Poured

Every marriage has its quirky side to it.   Ours is no exception.  When I throw something out, either in the garbage or into a recycling bin, it invariably returns, rises from the dead so to speak.  Sometimes this little dance between my wife and I will go through three or four cycles.  I throw something out, it shows up on the counter, I throw it out again, it is back on the table.  We are not always on the same page when it comes to what to keep and what to “recycle”.   A growing number of us are becoming increasingly conscious of the evils of wastefulness.  You are probably like me.  You recycle, you reuse, you repurpose.  You try not to buy items without having a legitimate reason for getting them.  This way of thinking filters down to other areas of life.  You don’t want to waste your time so when stuck in traffic you listen to podcasts, books or informational radio programs and you avoid areas where you know there will be backups and delays.  You count your calories and the minutes you waste waiting in line.  You probably were cut off by someone recently who was not wanting to lose a second by being behind you in traffic.  If someone in my family leaves a glass of milk on the counter, I am tempted to pour it back into the milk container rather than throw it out.  Maybe, you are like that too!

In an age of recycling and repurposing, there are two accounts in the Bible that come across as ridiculous. One is in the Old Testament and the second is in the New Testament.  David was a hero king.  He fought numerous battles, expanded the borders of Israel and forced several kings into subjugation.  It was not always easy; many times, he fought superior forces who had the upper hand.  In one such military endeavor, he found himself and his army surrounded by the Philistines who were bent on his destruction. Holed up in a cave, he had a craving. At that time David was in the stronghold, and the Philistine garrison was at Bethlehem.  David longed for water and said, "Oh, that someone would get me a drink of water from the well near the gate of Bethlehem!" (2 Samuel 23: 15) Bethlehem was his hometown and the water from the well there was more precious to him than the finest of wines.  Three of his mightiest soldiers decided to break through the Philistine lines and grab some of the water and bring it to their beloved king.  When they arrived back with the water, David refused to drink any of it. … instead, he poured it out before the Lord.  "Far be it from me, O Lord, to do this!" he said. "Is it not the blood of men who went at the risk of their lives?" And David would not drink it.  (2 Samuel 23: 15-17 NIV)

This was of course a colossal waste of time and effort and no one would begrudge these three men for being furious with their king for not drinking the water they risked their lives delivering to him.  Yet that is the point.  We all are heading to dust and ashes and everything we gain, hold, make, earn, save or grab will slip from our hands and either be a treasure of Satan’s or an offering to Christ.  We decide the fate of everything that comes to us; we are the judge and jury.  David realized, and perhaps you have too, that love, and courage and loyalty and devotion are bigger than this world.  They are the fabric of Heaven and no human being can hold any of them as his own.  That water was not H20, it was supernatural and could not be “bottoms up”.  It belonged to God because it came from Him.  A Christian cannot measure the worth of her life by what she possesses but only in what she gives over to Christ.  It is astounding, the emptiness that so many accept as normal.  They hold onto all sorts of things: their talents, their time, their social skills, their money and their relationships all the while failing to see what wonderful things our Lord might do with them if He had them.

In the New Testament we have the oft discussed account of Mary, a follower of Jesus, who poured out an entire bottle of expensive perfume on Jesus.  While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of a man known as Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head. Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, "Why this waste of perfume?” (Mark 14:3-4 NIV) Indeed, what a great waste!  And yet the Lord’s reply reveals what God thinks of such actions.  "Leave her alone," said Jesus. "Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me.” (Mark 14:6 NIV) He went so far as to declare that what Mary did would always be remembered and honored!  Have you ever done anything that could be categorized as eternally unforgettable?

The very nature of God is to pour out His life for those who love Him and those who hate Him, to die for the foulest of sinners and the most indifferent of unbelievers.  His life was the ultimate waste.  He was smart, holy, good, creative, beloved and a leader.  He had every reason to live and do something with His life and He threw it away for you and me.  You might argue that the salvation of the world was worth His life but that is because you are on this end of it.  If you were on the other side of the Cross, you would have seen it much differently.  The disciples did.  Peter rebuked Jesus for insisting He would soon die.  For what?

If the nature of Christ is in you, then it is a part of your personality to give up to God indiscriminately anything and everything just because you love Him.  There is no career, no home, no retirement, no friendship or prized possession that is so big you must grasp it tightly and keep to yourself.  Whenever you hold something and tell God that He can’t have it, you shrink spiritually and become a smaller person.  But when you open your hands to Christ and offer Him anything and everything you have, the size of your life grows into a supernatural one.  God takes everything you give Him and makes them is God-sized and God transformed.  We look at some of the things we do as menial, as trivial, insignificant and unnoticed.  When Christ is a part of them, He sees them another way.  He considers them sacred.  You have the opportunity at each moment to become one with God, to live in the vastness of the Holy Spirit.  Open your hands and offer Him whatever you have there.  Christ who is holy will make it holy and you will have joy in exchange.

Another Plan

Proverbs 14:12 NIV

There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.

Do You Know What To Do?

Our youngest son recently played in his baseball league’s all-star game and he did well.  He drove in the tying run with a base hit to center and he was brought in to pitch the 7^th inning with the game tied and got the batter to ground out to second with the bases loaded to end the threat.  The bottom of that inning, our first batter grounded out and our second hitter came up with nobody on base.  He hit a drive deep into right field and got all the way around to third base for a triple.  Now the winning run was at third base with only one out and a left handed hitter up to bat.  He was in the ninth slot which meant he was the worst hitter in the line-up.  As I stood behind home plate watching the action, almost immediately a plan came to my mind.  I knew exactly what strategic move the manager should make to try to get the winning run home.  It was not my call though and so I waited to see what the batter would do.  Our team had been killed all year by the team we were playing so it was a monumental moment for them.  What would the manager do?  What was his plan for trying to score the winning run?  Was he thinking like me?

