term sanctification as: "A progressive work of God and man that makes us more and more free from sin and like Christ in our actual lives." What I am relearning is the fact that this work is
PROGRESSIVE. It's not a done deal upon our conversion, it takes time. In fact it take a lot of time. We won't truly arrive this side of heaven. It takes time to understand how deep sin runs. It takes time to deal with that sin before a holy God. It takes time to become more and more Christ like. It takes time to see the areas of our life that you are holding on to and give them over to Him.
My struggle with prayer was becasue of a few things that are true of me. First, my view of prayer was wrong. I view it as something to do, or something that needs to be done. It's as if it is something to check off my "to-do" list. I have put the focus of prayer on me and my performance instead of what prayer is. Grudem defines it as, "Personal communication from us to God." (
Systematic Theology). Prayer is talking with God, not some kind of work, to be checked off and then be done with.
Secondly, I am lazy and prideful. As hard as this is to admit, it's true. I would rather sit down in front of the TV or the computer in hours of mindless entertainment than spend time reading my Bible and praying. I think I know what is best for me. I think I deserve rest and relaxation time. What I have found is that in those times of "rest" I am opening myself to sin. I'm not saying that TV or the computer are evil, but they are things that suck up our time and take away our focus. Joe's conclusion to his sanctification sermon are really helpful here. Where is my hope? Is it in the TV show I am watching or in Facebook? If my hope is on anything less than Christ Himself I am doomed to failure. Am I spending time in the Word? If not, how do I expect God to show me the areas of life that that I am foolishly holding on to? Am I combating sin on a daily basis? If not, there are things between myself and God that need to be dealt with. I need to learn again that this is a relationship, not a job to complete. While yes there are things to do, I can't view them through the lens of a task that need completing.
While the list of things about who I am and what is true of me have both positive and negative items, I need to remember that the positive characteristics, Christian, Husband, Father, Redeemed, and Forgiven are bigger than the negative characteristics of Sinner, Prideful, and Lazy. Why? Because the God I worship, who supplied me with those positive traits is more powerful than all the negative characteristics. It's no longer about what's true of me or about what I do, the focus of life needs to be on what's true of Him and what He did. Thank you Lord for reteaching me this important lesson. Sorry I didn't learn it last time, help to remember it this time.
Then after school. I had made cupcakes! Yummy! We did have one little glitch in the day. I received a call saying that the buses were running 30 - 45 minutes late and I went to pick the kids up at school. When I got there I was told there bus had just left! Yep, missed them at the bus stop. My dad was able to track the bus down and got them home safely!! Thanks Grandpa!
