This Generation.2

"Still unbelieving, this obstinate generation clamours for a sign; but no sign will be granted other than the sign that was given to the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was in the great deep for three days and nights, so the Son of Man will be three days and nights entombed in the earth."

--Jesus

Instead of signs, Jesus gives stories. Sometimes the stories include signs. Stories give life to the signs. The meaning of the signs is buried in the stories and needs to be mined for its significance.

In an increasingly visual and technological world, the impact of stories takes on greater significance...and danger. In print media reason, logic and imagination are powerful tools in deciphering meaning. In graphic media individual reason, logic and imagination are subverted with carefully crafted imagery created by people with potent powers of persuasion. The imagery serves nearly as a sign itself and demonstrates the inherent problem: signs can distract from gleaning the Truth in the stories.

For what is Truth but the meaning of events in our life and their relation to the One who is the Way, the Truth and the Life? On our Facebook prayer page we are asked to pray for people who have met with very tragic problems in their lives. Usually we are asked to pray for healing, strength, resources and such. Very rarely are we asked to pray for the Truth of the event. In our asking we very much reveal the value we place on Signs vs Truth. Rather than placing our trust in a living Savior and the perfect will of God, we rely on our theological/doctrinal positions to make sense of something that, in human terms, seems so senseless.

But what do we need for good but God? And more and more of God's goodness to rule over the storm tossed events in life. If I stake out a position in scripture like "No harm befalls the righteous," what am I to do when harm befalls the righteous? Conclude they weren't righteous? Or that the paralyzing fall leaving a family in ruins wasn't harmful? To the humble in heart crying out to the One who can make clarity out of confusion, good out of bad, and power out of weakness, the meaning becomes clearer with each painful passing moment. Love and trust in God is the only Truth we really need and the value of learning them is in direct proportion to the difficulties we endure and the tender help the Son of God provides in leading us to the heart of His Father.

To the obstinate and self-willed; the judgmental finger-pointers and arrogant know nothings let them continue to clamor for justification to not humble themselves...and become poorer for it.

Persevering Prayer

"Have you heard of J.O. Frasier? He left England many years ago to bring the message of Christ's love to the Lisus, an unreached tribal group who lived in the high mountain ranges of western China. The entry to the ranges was at their midpoint, a valley containing a small outpost village. Frasier remained there until he found a Lisu who tutored him in the dialect. After weeks of study, he discovered this Lisu was from the northern range and the dialect he was learning would best prepare him for working in that area.

Frasier realized he would probably be the only missionary to this tribe for years to come. He prayed, "Lord, which way should I go? North, or South?" His Master said, "Both. Pray for the Southern Lisus from sunup to noon and evangelize the Northern Lisus from noon to sundown."

This became the pattern of his life. For years and years, he used half of each day to intercede for Lisus in the south and used half of each day to evangelize the Lisus around him. The work grew slowly. A few hundred Christians were the harvest of a decade of ministry.

After many years, he left the field for the first time to rest and get supplies in the outpost village. Now very familiar with the tribal tongue, he heard a Lisu speaking with a different dialect in the marketplace. He had met his first Southern Lisu! Lovingly Frasier invited the man to come and stay with him in his rented quarters. As he heard the message of Jesus, the Lisu was quick to respond and accept Him as his Lord and Savior.

For several weeks, Frasier tutored the illiterate man, helping him to memorize passages of scripture. He told him story after story from the Bible, always praying that the Spirit would sharpen his ability to remember what he was hearing.

As the men parted, Frasier urged him to tell all the Southern Lisus about Jesus. He then returned to the site of his own ministry, praying as usual for half of each day for those to the south. Years passed...and then a delegation of Southern Lisus arrived at this village. They reported the news that thousands of Southern Lisus had followed Christ and were in desperate need of someone to come and teach them more!

As tears of joy welled up in his eyes, the missionary realized his time invested in prayer from sunup to noon had caused a harvest hundreds of times greater than all his labors from noon to sundown. It was though God was saying, "Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, shall the Lisus be reached."