Perhaps you have had a tough time trying to figure out what to do.  It’s not easy sorting through all the options.  Maybe it’s more of a binary decision…this or that.  Here or there.  Yes or no.  The idea that God cares about what you do and has input into your decisions and decision-making is not universally accepted and outright rejected by many.  One of the primary arguments for abortion rights is the position that a woman has a right to do with her body as she wishes.  Without addressing the specious basis of that contention, we must consider the theological issue here.  Is God in the abortion equation?  Does He play a part in the decision-making of what to do?  Now that is a critical question to ask, and not just with regard to abortion but in every area of life!  Is there room for God to have a say in what you do?  It matters what you decide on this.  Either God guides you or He doesn’t and how you land on this can have huge ramifications for you and others.

The Bible certainly has a lot to say about this but let’s look at some particular case studies in Scripture that illustrate the ways others have dealt with this issue.  Rebekah is certainly not a well-known figure in the Bible but she plays an important part in the lineage of the nation of Israel as well as for Jesus Himself.  She seems to have been a young bride who married an older man in a quasi-arranged marriage.  After twenty years of going childless, finally she conceived and it was not a single child but twins in her womb.  She wasn’t sure why she felt so much turmoil in her womb so she went to the Lord to see what was happening in her.  The Lord said to her, "Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger." (Genesis 25:23 NIV)  That of course was surprising news but before we move off this, let us take a closer look at Rebekah’s response to the prophecy.  We don’t know how Rebekah heard what God said to her or why she knew God said it.  Perhaps there was an audible voice or maybe like many of us, somehow the Lord got this message to her in an inaudible but knowable way.  Regardless, the point to be made is that the Lord declared to her the future of her still unborn twins and Rebekah knew it was really God who put it in her brain.

Over the course of the next forty years, Rebekah grew more attached to her younger son Jacob than her older boy Esau.  This happens.  It isn’t shocking to us that parents develop favorites among their kids.  Of course it is sad and in this case it led to great turmoil and pain for the entire family.  Rather than trusting God to do what He said He would do and make the younger stronger than the older in due time, Rebekah decided to rush the process along in her own way.  Believing perhaps she was acting for God, she got her son Jacob to trick her husband Isaac to give the blessing he planned on giving to the older son Esau to Jacob.  Rebekah took advantage of her husband Isaac’s blindness by having Jacob dress up in his brother’s clothes and lie that he was Esau.  Then Rebekah took the best clothes of Esau her older son, which she had in the house, and put them on her younger son Jacob.  She also covered his hands and the smooth part of his neck with the goatskins. Then she handed to her son Jacob the tasty food and the bread she had made.  He went to his father and said, "My father."  "Yes, my son," he answered. "Who is it?"  Jacob said to his father, "I am Esau your firstborn. I have done as you told me. Please sit up and eat some of my game so that you may give me your blessing."  (Genesis 27:15-19 NIV)

Rebekah heard the voice of God.  He spoke to her about both the present and the future and she knew it really was God saying it all after she did give birth to twins like God said she would.  But then something happened that takes place a million times across generations.  Rebekah went off on her own without God.  Perhaps you have done this too.  God spoke to you about something.  It was undeniably Him.  You were certain of it.  But then time passed and you stopped waiting for Christ to lead you.  You trusted your own wits.  You believed in your intuition, your understanding of things.  And then, without you even really knowing it, you were on your own…without God…without Him showing you the way.  It happened with Mary the mother of Jesus.  She knew God told her that Jesus was the Messiah, God in flesh.  It was a great miracle, His conception.  Mary bravely bore the child and raised Him to believe He was the Messiah.  But then something went wrong in Mary.  She watched Jesus as He moved among the crowds, heard what He was saying to them and grew concerned about Him.  The work of Jesus wasn’t going as she thought it would and Jesus wasn’t saying the kinds of things Mary expected.  Mary thought something wasn’t quite right with Jesus; that maybe He was losing His mind and so she decided to take matters into her own hands.  Without consulting God or even knowing what the Father wanted of her, Mary gathered her other sons and brought them to where Jesus was sitting with His disciples, teaching a small crowd in a home.  Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat.  When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, "He is out of his mind." … Then Jesus' mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him.  (Mark 3:20-21, 31)

What happened with Mary happens over and over in the hearts of people who genuinely love Jesus and want Him to be in charge.  Something doesn’t seem right.  Plans aren’t going as expected.  It is tougher than you thought it would be.  The career isn’t taking off.  Family isn’t what you had hoped.  You aren’t what you envisioned.  It is hard and God is not fixing things.  Or, it could be too easy for you.  You’ve got everything together and you unconsciously don’t need God anymore.  He is just not on the list of things that matter most to you.  We don’t see this in ourselves, the impatience, the eroding faith in God, the nonchalance about His will and direction but it happens.  We slowly stop going to Christ for guidance.  We start figuring things out ourselves and without warning we are on our own, the master of our ship.  What comes of this growing independence, this “self-actualization”?  We are on our own!  We are like all others who have no God to guide them, no Spirit to help them along.

There is something heartwarming about the Israelites as they stood at the edge of the Red Sea with the terrifying Egyptian army and all their chariots and weaponry barreling down upon them.  Logic insisted they surrender.  As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the Lord.  They said to Moses, "Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt?  Didn't we say to you in Egypt, 'Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians'? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!"  (Exodus 14:10-12 NIV)  We mustn’t forget what a frightening sight the parted Red Sea must have been as an escape route the LORD had chosen for them.  It could not have been inviting to see hundreds of feet of water piled up on each side of the path but they took it because the Israelites believed, even if it was just a bit of faith, that God knew the way for them.

