ApprehendingGrace.com

It is exactly six weeks until Christmas. Two weeks until Thanksgiving.

I know what you’re thinking…HOW did this happen? (Secretly – or not so secretly – my husband and I have decided that the holidays ought to come every other year! They just arrive too quickly when it’s every year.)

But this year I’m excited for the holiday season. I’m not sure why. Perhaps it’s because I started reading Isaiah a few weeks ago and came across this passage in chapter 9:

⁶    For unto us a Child is born,

    Unto us a Son is given;

    And the government will be upon His shoulder.

    And His name will be called

    Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,

    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

⁷    Of the increase of His government and peace

    There will be no end,

    Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom,

    To order it and establish it with judgment and justice

    From that time forward, even forever.

    The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.

 I’m reading through the Bible using the New Living Testament (NLT) this year – I like the change it provides from what I had been reading (New International Version, NIV). But what I quoted above is from the King James Version (KJV). I’m old enough to love the sound of this passage in the KJV. But let me quote it in NLT as well, for those who might not have the KJV voice in their head:

⁶For a child is born to us, a son is given to us. And the government will rest on his shoulders. These will be his royal titles: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. ⁷His ever expanding, peaceful government will never end. He will rule forever with fairness and justice from the throne of his ancestor David. The passionate commitment of the LORD Almighty will guarantee this!

When that verse is quoted, people usually stop in the middle of verse 7. But look at the last line – I had never noticed it before –The Lord’s “zeal,” His “passionate commitment” will accomplish  it, will guarantee it. What will it accomplish? What’s written about in verse 6 and 7a – the birth of a Son, Jesus. What, then, is God zealous or passionate about? Can it be anything other than fellowship with us? If Christ came so that we might have life (John 10:10), so that we might know the Father (1 John 5:20) – if that was his purpose in coming, doesn’t that reveal the Lord’s passionate commitment to us? I think it does. God was passionately committed to giving His son to us so that we might have eternal life with Him (John 3:16-17). Wow!

 How very much God loves us! For unto us a child is born. Thank you, Lord.

I’m praying that each Thursday between now and Christmas, God will give me a Christmas message to blog. Be sure to check back each week.

It’s wonderful finding Christians in the marketplace. For many years I felt a bit like Elijah - the only one left. That has changed considerably over the past decade, as more and more Christians are making their faith known on the job. Last week a business associate and friend, Jim Green, suggested I write a blog on prayer. We e-mailed back and forth, several times, and the end result is this collaborative effort.

Prayer is a powerful tool of the Christian in our daily walk and communion with the Lord. Without it we are disconnected from our true Source of life, strength, wisdom and power. If you are a new Christian, prayer is an excellent topic to study, after understanding that you are saved by God’s grace through your faith in Christ and his death on the cross.

Prayer is simply talking to God. And yet it is so much more than that. Through your daily conversations with Him, you have a tremendous opportunity to know Him better, and to make an impact on the world around you. John Wesley said “God does nothing except in response to prayer.” Do you see something wrong in the world around you? (And who doesn’t?) Don’t complain about it, pray about it. Complaining doesn’t change things, prayer changes things.

Often, though, it’s easy for our prayers to become too “me” focused. Jim remembers reading a small book on how to pray many years ago in which they suggested the following simple approach to pray.

PRAY, don’t yarp.

Yarp is “pray” spelled backwards and it is an illustration of how we can sometimes get things backwards in our prayer life.

Praise God with humility and reverence

Scripture teaches that God inhabits the praises of His people. (Psalms 22:3, NRSV & KJV) He lives in them. When you praise God, His presence comes to inhabit the very air in and around you.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.

For the LORD is good and his love endures forever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations.
             Psalm 100:4-5 (NIV)

Repent with a contrite heart

Repentance means to turn away from. It is saying “God, I was wrong. I am sorry. Please forgive me.” And then, with God’s help, changing our ways. It doesn’t mean we immediately begin to do everything right (don’t we wish it were that easy!). But it does mean we continually bring our sins before God. 1 John says it well:

If we say we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and refusing to accept the truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong. If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts.
          1 John 1:8-10 (NLT)

Ask for others and their needs first

At the heart of Christianity is giving ourselves for others. Jesus is our supreme example, whose blood was poured out for us on the cross (Matthew 26:28). Paul, Jesus’ disciple, opened many of his letters with tremendous prayers for God’s people.