-from The Shepherds Guidebook, by Ralph W. Neighbour, Jr.,

J.O. Frasier

I googled J.O. Fraiser to get more information on this man. There are various accounts of his story, none quite as compact as this. For example, most accounts mention that Frasier was quite often in despair over the lack of progress in his work. Another important aspect of his story not related in this account is that his mother back in England formed a prayer group for him that Frasier credits for much of the eventual success among the Lisus!

This people group was the Chinese version of the Harijans in India's caste system--peasant poor, plagued by alcoholism & demon worship. But the Lisu conversion & commitment to Christ was so widespread and powerful that the Chinese communist government tried to eradicate them in the the 1930's & 40's. Today they continue to be one of the most potent evangelical forces in Chinese culture!


In an account related by friend Matthew ponder the power of perseverance:

"When they arrived at the foot of the mountain, a huge crowd was waiting for them. A man came and knelt before Jesus and said, "Lord, have mercy on my son, because he has seizures and suffers terribly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. So I brought him to your disciples, but they couldn't heal him."

Jesus replied, "You stubborn, faithless people! How long must I be with you until you believe? How long must I put up with you? Bring the boy to me."

Then Jesus rebuked the demon in the boy, and it left him. From that moment the boy was well.

Afterward the disciples asked Jesus privately, "Why couldn't we cast out that demon?"

"You didn't have enough faith," Jesus told them. "I assure you, even if you had faith as small as a mustard seed you could say to this mountain, `Move from here to there,' and it would move. Nothing would be impossible."

But this kind of demon won't leave unless you have prayed and fasted." Matthew 17:14-21


What is the connection between faith and prayer; between prayer and healing? Who was Jesus annoyed at: the father, the crowd, the disciples? Why was he dismayed, angry, indignant in this situation?

All that Jesus holds dear is His Father: His love, His Heart, His thoughts, His will, His business. Jesus' passion was to teach all of humanity how wonderful is His Father. Faith in his father was the result among people he constantly worked to achieve.

The attitude that most consistently offended him was unbelief, and in this case, insufficient faith.

If we are to be "about the Father's business" it is crucial to understand the connection between prayer and accomplishing his work. Most of us, especially in today's world, are easily distracted, impatient, unfocused, often indifferent to the difficulties folks around us are struggling with. Someone may ask us to pray for a certain situation and we gladly agree to "say a prayer" for them. Then, like our facebook wall page, quickly move on to the next distraction.

As followers of Jesus we may be the critical link between a friend's suffering and God's healing balm. If at the first sign of resistance, antagonism, or ineffectiveness we falter, fake or fall down we fail to communicate the truth of God: that He is perfectly devoted to each of us; perfectly capable of healing; perfectly commited to helping & saving everyone who comes to Him looking for relief from the difficulties, struggles, or insanity of this life!

Here are two of my favorite quotes on persevering prayer:

"I don't think that time has much to do with whether God hears you or not; but I do believe that time has something to do with whether or not your faith is built up as you pray and ask." -- Dawson Trotman, the founder of the Navigators.

"He [God] must have sons and daughters-- children of his soul, of his spirit, of his love--not merely in the sense that he loves them, or even that they love him, but in the sense that they love like him, love as he loves. For this he does not adopt them; he dies to give them himself, thereby to raise his own to his heart; he gives them a birth from above; they are born again out of himself and into himself--for he is the one and the all. His children are not his real, true sons and daughters until they think like him, feel with him, judge as he judges, are at home with him, and without fear before him because he and they mean the same thing, love the same things, seek the same ends. For this are we created; it is the one end of our being, and includes all other ends whatever." -- George MacDonald

The goal of fasting & prayer, then, is to demonstrate our desire to love like our Father by laying down our lives for others; spending ourselves to "make more lovely" and to lift them from the gulf into which they've fallen.

The Power of Prayer.6

"Pray then, to the Father who hears your most intimate prayers and rewards them openly; and whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will provide. If you live your life in me, and let my words live in you, you may ask what you wish and it will be given to you." 

