YIKES - Part 2

by Tricia Dunton

WHAT CAN I DO?

I’m wrestling with the feeling of being such a small drop in the giant ocean of problems. Trying to figure out: what can I do? How do I make any difference in larger issues? In my previous post I talked about human trafficking and I struggle to think how a mom of two young boys, living in Chicago, with a husband in seminary, can really do anything about something so huge. I’m totally powerless so maybe I just don’t try at all. This is where God showed me the verse from Haggai that just called me out and smacked me in the face. So, what can I do to help rebuild the Lord’s house? And again, I often come up short.

My in-laws have always had a verse hanging above their fireplace where most people put the pictures of their families. It’s the most central place in the house and you absolutely cannot be in their house without seeing it. I absolutely cannot be in their house without being convicted by it. It reads, “If My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (2 Chron 7:14).

There is nothing more powerful that we can do than to pray. Fervently pray. Humbly pray. But is this where I end up when I feel most powerless? Not usually. I don’t automatically rely on prayer—not true prayer. I rely on prayer when I’m getting a little short with my toddler or I sneak it in when I want a really good parking spot at Target but I’m not falling on my face, heart breaking, humbly coming before the Lord of the universe asking Him to use me. And if I’m not, then what does that say I believe about him? Do I believe who He says He is?

Prayer almost always precedes change. Good change, God-lead change, bold changes are most definitely preceded by prayer. But do we pray dangerously and boldly? Are we asking God for big enough things that our own faith is being stretched? Do our prayers and our requests line up with the big God we say we believe in? Because our prayers will tell us what we truly believe about Him. Do we even really pray?

I mean REALLY pray. I know plenty of non-believers that when they need something, make the deposit into the request box and send a quick little prayer up to “whomever is up there.” Do my prayers look and sound drastically different from theirs? Or could they be confused? Do I put God in a box that my understanding has created? Because the God of the Bible definitely does not exist in that box.

Prayer is the place where our relationship with the Lord grows. It’s how our relationships with our husbands, kids, friends, family, anyone really grows—communication. Our closeness to God grows deeper as we pray. We learn about Him, His ways, His purposes, His character through prayer. We experience Him in prayer. We can only subsist outside of prayer for so long before the chasm starts to grow. And it can grow so deep that He starts to look really, really far away. And then we are left at the point of helplessness—not sure where or how we contribute.

So you may feel like you don’t know where or how you can be furthering the kingdom from your current station in life and I'm here to say that you can further it from the ground up, through prayer. You are not helpless in the face of these larger issues. As a Christian, you have the gateway to the only One who can help. Let’s start using that.

If My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

YIKES - Part 1

by Tricia Dunton

As we have been reading Ruth this semester, there have been a few things that stick out for me that have been pretty convicting. Ruth decides to essentially leave everything she knows because she is so moved by Naomi and her connection with her. She sheds her identity as a Moabite, leaves her hometown to go somewhere that she KNOWS people will not like her very much and life is going to be incredibly hard. Ruth willingly walks right into that.

And I can’t help but feel the Spirit asking me, “Are you so moved? Have you left your identity in a world where you know people will not like you? Have you shed your old self? I mean really, truly, sloughed off your identity because Christ has so moved you?” If I am honest with myself, sometimes I don’t know if I can answer a resounding “Of course! You move me Lord! I don’t care about any of that old stuff, stuff of this world. I will give it all up! Not. A. Problem” Too often my answer is a little more like “sure thing. I know that’s how I feel. In my head, I know that’s the Christian response but let’s not turn this into some big thing. I can take your identity but I don’t think that I REALLY have to be hated by the world right?” Reading Ruth makes this response seem, well, lets just say: YIKES!

So if I am to truly be moved, what does that look like in my life? Where are the places that the Lord is stirring in my heart? Our book author, Carolyn Custis James (CCJ to me because, lets be honest, if you’re going to feel convicted you always want it to be from a buddy), talks about the character of Naomi bringing to light the disparity among people. And she says, “The issue at hand is not whether the local welfare system is inadequate, but what God’s people will do with their advantages, power, and resources.” Another YIKES moment. What am I doing with the advantages and resources I have been given? CCJ goes on to, more or less, pose the question “will we hoard our blessings or open our hearts and hands to others?” Being confronted with the widow, Naomi, asks us just this. God calls us to protect the widows, orphans, and sojourners. How am I doing this in my life? Where is God calling me to be open handed or hearted?

Often I am completely overwhelmed trying to think about how in the world I can help any of these groups of disadvantaged people. We read this chapter right around the time of the Super Bowl and there were so many ads leading up to it about human trafficking. Those ads always get me fired up but that fire fizzles as the problem seems so big and out of reach that nothing I could do would actually make any difference. So I become complacent and just tend to my own life and try to keep things in order for those I am already close to. I think Jen Hatmaker described it on her Facebook page as “blessing the blessed.” It’s just so much easier.

Then God lead me to Haggai 1:9b “my house lies in ruins…while all of you busies himself with his own house.” And YIKES again. I am 100% guilty of busying myself with my own house while God’s house, His people, lay in ruins. I just start living for me, same old identity, nothing new. CJJ told a story about Eloise who, in the midst of her deteriorating health, at the end of her life, caught herself complaining and reminds herself, “I’m forgetting God is here. I’m not living for his purpose.”

Aaaaaand YIKES again.

Have I really been so moved? Am I open hearted and open handed with the blessings the Lord has given me? Am I tending to his house, which lays in ruin? Did I forget God is here? Am I living for his purpose?

Too often I am ashamed of the real answers to those questions. There is only one way for that change to take root: PRAYER.

More to come…