Every time I think of you, I give thanks to my God. I always pray for you, and I make my requests with a heart full of joy…
          Philippians 1:3-4 (NLT)

Yourself last

Don’t forget to pray for your own needs! They are precious to God. He has the number of hairs on your head numbered

You can ask for anything in my name, and I will do it, because the work of the Son brings glory to the Father. Yes, ask anything in my name, and I will do it!
          John 14:13-14 (NLT)

Always pray according to God’s will, by the power of the Holy Spirit, and in the name of Jesus.

PRAY, don’t yarp.

Always put God first, praising Him for who He is and what He’s done. Repent of sins you’ve committed. Ask for God to move on behalf of others, the for Yourself.

Always remember to pray.

Until three years ago, I was a life-long suburbanite and I loved it. Then I discovered small town living! My town is so small (how small is it?) that my husband and I got our picture in the paper last week (page one of Section B)…because we had our more-or-less annual “Hovatter Hot Dog Day.” Which being interpreted means we had about 40 friends over for a backyard weenie roast. And it made the local paper!

It took quite a bit of getting used to, this small town living, but it’s been a delight to us all along the way. We are “townies,” but within 5 minutes of getting in the car I can be driving through corn fields or past my favorite sheep or cows. Within about fifteen minutes, I can be deep into corn field driving. And every Thursday morning I spend a good half hour driving through corn, soybean and wheat fields on my way to a weekly business meeting.

Which brings me to the subject of this blog. DeKalb corn (that’s the brand whose logo is a flying ear of corn) has a slogan on all their signs that gets me thinking most Thursday mornings.

DeKalb Corn
Strong Roots
Strong Yields

I’ve been praying that my life would become like DeKalb corn! Apparently (and actually I know almost nothing about corn), DeKalb propagates their corn to develop especially strong roots. The results of being “well rooted” is, in their words, “strong yields.” In other words, having strong roots means that the plants will produce lots of corn.

Scripture has something to say about strong roots. The most commonly quoted passage is in Jeremiah:17:7-8:

“But blessed are those who trust in the LORD and have made the LORD their hope and confidence. They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they go right on producing delicious fruit.” (NLT)

Trusting in the Lord grows strong roots within us - roots that nourish us in times of heat and drought and enable us to prosper, continuing to produce delicious fruit. And producing delicious fruit is what Jesus said we were “appointed” to do (John 15:11). Colossians 2:6-7a reiterates the message: “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, just as you were taught…” (NRSV).

          Lord, I want to have strong yields.

As I continued to think about the phrase “strong yields,” it occurred to me that there is an additional meaning to the word yield. It can mean “to bring forth” as described above. It can also mean “to surrender or relinquish to the physical control of another : hand over possession of” (Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary). And I couldn’t help but think how appropriate the slogan was when that meaning was considered. When my roots are strong, when I have been “built up in Him and established in the faith,” my ability to yield control of my life to Him becomes much “stronger.” It happens more quickly and in more difficult situations.

          Lord, I want to yield strongly.

Well, all of this eventually drove me to DeKalb’s website to read about their strong rooted, strong yielding corn. (Yes, I guess I am a bit nerdy.) Slogans being what they are, I only learned about the strong roots and yields from their flying corncob road signs. From their website I learned that there is a third distinction: strong stalks. What good are strong stalks? Well, apparently, strong stalks improves “standability.”

“Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand”  (Ephesians 6:13, NIV). Sounds like another way of impressing upon us that we are to “live [our] lives in Him.”

          Lord, I want to still be standing after the battles you send my way.

At the risk of belaboring the point too much, the DeKalb website throws in an extra advantage: “better drydown.” In short, the corn is drier at harvest time, requiring less effort (and therefore expense) on the part of the farmer to get the corn ready for market. In other words, DeKalb corn requires less “babying.” Strong roots really do have benefits! 

“We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.” Ephesians 4:14-15

          Lord, help me to grow strong roots.