Within you, if you have been born again, the Spirit of God lives and He is ready to guide you.  He can show you the right way to go at each moment if you are willing to let Him be in charge.  If though you turn your back to Him or ignore Him or reject Him, the Spirit will be silent and let you go along on your own.  He will give you the opportunity to see just what it is like without God putting your life together.  Rebekah found out  how great her plan was when a few days later she watched her beloved son Jacob walk out the door, never in her lifetime to return.  We need Christ to lead us, to show us the way.  It is the greatest of gifts to have the Lord of the Universe living inside us, ready to open doors for us, give us wisdom that is supernatural and make things work out that couldn’t without Him. 

Heart of Gold

1 Thessalonians 5:11 NIV

Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.

Have You Been Searching For A Heart Of Gold?

As I was finishing my classes for my doctoral degree, I was scrambling to try and come up with an adequate topic for my dissertation.  There were countless possibilities but if I were to spend two years of my life dedicated to the project, I wanted it to be something that mattered; something that I could look back upon and feel like the work had an impact upon my field.  I knew that was a lofty aspiration, one I could probably never attain but nonetheless, it seemed worth pursuing.  While in a meeting with other staff members at work, I brought up my struggle to come up with a meaningful topic.  Several were suggested and then a friend of mine said I should do a study looking at the effect having a foster child had on the families where they were placed.  It sounded like such a great project and the research felt important to me.  What a benefit it would be to foster families if they had some idea what it would mean to them taking a foster child into their homes.  And yet I did not feel up to the challenge.  I did not have any experience with such types of research and did not know anyone at the seminary who had been involved in this kind of study and none of my doctoral advisors seemed qualified to help me with the statistical aspects of the research.  As I was about to cast the idea aside as impossible for me to pursue, one of my co-workers, who had spent several years doing research at a university, offered to help me.  She said she would meet with me and give me advice on my work.  Elaine kept her promise and the hours she spent advising me and helping me with my statistical analyses were invaluable to me and the success of my dissertation.  I have framed in my office the card she gave me congratulating me on earning my doctorate.  She was a perfect friend; one whose kindness I will never forget.

Years ago Neil Young wrote a song titled “Heart of Gold”.  In it he sung about his inability to find someone with a heart of gold despite his ongoing search that had lasted a lifetime.  It is not easy finding people like that; the truth is some never do. Many haven’t developed friendships that make them better people, never have had a real friend to count on when they are having a rough go of it.  There are those, even with countless acquaintances and work associates, who can’t think of anyone to look to for support.  The Apostle Paul near the end of his life made the heart-rending comment that when he faced a traumatic ordeal, he was all alone.  At my first defense, no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me. May it not be held against them. (2 Timothy 4:16 NIV)

Not everyone in the Bible though struggled to find a friend when one was needed.  David, when he was running for his life from the king of Israel had a friend who was passionately loyal to him.  Hiding in the desert with a cabal of warriors, David was exhausted psychologically, spiritually and maybe even physically.  His good friend though, who happened to be the son of the man trying to hunt down David and have him killed, suddenly appeared and lifted David’s spirits.  And Saul's son Jonathan went to David at Horesh and helped him find strength in God.  "Don't be afraid," he said. "My father Saul will not lay a hand on you. You will be king over Israel, and I will be second to you. Even my father Saul knows this." (1 Samuel 23:16-17 NIV)

One book of the Bible is named after a great friend.  Ruth, who herself was a widow and struggling with her own loss, refused to let her mother-in-law be alone in her time of sorrow.  Having lost her two sons and her husband, Naomi quite understandably fell into a depression.  Feeling abandoned by God, Naomi just wanted to return to her hometown of Bethlehem and mourn there.  Yet one of her daughters-in-law, Ruth, wouldn’t let go of her.  She insisted that they stay together and was willing to leave her own village and family members and friends to remain close to Naomi.  Her pledge is one of the loveliest declarations of friendship found in literature.  "Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.  Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me." (Ruth 1:16-17 NIV)

A friend of mine reminded me of a poignant scene in the movie, The Passion of the Christ.  As Jesus was carrying the Cross through Jerusalem, bloodied and bruised, He stumbled and fell to the ground.  Mary, His mother was standing nearby and saw Him collapse.  Just as this happened, her thoughts flashed back to a moment when as a child, Jesus fell and scraped His knee.  Mary rushed to Him and picked young Jesus up and comforted Him in her arms.  In a flash, Mary flung herself down before Jesus in the road, gazed into His weary eyes, and tenderly mouthed to Him, “I’m here!”

The Bible uses a vivid term to express a simple way we can make the world a better place to live.  It is the Greek word “parakaleo” and it is rendered “encourage” in many English translations of the New Testament.  It literally means, “to call alongside”.  In the Gospel of John, Jesus says that the Holy Spirit is the “Parakletos”, the noun form of the word “parakoleo”.  It means “the encourager”, “the one who picks you up and helps you keep going”.  Jesus, by describing the Holy Spirit this way says that God in you is a strengthener, a motivator, a friend who stands by you.  God’s people are commanded to be encouragers, uplifters, faithful friends who are loyal.  How can we be that sort of people though all the time?  Won’t we get drained if we keep pouring ourselves into others?  Not if we allow the Encourager God to replenish our internal supply of courage, mental toughness and joy!  As we move toward the end of time and it gets tougher and tougher for people to avoid depression, not be pulled to commit suicide, stay out of alcoholism and drug abuse, not melt under the heat of anxiety and worry, the Bible tells us that Christian people must be there for others.  Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing. (1 Thessalonians 5:11 NIV)  The Lord insists this must be a priority of ours every single day!  “But encourage one another daily…” (Hebrews 3: 13 NIV)

Who will you reassure today?  Who is on your list to comfort, to encourage?  No one wears a sign that reads, “I am depressed”.  “I am ready to quit.”  “I feel hopeless.”  “My life doesn’t matter.” There aren’t red lights on the foreheads of your family members or co-workers that flash when they are discouraged and broken.  You just have to assume that the Holy Spirit, who encourages you and wants you to encourage others, will put it in your mind those who need you to say something loving, something supportive, something uplifting.  Perhaps you will be the voice God uses to give courage to someone, to motivate someone, to breathe life into someone.  With Christ living in you and through you, I wonder who it might be that will remember you always as the one who was there when life got rough and it seemed hopeless, who became the voice of God for them.  Who might one day look at you as the inspiration that led to a new direction in life?  Who will point to you as the reason they found new life and hope when they were lost and without the love of Christ to give them strength?  Who needs you to say, “I’m here”?