Crossing a bridge

To the elephant said the flea,

'We sure shook that one,

didn't We?'"
(author unknown)



Yeah. Prayer is a lot like that...

--Jesus

The Power of Prayer.3

"In a certain town, there lived a hard-hearted judge, who neither feared God nor cared for his neighbor. In the same town there lived a widow, who pursued him for justice concerning a person who had harmed her. Time passed, and the judge persisted in ignoring her pleas, refusing to hear her case, until finally, one day, he said to himself: "Though I do not fear God, nor concern myself with charity, I will see to it that this widow gets justice; for she wears me out with her constant appeals."

Will not God, then, offer justice to his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he too ignore your earnest cry for help? I tell you this: he will see that they who seek him receive justice, and quickly! And yet, the real question raised in this story is this: When the Messiah returns, will he find many on the earth with such persevering faith?" 

--Jesus

MacDonald's Insight:

"Here then is a word of the Lord about prayer: it is a comfort that he  

• recognizes difficulty in the matter 
•  sees that we need encouragement to go on praying,
•  that it looks as if we were not heard, 
• that it is no wonder we should be ready to faint and leave off. 

He tells a parable in which the suppliant has to go often and often to the man who can help her, gaining her end only at the long last.

Actual delay on the part of God, we know from what follows, he does not allow (as an interpretation); a better understanding is that he recognizes how the thing must look to those whom he would have go on praying.

Here as elsewhere he teaches us that we must not go by the look of things, but by the reality behind the look.

A truth, the thing that presents itself to us and is born of God's own willed nature, (in Jesus' mind) is enough to defend against a whole army of appearances, for this is what He would have us know from the core of our being:

• It looks as if he does not hear you: never mind, he does; 
• It must be that he does, go on as the woman did, you too will be heard. 
• She is heard at last, and in virtue of her much going; 
• God hears at once, and will avenge speedily. 
• The unrighteous judge cared nothing for the woman; those who cry to God are his own chosen— plain in the fact that they cry to him. 
• He has made and appointed them to cry, they do cry. Will he not hear them? 
• They exist that they may pray; 
• he has chosen them that they may choose him; 
• he has called them that they may call him
• He desires that that there may be much communion, such interchange as belongs to their being and the being of their Father. 

The gulf of indifference lay between the poor woman and the unjust judge;  

God and those who seek his help, 

are closer than two hands clasped hard in love,

he will avenge them speedily.

It is a bold assertion in the face of what seems great delay—an appearance acknowledged in the very groundwork of the parable. 

Having made it, why does he seem to check himself with a sigh, adding,

'Howbeit when the Son of Man cometh, 

shall he find faith on the earth?' 

After all he had said, and had yet to say, after all he had done, and was going on to do, when he came again, after time given for the holy leaven to work, would he find men trusting the Father?

Would he find them, even then, beyond the tyranny of appearances, believing in spite of them? 
Would they be children enough towards God to know he was hearing them and working for them, though they could not hear him or see him work?
Would they lose their way because the ways of God are so wide?
That what they saw, so small a part of what he was doing, that it could give them but little clue to his end? 
That because the goal God had in view for them was so high and afar, that they could detect no movement of approach closer to it?

The sigh, the exclamation, never meant that God might be doing something more than he was doing, but that the Father would have a dreary time to wait ere his children would know and trust in him. 
The utterance recognizes the part of man, his slowly yielded part in faith, and his blame in troubling God by not trusting in him. 

If men would but make haste, and stir themselves up to take hold on God! They were so slow of heart to believe! They could but would not help it and do better!" 

Let us do better. 

Adapted from George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons II, Man's Difficulty Concerning Prayer (editing and emphasis added for effect)

The Power of Prayer.2

"Once a man appeared at his friend’s door after midnight. 'Lend me three loaves of bread,' he called. 'I have visitors who have traveled far to see me, and my cupboards are bare.'

