Speaking To God

We've been working our way through the little book that Ruth and I wrote some years ago, called Known, Finding Deep Friendships in a Shallow World, and the whole first section of the book is on story, not just that we have stories, but that you are a story. I am a story, and when we tell each other our stories, we start learning how and where to love each other, and that's called affirmation. Affirmation is a four dollar word that means I like you, and there are a number of ways to affirm, and over these next weeks we'll sort of be unpacking those ideas, and this first one is found in chapter 10 of the book, and it's called Speaking to God. Therefore, encourage one another and build each other up just as in fact you are doing. That's a verse from Paul's letter to the church in Thessaloniki in Northern Greece. Therefore, encourage one another, build each other up just as in fact you're doing. The smiling young mom said, Eric has something he wants to tell you. The 10-year-old boy and his mother had been standing off to my right, waiting to see me after my talk. As I turned toward them, she made that statement. I gave him a knuckle bump and said, great, what's happened in Eric? He looked me in the eye and said, I really liked your talk. You did good. That was it. There's the Oscar. That's Olympic gold. We're inching up on the presidential medal of freedom when a 10-year-old tells a 70-year-old guy that he actually listened and got it. Ring the bells, fire the cannons, the old guy can die happy. Affirmation is a four dollar word that means I like you. It permeates the fabric of a friendship and without it, friendships don't work. I mean, coming in myriad forms, it's a baseline for hope and provides stability. When you are friends, affirming the other is way high on the intuitive scale. Let's call that scale the reflex quotient, the RQ, the things that one does naturally. Affirmation tops the list on the RQ index. The question is, how do you affirm someone in a way that will be received? Personalities are all over the map, aren't they? We are wired in unique ways, and some of us respond to spoken words, others respond to deeds or written words, and on the list goes. So let's look at five concrete ways of affirming. First one is the one we're talking about today, speaking to God. When I pulled my brand new Vespa scooter into our front yard on Congress Avenue in East Oakland, California on that November afternoon, that would have been 1959. I had my standard expectation, snacks at the hand of my stay at home mom. What I got when I walked in was no mom and no snacks. The house was silent. If you've been brought up with the theology that the second coming of Jesus Christ could happen at any moment, a disappeared mother is not a good sign. Our 1920s stucco bungalow wasn't big, so I quickly covered most of the rooms inside, headed down the short hall toward my folks bedroom, and that's when I heard the noise. It was coming from the small walk-in closet in their room. Creeping up to the door, I was able to decipher the muffled sounds from down near the floor. It was a mother on her knees praying for a wayward son. Really? Oh, and that wayward. Sure, I was a 17-year-old freshman at Cal Berkeley, but I came from a highly structured conservative religious family. Perhaps I was sewing some wild oats, but by 21st century standards, those weren't many oats, and they weren't very wild. Anyway, mom was talking to God in classic fashion. Oh, God, don't let Dick do anything more stupid than he's already done. For the most part, it worked. My takeaway from that day was not that my mom was fervent in prayer, but that my mom cared enough for me that she would get on her knees on a closet in the middle of the day to bring my name and my need before the creator of the universe and invoke his help. Now that's affirmation. Prayer cuts through arguments, crosses all the lines of bias, and soothes the wounded soul. It invokes the help of another in strengthening your hands, healing your heart, and giving you hope. No other action we can take does what prayer does. Ruth lay in an induced coma at the Medical Center of the Rockies in Loveland, Colorado. She had been that way for 36 hours. When a doctor, we didn't really know, walked into room 2b in the cardiac intensive care unit. He introduced himself as a cardiac surgeon making nightly rounds. It was 10 pm. The morning before and an hour away at 8,000 feet in the Rockies, Ruth had collapsed. The EMTs called it sudden cardiac death, caused by ventricular heart arrhythmia. Survival rate nationally outside a hospital is just 6%, and 11% for those were necessitated in the field. Of those, just a few survived without some brain function impact. The doctors who initially treated her simply said to us, we have no idea what you can expect by a way of function when she wakes up, if she wakes up. The surgeon who had walked into the ICU looked around, said, Dick, I have a sense this is going to be all right. As far as I could tell, there was no empirical data to support that statement. Then he asked, may I pray for Ruth? I've been in scores of hospitals in my life and dozens of ICU's not once has a doctor asked me that question. I said absolutely. At that point, with nurses and technicians moving about, he laid his hand on her. And in a strong voice began to pray, Lord God Almighty. Four hours later, Ruth woke up. Nine days later, she left the hospital with no negative cognitive function. Three years later, we are writing this book together. And by the way, I'll just take a little parenthetical moment here. We are now eight years and several months out. We're still good. You asked, did that prayer do the trick? Certainly. That prayer and the incredible skills of a highly competent medical team did the trick. What that prayer did precisely in