Praying in Whose Interest?

"For we do not know how to pray as we should..." Romans 8:26


Two children, two boys, two precious lives poised on the brink.
In the wake of Ben's death, my heart has been heavy as I ponder Marko and Gergely -- two little boys at the Miskolc orphanage with severe health issues.


The same week that Ben passed into the arms of his Savior, Marko underwent heart surgery.  And for a while, he wavered on the razor edge. We did not know if he would wake up. And in that moment, in the midst of the ache, I found it hard to see these two situations (Ben's passing and Marko's crisis) laid side by side.  


We were not created for death. It is a result of the fall.  And hence, we are ill equipped to deal with it. I guess that's why it hurts so much to lose someone you love, especially when they "go home early" as Ben did.


That's the way it is supposed to be.  It is supposed to full of ache and loss, that sense of emptiness and shattered dreams -- a future we imagined that will never be. 

But for an orphan child like Marko, there are no parents to fall asleep at his bedside, no one to ask all the right questions of the doctors. There's no one to create dreams for his future, and no one to mourn if those dreams shall never be.

Marko is doing as well as he could under the circumstances right now the doctors say.  But his condition is dire.  And unless God chooses to do a miracle, his life will be abbreviated.

And then there's Gergely.  He's about 8 or 9 but his body is the size and shape of a three or four year old.  I don't know exactly what his illness is, but I do know he will likely never reach adulthood.  And who will mourn him?

So how do we pray for such children? Shall we pray for miraculous healing? To what end?

For I have now seen several generations of kids grow up in the orphanage, and quite honestly, very few make it in the world.  Without parents to guide them and instill values in them, a harsh future awaits. It is as if they are set up to fail, poised for bad choices. Organized crime lies in wait to snare them. So much pain and hardship. I ache at the thought of it.

So then we should pray for miracle upon miracle, right? That God would not only heal these boys but also provide families, against all odds! For we are people of faith, right?

I have seen God work his wonders within the walls of that orphanage.  I've seen the unlikely placement of older kids into homes and even multiple sibling sets into families: situations that even the orphanage director called a miracle.  But I also understand that a miracle, by its very definition, does not happen everyday. Miracles would not be miracles if they were commonplace.

When we were praying for Ben, it all seemed so clear.  We would pray for miraculous healing, of course.  For Ben had the potential for an incredible future.  And yet, in doing so we now see that we were not necessarily praying according to God's interests, but rather according to our own emotions and sympathies.

So I come to the place of Romans 8:26, realizing I do not know how to pray. In fact, I tend to approach prayer all wrong.  Oswald Chambers explored the issue eloquently:

"We do not identify ourselves with God’s interests and concerns for others, and we get irritated with Him. Yet we are always ready with our own ideas, and our intercession becomes only the glorification of our own natural sympathies. We have to realize that the identification of Jesus with sin means a radical change of all of our sympathies and interests. Vicarious intercession means that we deliberately substitute God’s interests in others for our natural sympathy with them." 

But I don't usually bother with substituting God's interests for my own.  I'd rather pretend like my prayers are some sort of control mechanism I can wield at will. I want to be the author of people's life stories in my prayers. I want to tell God how work things together for good.  And let me tell you, I've given God a whole lot of advice over the years. And when He didn't take it I've tended throw temper tantrums, accusing Him of not answering my prayers.  What a spiritual brat I've been!

So how do I properly pray for Marko and Gergely?

I guess, I pray that God would accomplish his good plan in them. And because I know God enjoys our conversations, I can still tell Him that I'd love to see them healed and in  homes with families that love them.  But I also have to acknowledge it is not my place to dictate what God should do.  I know I do not see the big picture, and I do not know how their precious lives weave into the elaborate tapestry that is His plan for the world.  But I do believe they have a part in that tapestry.

And if God decides to take them home early, even though there will be no masses to mourn them and no parents to ache the loss, I will ache and mourn them.  But I will also know, that those who knew no father will at that moment know a father's love face to face.

Maybe learning to pray according to God's interests is what praying by the Spirit is all about.  It is giving up our own ideas, our own control and surrendering one more area of our life to Him.

