Why, O Lord?

How bold are your prayers? What are the specific things you pray for?

My prayers are often feeble. I pray for health, the next day or thank God for His provision. Honestly, I would probably be better off not praying sometimes. How often do you see David praying for his health in the Psalms?

The men of Hope Fellowship have been going through the Psalms the last several months. Rather than be comforted, I've been increasingly frustrated.

These prayers of David (mostly) are things that I increasingly think and pray:

• "Why, O LORD, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?" 10:1
• "Arise, O LORD; O God, lift up your hand; forget not the afflicted." 10:12
• "How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day?" 13:1,2a
• "In my distress I called upon the LORD; to my God I cried for help." 18:6

Before coming to the Rez, I read all these passages and spiritualized them. If I could identify with them at all -- it is hard to identify with a person that suffers when you remove yourself from any opportunity to live life with those that suffer -- they turned into prayers about how lame my devotional life was. 

It is impossible for me to read these passages the same way now. There is much suffering in this world. Suburban America does all it can to insulate itself from suffering. But God calls us to seek out those that are suffering and show them the love of Christ: we are called to visit orphans and widows in their affliction (James 1:27). 

I see suffering now and my heart breaks. Almost daily I have the good fortune to interact with people on the Reservation that have suffered in ways I cannot imagine: children without parents, children living with whomever will take them, drug and alcohol addiction, physical, sexual and emotional abuse. I see how kids act that go through this, I see their lack of emotion, in others their anger, their mistrust. We spend a few hours with them each week and then we send them back home to trauma and chaos.

And I ask "Why, O LORD, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?"

The current theme of our youth group is "walk by faith, not by sight" (II Corinthians 5:7). There are days I'm sick of that verse.

My hope is in the Lord. I know Christ will return to judge both the quick and the dead. I have no doubt that Christ is the All-in-All and one day, when He returns, all things will be made new.

But I want to see it. 

Now. 

I want to see suffering end. I want to see families made whole. I want to see people turn to Christ and grab hold of the life saving Gospel. 

So, I'm changing the way I pray. Hebrews tells us "with confidence draw near to the throne of grace." With confidence. Other versions say "come boldly."

The Creator of the Universe wants us to come to Him boldly, bringing our cares and concerns to him. Can I pray as confidently and boldly as David?

• "Consider and answer me, O LORD my God." Psalm 13:3
• "Hear a just cause, O LORD, attend to my cry! Give ear to my prayer from lips free of deceit! From your presence let my vindication come! Let your eyes behold the right!" Psalm 17:1-2
• "I call upon you, for you will answer me, O God; incline your ear to me: hear my words." Psalm 17:6

Or what about Daniel? Can you imagine being this bold in prayer?

"O Lord, according to all your righteous acts, let your anger and your wrath turn away from your city Jerusalem, your holy hill, because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people have because a byword among all who are around us. Now therefore, O our God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his please for mercy, and for your own sake, O Lord, make your face to shine upon your sanctuary, which is desolate. O my God, incline your ear and hear. Open your eyes and see our desolations, and the city that is called by your name. For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy. O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive. O Lord, pay attention and act. Delay not, for your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people are called by your name." Daniel 9:16-19

It is my hearts wish that my prayer might elicit the same response Daniel's did:

"While I was speaking and praying, confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my plea before the LORD my God for the holy hill of my God, while I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel . . . made me understand, . . . saying, . . . "At the beginning of your please for mercy a word went out." Daniel 9:20-23 

I long for the day when the Father answers and says:

• "'Because the poor are plundered, because the needy groan, I will now arise,' says the LORD; 'I will place him in the safety for which he longs.'" Psalms 12:5
• "In my distress I called upon the LORD; to my God I cried for help. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears. Then the earth reeled and rocked; the foundations also of the mountains trembled and quaked, because he was angry." Psalm 18:6-7

she came in, quiet without words.

She pushed my hand away twice before I felt it tugging on my sleeve.
She wrapped my arm around herself then.

She crumpled the song sheet, brows furrowed and hand clenched in concentration.
She whispered not long after, asking more than once to take the bulletin home.

She came in, quiet without words.
She lifted her hands in the Doxology.

She squirmed in the seat, feet all over the chairs and floor and in the air.
And then she stopped squirming, and she looked up at me as we sang:

Your plans are still to prosper, You have not forgotten us.
You're faithful forever, perfect in love; You are sovereign over us.

A Call to Missions

Our family will head to Colorado for a month of missionary/cross-cultural training in February 2015.  This is done through Mission Training International (MTI) -- a missionary training organization that has been around for 60 years.  We will attend classes and learn practical skills to help us through the challenges and adjustments of another culture.  We are all pretty excited to see what we will learn.  I've been amazed too, at the small world of how many people we know who have either been to MTI or know someone who attended it -- all with rave reviews. 

Interestingly, the last time I was in Colorado was when I was in high school.  I attended a nationwide Christian and Missionary Alliance youth conference, called "LIFE", at Colorado State University.  Hundreds of youth from the CMA denomination attended.  There were wonderful speakers and times of worship each day.

One evening someone spoke -- possibly Morris Dirks, I don't quite remember -- and it was about the call to missions.  The message touched my heart and I felt the Holy Spirit speaking to me about missions.  I went forward, prayed and told the Lord that if He ever called me into missions, I would obey and go.  I was pretty convinced that missions was going to be in my future.