Spirituality—an Infused Presence

Genesis 2:7 NIV

…the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

What Is In You?

What makes you unique?  For me it is my last name.  In high school kids made fun of it.  Often when asked my last name, I have to spell it because receptionists reflexively start writing it as Walker rather than Walkup.  Just recently I was substitute teaching at a high school and kids in two different classes made fun of it.  My son did an internet search of our last name and it turns out a descendant of ours with our last name was a member of Scottish royalty and named his castle after our name.  My wife’s first name, Mary Jo is unique in Northern California.  Combine it with Walkup and it seems inconceivable that anyone else has the same name.  Well it turns out there is another Mary Jo Walkup in the Bay Area and when we first moved here, we started getting her mail and the library confused the two of them.  Yet you cannot hide behind someone else.  You are different from every other person that has ever existed and nothing you do can keep this from being true.  You may have plastic surgery to make you look like Barbie or feign a British accent so that you sound more charming but in the end you are who you are and no one else and that cannot be changed.  You are made by God with a unique soul that no one else can ever possess.

When God put together his first human being, it was such an ignoble work.  He scraped together some dirt and formed him out of the common stuff of the earth.  It was like a child scooping up clumps of mud and patting the mess together into a shape of his own imagining.  No fanfare or shouts of acclimation greeted the new creation.  But the Lord wasn’t finished yet.  At the end of it, He did something that is difficult to assess.  The Lord breathed into Adam’s nostrils the breath of life and from that point forward he and each one who came from his line became a “living soul”.

The Hebrew term translated “being” in the NIV and “soul: in the KJV is “nephesh”.  It describes you as you, distinctly different from every other person that has ever been or will be.  Without the breath of God, Adam was just a body, an organic collection of matter.  Once though God breathed into him, Adam came alive; became “him”.  A parallel term found in the Greek Bible is “psuche”, from which is derived the English word “psyche”.    The idea of both words in their Biblical context is that they describe you as the combination of body and spirit.  Take out the spirit and the psuche or nephesh ends.  You have a body stranded without life.  James the brother of Jesus references this body without spirit condition and uses it to compare it to faith without works.  As the body without the God,spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead. (James 2:26 NIV)  The Apostle Paul hints at the time when a separation will take place between him and his body.  Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord.  We live by faith, not by sight.  We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. (2 Corinthians 5:6-8 NIV)

The book of Proverbs speaks of the souls (nephesh) of animals and says that the righteous man cares for the animal soul.  A righteous man cares for the needs of his animal… (Proverbs 12:10 NIV)  It is literally, “A righteous one knowing the soul of his animals.  The word translated animals is a term used for any creature other than humans and comes from a root that means “tongue tied” or without language.  It is all those beasts that God did not breathe into and make living souls.  The Bible differentiates between the spirit the animals possess and the sort of spirit people have.  Who knows if the spirit of man rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?" (Ecclesiastes 3:21 NIV)  The question raised has to do with the ultimate destination of the human spirit vs. the animal spirit but the point is that they are different; animal spirit and human spirit.  What separates one from the other?  All we have and it is an important difference is that the Bible says that God breathed into the first human being and by doing so gave people something He did not give animals…something called a “living soul”.

What are we to make of this breath God put into Adam?  The only other time we see in the Bible God pushing out His breath into someone, it is when Christ during His resurrection breathed upon the disciples the Holy Spirit.  And with that he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit.” (John 20:22 NIV)  There are three considerations here.  The first is that this is something from God that the animals don’t possess.  Second it is spirit; something beyond physical.  Third it is of God, it comes out of Him.  In our modern age we think of anything “spiritual” as not really real.  Like a metaphor, something spiritual stands for a way of seeing, a way of viewing an aspect of life.  If it is spiritual, then that is code for this is deeply personal, it flows out of me and how I live my life.  Yet the Bible insists that the things of the Spirit are super real, are eternal real rather than temporary real.  God and Spirit are not just real, they are the basis behind all reality.  They make reality actual, not just digital imagery or something coming out of a machine.  The fact that God’s breath is in you and sustains you is why you are not just a thought; you are by God’s action, “really real”.

What is exceptional about God breathing into the first human being and the result of the breath being passed along across every generation and through every person that has been conceived is that something of God is in each of us.  The Biblical term for this is that we are made in “God’s image”.  What a marvelous miracle that is!  All of us have “Godness”; it is in a sense, in our DNA.  No matter how bad we might be, how corrupted by Satan and debased by our behaviors, God is still a part of who we are, the life behind our being.  When Jacob, after a twenty year absence finally met up with his brother Esau and found him full of forgiveness and no longer holding against Jacob his grudge, Jacob said of him, “For to see your face is like seeing the face of God”. (Genesis 33:10 NIV) Perhaps there is more truth to that statement than Jacob knew at the time.

