Reflecting Upon Narcissus

How many times do we make an assessment or give a justification for some action of ours or inaction and frame it as an indisputable fact?  Oh I did not have time to pray much.  Really?  I was unable to keep my promise.  Truly?  I can't afford to tithe.  Is that so?  I was prevented from reading my Bible.  Oh?  I don't know a soul who is ready to hear the Gospel.  What?  I was too busy to participate in congregational worship.  Huh?  If God stuck His nose in our business and dug around a bit, would He make the same determinations as us?  We shake our heads at Ananias and Sapphira and piously declare their wrongfulness but have we not also lied to the Holy Spirit on occasion?  Have we not thrown up our hands and most honorably asserted our inability to do what God has said clearly to do?  Have we not pretended not to hear when He knows we have heard?  Do we not pretend to be something we aren't...feebler than we are, more busy than we are, poorer than we are, less capable than we are?  Thank God for His mercy that He has not struck us down for the very same sins of Ananias and Sapphira!  Too often we say we can't when what is really so is that we won't.  We won't have faith.  We won't make the effort.  We won't stop loving the world.  We won't quit being lazy.  We won't turn away from temptation.  Narcissism is at its core is far worse than simple vanity.  It is the determination to keep your eyes fixed upon yourself rather than looking up to the God who saves you.  We don't lie to the Holy Spirit because we are trying to fool Him; we do it to try to fool ourselves into justifying our lame spirituality.  The Lord is good enough, strong enough loving enough and resourced enough to give us great power and ability.  Paul instructs all good Christians who walk by faith.  I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.  There is little room in that assertion for "I couldn't!"

"My people have committed two sins:  They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water." Jeremiah 2:13 NIV

Prayer Failures

How do you assess the value of a ministry?  Is there an instrument calibrating success, a plus minus chart that can accurately determine the worth of a Christian effort?  How do we know if we should keep doing some work or give up on it?  Is there a way of knowing we should persevere in an effort or "cut bait".  Rarely am I as often facing the moment of decision of giving up or not on it with prayer as any other Christian activity I attempt.  I have read every book I can find on prayer, attempted nearly every prayer strategy I have come accross, groaned through prayer, agonized through prayer, wept through prayer and fought tenaciously to concentrate while praying but have developed into nothing more than a rank amateur at it.  Prayer may not be my biggest failure in ministry but it certainly is my most frustrated endeavor.  In many ways, the more I pray, the worse I get.  And yet I haven't quit and don't believe I should.  I have never really understood why God does not periodically wrap me in a cloud of ecstasy as I pray, doesn't impress me with some jaw dropping revelation, doesn't mark my prayers every once in a while with miraculous "Godsends".  I must lead the most boring humdrum prayer life extant and yet I keep going at it.  I am not quite sure why I expect so much more in prayer than I get.  I have certainly heard the testimonies and read the accounts of wondrously enraptured praying but I also recognize that I will never hit a baseball in a major league game, run a marathon, stand on the moon or sing solos in packed stadiums and most likely will never be caught up into the seventh heaven as I pray.  I may be exhibiting a complete lack of faith here but my experience has shown me this mostly.  My praying is not very good...not ever.   I pray, not so that I will get but so that my Savior will get...get my time, get my devoted effort, get my best try, get me.  I can make little of my gains in prayer but I have done it...and done it again...and done it again.  That I believe counts for something!  If counting even matters when speaking of the one who has thrown up so many stars in the heavens we have no way of know how many are actually out there.  To just think that the one who placed the proton at the center of the atom insists I pray despite my meager, inadequate strivings is enough to push me after it again and let the "results" be what they are without my standard of determining what it may be.