terms of healing. I don't know, but I believe it had a part that was a prayer for Ruth and I got the overflow. What that prayer did was to let me know that God knew where we were. What that prayer did was to affirm the innate value of a 71 year old woman who had taken a massive physical hit and lay intubated in the space between life and death. What that prayer did was absolutely 100% positive. What an affirmation. Prayer is the highest affirmation. It's words to God. When you pray for a person, it's you talking to God about another. That's to be very clear, your prayer does not create that person's value. It acknowledges that person's value. Prayer for another person says this, I believe you are so valuable that I'd like to bring your needs and you by name to the creator of the universe when I speak with him this afternoon. Your prayer affirms the grand design. Your prayer affirms God's ongoing interest and engagement in the life of that person. Your prayer affirms value even in negative circumstances. One of my favorite characters in the Gospels is Simon Peter, a strong natural leader with big arms and a big mouth. Simon Peter is a fixer and a protector. Problem is, he often promises more than he can produce. His mouth runs away with him. All that has changed, of course, on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit fills him up with fresh insights and real boldness. But before that, his batting average is not so good. He has swings and misses a plenty. He's strong in some ways and weak in others. Maybe that's why I identify with him. As Jesus heads towards his certain death, he says something very interesting to Simon Peter. Simon. Look, Satan has demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again strength in your brothers, he knows what's coming for Simon. He will have the best of intentions and the worst of responses. At the moment of greatest challenge, he will fail. It fascinates me that Jesus knowing what's coming down doesn't say here. Let me tell you how to avoid that. Instead, he says, I've prayed for you that your faith may not fail. In other words, you might fail in the moment, but your faith will win out in the long haul. And by the way, I'm speaking to my father about you. Prayer cuts down and through and across every circumstance. All of us need prayer. During our 15 years in Washington, DC, talking with scores of men and women in high and low places, I was encouraged by my mentors to ask this question somewhere in a conversation, usually toward the end. I have friends who believe that praying for leaders is important. Is there anything I can ask them to pray for? Not once. In all those years, did any of the individuals say no? I've asked myself many times, why were they all to a person willing to receive prayer? I think it's because we all desire the interest and affirmation of the most high. Even if someone doesn't believe in him, they intuitively cover their bets. Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of Britain, speaking at the 2009 national prayer break, was told a story about his father. That's what he said. I remember my first spiritual awakening. I was 10 years old. That day, my father at the young age of 40 had suffered a serious stroke. His life hung in the balance. My mother, to keep some sense of normality in the crisis, sent me to school. My teacher, Nelton, prayed with me. Now my father was a militant atheist. Before we prayed, I thought I should confess this. I'm afraid my father doesn't believe in God, I said, to the teacher. That doesn't matter. My teacher replied. God believes in him. He loves him without demanding or needing love in return. Prayer is an affirmation counts on the fact that a loving God believes in us. It affirms who God is and who we are. All at once shot. So when the apostle Paul prayed, I want to know Christ. It was a prayer for himself. It was the place of beginning from which all his other relationships developed. It's fascinating to see the relationships then that Paul developed in the first century as he made his way on foot across the northern edge of the Mediterranean, base in three times in three years. From Antioch in Syria, he headed southwest to Cyprus and then up to places in present-day Turkey, like Antalya, Perga, Iconium, Listera, and Derby. On his second trip, he went to Philippi, Tarsus, Thessalonica, Derby, Berea, Listera, Athens, Iconium, Corinth, Troas, and Ephesus. The third trip, he didn't go a new place as he circled back to see old friends. One of those cities was Philippi, and when he wrote his friends in Philippi later, he started with a big dose of encouragement. I thank my God, every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you, plural, will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. It's right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart. For whether I'm in chains or defending and confirming the gospel that's in prison or out, all of you share in God's grace with me. God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus. And this is my prayer, that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God. After his initial greeting, it is right there. This is Paul. I thank my God every time I remember you in all my prayers for all of you. I always pray with joy. Under any conditions, prayers are great affirmation, but when you've survived an earthquake in a town, like he had eaten in people's homes, introduced the local jailer and his family to Jesus, helped start a congregation, that's a different deal. You know their story, and when you know a person's story, where his or her journey has taken them, you know where to affirm them. A mother can do that, a doctor can do that, a teacher can do that, spiritual parent can do that, and you and I can do that. Ruth has a couple thoughts about this prayer business. I'm going to