This week's "Reflection" by Matt Sasso, Pastor of Jr. High MinistriesThe goal of this week was to see the book of Psalms as more than just music and poetry as we went behind the music. Layered in the book of Psalms is some heartfelt prayers that could richly develop our prayer lives as we pursue a life of reaching up.
We spent some time looking at how we might develop our communication with God by exploring Thanksgiving, Penitential, and Enthronement psalms. We learned how we might give thanks to God for answered prayers as well as being thankful in the midst of unanswered prayers. We looked at what it means to pray a penitential prayer how God will pour his grace into our lives. We also looked at how a prayer of enthronement places God above all things and the importance of keeping Christ at the center of our lives in the midst of life’s good and bad seasons.
I encourage you to read Psalm 30, 51, and 96 again this week. After doing so, I want to challenge you to respond by writing down some reflections and prayers. We would love to hear your story of how God is developing your prayer life. God Bless!
I am going to take your challenge and try to write my own psalm, it may take a couple days. I have plenty of stories of prayers answered and the thanksgiving that came along with it. I also have stories of unanswered prayers and my struggle to be thankful in the midst of it, but I always try to trust in God that when my prayers go unanswered there must be something bigger at work, some reason that is greater than what I think I need, and 9 times out of 10 I can find that answer and understand God's work in my life. I do not find the answer over night and sometimes it takes years before I can see it, but I never stop seeking and the answers are always eventually shown. I am going to reread the psalms and my notes and come up with my own psalm before the week's end. I also wanted to comment on the visual you provided, I recently lost someone very special to me (May 2, 2007) and have been in a sort of faith struggle since then. Your visual of God wanting to pour his grace into our lives and our willingness to receive that grace, allowed me to see and understand it in a whole new way. I have become the soda bottle, not allowing God to fully pour his grace into my life, thank you for shining light on that aspect of my life. It was empowering! I have felt that something was not quite right in my life and I believe, God has brought it to my attention, through you! So thank you for being open to allowing God to work through you. Through you, God has spoken to me and helped me take another step forward in my spiritual journey and growth. Grace and peace be with you.
ReplyDeleteI thought I was going to be able to be poetic and write something lovely, but it is turning out to be more difficult than I thought, so I will just write part of my story of my walk of faith.
ReplyDeleteGrowing up, I was not raised in church, my parents wanted to give my brother and me the freedom to choose what we wanted to believe and follow. Both being raised in church, they did believe in God and Jesus and shared those beliefs with us, just never in a structured way. My great-grandma, Gram, was a Lutheran and took every opportunity to make sure my brother and I knew about God and Jesus. A few older relatives passed away when I was a child, but no one I was particularly close to, so my faith wasn't really tested, of course they were in heaven because of Jesus and of course there was a God. Dying was just a normal natural part of life. Then in high school, we lost some friends and it hit us hard that death could touch people our age, although we knew that intellectually, we were never before hit with such a harsh reality. Seventeen and eighteen year olds dying was not so natural and normal, especially not when it is people you see every day. At that point I became very fearful of death, although I still believed in heaven, I was afraid of the unknown. ...
Over the next 3 or 4 years we lost a total of 15 people young and old and I grew more and more afraid. Not having the structure of prayer in my life, I had no idea where to turn. Then the dreaded day occurred when I enrolled in a philosophy class. Sitting in the back of the class raw with grief and fear, my professor gave us the question, "Is there a God and if so how do you know?" and "Is there a heaven?" I sat in the back of that class panicked! I didn't know for sure, there was no proof. Maybe we do just die and that's it! I was a mess. I watched as students who were raised in church were unshaken, I watched as they argued back, "I know there is because I have faith!" God how I wished I had that, but I didn't! I hated that class, I believed it was torture, that no one should be forced to take that class EVER, it messes with your head and does permanent damage! I spent the rest of that quarter and beyond anxious and afraid! My great grandma, who had been my ultimate source for "God" questions, had passed away during that time, so I turned to my husband. I'd come home to my husband and ask for reassurance, which he provided. Then his grandmother passed away, during that same time period. He was angry with God and could no longer assure me. It came to a point where the two of us couldn't even talk about the subject of God or heaven. Then it came time for us to have our children. I told my husband, "Look, I know you are not very happy with God and you probably don't want to go to church at all, but I saw those kids in philosophy class who were raised in church and they remained unshaken. Maybe I cannot force universities to take that class off their requirement list, but I can and will protect my children!" So off we went the three of us with the sole purpose of protecting our son from the "evils" of the university! After the first service I noticed a change in me, I felt better. I felt more at peace, more calm. The more time we spent at church, the more at ease I felt. Slowly I started to see changes in my husband too. We were able to talk about God again, in fact we actually started agreeing on things and finding comfort in His word, together! Church was supposed to be for our kids and ended up to also be for us. The last 6 or 7 years of our lives have been filled with our desire to grow closer to Him. Sure we have tripped and stumbled over the years, but we always get up brush ourselves off and keep moving forward. There have been many prayers that were answered and we were thankful. There have been quite a few that went unanswered as well, and we try to be thankful and trust that God knows best for our lives. One example of that was three years ago when we had made plans to move out of state. We put our house up for sale and bought a brand new home in another state. ...
