Thursday, September 29, 2005

Formula: I reject formulas when it comes to spirituality or if you prefer "in our relationship with Christ." This week I was at my district prayer conference and there was a guest speaker that spoke on prayer. He did not give us a formula on how to pray but he did give us a formula in regards to the amount of prayer and the "quality" of those prayers. Meaning not to pray for things in passing and expect God to work but to sit down at His feet and petition on other's behalf. He spoke truth. I wanted to reject what he was saying because he was very modern in his thinking and very formulaic but if I rejected his words I would have been rejecting truth...I know that.

These are not scriptures he pointed out but ones I have had to mull over: Matthew 6 when Christ talks about not babbling on like the pagans and not to pray in public just for show b/c when we do that we already have received our reward in full. Meaning that God rewards our prayers Luke 18 and the persistent widow who petitions the judge for justice and we are to petition our heavenly father for him to answer our prayers.

My thought meets modern thought...it was uncomfortable.

I guess when the day comes that I'm sitting in a room of people and we all agree on everything...I'll know for sure I've surround myself with ignorance.

Everything's ok: So what do you do when you have a parent that wants you to sit down with them and tell them everything is ok with their child when you know it's really not?

Nick I'm concerned about my son
yeah me too
*shocked look on face*
But there is hope

A classic tale of determining our current reality...and then acting in a manner that begins to change that current reality.

Fang: I've been away for a few days and I was on the phone with Heather on tuesday and she told me that Nathan has two teeth coming in on the top (his first top row teeth). I got home yesterday and picked up my boy and looked at his teeth. They aren't the front middle teeth like one would expect. They are what will one day be the the eye teeth. So for the time being Nathan has fangs.

Anybody remember the books Tales of the Fourth Grade Nothing and the sequel Super Fudge? The little brother, Fudge, in the story tried to fly off of the monkey bars when the older brother, Peter, was babysitting and Fudge hit the ground and knocked his front teeth out. They were his baby teeth but for the year or so Fudge had to live life with not front teeth. The older brother called Fudge "fang"...when his mother wasn't around.

I call Nathan "White Fang".

2 comments:

Adam McLane said...

you know, the only problem I have with this post is that it's completely oversimplifying post-modern talk. PM/emergent doesn't reject systems. In fact, the rejection of systems is a system in an of itself.

I think the thing I would rather emphasize is that our prayer life, discipleship, whatever... shouldn't be limited to a systematic approach.

Nick said...

Who said anything about post-modernism?