What is possible for someone who has God a part of him or her?  Love and forgive with supernatural strength come to mind.  Author Philip Yancey in his book Rumors of Another World  reminds you and me of the great power those who have Christ in them possess.  When the transition of power took place in South Africa as the apartheid government based on racial injustice was replaced by a demographic coalition of blacks and whites led by the recently released Nelson Mandela, there were many atrocities of the past racist leaders that needed to be addressed.  The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, led by Bishop Desmond Tutu brought white policeman and army officers in to face their accusers over crimes they had committed while in power.  The rules were these: if when voluntarily facing his accusers, the officer confessed his crime and fully acknowledged his guilt, he could not be tried and punished for the crime.  One police officer told of a time when he and his fellow policeman shot an eighteen year old and burned his body to ashes to destroy the evidence.  Later the same officer returned to that house and seized the boy’s father.  While his wife was forced to watch, the police tied her husband to a wood pile, poured gasoline all over his body and set him on fire.

After hearing the police officer describe his crimes, the widow, who was also the mother, was given the opportunity to speak.  “What do you want from Mr. van de Broek?” the judge asked her.  She replied that she wanted him to go to the place where they burned her husband’s body, gather the dust and make it possible for her to give her husband a decent burial.  The police officer hung his head in shame and agreed to do so.  But then the widow added, “Mr. van de Broek took all my family away from me, and I still have a lot of love to give. Twice a month, I would like for him to come to the ghetto and spend a day with me so I can be a mother to him.  And I would like Mr. van de Broek to know that he is forgiven by God, and that I forgive him too.  I would like to embrace him so he can know my forgiveness is real.”  As she left the witness stand to go to the police officer, the widow had to stop because overwhelmed, the officer had fainted. (p. 223-224)

What can you do with God a part of you, what is possible with Him living through you?  Adam had a chance to find out just what sort of goodness could flow from him into the world all about him.  Now that we live in the age of sin and death, it is certainly more difficult to believe that we possess the love and kindness of God but we do.  The promise is still valid today.  I can do everything through him who gives me strength. (Philippians 4:13 NIV)  Today you can love like God.  Today you can forgive like Jesus.  Today you can be kind like Jesus.  Today you can get rid of your temper, be done with your addictions, leave behind your lusts and be patient in any and every circumstance just like Jesus.  With Christ a part of us, it is possible!

Desert Life

Isaiah 41:14 NIV

Do not be afraid, O worm Jacob, O little Israel, for I myself will help you," declares the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.

What Can God Make of You?

When I first became a part of the ministries of Warm Springs Church, I wasn’t the full-time pastor.  My friend Keith Williams was the pastor but he asked me to be co-pastor with him.  So in addition to leading the youth ministries, I also shared in the preaching.  Our income came from my wife who had a good job working in management for a major corporation.  Financially we were fine.  We were living in a mobile home which we liked and our first son had just arrived and Mary Jo and I were ecstatic about having him.  People in the church liked me and were appreciative of the youth ministry we had.  We were experimenting with contemporary music in the service and that seemed to be going well.  I had a great friendship with Pastor Keith and we worked well together…we were on the same page and had a common vision for the church.  And yet something wasn’t right with me.  I was dry and lacked joy.  Although I felt like what I was doing was important, I did not have a great amount of enthusiasm for my work.  Something was missing and I could not figure out what it was. 

Have you ever felt spiritually dry?  You were doing all the right things but there was no passion to any of it, no fire, no bounce to your step.  Perhaps you are there now.  You can’t put a finger on what is missing but you know something is.  Others may not know that there is anything wrong with you but you know there is.  It might be your growing lack of motivation to get up early and read your Bible, to pray, to dedicate yourself to following God’s guidance.  You might be wondering about the whole matter of doing God things.  Is it important for you to think about God, talk about Him, hear from Him?  No one wakes up one morning and decides to be spiritually dry.  It isn’t a goal of most people to give up on having passionate faith; it just happens kind of like catching the flu or getting into an accident in a parking lot.  Plenty of people in churches are not as enthusiastic about their faith as they once were.  They may want to be passionate about God and living a Christian life but they just aren’t and they don’t have a lot of motivation to see this turn around.  You might be like that now.  You aren’t alone though!

One of the highly underrated passages in the Bible is found in the Old Testament in Isaiah 41.  Starting in verse 14, it describes the psychological and spiritual condition of many.  Do not be afraid, O worm Jacob, O little Israel, for I myself will help you," declares the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.  "See, I will make you into a threshing sledge, new and sharp, with many teeth.  You will thresh the mountains and crush them, and reduce the hills to chaff.  You will winnow them, the wind will pick them up, and a gale will blow them away.  But you will rejoice in the Lord and glory in the Holy One of Israel.  "The poor and needy search for water, but there is none; their tongues are parched with thirst.  But I the Lord will answer them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.   I will make rivers flow on barren heights, and springs within the valleys.  I will turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched ground into springs.  (Isaiah 41:14-18 NIV)

Not many would tolerate being called a worm.  Not even citizens of a tiny country like Luxemburg would take kindly being called a worm of a nation.  We are after all people.  We create.  We build bridges.  We write poetry.  We develop computer programs.  We fix dinner.  We have opinions about things.  We are intelligent.  Strong.  Thoughtful.  Here is the ironic part of this way the Lord addresses His people.  Does a worm know it’s a worm?  Do they think of themselves as lowly, as insignificant, weak-minded?  Probably not!  If you called a worm a worm, the worm most likely would just nod at you and see nothing significant about your name for him. Worms don’t take it as an insult to be seen as worms.  Likewise, does a desert know it is a desert?  Does it realize how dry it is or how lifeless?  The desert would probably point out a rattlesnake as a way of defending how full of life it is.  “See, a buzzard flying overhead and an iguana over there!”  “Dry?  What do you mean dry?  Just the other day there was a drop of dew on this rock.  Five months ago we had a full out thunderstorm.  What do you mean it is dry?  No vegetation?  How can you say that?  Look on the horizon.  There is a cactus.  Over there to the right is another one.”

