Thursday, January 16, 2014
Day 17
Do Not Delay
"O Lord, pay attention and act.
Delay not, for your sake, O my God."
Daniel 9:19
"During our 40 day prayer challenge at National Community Church, our prayer circles were interceding for healing, jobs, marriages, deliverance, and salvation. And we saw each of those miracles happen, but there were speed bumps along the way. Praying hard is not the path of least resistance; it is usually the path of most resistance because we engage in spiritual warfare. In fact, when we begin interceding for others, we better make sure that others are interceding for us. We need a prayer circle that provides a prayer covering.
Until recently, I attached ASAP to every prayer. I wanted God to answer as soon as possible. But this is no longer my agenda. I don't want quick or easy answers because I have a tendency to mishandle the blessings that come to easily or too quickly. I take credit for them, or I take them for granted. So now I pray it will take long enough and be hard enough for God to receive all of the glory.
I'm not looking for the path of least resistance; I am looking for the path of greatest glory. And that requires high-degree-of-difficulty prayers and lots of circling."
Until recently, I attached ASAP to every prayer. I wanted God to answer as soon as possible. But this is no longer my agenda. I don't want quick or easy answers because I have a tendency to mishandle the blessings that come to easily or too quickly. I take credit for them, or I take them for granted. So now I pray it will take long enough and be hard enough for God to receive all of the glory.
I'm not looking for the path of least resistance; I am looking for the path of greatest glory. And that requires high-degree-of-difficulty prayers and lots of circling."
God is never early. God is never late.
God is always on time."
Mark Batterson-Draw the Circle
"Another way Frey (Women's Coach) has long-described this team (Messiah) is to use words like family and community. In fact, their theme Bible verse for many years has been Acts 4:32: "All the believers were one in heart and mind." That's not intended as a means to the greater end of winning games; "one in in heart and mind" is the end in itself. Winning is a by product.
A more recent framing, but one that encapsulates the longstanding aspiration of the program, is to be a "team of grace". The Coach explains: This is something that makes us different. I told them to think about what this team would look like if we became a team of grace-if we simply accepted our teammates, our other friends, everybody within our realm. They're going to mess up. Our team is going to have players that may not train as hard as we would like them to, maybe they get caught doing something really stupid. It all happens. But because we are a team of grace, that guy's my teammate and that relationship will never, ever change."
Relatedly, they remind themselves regularly to put "substance over image-that is, to ignore what people might say about them, or what's in the paper, or how high they are ranked but instead to concentrate exclusively on their actual mission."
Michael Ziagarelli-The Messiah Method
Food for thought-Can you articulate what our actual mission is? What are you doing to accomplish that mission?
