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Childlike Simplicity

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(Day 5 in a 28-day series from First Bradenton)

In many cases, prayer is a subject that comes easy to new believers. Just like a child to his/her Father, we realize how small we are compared to the greatness of the God of the universe. Because of this, we are quick and willing to go the Lord in prayer, laying all of our burdens before Him. After all, He cares for us. 

…casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. (1 Peter 5:7)

Something begins to happen to that childlike simplicity as we mature as a Christian. When we begin to grasp the nature of God and the fact that He is all knowing (John 16:30), that knowledge begins to affect the way we pray. Why should we pray if God already knows our need? Why should we share our heart with God if He already knows the contents of it (Matthew 6:8)? Greater still, why should we pray if God is ultimately going to work all things together according to the council of His own will?

In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will… (Ephesians 1:11).

It is at this point that we need to have our mindset reshaped as far as how we think about prayer. Prayer is less about how we get things from God and more about our relationship with God. Bluntly framed, God is not in need of our prayers. He is not frantically waiting to act until we ask Him to intervene in our lives. He is not “shook” nor can He be shaken. God is the sovereign creator and King of the universe. He is, of His own self, independent and self reliant. More specifically though, He is our God. He entered into covenant relationship with us through faith in the work of His son. This makes us His children. Childlike praying offers us an opportunity to know Him better, trust Him more, and understand deeper the vastness of His love for us. 

It has been said that communication is the key to any relationship and it is never more true than with our relationship to our Heavenly Father. God uses this communication not so much to change a specific circumstance in our lives but more to change us as faith followers. Simply put, prayer is a means of grace that God uses to shape us into the image of Christ.

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. (Romans 8:29)

This causes me to think the way Paul thought…that in every situation, my immediate circumstances are less important compared to the “surpassing value” of gaining Christ.

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ… (Philippians 3:8).

By Doug Hull

Our Prayers: Childish or Childlike?

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(Day 4 of a 28-day series from First Bradenton)

“Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.”- Luke 12:32

“If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.” Luke 11:13

One of my adult children needed to run an errand but could not because of other obligations. It was something that I could gladly and easily do. It brought me joy to grant the request. Then I realized that our Heavenly Father also finds joy in granting our requests, when they are for our good and His glory.

However, there are times when our requests become more like demands of God. We do not pray in a childlike manner, but in a childish way. Jesus reminds us that we must have the humility of a young child when we come to him. In fact, he taught his disciples that they must become like children, or they would not enter heaven. (Matt. 18:1-4)

Sometimes children will repeatedly ask parents to grant a request. A little later they will start asking the same thing again. While Jesus warned against vain repetitions, he taught that we should be persistent in prayer. When he told us in Luke 11:9-10, to “ask, seek and knock,” some translations in a footnote indicate the meaning as “Keep on asking…” He also told of a man who continued to ask a friend for bread. His bold persistence was rewarded, and he received the bread. (Luke 11:5-8)

Sometimes we act as though an elaborate display of words will impress God. We fail to take time to listen to him. We can learn some valuable lessons from children’s prayers. It happened to me years ago when our four-year old grandson was spending the night.

As we were having bedtime prayer, he ended with his usual “Amen.” I followed with a short, simple prayer. Then he turned to me and said, “Grandma, I had already prayed,” (as if one prayer were enough.) I replied that I just wanted to talk to Jesus too. He answered, “I want to talk to him again.” He then prayed, “Dear Jesus, when we get to heaven, can we come to your house?” After a long pause, as if waiting for an answer, he added, “Okay, goodbye.”

“Father, help us to realize that a simple two-way conversation with you can be a deep, meaningful experience. Amen.”

By Pat Browning

Faith Like a Child

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(Day 3 of a 28-day series from First Bradenton)

“Jesus called a little child to him and put the child among them. Then he said, ‘I tell you the truth, unless you turn from your sins and become like little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven. So anyone who becomes as humble as this little child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.”  Matt. 18:2-4

I have always heard that Jesus calls us to have “faith like a child.” And that is absolutely right, of course; but what does that mean?

I have had the privilege to work with children in different capacities since I was in 6th grade. So, I used to think I had it figured out. Boy was I wrong. God is still teaching me what it truly means to have childlike faith.