Fast forward a few years later.  Darren and I were dating and I told him I thought I was supposed to be a missionary. He told me he did not picture himself ever doing that.  But he encouraged me and said, "We will serve the Lord in the church here in the U.S."  I agreed that would be good as well, but I did wonder why I had felt that strong call to missions that one night in Colorado.

When this whole idea of leaving our current life and moving to Sacred Road came up last year, one of my first thoughts went back to this night at the LIFE conference, of course.

I wrestled with it.  "Lord, you aren't asking me to go now, are you?  Things are different now.  My life feels settled and good.  We can't just pick up and go."  Hadn't that door to missions closed years ago?

Thankfully the Lord gently showed me that He was calling me now.  He reminded me that His timing and ways are different than mine.  He reminded me that He had put that seed in my heart long ago and now it was time to obey.  

I love how the Lord weaves our lives and how He knew He would be sending me back to Colorado someday -- for missionary training!  I never cease to be amazed at His goodness and perfect plan!

The Cost of Discipleship

What does it mean to follow Christ? How much of what we believe is affected by our culture? What lenses do we read Scripture through and how do those lenses impact how we understand Scripture? And then how does that understanding influence how we apply Scripture to our lives?

I've been thinking about these types questions lately. One of my concerns is how difficult it is to see blind spots in my understanding of Scripture. In my own life I've noticed how difficult it is to recognize when I am looking at things through a middle class American lense rather than a Christian lense. We live impacted and influenced by our surroundings and often can't see how those surroundings alter the way we think (or don't think) about things.

A book written a few years ago by David Platt, attempts to address some of these questions.  The book is titled, Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream. There are a few quotes I'd like to share.

"Somewhere along the way we had missed what is radical about our faith and replaced it with what is comfortable. We were settling for a Christianity that revolves around catering to ourselves when the central message of Christianity is actually about abandoning ourselves." Pg. 7

"Yet the kind of abandonment Jesus asked of the rich young man is at the core of Jesus' invitation throughout the Gospels. Even his simple call in Matthew 4 to his disciples--'Follow me'--contained radical implications for their lives. Jesus was calling them to abandon their comforts, all that was familiar to them and natural for them." Pg. 11

Christ and the Rich Young Ruler

What do we do with the verse after verse in Scripture that tells us to give of ourselves, give up our lives, give up our belongings, give up our family? Many of these verses speak directly against what the American dream is telling us. Frankly, many are speaking against what today's American church is telling us.

• Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven . . . . For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Matthew 6:19-20a, 21
• Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Matthew 10: 37-39
• Then Jesus told his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, let them deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? Matthew 16:24-26
• At the end of Christ's interaction with the Rich Young Ruler Christ says, "And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first." Matthew 19:29-30
• Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Luke 12:32-34
• Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. . . . So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple." Luke 14:25-27, 33
• Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he must follow me: and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him. John 12:25-26
• And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. Acts 2:44-45

It is really hard to know what to do with these verses.  It is easy to read them in a spiritual way and say that what we are to give up are simply moral vices. And we know that is true.

But its too easy to stop there.

The Eye of the Storm

It has been a very interesting time for the Maxfield family the last few weeks. Through all of this I often think about what it means to live by faith. We use the words "step of faith" a lot. We usually use it to say that we live our normal life and then periodically we take a "step of faith" and do something when we don't know what the result is going to be. As if it is only in those "step of faith" moments when we can't see the future.

We too often don't realize that every step we take is a step of faith. Every breath is dependent on God sustaining us. How do we get outside the box that we have created for our lives? As long as everything fits inside our box then we think we are in control and we are content. The only problem with that is then we don't need God.

We put our house on the market on Thursday. It looks great and Lord willing, it will sell quickly. One slight problem though, we haven't found anything to move to yet. This is one of those moments where I'm sure people think we are a bit crazy. Moving full steam ahead to sell our house and get on the Reservation in January -- without any place to go if our house sells.

One of the other interesting things going on now is the many conversations with clients and referral sources telling them what we are doing.  This week I was talking to an investment advisor and had a very nice conversation. He referred to what we are doing as giving our life a sense of urgency. I hadn't thought of it that way before. But I really liked that word and the perspective it gives.

Sometimes it seems like one day just follows another. I go to work, come home, then go back to work the next day. While I know there are things that I accomplish, there is also a certain sense that it is just one more day at the office. (I've been listening to old UFO songs as I've been typing and one of the lines was "it's got so predictable, feel I've been doing time." Another song had the chorus "chains, chains, pulling us down." There really is a sense that we've created a life for ourselves that can feel like a prison.)

But when the focus is not on the job, or making money, or helping millionaires save more money on taxes, there is a sense of urgency to helping people.  There is a sense of urgency to trying to help create jobs so that someone unemployed can provide for themselves and their family. There is a sense of urgency to sharing the Gospel with someone that has never heard of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

December 2nd is my last day of going into the office every day at VWC.  All sorts of mixed feelings about it. There are a lot of good people that work there (several that I hired). I've worked with many of them for a significant period of time over the 16 years that I've been there. Many clients that I would call my friends I won't be talking to or seeing much going forward.

Looking forward to living life among the Yakama people. Sharing in the good and the bad, the easy and the hard. Living in a community in which we will be able to minister to others, while they minister to us. Being dependent on the prayers of God's people as they pray for us, Sacred Road and the Yakama people. But most importantly being dependent on the Lord as He works in us and through us.