Pastor Ray's Blog

Dear friends,

Both in the Ash Wednesday service and on the first Sunday in Lent I challenged you to enter into a Lenten prayer experiment. This challenge came to me as I was listening recently to Dr. Steve Hayner. Dr. Hayner really wasn’t so much issuing a challenge as he was sharing about his personal walk with Christ. He said that his life has been changed by simply praying three things each morning. I was struck by what he said and decided that I would start praying this same thing with each new day. It then occurred to me that you might find these prayers helpful so I issued a challenge. A forty day prayer experiment. Here are the prayers:

Lord, open my eyes and help me to see what you see.

Can you imagine what it would be like to see what God is able to see in others? So often we live our lives hiding our hurts from others. What if you could discern what another person is going through so that you could reach out in some way to that person with the love of Jesus?

Lord, let my heart be broken by the things that break your heart.

What are the things that break the heart of God? How can our hearts not be flooded with compassion if God answers this prayer?

Lord, help me to not duck.

When we see what God sees and when our hearts are broken by the things that break God’s heart, undoubtedly we will see new opportunities for reaching out to others in the love and grace of God. When those opportunities come, don’t duck, meet them head on.

Dr. Hayner said if we pray those prayers we may find that God gives us opportunities to reach out to others with God’s love by simply blessing them through kind words and encouraging affirmations.

Recently one of our members left a note on my car saying my front tire was dangerously low. I appreciated the way he took the time to let me know that. I took my car to the service center and a young man was assigned the task of taking care of my tires. He took each tire off and rebalanced it. He took the problem tire off its rim and looked until he finally found a small nail which he removed. After fixing the tire he put it back on the car and called me to the front desk to get my keys.

I noticed as this young man was working on my car he didn’t seem to have great enthusiasm for his job. He wasn’t lax in what he was doing, he just didn’t seem to be enjoying himself in his work. It was the very beginning of the day so I was thinking this can’t be a good sign.

When I picked up my keys from him I said, “I was watching you work on my car and you are really good at your job.” His countenance brightened just a bit. I went on, “I don’t think I would have ever found a nail that tiny but you stayed with it until you found it. You really did a great job, thanks for taking care of that for me!” By this time a smile had broken across his face and he was beginning to tell me that, “Yes, it was a hard one to find but I finally was able to track it down and pull it out.” As he walked back to the work area, it sure looked to me as if it was with a lighter step and a bit more enthusiasm.

Sometimes spreading the good news of Jesus begins with simply trying to bless others. I think if you pray these prayers with me through the season of Lent you’ll find opportunities to do just that, as long as you don’t duck.

So…are you up for a challenge?

Together with you in Christ’s service,