As I think about it today, what I am inspired to focus on is the absolute, unwavering confidence that children place in their earthly fathers. I wonder if God makes some of us this way as children to prep us for adulthood and the confidence we should have in Him.

Let me share a story from my childhood to express what I mean. I was probably eight, which means my little brother was four. We each had our own room, but we were having a sleep over in his room on this particular night. In the middle of the night, we heard a scary rattling noise.

To us it sounded like a diamond-back rattle snake had slithered its way into the bedroom and was looking for some small boys to strike with its dripping fangs and eat. So we ran straight out of my brother’s room and into my parent’s room and woke up our dad.

We told him the situation, and he went to investigate. Here’s the thing, my dad is a tall, strong, and smart man. So my brother and I were not scared anymore with him on the job. There was no doubt in our minds that no matter how big that snake was, it had no chance against our dad! He would defeat that scaly beast before it could even open its fang-incasing mouth.

Turns out that rattling sound was just a fly buzzing around in my brother’s lamp, not a giant man-eating monster. My brother and I felt so bad we woke my dad up for a harmless fly, but he was as gentle and as patient as ever. My dad looked at us and said, “Boys, I would rather you wake me up for ten flies than not wake me up for one snake.”

What I learned from that experience is that having childlike faith means having the same kind of complete, immovable confidence in our heavenly Father. God is infinitely greater than we can ever imagine. When we pray to Him and ask for help, we do not have to waste our time doubting. We can be sure He will take care of us and defeat whatever is scaring us. Because whatever it is does not stand a chance against our big strong Dad! Totally confidence is what He deserves.

“You fathers—if your children ask for a fish, do you give them a snake instead? Or if they ask for an egg, do you give them a scorpion? Of course not! So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.” Luke 11:11-13

by Frank Welch

I Am a Child of God

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For the next 28 days, our church has been challenged to pray together.  Part of the effort is to provide daily devotionals on the church website for encouragement going along with the theme from the previous Sunday message.  The message series is entitled “Pray Like Jesus.”  Yesterday’s theme was Childlike Praying.

I’ll pass these along each day for you.  You can join us in this effort on your behalf as well as our church.  May you know all the benefits of being a child of God this week.

Keeping Sane

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Possibilities. Endless they are.

If you allowed yourself, you could drive yourself nuts thinking about them. All the “what could/should have beens,” “if onlys,” or “just supposes” are quite mind blowing. For instance:

  • What if Cain hadn’t killed his brother?
  • If only Moses hadn’t struck the rock.
  • What could have been Samson’s legacy?
  • What if Ruth didn’t follow Naomi?
  • Just suppose Israel never selected king #1.
  • If only David hadn’t stayed home.
  • Just suppose Esther wasn’t successful.

Those are just a few before Jesus decided to make his earthly appearance-before he showed us that overthinking the possibilities is unnecessary when he’s in the picture.

As we consider the past, live out the present, and look into the future, in order to keep our sanity we must keep Jesus in the picture. He helps us make sense of it all. For those wanting perfect peace, keep your mind stayed on Jesus.

You will keep the mind that is dependent on you in perfect peace, for it is trusting in you. (Isaiah 26:3)

How to Respond to Injury

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Recently I was given an audio copy of Bravo Two Zero, a military memoir by Andy McNab. McNab was the sergeant of an eight-member SAS regiment given a mission to Iraq, January 1991.

Today I listened to their situation after they were compromised and survived a fierce fight. As Sergeant McNab led them on an all-night evasive trek, he realized one of his men, Vince, was injured. Here’s a clip of McNab’s reaction:

The whole of the game is to get everyone over the border. Vince clearly had an injury. We’d have to do all our planning and considerations around the fact that he was in trouble. None of this, “No, it’s okay, Skipper, I’ll go on.” Because if you try to play the He-Man and don’t inform people of your injuries, you’re endangering the whole patrol. If they’re not aware of your problem, they can’t adjust the plan or cater for future eventualities. If you make sure people know that you’re injured, they can plan around it.

We can be part of various teams in life where we get injured do to fierce fighting-on the job, at the family reunion, in the stock market, even at church. And what Sergeant McNab said about Vince in Iraq is true for all the injured people and those on their teams.