One of the effects of sin is that it ruins our capacity to see ourselves as we actually are.  Sometimes we lose sight of our strengths and fail to recognize our abilities.  Like Moses complaining to God that he could not do what the Lord was asking of him, there are those who are unable to grasp just how capable they are.  Far more often though sin has the opposite effect.  It blinds us to our true shortcomings.   We see ourselves as more adequate than we are, more intelligent, more logical and less susceptible to making mistakes than we actually are.  Just consider how quickly sin impacted the earliest people.  Adam and Eve put on fig leaves to cover their nakedness.  Who were they trying to avoid?  God!  Did they not realize that fig leaves could keep God from seeing what they were hiding?  In the very next generation Cain killed his brother Abel and thought it was reasonable what he did.  A few generations later, Lamech killed a man because the fellow wounded him and thought such revenge was rational.  The Bible tells us that the oldest living human being died in the year of the flood, most likely because he choose to not ride it out in the ark his grandson built. 

Recently I heard a musical artist discuss how hard she worked on her Grammy winning album and in the interview she boastedof its popularity.  I did not know a single song this person had done and so I thought I would listen to some of her music.  It was terrible.  Musically the songs were awful and the lyrics were horrible.  They were perverse and filled with cursing.  I wondered if she realizes how bad her music is and how ridiculous her songs are.  Will she be proud to have her grandkids listen to her songs when she is sixty?  She admittedly is an extreme example of how sin ruins our ability to see ourselves rightly but we all face this same predicament.  We can’t really make sense of ourselves because sin keeps us from having access to enough information to have an informed opinion.

Let us consider one example of this in the Bible.  When Peter the disciple was told by Jesus that he was going to deny knowing Christ, Peter vehemently rejected the notion   Peter declared, "Even if all fall away, I will not."  "I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "today — yes, tonight — before the rooster crows twice you yourself will disown me three times."  But Peter insisted emphatically, "Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you." And all the others said the same.  (Mark 14:29-31 NIV)  We all know just how wrong Peter was and for that matter all of the other disciples too.  Peter did just as Jesus said he would and Peter was so shocked by his cowardice that he wept bitterly over it.  Peter was not being a blustery fool when he insisted he would courageously stand by Christ.  He just did not know himself because sin had done its work in him too.  He was like us all, unable to see everything in himself and what he did know he had a warped view of it.

In our Bible passage, you are told that you are a desert.  You are spiritually dry and lifeless.  You are poor and needy and do not know how to get the water that can quench your thirst.  You are a worm that is helpless and inadequate.  Not just you…me too…every one of us in fact.  We might think we are great lions and mighty eagles.   You could insist you are a fertile valley that is producing a great harvest of the sweetest fruits but you would be wrong.  God is not blinded by sin like you are.  He sees you as you are…helpless, dry and barren.  That is not a slam against you; not the cutting assertions of an insensitive critic.  It is just how you are…how I am.

Take a moment to consider what God promises to do for you.  He says He can make the parched ground in you become springs.  He is able to help you.  He can take away those mountains that are in your way.  He will not leave you to fend for yourself.  He will see you through the difficulties you face.  He will be there with you and make you into a sort of Garden of Eden, a person whose spirit is thriving rather than barely getting by on fumes.  What our Lord is promising you is something you cannot gain from friends, from family or success.  It can come only from Him.  But how do you access this “living water” that bubbles up inside you?  Jesus said this of gaining His living water.  “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." (John 7:38 NIV)  It is not a matter of doing but of believing.  As you believe Christ is with you, that He is helping you, that He is comforting you, you will find His help in all sorts of places without any logical explanation.  Encouragement will arise in you.  Guidance will come to you.  Support will be available for you.  No one can explain how Christ does it, making water bubble up in you when you are dry but He does.  Is it a miracle when God provides you a friend that you need, when He gives you some way out of your financial difficulties, when He sees you through your confusion?  Perhaps we would call it a miracle…or maybe we would just say that God loves you and has a lot of different ways to be there for you!

Connected

Acts 1: 8

 …and you will be witnesses of me…

Are You Independent or Connected?

One of the early stages of childhood is independence.  As a child develops, she gradually acquires her sense of self, that she is separate from others.  She wants her way, asserts her will and uses biting, hitting and tantrums to get her demands met. Parents often want to throw up their hands in frustration at this stage of child rearing.  Most of us successfully navigate through this phase of life and if we don’t, we develop sophisticated ways to tantrum and bite that make us seem “adultish”.  Nearly everyone at some point begins to reconnect with the human race, finding that complete independence is not a great way to live.  We learn to get along, work as teammates, accept the fact that someone who disagrees with us is not our enemy and perhaps someone worth building a close relationship.  Marriage is one of the great laboratories for developing a balance between independence and unity.  It doesn’t always go well.  Sometimes it is tough accepting the realization that not everyone likes chili with tomato sauce and there might be at least one in the world who thinks Sabrina is a great movie.  The first argument Mary Jo and I had was when I laughed at her pronunciation of the constellation Orion.  What an eye opener for me to discover that someone thought you pronounced it O’ ree on.  At some point we begin to accept the fact that not everyone thinks like us and they are still good to be with anyway.

Perhaps the most important philosophical question of all time is, “What part does God play in my life?”  It pivots on the point of independence.  Either you are completely isolated from God or “godness” or on the other end of the continuum your life is thoroughly bound up to God and His sovereignty.  Perhaps you fall somewhere in between those two sides of the spectrum.  You are somewhat connected to God and somewhat disconnected too.  Most people say they believe in a god but there is a growing disconnect between belief and the sense of self.  Once the journey toward independence is started and you think of yourself as yourself and not others, the shift back to seeing yourself connected and not just yourself is impossible for many.  It seems like intellectual suicide to believe that God is a part of you too and that you are not independent but with Him in a supernatural bond.