The "Gimme" (give me) Part of Prayer

"Give us this day our daily bread," Matt. 6:11

Finally! We get to the "gimme" part of the prayer. It's our favorite part, right? Isn't this the aspect of prayer we spend the most time on?

"Oh, God, please give me what I want!"

"Oohh Lord, please make this happen for me!"

And sometimes we are not totally selfish. We pray a good "gimme" prayer for those we care about:

"Lord, my friend has this problem and this is what you should do about it."

"Father, make this and that happen for my family."

I can only speak for myself, but I must admit that for most of my prayer life, my communications with the Father have resembled these templates and as I look at the Lord's prayer, I realize I have badly missed the mark. Even here, the section of the prayer reserved for request, my perspective has been all wrong.

The line starts with "Give us ..." Why does it not say, "Give me ..." Even in these few words, I have to make a bit of paradigm shift. There is a fundamental realization in the use of "us" over "me" that I am not the center of the universe. True, God loves me intimately and individually, but that does not mean he revolves his universe around "me". I need to pray with the "us" in mind. I need to pray with an understanding that other people have needs too and are affected by the events that occur on this earth -- both in the physical and the spiritual realm. I need to have a heart for them.

This is not to say that I should never pray for myself specifically. After all God is all about relationship. Relationship is at the core of His very nature, as the existence of the Trinity testifies. God is in relationship with Himself; that is His essence. And through Christ, He has invited us into relationship with Him.

Relationship is rooted in communication. So talking to God about "me" is a healthy part of that relationship. The point is not to loose sight of the "us" as we talk about the "me."

The next couple of words "this day" also give me pause. Why are we praying simply about "this day"? Why don't we just cover the whole week or the whole year? Why not our entire lifetime?

Maybe it's because we are talking about prayer and not an insurance policy.

Prayer, again, is about relationship. It's not a Harry Potter-styled incantation designed to bring about positive results if I assemble the right combination of words. It's not an insurance contract where we have to make sure everything is covered.

The Lord's prayer seems to assume that this conversation with God will happen at least daily.

This week I put in a wood laminate floor. As I put in the planks one after another, I would at times stop when I was a few rows away from a difficult area. I would just stand there and think about how I was going to cut a plank to fit perfectly at that difficult angle/corner. I was still several rows away from having to deal with it, but I wasted so much time just standing there thinking -- when it wasn't my problem, yet.

I tend to approach life the same way. I have to figure out the solutions to problems BEFORE they happen. And I waste a lot of time trying to sort out problems that are never as bad I think they will be.

God urges us in this prayer to "take one day at a time" to use an old cliche. Further on in this chapter Christ summed up the concept when he said, "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." (Matt 6:34)

Finally, the last words in this phrase, "our daily bread":

What is daily bread? Is it just our basic food? I would argue that it is all our basic needs. But how often do I really pray about my needs? I pray a lot about my wants and maybe a little about my needs, but only when I feel those needs are in jeopardy.

I don't pray so much about my basic needs because I think I've got them covered. I have food to eat and a nice place to live. I have heat, running water, and even a nice kitchen to cook in. It really never occurs to me to pray about these things. I don't even really pray about my basic spiritual needs. I take all this for granted.

But Christ is directing us through this prayer to pray for our daily needs. What's the point?

Perhaps, it's because by praying for these things we acknowledge that our Lord is giver of all good things. It is He, and not we ourselves, who provides for us. And in the face of managing our personal budgets, we tend to forget that. By praying for our needs, we recognize our dependence upon Him.

So there is good reason to pray for our daily needs.

Does that mean we should never bother God with our simple wants and desires? After all, He is God, isn't He too busy to bother with such frivolities?

Again, God is all about relationship. Just as I want my children to communicate with me about everything going on in their lives, so does God. When we open up the desires of our hearts to Him, we deepen our relationship with Him. Moreover, we open ourselves up to allowing him to refine those desires and sometimes He will even change them to the deeper desires we never knew we had.

There is a call to Christians woven into "Give us this day our daily bread."  Through these few words, we are challenged to realize we are not center of God's universe. But rather, we are called to allow Him to be the center of ours.

Proverbs captures the paradigm with this prayer:

Keep falsehood and lies far from me;
give me neither poverty nor riches,
but give me only my daily bread.

Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you
and say, "Who is the LORD?"
Or I may become poor and steal,
And so dishonor the name of my God. Prov. 30:8-9

My Habit of Inappropriate Prayer

"Lord, teach us to pray," Luke 11:1

Over the past several months, I've been considering the Lord's prayer like never before. Those of us who grew up in Church have had those words memorized since childhood and the prayer has become so familiar to us that when recited in service, we tend to mouth it without really considering its meaning.

At least that's how it was for me, until recently when I become awakened to a whole new perspective on the prayer. And as a result I became convicted of how inappropriately I pray.

The disciples asked Christ to teach them how to pray.  He responded by giving them what we call today "The Lord's Prayer" or the "Our Father."

Just an overview of the prayer's structure is eyeopening.

Consider the parts:

1. Recognizing who God is and His holiness
2. Longing for and desiring the accomplishment of God's purposes -- Recognizing the primary importance of God's purposes
3. Requests for my needs
4. Recognizing my need for forgiveness and my need to be transformed so that I can forgive others
5. Acknowledging my weakness, frailty and proclivity to return to sin and requesting deliverance.
6. Proclaiming God's sovereignty and eternal nature.

From this general breakdown, I noticed

50 percent of the prayer focuses on God, who He is and His purposes
One-third of the prayer is dedicated to acknowledging my frailty and requesting that God continue His transformation of me.
And only one-sixth (16.67 percent) is allotted  to my personal request for my needs. Note: needs not frivolous desires.

If I took an honest look at my own standard prayers.  The statistics would not stack up the same.  It would look something like this:

Maybe 10-15 percent acknowledging, celebrating who God is.
40 percent telling God how to handle my family and friends problems (Give them this! Make this happen!)
40 percent telling God how to handle my problems (Give me that! Make that happen!)
And about 5-10 percent on seeking the furtherance of God's purposes.

Those are some sad statistics -- especially for someone who is supposed to be a missionary, right?

So maybe its time for me to give my prayer life an overhall, starting by taking a hard look at how Christ himself taught us to pray.   I intend to do this over a series of blog entries beginning with this one. And maybe through this process the old liturgy of "Our Father" will breath new life into a prayer life that has fallen all too flat.

Good vs. Easy

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." --Romans 8:28

That's a standard verse we use to assure ourselves and others that "everything will be all right." But there are times where everything does not turn out all right. Life remains hard. Our losses are so deep. Pressures multiply. Life grows more complicated, and one cannot help but wonder, "Where's that 'good' we were promised?"

But are we genuinely looking for "good" or do we really just want "easy."

When we decided to adopt our son, the various social service officials that we dealt with in the process raised their eyebrows when they learned all our kids would be the same age. They'd sigh and say, "This won't be easy."

Are the most significant things in our lives necessarily easy?

And yet, "easy" is what we long for in the modern age. After all, we have machines to wash our clothes and our dishes. We have microwaves and crockpots for maximum ease in food preparation. We have countless cleaning gadgets and products to make life's menial tasks simpler.

We have come to believe the terms "good" and "easy" are synonymous. And it has infected all aspects of our lives, including the way we pray. Think about it. How do we approach God in prayer. What do we ask for -- both for ourselves and others? Our prayer requests focus little on our character development and more on telling God what to do to make our lives easier.

Oswald Chambers warned of this tendency in his day: "Beware of thinking that intercession means bringing our own personal sympathies and concerns into the presence of God and then demanding that He do whatever we ask."

Indeed, we pray that God would make something happen. We pray that God would not let something happen. We give Him our list of demands. Tell him how to solve our problems and everyone else's.

What happened to the the humble prayer of "thy kingdom come, THY will be done"?

God's will for our lives and this world is the ultimate good. And if He is after your best interest, life probably won't be easy. But that doesn't mean it won't be good. Think about the most beautiful testimonies or life stories you've ever read or heard? Were they stories of "an easy life" or stories of a relationship with God forged through hardships and suffering?

To pursue "the good life" is to seek relationship with God.

This is our primarily calling. THIS is what we were created for!

