Tag Archives: prayer

Pray for the sifted: The betrayals of love

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“Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you [all] as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” Luke 22:31-32

Simon (Peter), one of the core disciples of Jesus, did get “sifted” like chaff getting separated from wheat. He got torn apart. You might even say he got broken up. His courage failed him; his anxiety controlled him; his weak heart couldn’t take it. He betrayed Jesus and he betrayed his true self. But, ultimately, his faith did not fail. God held on to him. Just as Jesus prayed, Peter did go on to strengthen the other followers who had been sifted and were about to be sifted.

Broken up

I am particularly interested, today, in the idea that Peter got broken up. We use that term when we get separated from our intimates. I am surrounded by people experiencing being broken up. They are getting sifted. They are in a spiritual battle. I pray for their faith not to fail. I pray that one day they will be through it and will strengthen us.

So many of us are experiencing this brokenness ourselves or experiencing it in someone else that it bears admitting in writing. Intimacy breaks us and builds us. Our connections come with suffering and cause suffering. Today, I’m thinking of being broken up in two ways: 1) someone is getting sifted because they were let go; 2) someone else is being sifted because they can’t let go, even though the person is gone. For others, it is both. I don’t have great definitions or solutions to share, but I am feeling the brokenness, too.

For every Christian who got attached, who gave themselves physically, who made the commitment (some by getting married) and then broke up, it is a spiritual battle. Some of you did not have a tough time moving on; you might be good at hardening your heart, now, as a result. I am not really talking to you. I am feeling for the people who are still being sifted and they feel the brokenness. You are in a spiritual battle. Don’t lose your faith. Don’t let your suffering turn you. Turn back.

Let go

Some people are struggling to let themselves be let go. Pray for them. I won’t tell a story, but it is a common one: “I did not intend to get connected to this person, much less have sex, but I did. Now they are with someone else.” Or “It never crossed my mind that they would go out on me. I feel so stupid and embarrassed.” Or “I don’t know why I still want them after what they did to me, but I do.” They are getting sifted. I pray that one of the results is that they accept their true value before God and escape the power of the betrayal.

Some people are struggling to let go. Pray for them. Again, I won’t tell a story, you can tell your own. But they are common: “I repent of the immorality, but I long for the intimacy.” Or “I want two people for different reasons.” Or “I can’t believe that what I am or what we had could have been this damaging.” Or “Maybe there is a way to work this out if we just get away from the family and all these people.” They are getting sifted. I pray that one of the results is that they turn away from hunger and find true sustenance.

Being sifted could be good

Whenever I am talking to people sifted by the betrayals of love I often make surprisingly little headway in convincing them it is a spiritual place to be. For Christians, in particular, they often think they need to keep their pain or their desires secret from people who won’t understand, and they often act like it is all a secret from God. Even though they see Jesus discerning the secrets in the heart of his intimate friend, Peter, they fall under the spell of their feelings and can’t get loose. They seem to think that if they admitted the situation was about more than their attachment, they would lose the attachment, and they either think that is impossible or undesirable. Pray for them. Being betrayed or betraying is about more than the two people involved. And “in him we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28)

Broken up people often don’t imagine that what they really need to do is strengthen their brothers and sisters. They are so wrapped up in being sifted, it can become an identity. They are so wrapped up in how they have sex or not that they forget about everything else. Satan would love that.

They often think their loves and lusts are happening in private, but their actions usually end up as tools for sifting us all. Pray that in being let go and letting go they let us all go.

Pray their faith does not fail — because that failure is a distinct possibility for them. You who are enduring this or who have honestly endured it know what I am talking about. But having been sifted, it is also a distinct possibility that they, and all of us, will develop true strength to share.

God causes the growth

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I am moved to hang on to some basic teaching today.

What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. (1 Corinthians 3:5-7)

This morning, as I listened to God and prayed for the church, I took heart in in Paul’s teaching. He laments the deep problems in the church in Corinth, where he had spent so much time laboring and loving. They shocked people with their immorality. They divided up the church in factions. They had a strong contingent who thought they were spectacular, and better than Paul, their father in the faith. Some of them re-thought the gospel to reflect themselves rather than Jesus.

