Well, I meant to get on here a while ago, and chat a bit about my foray into Lent, but I found myself with a nasty fever/flu last weekend that put me out of commission for a 3 days, and slowed me down for another couple. All the catching up and recuperating have kept me busy elsewhere.
I'm feeling just about 100% now, which is very exciting. I'm grateful for all of you out there who pray for Jen and I; Jen has been spared this nasty thing. Thanks be to God!
Just a quick encouragement regarding prayer, in general: we serve a God who responds to the cries of His people! You're probably familiar with the idea of God as the "Unmoved Mover", which is a nifty philosophical idea from Plato and friends. The unmoved mover is not the God revealed to us in Scripture: the God who heard the cries of Israel and delivered them for Egypt, who relented in His anger against that same Israel at the intercessions of His servant Moses, who rescued Hezekiah from his deathbed and granted him 15 extra years of life after Hezekiah prayed and cried to Him after Isaiah's prophecy that the sickness would end in death (2 King 20).
Our God is one who wants to hear His people pray, not because it makes Him feel important, and helps us remember Him, but because He has chosen to act in the Earth through humanity from the beginning. When you pray, God moves. When you cry out like the psalmists, God is moved and responds.
Jesus told us to pray anything in his name, and it would be done for us. Let's shake loose of all our elegant theological reasons why we should not expect God to actually give us what we pray for, and just take Jesus at his word.
Amen!
~newsletter is in the making
Over the past few weeks, I've had the privilege of leading a provocatively title discussion on sexuality and God on our three campuses: Tulane, Loyola, and UNO. "Why does God hate Sex" drew out a few new folks, some of whom were just curious, and a few who seemed to be expecting a fight.