If we can grasp this fundamental concept, then we can stop approaching prayer as some cosmic tool we use to try to control the circumstances beyond our control. And maybe we can let prayer be what it was meant to be: a vehicle for building relationship with our Lord, a tool for letting Him change us.

Maybe then, we will be able to let go of our demands for an easier life and genuinely commune with God in the spirit of: "THY will be done."

The Point of Honest Prayer

The concept of prayer conjures up all kind of images in our minds. For some it's all fancy language, an assortment of "thees" and "thous" woven neatly into overly ornate language to create some sort of melody of splendor.

For others, it is all yawns and distraction -- a boring conclusion to a stilted, antiquated church service. For still others it's like visiting Santa Clause, a time when we climb into the Almighty's lap to seek His comforting touch and deluge Him with a long list of "give mes" not so different from the spoiled child at Christmastime.

C.S. Lewis argues that if this is how we approach prayer, we've missed the point. "Prayer in the sense of petition, asking for things, is a small part of it;" he wrote. "Confession and penitence are its threshold, adoration its sanctuary, the presence and vision and enjoyment of God its bread and wine."

Even in the "asking for things" part of prayer, I think we often miss the point. The Bible in 1John 5:14 points out: "This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us." And while we may quote this verse like child's play, we so rarely take time to discover what God's will is in a particular situation. We pray according to our will. If someone is sick, we pray for physical healing of the ailment. If someone is mourning, we pray for restoration. If someone is in need, we pray for abundance. If someone wants something we pray that they get it. It has become our formula for modern prayer.

George Mueller, the famous builder of orphanages, had a different perspective on it. "I seek at the beginning to get my heart into such a state that it has no will of its own in regard to a given matter," he wrote. "Nine-tenths of the difficulties are overcome when our hearts are ready to do the Lord's will, whatever it may be. When one is truly in this state, it is usually but a little way to the knowledge of what His will is."

It was his place of letting go of all his preconceptions -- laying his own wisdom on the altar, so that he could explore and discover God's will. When was the last time any of us approached prayer with this first step?

But prayer must be honest, not for God's sake but for ours. After all, God already knows what's in our innermost parts. We only delude ourselves when we pray,"Your will be done" and all the while work to manipulate our own will in a situation.

"We must lay before him what is in us, not what ought to be in us," CS Lewis exhorts. And that which is in us is often quite ugly. But to honestly lay before God where we are in a situation opens the door to a deeper prayer -- one in which we invite God to change us and align our will with His. Whether it's anger or grief, frustration or elation; whether the emotions are Godly or sinful, we need to be honest with God and in doing so, we are actually being honest with ourselves as God already knows exactly where we were in relation to the circumstance at hand.

And so I come to this meditation on prayer with much in my life to pray about: an adoption that seems to be moving NOWHERE fast, one daughter who cannot seem to recover from a fever/cough, the other daughter with a "suspicious" black mole that will have to be surgically removed just before Christmas, a precious dear friend diagnosed with terminal cancer, and an injured back leaving me incapacitated for the time being. Meanwhile the Christmas season rolls forward.

Can I just lay it all on the altar and truly, as George Mueller put it, "get my heart into such a state that it has no will of its own in regard to" these matters? It is an exercise in personal discipline not just up and tell God exactly what to do in all these matters, but rather to truly seek Him and in doing so allow him to work Himself in me and all these concerns.

After all, there is a bigger point to prayer than our long list of "give mes."

Oswald Chambers put it well when he wrote: "We look upon prayer as a means of getting things for ourselves; The Bible idea of prayer is that we may get to know God Himself."

Backtalk

But who are you, a mere man, to criticize and contradict and answer back to God? Romans 9:20 (Amplified)

Yesterday, I was evil.

I had dropped the girls off at school and was driving into Debrecen when I, being a law abiding citizen, stopped at a red light. Patiently I waited as the seconds ticked away. I watched as the local panhandler approached the car ahead of me. I come by this corner so often I almost feel as if I know these guys. It's always one of two: either the old man with a beard or the young man with a crutch. They seem to take shifts as they are never there at the same time.

Yesterday, the young man with a crutch was "on duty." He stood by the passenger side window of that car in front of me held out his hands beseechingly, but the driver would not even acknowledge his presence. Eventually the young man with a crutch moved on ... to my car.