But his friend replied: 'Please don't disturb me now. The door is locked, and my children are asleep. I can't get up and help you.'

Here is a lesson. Though the man did not get up and provide the bread because of their friendship, he did eventually give in to his friend’s earnest pleading, and rose from his sleep to give him what he asked.

Be so persistent in your requests to God. Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, those who seek find, and to those who knock, the door will be opened wide." 

--Jesus

Is this a true statement:

"To understand what Jesus meant 

is the business of life?"

Jesus speaks to every human being from depths of existence, knowledge, understanding, experience, creative power and love that dwarf our ability to comprehend. Limited by the frailty of our faith, He gently reduces these treasures to forms that are simple to grasp yet slightly out of reach to all but those who will "put his words into practice" thus releasing their transformative power.

The things that are essential to the development of our humanity are the things he taught most passionately. 

Prayer is essential to our humanity. 

It is the critical link to the heart of the Father--the source of our existence.

Here then is a vital element of prayer: Earnestness.

Earnest means "seriously important; demanding or receiving serious attention".

Some synonyms include:

image from facebookfamilyfeudguide.com

• impassioned
• industrious
• passionate
• purposeful
• determined
• meaningful
• thoughtful

To illustrate this kind of passionate concern consider trends in American society. Many commentators have been warning of the impending difficulties awaiting America: insolvency, currency devaluation, hyperinflation, massive debts, rioting in the streets. They earnestly urge us to prepare for these disasters by subscribing to their newsletters, blueprints, plans, dvd's, books and such--for a small fee, of course! (Which, it appears, is the real secret to survival: sell your secrets!)

One piece of survival advice I thought relevant to Jesus' lesson on earnest prayer warns that "in a crisis, parents will go to extremes to provide food for their children."

"If your neighbor's kids are hungry 10 days into a disaster that has no end in sight and they have seen your year's supply of food, you can guarantee that they're going to do whatever they need to get food for their kids." from Urban Survival Guide

Most of us can relate to that kind of desperation at providing for our children. But would we be as desperate on behalf of "visitors"? In Jesus' illustration, wouldn't it have been easier to send unexpected guests off to the nearest motel, or take them to a restaurant for a bite to eat rather than disturb a neighbor? 

When an unexpected moment arrives to demonstrate charity and hospitality will we be embarrassed by our lack of preparedness?

God's pantries are always full. What level of trust do we show in His provision for us? Are we as earnest in going to him on behalf of friends as well as family? How prepared are we to minister to others?

Let us, then, put into practice that quality of earnestness in pleading with our Father to be a blessing to others!

The Power of Prayer.1

"Until now you have asked nothing in my name. 

Ask, and you will receive, and your joy will be full." 

--Jesus

Them: "Grandpa, can I have ice cream?"
Me: "No, we need to have breakfast first."
Them: )-:

Them: "Mr. Lyon, can I sit with Missy?"
Me: "No, you usually get in trouble when you sit with Missy!"
Them: )-;

Them: "Dad, can I use your car?"
Me: "Sorry, not today, I have to use it."
Them: |-:
Is the joy Jesus promises in the asking or the receiving?

Human nature says in the receiving of course: when I get what I want! Getting what I want surely is what makes me happy!

How often, after turning down a request, have I had to endure painful pleading, deal making, pouty lip, outbursts of anger, nagging, and stomping. I want them to understand that asking me for something is an act of love. "You are trusting me to get you something you think you need", I'll explain. "But what you really need is to trust my love, wisdom and devotion to give you what is best for you. So whether I tell you yes or I tell you no it comes from the same heart of love & devotion to you."

Asking "in my name" does not mean tacking on a clause at the end of a prayer to make sure God understands that Jesus is signing the check for my request. It means "as representing me; as being like me." The mission of Jesus was and is to persuade us of our Father's great love. It was the air He breathed, the business He was about, the joy & passion of His existence. So whether the Father, our Father, says yes or no we are confident, like Jesus, that his answer is from the same great heart of love & devotion to us!