A MOMENT TO PRAY



 

The image you see above is now the wallpaper on my office computer monitor. 

Have you prayed about it? 

 

The setting in which I do ministry has recently changed.  This new place is unfamiliar and big. 

There is much to do.  Last week I had a moment when I recognized that I was trying to do things under my own power and not taking everything to the Lord first. 

Have you prayed about it? 

 

Now, when I sit down at my desk and begin my day, this is the first image I see. 

It is there to remind me to pray—first. 

Have you prayed about it? 

 

I also see it periodically during the day. 

Have you prayed about it? 

 

And finally, it is the last thing I see before I rise from my desk and go home in the afternoon. 

Have you prayed about it?

 

In the gospels Jesus prayed, he encouraged his followers to pray, and he taught them how to pray.  Have you prayed about it? 

 

Over and over again, the authors of the New Testament letters encourage their readers to pray. 

They tell us things like: don’t be anxious, but pray—if you don’t know what to pray, pray anyway—pray for your leaders—pray for each other—pray for strength—pray to be fruitful—if you are sick or in trouble, pray—pray continually.  Whatever it is, and only you know what IT is,

have you prayed about it first and often?

 

I am excited and challenged to begin my first semester at Asbury Seminary next month. 

I am excited about my new church and working with the young adults and senior adults. 

I am excited about the things that we will soon be doing in evangelism, hospitality, and nurture.

I am excited about the many other things the Lord will call us to. 

I am praying about it and I will continue to pray about it. 

 

What are you excited about?  Have you prayed about it?

What are you concerned about?  Have you prayed about it? 

 

Will you pray about it?

 

Take a moment and pray about it.

a moment for drunks and others who try

It was a lifetime ago, but I've used some things and I've abused some things.  I am thankful that the grace of God carried me through and I'm not that man any longer.  I also thank God that those things never sank their fangs into me so deep that I couldn't get away from them no matter how hard I tried.  I'm currently preaching a sermon series based on the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, because even though we're not all addicts, we all make mistakes, we all hurt others, and we have all been hurt by others.  The 12 steps are about healing and forgiveness and God. 

Like I said, I've never really been there, but I have compassion for those who struggle and fight to live.  This poem was sent to me by someone who has been there; someone who tried and lived.  It made me cry.  This moment is dedicated to those who tried and lived, and those who tried and died.

Drunks
by Jack M.

We died of pneumonia in furnished rooms

where they found us three days later

when somebody complained about the smell

We died against bridge abutments

and nobody knew if it was suicide

and we probably didn't know either

except in the sense that it was always suicide

we died in hospitals

our stomachs huge, distended

and there was nothing they could do

we died in cells never knowing

whether we were guilty or not.

We went to priests

they gave us pledges

they told us to pray

they told us to go and sin no more, but go

we tried and we died

we died of overdoses

we died in bed (but usually not the Big Bed)

we died in straitjackets

in the DT's seeing God knows what

creeping skittering slithering

shuffling things

And you know what the worst thing was?

The worst thing was that

nobody ever believed how hard we tried

We went to doctors and they gave us stuff to take

that would make us sick when we drank

on the principle of so crazy, it just might work, I guess

or maybe they just shook their heads

and sent us to places like Dropkick Murphy's

and when we got out we were hooked on paraldehyde

or maybe we lied to the doctors

and they told us not to drink so much just drink like me

and we tried

and we died

we drowned in our own vomit

or choked on it

our broken jaws wired shut

we died playing Russian roulette

and people thought we'd lost

but we knew better

we died under the hoofs of horses

under the wheels of vehicles

under the knives and boot heels of our brother drunks

we died in shame

And you know what was even worse?

was that we couldn't believe it ourselves

that we had tried

we figured we just thought we tried

and we died believing that we hadn't tried

believing that we didn't know what it meant to try

When we were desperate enough

or hopeful or deluded or embattled enough to go for help

we went to people with letters after their names

and prayed that they might have read the right books

that had the right words in them

never suspecting the terrifying truth

that the right words, as simple as they were

had not been written yet

We died falling off girders on high buildings

because of course ironworkers drink

of course they do

we died with a shotgun in our mouth

or jumping off a bridge

and everybody knew it was suicide

we died under the Southeast Expressway

with our hands tied behind us

and a bullet in the back of our head

because this time the people that we disappointed

were the wrong people

we died in convulsions, or of "insult to the brain"

we died incontinent, and in disgrace, abandoned

if we were women, we died degraded,

because women have so much more to live up to

we tried and we died and nobody cried

And the very worst thing

was that for every one of us that died

there were another hundred of us, or another thousand

who wished that we could die

who went to sleep praying we would not have to wake up

because what we were enduring was intolerable

and we knew in our hearts

it wasn't ever gonna change

One day in a hospital room in New York City

one of us had what the books call

a transforming spiritual experience

and he said to himself

I've got it

(no, you haven't you've only got part of it)

and I have to share it

(now you've ALMOST got it)

and he kept trying to give it away

but we couldn't hear it

we tried and we died

we died of one last cigarette

the comfort of its glowing in the dark

we passed out and the bed caught fire

they said we suffocated before our body burned

they said we never felt a thing

that was the best way maybe that we died

except sometimes we took our family with us

And the man in New York was so sure he had it

he tried to love us into sobriety

but that didn't work either,

love confuses drunks

and he tried and we still died

one after another we got his hopes up

and we broke his heart

because that's what we do

And the worst thing was that every time

we thought we knew what the worst thing was

something happened that was worse

Until a day came in a hotel lobby

and it wasn't in Rome, or Jerusalem, or Mecca

or even Dublin, or South Boston

it was in Akron, Ohio, for Christ's sake

a day came when the man said I have to find a drunk because I

need him

as much as he needs me (NOW you've got it)

and the transmission line

after all those years

was open

the transmission line was open

And now we don't go to priests

and we don't go to doctors

and people with letters after their names

we come to people who have been there

we come to each other

and we try

and we don't have to die.