Some years ago, I heard a man who worked with the homeless talk about how damaging it is for the down-and-out when the populace outright ignores them. "At least look them in the eye and treat them like a fellow human being," he had said. And I took the advice to heart. Although I don't give money to random people, I can show them honor and respect.

The young man, probably in his early 20s, hobbled over to my car. He took a humble stance and mumbled his schpeel in Hungarian. I looked at him kindly and said in simple, yet polite Hungarian, "I'm sorry, no."

Bad move on my part.

To my surprise, the man refused to move on to greener pastures. He fixed his feet firmly beside my car and motioned again that I should give him some money.

Still looking him straight in the eye, I said more strongly and firmly: Nem!

But this did not deter him. Now his demeanor changed. No longer beseeching me to show grace and grant him my spare change, now he began hitting my window demanding money.

Perhaps I should have been afraid. But I was too angry for that. With fire in my eye, I leaned over in the seat to face him squarely and shouted determinedly: "NEM! NEM!"

Since he showed no sign of moving on, I shoved my car in gear and moved up a meter or so to hug the car ahead of me, secretly hoping I would roll over his "good" foot in the process.

How dare he! I scoffed angrily as I watched him approach the next car in my rearview mirror. Who does this guy think he is!?!?!?

The whole episode got my back up for the rest of the day, so much so, that I could not help but wonder why it bothered me so much.

Utterly rude ... competely obnoxious ... outrageous ... absurd

Yeah, it's true, desiring to run over his foot is not likely the proper WWJD response. But I also don't buy that the honest WWJD response would be to cowtow to this bully. Jesus was no mamby-pamby, weenie of man. He was the Christ who overturned the money lenders, took on the prevailing dogma of the day, and spoke words that cut like swords to the very core of the issue in each person's life.

Christ was no pushover, so as I lay on my bed last night, I wondered what lesson I was to glean from this life experience. And as I began to mull over the life lessons God has instilled in me of late, I realized when I get riled like this it is often because I am in some way like the person who has riled me.

Me like HIM ... you've got to be kidding.

But then I thought. This is how I sometimes come to God. Sometimes I come properly, beseeching Him in all humility realizing that all the good gifts of this life are by His grace. And then every once in awhile, when I am experiencing His affection and honor toward me, I suddenly decide I can demand things of Him -- even when He compassionately, yet firmly, says "no." And so I "criticize, contradict and answer back to God." (Rom 9:20)

And at that moment, I am not so different from the crazy panhandler hitting my window. Unlike me, God does not get angry and try to run over my feet. Instead, he continues to look at me with His great compassion and He patiently waits for me to understand He has made available all that I will ever need, but I'll never obtain it through my demands and temper tantrums. I'll only discover it through relationship with Him.

For in relationship, He gives his grace utterly and sacrificially.

Relationship is what Christianity is all about. And while we might like mask our demands and criticism of how God is working in the spiritual lingo of "prayers" and "prayer requests." Such mechanisms were never designed to give us an opportunity to tell God how to handle any given situation. Prayer is not us changing God's mind. Prayer is an opportunity to let God change us through fellowship with Him.

So let's fellowship with Him today in all humility -- releasing Him from all the demands we'd like to make. Let's just be with Him and trust Him to handle the rest.

"But God, She's Dead."

Have you ever known a person who truly knew God in the most intimate of ways -- whose life enriched yours simply by being near. Yesterday, I learned that one such person had passed away.

I pushed the news into the back of my consciousness and moved on to the people and issues of my day, but this morning when I took time to enter the presence of God, it all came back to me and I said, "God, Monyi is dead."

It is incomprehensible that such a relatively young and lively woman could really be gone. Monyi truly loved the presence of God, if anyone ever did. She lived in it. I suspect there is not a person alive in this part of the world who has not been impacted if not actively by her life, then certainly by her prayers. She would rise at 4am to get a good two hours with the Lord, before her day began.

Praying was like breathing for her, inextricably linked to her very existence. If a need arose, be it for family or ministry, her gut reaction was to pray, even if the solution seemed obvious. She knew how to hear God too -- even in the hard things.