  • The injured have to speak up. Otherwise, the whole team is in trouble. And they may be completely unaware unless the injured person speaks up.
  • The team has a responsibility to adjust. The whole of the game is to get everyone to the destination together, to stay unified in fulfilling the mission.  If that means slowing down to tweak the plan, then accept and commit to it. For the sake of the team and the mission, take the time to listen and adjust.

Playing the He-Man weakens the team. Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps disrespects and distances your team. 

Are you injured? What is your injury? Which team member needs to know? Be courageous and let the tweaking begin.

Shortening the Lows 

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Today is another big day in the life of Tom Brady. Just so happens, I came across an interview of him from last June on demand this afternoon. Seemed appropriate to check it out.

Regarding the outcomes of championships, he was asked two interesting questions: how high are the highs and how low are the lows. About the highs, he didn’t make any distinction from his different experiences of highs; they last the same. However, he answered differently about the lows. For example, when they lost the Super Bowl in 2007 he said his low lasted about a month. But when they lost last year to the Eagles, it was half the time, about two weeks. His explanation-stage of life. Last year he had his children to pay attention to, to help them understand what failure is and how to deal with it. Eleven years of personal development had shortened his low time (my paraphrase).

Trying to avoid the lows is like trying to avoid raindrops. Impossible. Failure happens. Disappointments come, some expected, some not. The opportunity we have is to choose how we respond to them.

I’ve noticed this myself. My lows have gotten shorter. The low in my 30s was almost twice as long as a low in my 40s. After that one, I determined to be more proactive in addressing my lows. I leaned into the verse about the sun not going down on your wrath (Ephesians 4:26) and looked at how that could apply to my lows. Interestingly, the lows continue to be shortened.

So what changed? What did I stop doing? What did I start doing? Here are a few things:

  • I stopped being too concerned about what people wanted from me or could do for me..I started being more concerned about what God wanted for me and what I could do for people.
  • I stopped allowing the decisions of others to determine my steps…I started listening more to the Holy Spirit to determine my steps.
  • I stopped giving self talk free reign…I started admonishing myself based on what truth God had for me.

And my lows continue to shorten. 

Want to shorten yours? Take some time and answer these two questions: 1)What do you need to stop? 2)What do you need to start? 

Make It Count

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Then Mary took a pound of perfume, pure and expensive nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped his feet with her hair. So the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
John 12:3

Mary’s family had much to thank Jesus for. He had made it clear that he was the giver of life. She decided to do something extraordinary to show her love and worship.

  • Her choice was to anoint him.
  • Her choice was to give up something she’d being saving for herself.
  • Her choice was extravagant.
  • Her choice was a declaration.
  • Her choice was sacrificial.
  • Her choice was to have a once-in-a-lifetime moment.
  • Her choice was to make it count.

What do you have to thank Jesus for?
What choice would make it count?

Adversity: The Integrity Test

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Adversity. No one wants it, but when we get it we gain so much. Sometimes that gain feels immediate. Other times it may seem decades before we realize it. I believe the latter was Joseph’s experience (for a refresher, read Genesis 37-50). However long it took him, here’s how he let us know his gain:

You planned evil against me; God planned it for good to bring about the present result-the survival of many people. (Genesis 50:20)

A mindset toward gain from adversity is found in Joseph’s statement. The mindset is vertical (about God), not horizontal (about man). Rather than looking at what man or circumstances have planned, he had learned to look at what God had planned. Easier said than done in the face of adversity, right?

I want to suggest that one preparation we can make before adversity knocks on the door is to make a commitment to integrity.

A commitment to integrity in the face of adversity will…

  • …guard against fear invasion (horizontal).
  • …ward off impulsive reaction (horizontal) giving foundation for calm decisions (vertical).
  • …raise the banner for complete transparency (vertical).
  • …remove selfish ambition (horizontal) to bring in a kingdom mindset (vertical).

Maybe you haven’t considered that integrity is what’s being tested in your adversity. There’s no way around the reality that adversity peels back the layers and shows everyone who we really are. How are you preparing for that revelation? How can you study for the integrity test?