ReplyDeleteWe had the blessing of one of our very best friends and our children's God father. We were all ready to go, but everything that could go wrong, did. The listing never showed up to other realtors on the Internet, no one was coming to look at our house. I was upset about it, I fought it with all I had. I called the realtor everyday asking what was going wrong and every time, he had no clue. Finally, I gave in and realized there was some bigger reason that we were not supposed to go. After we gave in and decided not to go, many things happened that made us realize we were right where we needed to be. The most major being finding out we were pregnant with our fourth child, had we moved we probably wouldn't have been covered in the new state and getting insurance for an existing pregnancy would not have been easy. I thought that was it, that is why we weren't supposed to go. Then we had some amazing people come into our lives that we never would have met had we left. They have become the family that our families have never been. Then about a year later, our friend and children's Godfather, that I mentioned earlier, unexpectedly got sick. I couldn't get a hold of him for a couple days and then I decided to go check up on him. So my husband and I went out to his house only to find out that he was in the ICU at the hospital after flat lining three times a couple days before. I was able to be with him for the next year as he was in the hospital fighting his illness. I prayed and prayed for him. We were able to say all the things that we needed to say. He was not supposed to survive and then miraculously our prayers were answered and he was going to be okay as long as he got a transplant. Then by some miracle his organ began to regenerate itself to the point that he would no longer need a transplant. I was so thankful that our prayers had been answered. I knew we hadn't moved because it gave me the opportunity to be there for him. Had we moved I would not have been able to spend that much time with him, time that I will cherish until we meet again. He remained depressed, feeling like a young person trapped in an old person's body. The illness had taken a toll on his body. He eventually gave up his life a few months ago to be with the Lord. My first reaction was calm because I knew he was at peace and no longer in pain, but I was sad for myself. The selfish part of me had prayed that he stay here with me. That we would be friends on this earth for many years to come. I am thankful to the Lord for taking him from the pain he experienced in this world, but it is a struggle to remain thankful when one of your best friend's is taken from you. During this time frame of the last two or three years, I have gone through many struggles, both physical and emotional. The last example I will give here is my most recent pregnancy. My fourth and final pregnancy went well until I almost died after the delivery. My doctor had left surgical sponges inside of me after the delivery. I went back to the doctor week after week telling them something was wrong. I was in a lot of pain and could barely take care of my four children. My husband had just started his business and was gone a lot and we don't have a whole lot of family support. Mix that with my inability to ask for help when I need it and you have a deadly combination. I could barely get off the couch to feed and change my children. After 10 weeks of the doctor and my family telling me there was nothing wrong, that it was all in my head, after hundreds of prayers, I made an appointment to be seen again. I spent the night before crying in pain, praying that something would happen, but nothing did. ...
ReplyDeleteThat night I decided I wasn't going to go to the doctor the next morning because I didn't want to hear that it was nothing again. I was starting to feel like I was crazy. Was I making something up in my head? I didn't get a babysitter, then at the last minute, something inside of me said get up off the couch and go. So I did just that, with four kids in tow, I headed to the doctor's office, knowing I was going to be sent home again with some other antibiotic and the words, "you are fine, that's what happens when you have four kids." But that is not what happened at all, the doctor was out of the office and the nurse practitioner did an exam on me, she found that not one but two surgical sponges had been left inside me and she told me to thank God because I was lucky to be alive. Had I not gone in that morning, I may not be here today, typing this. Of course, I was thankful, I knew that voice inside me was the Holy Spirit of God saving my life. The bad thing that came from that whole ordeal, on top of everything that has happened since, was depression. Something that I have been struggling with over the past two years. That is something I have been praying for and thus far remains unanswered. It feels like a one step forward, two steps back process. I am working hard to overcome it and praying just as hard. Some days are easier than others. Some days I want to give up, some days I feel like I couldn't be further from God, some days I feel like screaming "my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?!" Some days I feel like giving up, like this life isn't worth living. On those days, I thank God that He has placed a few remarkable people in my life to help me through it. To pull me back from the edge and remind me that God loves me, that he is always there with me, even when I am working so hard to push Him away that I can't feel Him. They also remind me that this life IS worth living, that God has a purpose for me in this life. I have to make peace with the fact that I may not fully know or understand what that purpose is until I get to heaven, but I have to fully trust in the Lord. I am in the middle of a full blown faith struggle at this point in my life, but I am still working hard to ground myself in His word. I do question a lot about God and His purpose for this life, but I know He is still in my heart because I still have a strong desire to draw closer to him. I will continue to struggle through this until the day I over come it. I will continue to seek Him. I will continue to restructure myself as a large bowl rather than a soda bottle so that I can allow God to pour his grace into my life freely.
ReplyDeleteI was just going thru some of the past blogs, and stumbled across this one, 3 months after you posted. You have moved me beyond words. What a blessing you are, and what a testimony! I pray that you continue to seek God in all you do everyday. Take courage that He will continue to show His never ending Grace in your life. Blessings to you and your family.
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