let her wrap this up, Ruthie. Because my father and my husband were pastors, I've been in church nearly every Sunday of my life. Coming from Pentecostal roots, I was brought up in services that were exuberant and spontaneous. When Dick attended Wheaton College grad school, I came to appreciate the ordered chapel services we attended, with pipe organ music and the singing of old hymns of the church. But I wasn't sure what to expect that Sunday morning. I walked up the steps and through the tall, great columns of Commonwealth Chapel, with my good friend Joan. She and I and our husbands had spent 10 years in the Washington DC area. Our friendship had grown over those years while we spent time together and learned we enjoyed many of the same things, reading good books, finding great buys at thrift shops, and nurturing our grandkids. Since then Joan had moved to Richmond and I was there for a visit. On this particular Sunday we chose to attend the church where her son was pastor. The chapel was built in 1905 in the historic fan district of Richmond and had housed various congregations over the years. As we entered the sanctuary, I noted the beautiful stained glass window over the Baptist tree and a collection of candles and holders on the communion table. I had a family situation troubling me that morning. The young pastor spoke to those assembled and most directly to me, it seemed. He asked those of us with a pressing need to come forward and offer our request to God by lighting a candle. I asked Joan to come with me and we walked down the aisle together. After I lit a candle we returned to our seats. I left that service with a lighter heart feeling somehow that the burden I was carrying had shifted onto the shoulders of the carpenter healer. He had heard my silent words as I stood in the light of that candle and for me the candle signified that moment and stood for that transfer. When I returned home I thought often about that simple act of faith and how meaningful it had been for me and I decided that it didn't need to be confined to the sanctuary of a church. When I felt the strong desire to bring a friend to Christ in prayer I could light a candle and set it on my kitchen counter as a reminder to be in prayer. Each time I saw the flame I would offer of a prayer to the one who understood and would certainly answer in his time and his way. Each time I saw the flame I would remind myself that not only my prayers but also the collective prayers of all believers would come before the heavenly Father. I have a very large candle and a beautiful glass holder, the gift of a friend. It's my prayer candle. When it burns low I make sure it gets replaced. Sometimes when a need seems overwhelming I bring out several candles and light all of them. It's my way of saying, Lord I want you to know that this is a terribly big request. It's very important to me and I don't know how in the world you will answer it but please hear my prayers. I know he does and I keep reminding myself that I don't have to figure out the answer. I don't even have to make some suggestions though they sometimes sound pretty good to me. He knows the future and knows what's best. When I face death in the mountains of Estus Park, Colorado many folks who knew my candle lighting tradition began following my fight for life on Facebook. They started lighting candles and posting the pictures. One of my daughter's friends even lit a bonfire on Ocean Beach in Virginia. The day when I experienced sudden cardiac death and several days after have been erased from my memory but the stories that I hear about those days are overwhelming. It is incredible and so humbling to know that many many people were praying for me. A great chorus of prayers to the Father of Life. The doctors say that I am a miracle. When I think of first responders I know that the police, the firefighters, the paramedics and the doctors all helped tremendously but I had the huge advantage of being surrounded by friends in prayer from the moment I collapsed. In reality these friends were the very first responders. The older I get my prayer time has become more profound and a greater resource for me. I love knowing I can be in communion with Jesus all during the day in times of great happiness and times of dire need and I love knowing that I can be in touch with the divine when I am completing the most ordinary tasks of my day like cleaning bathrooms or pulling weeds at my garden any time with him is enriching and life giving. Of course there are times I need to find a quiet place where I can be alone offer my request to the Lord and listen with my heart. Then I am reassured by the one who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think and often that's when I light a candle. I love that piece about lighting the candle. We have lit many candles over the years for prayer needs and for dear friends and as we approach thanksgiving and then the Christmas season somehow candles seem appropriate. So think about it this week going forward. Who is it? How is it that I might affirm with a word with an action with my presence with a gift for an offer to help? You name it? All of it works. One last thought as we sign off on this podcast. I love what that old preacher of yours passed. AWS Tozer said, what comes into your mind when you think about God is the most important thing about you. It needs to be something that's positive so you want to talk to him. By the way we're going to start going at these things a little more often. We're going to try going forward to release one of these podcasts every Tuesday. If we miss it by a day don't be upset with us but we're going to try to get close. So until then we're thank you for subscribing on whatever platform you're listening to this on and we look forward to the next time we're together. Catch you then God bless.