Some days, I look out over my beloved community of Circle of Hope and am tempted to lament. I just see the holes in the Swiss cheese. It is not a nourishing practice. Today God saved me from that by reminding me of what he has done, which is what he is likely to do again. Circle of Hope is so astoundingly rich in faith, hope and love that I begin to get nervous when there is a little dip in our storehouse of all the good things God has given us. My standards are very high. I forget that God created it all from nothing not too long ago.

It is, again, like Paul told the Corinthians:

“Think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. (1 Cor. 1:26-30)

I totally relied on this wisdom from Paul when I came to Philadelphia. I am convicted today to keep walking in it. God is bigger than our capabilities and our critics. God is greater than our wonderful history and our sinfulness. God is hopeful because of our good track record and in spite of our mediocritizing.

If we live or die, as the church, Jesus is Lord. But I am sure we will live and God will cause the growth. Here are several reasons to believe that such a life is likely which come from just the people I talked to yesterday:

  • A man walked into our door last week looking to be restored to God after medicating his mental illness with drugs and alcohol. He is finding rest.
  • A man is overcoming his sin and the wreckage it has caused in his family and circle of friends.
  • A man is experiencing the fruit of his act of courage in taking risks to follow his truest calling and it has opened up the door to welcome God into the deep parts of his being.
  • A woman is celebrating how our church came through for her when her husband was jailed and is thankful that her own new faith sustained her.

God is causing the growth. Like Jesus says, the kingdom of God is like a seed that grows day and night and one can only be in awe of it, not cause it. We plant and water, but nothing will happen without God creating the environment in which it can flourish. And that is just what God does.

Today is St. Brigid Day

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We were in St. Brigid’s home place, Kildare, on the first day we left Dublin last summer. It is a beautiful, green, country town where people go to see the horse races. But there is definitely a sense of spiritual mystery about the place, whose name means “the church of the oak.” When Brigid became a Christian in the 400’s the ancient earth-religion had a watch-fire keeping spring alive on the special hill and a feeling for the spirit in the oak tree. Brigid claimed it all for Jesus and identified the fire’s true source. 1600 years later I could still feel her influence.

I am happy to honor the memory of a great leader among the faithful today — especially because she is a woman. I have three reasons.

1) Some flame keepers will be in my dining room in a little while planning the women’s retreat. Circle of Hope is blessed with some strong leaders who, like Brigid, don’t mind taking responsibility for their gifts.

2) At our spectacular Love Feast last night (265 attending! 30 making a covenant!), I had to murmur a bit when “Holy Holy Holy” had us sing “though the eye of sinful man Thy glory may not see.” I tried to get “sinful ones” in the archive a long time ago, and the original keeps getting back in. This is not the most egregious example of patriarchal language, since it obviously means “humankind,” and it might be just as well to sing “sinful men” if you were a woman. Nevertheless, I think not making the women (and men) who are sensitive to language-that-doesn’t-include-everyone sing things that leave people out is the leader’s responsibility (and it is just the right thing to do).

3) The prayer book I use (Celtic Daily Prayer) included a great poem about Brigid, today, which matches the spirit of our own great feast, last night. Perhaps we should have acknowledged her as our spiritual host when we met, since she was so famous for her hospitality and it was St. Brigid’s Eve!

I should like a great lake of the finest ale
for the King of Kings.
I should like a table of the choicest food
for the family of heaven.
Let the ale be made from the fruits of faith
and the food be forgiving love.

I should welcome the poor to my feast
for they are God’s children.
I should welcome the sick to my feast
for they are God’s joy.
Let the poor sit with Jesus in the highest place
and the sick dance with the angels.

God bless the poor,
God bless the sick,
God bless the human race.
God bless our food,
God bless our drink;
All homes, O God, embrace.

(Yes, I know it is Superbowl Sunday, too. Please do not kick me out of mankind).