The Bible presents a unique perspective on human personality and what sort of people we could be.  Nearly every other religion in the world is built upon the premise that you are independent of God and not a part of him or her or them.  There is a god or gods in those religions but they are separate and different and operate outside of people.  There is a clear boundary between the god or gods and the individual human being.  Yet here is what the Bible says is the case when you become Christian.  I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20 NIV)  This is in a sense the destruction of the self and the creation of a new self.  It is the joining of you and God.  The Bible says that this is a mystery, something that does not make sense to those who don’t know how magnificent God is.  To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. (Colossians 1:27 NIV)

The field of psychology, when God is not seen in how things are has no explanation for what we find here.  There is the possibility of a completely new personality in the place of the old.  You and Christ become someone that was never before in existence.  It is like the combining of oxygen and hydrogen and the result is water, something totally different from just oxygen and just hydrogen.  You are a new substance when Christ becomes a part of you.  It is like a seed that is buried but emerges as something different.  The different you, when Christ literally joins Himself with you, is a connected personality, never again independent but in union with God.

As long as we want to live separate from God He will let us.  If we don’t need Him, the Lord will not stop us from going our own way.  The moment though we realize we are sinners and we need a Savior to give us a new life, Christ comes with His forgiveness and His mercy and makes us someone completely new, what the Bible calls born again.  In reply Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again."  "How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemus asked. "Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!"  Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit.  Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.  You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.'  The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit." (John 3:3-8 NIV)

What our Lord is describing is a transformation by the Spirit of God that no magician, psychologist or psychiatrist can recreate.  It is the work of God as He enters into the human personality and makes that person new.  We see the physical manifestation of this work described in John 20 when Jesus gathered His Apostles together after He was crucified and returned to life.  Again Jesus said, "Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you."   And with that he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit.”  (John 20:21-22 NIV)  Perhaps though the Apostles did not think anything really happened that day.  It was so silent and seamless; the Holy Spirit becoming a part of them that the Lord put on display for them and the world what it actually is to have the Spirit of God become part of you.  When the day of Pentecost came, they (the Apostles) were all together in one place.  Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.  They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.  All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.  Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven.  When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. (Acts 2:1-6 NIV)

What we see coming into clarity is the great miracle of the ages.  The mind of God, joined with the minds of His people.  How did they all know this really happened?  They were able to think beyond their natural capacity, with the ability God possessed.  Languages the Apostles never had learned they could speak with the mind of the Holy Spirit part of them.  Something so mystical, so wonderful as God being a part of you must make a difference in how you live.  Yet, it is so common that God’s people live as if there was nothing as supernatural about them as the Spirit of God joined to them that the question is raised in the Bible, Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20 NIV)

Do you know and really know that God has become a part of you?  Do you live like it?  Are you in fellowship with God or mostly ignoring Him, disconnected, acting as if you are independent?  Paul reported that one of his close friends who had the Spirit of God a part of Him turned his back on that great miracle and started living as if God wasn’t there in Him.  Do your best to come to me quickly, for Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica. (2 Timothy 4:9-10 NIV)  It is so easy for you to do, to grow indifferent to God joined to you.  You begin to lose the power of Christ in you as your mind disconnects from Him.  Your ability to love, to forgive, to pray with supernatural power, to encourage and to live at peace and free of worry diminishes rapidly as you disengage from the Spirit of Christ who is a part of you.  What a waste of life to act as if you do not have God in you, as if you are independent of Him!

Connect with the Holy Spirit.  In faith pray through Him.  Talk with Him.  Believe He will work through you as you go about the day.  Meditate upon Jesus Christ crucified.  His death on the Cross is the power of God to be a part of you.  That is the entry point to connection with God.  Think about the details of His lashing, His humiliation, His last breath.  Pause and then receive all the goodness and joy of having Him a part of you.  Take time through the next hour and see the living Christ joined with you in each thought of yours.  Connect with God.

The Importance of Your Praying

Genesis 20:7 NIV

 Now return the man's wife, for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you will live. But if you do not return her, you may be sure that you and all yours will die."

What is the Big Deal about Prayer?

I have a shirt that across the front has in bold, bright letters, “Pray”.  I enjoy the reaction it stirs.  I usually wear it when I am going to be around a lot of different people.  It would be fun to have a web cam record the response of those who notice it for the first time.  A typical reaction is for a person to glance at the letters, then pause a moment as if trying to grasp the meaning of the word found on my shirt.  Almost always, the woman or man quickly looks away without meeting my eyes.  It is as if I stop being a real person to many, just a walking billboard.  Some smile and tell me they like the shirt, most try to pretend they didn’t see it or me.  I did not realize prayer was controversial, or something that made people uncomfortable.  Perhaps it is now; maybe prayer is no longer recognized as a critical part of being human; not thought to be important to making life better.

It seems odd that there has to be a rationale given for prayer but perhaps one must be given.    Does it really matter if you pray or not?  Is anyone affected by the shortness of your praying or your lack of prayer?  The problem is that you almost never get any feedback on how you pray.  If you diet or don’t, you see how you are doing.  When you send a check to a charity, you get a note back thanking you for the support and perhaps even a report of how much help you provide.  If you save for your retirement, eventually you find out what your disciplined living did for you.  Fail to keep oil in your car and at some point you will find out how important oil is to your car engine.  It is not like that with prayer.  How do you ever find out what your praying did or didn’t do for yourself or others?  You never get a report card.  No one knows how effective your praying is and you probably don’t know either.  Unless you are someone like George Muller who kept rigorous records of his praying and how his prayer requests fared, you probably haven’t a clue about your prayer success rate.  The default setting for most people is that they just don’t pray much for themselves or others because they don’t know why they should.  Is there a reason why you should pray often?  Let us look at this question carefully because it may really matter how much you pray.