To tell you the truth, I only met her a few times, but she had that kind of spirit that quite simply glowed in a way one cannot see with human eyes and yet, is unmistakably there. We did not speak the same language, but that did not matter. Christ so permeated all that she was that her very presence exuded Him.

So many faithful, constant, continuous prayers exhaled from one gentle spirit. I have no doubt her words in Christ's name uttered so humbly to the Father caused battalions of demons to tremble and flee. Having Monyi pray for you was like calling in a spiritual brigade of reinforcements.

I can't help but wonder how Hungary will go on without her prayers supporting us. And yet, why do I think her prayers somehow ceased with her death. Why would she who communed so naturally with God over the affairs and spiritual state of her people in this life, where one can see only dimly, suddenly stop when she sees her God face to face. (1Cor. 13:12)

This morning when my eyes welled with tears and I said to God, "Monyi is dead." God spoke back. "Trudy, Monyi is not dead," He said. "She is alive like she had never been alive before. You should see her."

I wish I could see Monyi in God's presence now. She lived to be in His presence in the weak way we frail creatures can stumble into his presence in this life (thanks to Christ's blood). But now, in her death that overwhelming passion for His presence has been made complete as she will truly dwell in the house of Lord forever. Amen.

The Perilous Prayer

Prayer can be a dangerous thing. If prayer is as powerful as we suppose it to be, how could it be otherwise?

I met a woman about a month ago who told me of her perilous prayers. She prayed that her children would not have easy lives, but rather lives that reflected rock-solid faith -- no matter what it cost them. In essence she asked God to give them hardships if that would develop truly genuine faith.

It is not a prayer to enter into lightly.

The result: her husband died suddenly, leaving her to raise her children alone. Then as a teenager her daughter became pregnant. And in the face of these crises, her young son experimented with all kinds of acts of rebellion as he entered his early teen years.

Dangerous prayers, indeed.

But she smiles with an inexplicable peace as she tells the story today. "My kids are so solid and secure in their faith now, because of what they went through then," she explains. "It was hard -- very hard. But my prayers were answered so completely!"

Have you ever prayed a dangerous prayer?

It is a real paradigm shift for most of us. To be honest, it is something I've tried to avoid. And yet, now more and more, I sense God calling me to it. To pray such a prayer, understanding its ramifications, we must be willing to give up all things we value most, for the sake of Him.

And I guess in doing so, we actively choose to elevate Him to that which we value most.

I spent last month in the states and while there I came across a truly tragic situation. Someone I knew years ago fell into adultery and now stands on the brink of losing all that he once held dear. Of course, these situations are always as complicated as they are tragic. But a pastor gave my friend some sound advice:

"You need to give up 'the other woman', sacrifice all your expectations and rights regarding what you believed your marriage should be, and dedicate the rest of your life to restoring your marriage. You may have to give up all pursuit of your own happiness, for the sake of holiness."

It is good advice for all of us. While there may be no 'other woman' in our lives, there is certainly plenty of 'things' that we pursue for our own happiness at the cost of holiness.

We talk a lot about our lives being all about God -- but how much time do we spend pursuing holiness compared the to time we spend seeking happiness? We act as if happiness is our right as Christians, and holiness is something we will save for the hereafter.

Are we ready to get our perspective right? Are we willing risk it all for the sake of holiness? Our answer reflects how deeply we really believe that his grace is sufficient for whatever he asks us to walk through.

Take a deep breath and consider it soberly:

Has the time come to embark upon dangerous supplication?

..Sin..

Sin ...

In many circles, it is an outdated word.

It is a harsh word, a severe word. It is politically incorrect. Some would argue it is a mean-spirited word, wrangled only by the hateful.

We would much rather use words like "issues" or even "struggles" because they reduce the culpability. And maybe through these linguistic gymnastics, we can ignore the devastation our own sin wreaks on others and ourselves.

In a recent bible study with orphanage teens, the subject of sin arose. And these hard-edged youth struggled to understand the concept of sin. It was not a part of their social code and therefore they possessed little ability to grasp the cause and effect of sin. (That the "wages of sin is death.") They struggled to even define examples of what true sin is.

In this day and age, are we so different from the Hungarian orphans? Do even those of us who bear the name "Christian" truly grasp the life-massacreing, soul-searing nature of sin?

