I am home .....
The youth trip to the Washington DC/Baltimore area was a whirlwind of activity that started at 5:30am Saturday June 28 and did not end until about 5:30pm on Saturday July 5. In addition to working at two Salvation Army centers in both Washington DC and Baltimore we had a chance to see many of the sites and sounds of these big cities. While the main reasons for youth mission type trips continues to be our desire to help others they also provide the kids with a chance to see cities they might not ever see.
The kids were so excited to see places they have on seen on TV or in books and magazines. A few of us had travelled to the DC area before but about 15 on the trip had never been and of those 15 about half had never left Alabama before.....It was a great trip. I ahve included a few pics of the sites that week ....for some weird reason I never took a picture of The White House ?!?!?
Prayer has also been on my mind for a few days .......
Why do we pray ? I dont always pray on a daily basis......sometimes I will actually go days without doing it and then boom ...I will lift something up to God. I will say that I used to pray more before my Dad passed away ....and while my love for God and Jesus Christ is still strong my act of prayer is not....Its hard to put into words actually but I just dont pray alot anymore....
One of my favorite authors is CS LEWIS and I turned to him recently on this matter....here are some things he said that I found interesting in regards to prayer.
He could, if He chose, repair our bodies miraculously without food; or give us food without the aid of farmers, bakers, and butchers; or knowledge without the aid of learned men; or convert the heathen without missionaries. Instead, He allows soils and weather and animals and the muscles, minds, and wills of men to co-operate in the execution of His will. “God,” said Pascal, “instituted prayer in order to lend to His creatures the dignity of causality.” But not only prayer; whenever we act at all He lends us that dignity. It is not really stranger, nor less strange, that my prayers should affect the course of events than that my other actions should do so. They have not advised or changed God's mind—that is, His over-all purpose. But that purpose will be realized in different ways according to the actions, including the prayers, of His creatures. So at least it seems to me. But what I have offered can be, at the very best, only a mental model or symbol. All that we say on such subjects must be merely analogical and parabolic. The reality is doubtless not comprehensible by our faculties. But we can at any rate try to expel bad analogies and bad parables.
When he says that "the reality is doubtless not comprehensible " he is right I think....we are so stupid and dumb with it comes to fully understanding Gods will in our lives and when it came to Daddy dying it made me just sit back and realize that I just dont get it.... and I could have decided to spend the rest of my life figuring it out or I could say I love God and am growing closer to him and Jesus Christ through this tragedy.
Prayer in the sense of petition, asking for things, is a small part of it; confession and penitence are its threshold, adoration its sanctuary, the presence and vision and enjoyment of God its bread and wine.
anyway just a thought or a form of a thought here on my end ....good to be back in Montgomery
4 comments:
Jason, I would have loved to read the section on CS Lewis but the font was so tiny and because it is so bright I couldn't read it... I am not asking you to change your background but could you make the fonts bigger? Is it just me? Am I getting old?
But what I did get to read I thought was beautiful. I have been making similar reflections lately on "prayer." My friends and I were talking at LJM's house after my baby shower and SB said she will never forget a line from "Dawson's Creek" where Jenn is angry at God and exclaims to her grandmother, "Why do I need to pray!? It doesn't seem to every change God!!!" and the wise old grandmother replies to her. "My darling Jennifer, prayer doesn't change God... prayer changes us."
Jason,
I am right there with you. I am glad to be back in Montgomery too. The trip was awesome, and I do feel like we made a difference in some lives. Maybe prayer is more for us than it is for God. He doesn't "need" our prayers, but I know that He loves us, and that He enjoys our fellowship with him. I am like you. I sometimes go days without praying, but suddenly there comes a time when there is such a hunger in my soul for it. I thank God for the opportunity that we had last week to do God's work. The work, itself, is the blessing to me.
God Bless!
DC looks amazing. I will still get there one day. In the meantime I will continue to be obsessed with a certain TV show that fills that void in my life.
and heres the kicker ....I am most likely going back to DC next early summer with the family !!!!
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