The Bible has an intriguing account of prayer that must be considered.  The book of Job is most famous for its report of the terrible suffering of Job and how he tried to understand why God let him face such horror.  Yet it could be argued that the most important point made in the book is not even the narrative of Job and his trials but rather what we are told at the end.  Job had three friends who came to him ostensibly to comfort him but ended up berating Job for imaginary wrongs he had committed.  The friends decided that Job had to have been a terrible sinner for God to make him suffer so much.  More than half the book is a dialogue between Job and his friends; the later accusing Job of secret sins and the former denying the charges and asserting his holiness.  Famously Job pleads for someone to intervene for him, someone to defend him to God.  He insists, “…God has wronged me and drawn his net around me. “ (Job 19:6 NIV)

The final chapters of Job are given over to the Lord’s response to Job’s accusations.  God never explains His actions; He merely makes it clear that He is sovereign Lord over all and that no one rises above Him in authority and power.  God challenges Job to bring his charges directly to Him.  The Lord said to Job:  "Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him?  Let him who accuses God answer him!"  (Job 40:1-2 NIV)  Job’s response is quick and decided.  Then Job answered the Lord:  "I am unworthy — how can I reply to you?  I put my hand over my mouth.  I spoke once, but I have no answer — twice, but I will say no more."  (Job 40:3-5 NIV)  Then we come upon perhaps the most compelling aspect of the entire book…at least as far as we discover the value God gives His people and the part they play in the course of history.

At the conclusion of the book of Job, the Lord turns to Job’s friends and addresses their critique of Job.  After the Lord had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, "I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.  So now take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly.  (Job 42:7-8 NIV)  What an astonishing revelation!  God will wait for someone to pray before He acts.  In this case it is Job.  Consider the implication.  After God’s monologue in which He declares His supreme authority over the universe, He warns Job’s friends that if they do not want to face the consequences of making false accusations against Job, they must depend upon Job to pray for God’s mercy.  Why did God have Job pray for his friends?  Clearly it was because the friends needed Job to pray for them.

This is a stupendous revelation!  God waited for Job to pray before He decided the fate of Job’s three friends.  It is as if you did not want to act until one of your friends gave her opinion.  Or it is more like your father not punishing your brother until you said whether he should or not.  Prayer has a real effect with God and changes the course of human events.  Remember what Jesus said about His people?  I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. (John 15:15 NIV)  One characteristic of friendship is that friends influence each other.  They start to think alike as the bond between them strengthens.  Friendship is never a one-way street.  Friendship is by definition the linking of people so that they impact each other through love and loyalty.  If prayer is the way we bond with God, then it seems reasonable that in our prayers, there is a back and forth impact that takes place between us.  As your friend, God cares about what matters to you and He is affected by the way you think and how you feel about things.  We think of God as some isolated independent being who does everything on His own but He isn’t.  Our Lord is your friend and your Father and He loves you as your friend and your Father.   That is why prayer is so important.  God is, in some way that cannot be explained, influenced by you.

Consider the implications of Ephesians 6:18.  And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. (NIV)  Jude 20 has a similar admonition.  But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. (NIV)  This verse, when considered in its original Greek setting is almost identical to Ephesians 6:18 because it literally directs us to “in the Holy Spirit continually be praying ones”.  To pray “in” the Holy Spirit is like a fish living “in” the ocean or a bird living “in” the atmosphere.  The “in” of being in the Holy Spirit is an “in” of complete immersion, of total envelopment.  The bird absorbs the atmosphere as well as moves within it.  If you pray in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is all about you in your praying.  He is “in” what you pray, the guide to your praying, He is why you pray and the reason you have trust in God as you pray.  When you “pray in the Holy Spirit”, it means that the Holy Spirit is a part of every aspect of your praying.

But how does God our friend want us to pray?  He wants us to pray about anything the Holy Spirit brings to mind but especially He wants us to pray for every single Christian who comes to mind.  Why should we pray so much?  It is because God cares about our opinion of things: He wants to hear what we have to say about others.  In fact He cares so much that He waits for us to pray before He acts.  Job had the same task we have, to bring his concerns about people to God and ask for Him to help them.  How can we know what to pray about for others?  When we are in the Holy Spirit, immersed in Him, thinking with Him and through Him, we will get it right.  Our prayers will match what God wants to do for them.

Without the Holy Spirit directing our thinking as we pray, it is a hit or miss proposition.  Praying becomes irrational and filled with chaos.  The Spirit straightens out our praying, makes it coherent.  We know what we ought to pray and how we should pray because the Holy Spirit makes sense of it for us.  We have the foundation for confident praying in Romans 8, perhaps the most important chapter in the entire Bible.  In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.  And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will.  (Romans 8:26-27 NIV)

Let this sink in a moment.  On our own we have no idea how to pray.  In our sin weakened state we are incompetent at prayer.  But with the Holy Spirit working within us, we have no limits in prayer, there is no ceiling.  Just think about what you could do for others if you become locked in on the Holy Spirit and were in total sync with God.  You could bring real peace and joy to the world…to those your love.  Imagine the good you could do if you took prayer seriously; if you made it your top priority!  It would not be a stretch to state that the book of James provides us with the greatest encouragement to pray found anywhere in literature.  Consider its implication.

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.  Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years.  Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.  (James 5:16-18 NIV)  Elijah was a person just like you with all your faults and weaknesses, with all kinds of idiosyncrasies and quirks just like you.  Yet he could pray and a drought came to pass because of his praying and then after three and a half years the drought ended because of his praying.  That could be you, praying just like Elijah.  You may argue that you aren’t righteous though.  The truth is that because of Christ in you, your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of Elijah and all the other greats of the Old Testament.  But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. (1 John 1:7 NIV)  And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ — to the glory and praise of God.  (Philippians 1:9-11 NIV)  It is not a righteousness issue for you when it comes to praying.  It is a willingness issue.  Are you willing to stay close enough to the Holy Spirit that you can make a supernatural difference in your circle of influence when you pray?  Do you through the most powerful tool you have, prayer, want to make the lives of others better.  You can.  You just have to decide if you are willing to put in the effort to pray.