Hebrews 3:13 states, "But instead warn (admonish, urge and encourage) one another every day, as long as it is called Today, that none of you may be hardened (into settled rebellion) by the deceitfulness of sin -- (that is,) by the fraudulence, the stategem, the trickery, which the delusive glamor his sin may play on him." (Amplified)

Sin does not lie placidly by the wayside waiting for us to wander accidentally into it. It is as active as the con-man out to secure the long con, toying with our affections, playing on our insecurities, strategizing on our weaknesses. No matter how small a sin, each works insidiously to drive one more nail in the coffin for our faith.

We do not have to look far to find examples. From pastors who have fallen into sexual sin, to church ladies consumed by their own venomous gossip, to the bitter heart who can only lash out in hate --- to the reality of me in my deepest places. Sin takes its toll. And its repurcussions ripple out like spiked lashes on the backs of family and friends. John Donne was correct when he wrote,"No man is an island."

We live in a battlezone, but scarcely realize it. We catch glimpses of it in some moments and pray eanestly for a day, and as quickly as we begin, we forget and slip into the mundane cares of the world that seem so pressing.

In Holy Sonnet 19, John Donne captures my own struggle with faithfulness and facing sin:

Oh, to vex me, contraries meet in one:
Inconstancy unnaturally hath begot
A constant habit; that when I would not
I change in vows, and in devotion.
As humorous is my contrition
As my profane love, and as soon forgot:
As riddlingly distempered, cold and hot,
As praying, as mute; as infinite, as none.
I durst not view heaven yesterday; and today
In prayers and flattering speeches I court God:
Tomorrow I quake with true fear of his rod.
So my devout fits come and go away
Like a fantastic ague; save that here
Those are my best days, when I shake with feare.

As Hebrews 3:13 admonishes, may we grasp an understanding of nature of sin, and, "as long as it is called today" actively encourage and urge one another to be on the alert, lifting all those dear to us up to our Lord in prayer, that he might protect us from the Enemy's schemes.

Sexual Sin and Drifting Away

They drop like insects caught in a cloud of Raid.

First one.

Then another.

And another.

The masses simply shake their head. "That's too bad," some say and then casually move on with the business of their own lives.

"How could he do such a thing?" ask others, in disgust, perhaps secretly delighting in the newest, juiciest gossip.

Meanwhile, in each case, the ripples of pain filter out to spouse, family, friends, and all those who ever loved and admired him. He is the victim of Satan's plot, and the cruel victimizer of those he should love best.

He is the adulterer.

I have found myself caught in a vice of grief this week as I have been reminded of a series of dynamic Christian men who have fallen prey to sexual sin. Some are dear friends whom I love and admire, others are only acquaintances who gave birth to great ministries that still bless many here in Hungary and other parts of the world.

And yet somewhere along the way -- long, long, before the fateful act -- these men began drifting away.

Hebrews 2:1 states, "We must pay careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away."

Drifting is a subtle thing -- hardly noticeable at first. And by the time it is noticeable, it is often too late. It is the result of not being actively anchored -- a physical effort occurring every moment of everyday.

All of the men I am thinking of were pastors or missionaries or both. They read their Bibles everyday. Some even preached a couple times a week. And yet, in all that they did that was right, they still managed to leave some critical aspect of their lives unanchored.

It had been actively anchored once, and perhaps they believed at the time that was enough. But soon it had drifted all too far away to recapture. And now everything has shattered, and they and their families are left with nothing but countless jagged pieces -- razor sharp shards of what used to be.

The pain of their sin radiates like festering sores on the flesh of humanity. And such deep rooted infections do not heal with the simple words of "I'm sorry."

Hell is having a heyday as godly men fall, and all we do is sit around and say, "That's too bad."

When will it become real to us? How many have to fall before we take up the battle?

Through Christ we are equipped to take strategic and effective action in the spiritual realm -- but it requires that we humble ourselves and invest time on our knees.

Let's make today the day we take up this battle -- Pray for your pastor, missionaries, spiritual leaders and for your own family. If you hold any belief in the power of prayer, then take up this fight and pray that none of us allow any aspect of our lives to drift away.