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This is going to be a hard one…I’m still working on the idea and can’t say that I’ve put it into practice, but I want to share it with you. Maybe some of you can provide some additional guidance in the comments.

I was reading Nehemiah and while I had always noted that his first action after hearing about the problem with the broken down wall (Nehemiah 1.4) was to go to prayer. But I never paid much attention to the prayer itself. After opening with a few sentences of praise, he goes to confession:

Let your ear be attentive and your eyes open, to hear the prayer of your servant that I now pray before you day and night for the people of Israel your servants, confessing the sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against you. Even I and my father’s house have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, and the rules that you commanded your servant Moses. (Nehemiah 1.6, 7)

This appears to be a different from of confession than we’re used to. You may have been taught the ACTS acrostic as a good way to structure your prayers: Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication, and Nehemiah seems to be following this pattern. However, and it’s a big however, Nehemiah is confessing sins of the nation. Daniel did the same thing in Daniel 9.5 – 15 which ends:

And now, O Lord our God, who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and have made a name for yourself, as at this day, we have sinned, we have done wickedly. (Daniel 9.15)

Daniel and Nehemiah are confessing sins they didn’t commit! Sins that occurred before they were born. I don’t remember hearing any teaching on this kind of confession. Sometimes in a worship service there is a corporate confession using “we,” but it’s almost always sins that we committed or could have committed, like the standard, “We have done things we ought not to have done, and we haven’t done things we ought to have done.” Or, “We haven’t loved you or others as we should have; we’ve been selfish; etc.”

Many of us, for example, are opposed to abortion, at least to the seemingly unlimited access to abortion that’s happening today. However, I don’t think I’ve ever heard, “Lord forgive us for killing all those babies.” We more often seem to have the attitude of the Pharisee in Luke 18: “God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.” (verse 11)

Maybe our confession, if it were to be more like Nehemiah’s might sound more like this:

• We have cheated to get our kids into certain colleges.
• We have aborted millions of babies.
• We have failed to come up with a compassionate, sensible immigration policy.
• We have failed to balance the budget.
• We imported black African slaves and then when we freed them kept them second class.

As I said, this is a new idea for me. However, the kind of sins that Nehemiah confessed to is inescapable. Perhaps it’s worth considering as we obey Paul’s command to pray for our leaders. Maybe we add confession to his list! And maybe, if we own and confess national sins, we’ll be more motivated to do what we can to eradicate them.

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. (1 Timothy 1.1, 2)

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It’s April 15, and in addition to being tax day, it’s the 100th consecutive day I’ve published a blog since the string began on January 6. (Those who write a blog every day say that the first 1,000 days are the hardest, so I’m 10% there!)

The daily discipline has forced me to pay attention to what God is saying and figure out how to succinctly pass it on to you!

Today, as we go into Holy Week, I’m thinking about Jesus’ prayer in the Garden as suggested by Gary Jansen in Station to Station: An Ignatian Journey through the Stations of the Cross. The prayer ends, as we all remember, with “Not my will but yours be done.”

What’s new for me is the obvious connection to the Lord’s Prayer’s “Your Kingdom come, your will be done.” Every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we’re praying the same thing Jesus prayed in the Garden, and that makes it serious business! Probably too serious to be recited glibly by rote in a church service, but that’s another matter.

As we follow Jesus this week to the cross and on to the resurrection, let’s remember “not my will but yours be done” applies to us, too.

Then he said to the crowd, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross daily, and follow me. (Luke 9.23, NLT)

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I had been having on/off pain in the top of my foot. When it kicked in, it was hard to walk on it. A few days ago, I was riding our air-dyne exercise bike while reviewing my scripture memory verses. Among them were a few verses on healing someone had sent after my knee replacement surgery.

I am the Lord who heals you. (Exodus 15.26, NIV)

Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am faint. Heal me for my bones are in agony. (Psalm 6.2, NIV)

I asked the Lord for healing for my foot.  A few minutes later I had finished my workout, and as I was taking my shoes off to put my sweat pants on, I remembered that the shoe salesman said I should be in thin socks, not the cushy thick socks I was wearing at the time. So I put on a pair of the thin socks he had sold me. Voila! No more pain. Praise the Lord.

You do not have because you do not ask! (James 4.2, ESV)

Today, I was encouraged as I reviewed another healing verse:

LORD my God, I called to you for help, and you healed me. (Psalm 30.2, NIV)

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I think this will be the last post from this year’s NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament…but no promises!

Immediately after the Monday night championship game where Virginia defeated Texas Tech, an analyst opened panel discussion with something like, “Well, it was a great game even though it wasn’t the match-up most people were hoping to see.” Charles Barkley emphatically interrupted:

This is sports! you don’t get the match-up you want, you get the match-up that you get. Sports is not about who you know or about what the public wants, it’s about what the teams do during the games. (My best recollection!)

It’s a good point. Where else might it apply? If you’re a pastor, you don’t get the congregation you want but the congregation you have! At work, you may not get the colleagues or clients you want, but the ones you have. Neighbors? Same rules apply. Even family!

Jesus prayed all night and chose twelve men.

One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles:  Simon (whom he named Peter), his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon who was called the Zealot, Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor. (Luke 6.12 – 16, NIV)

Look at the list: a traitor, four fishermen, a tax collector (Matthew) and a Zealot who hated tax collectors. It’s not the group I would have chosen, but the eleven (after the loss of Judas Iscariot) changed the world.

Let’s stay with the relationships God has given us and see what he wants to do through us where we are and whom we are with.

Friends, stay where you were called to be. God is there. Hold the high ground with him at your side. (1 Corinthians 7.24, MSG)

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Friends of mine, Navigators in Colorado Springs, have accepted a call to be on church staff at a small town in Nebraska. Does it make sense to leave Colorado Springs, a city of nearly 500,000, to move to a town of 3,500? The short answer is, yes, of course, if that’s where God is sending you!

Jesus lived and ministered in a small country (six “Israels” will fit into the state of Alabama). And most of the time he was in Galilee, away from the power center of Jerusalem. After the resurrection, he told the disciples:

This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. (Luke 24.46-48, NIV, emphasis mine)

Lorne Sanny, second president of The Navigators, said, “Why did Jesus say, ‘beginning at Jerusalem’? Because that’s where they were! You certainly cannot reach the world starting from where you are not!”

That’s a perspective changer! No matter where I am, my mission is to reach the world from there. When we were in Alabama in the early 2000s, someone who had been in our ministry retired from the Air Force and was moving to Houston. When he told me, I said, “Great! I’ve been to Houston and have no desire to go back. But you will be there.” My mission was not to reach our church or even the city of Montgomery or the state of Alabama. My mission was to reach the world, starting from Montgomery.”

It goes on. Today we happen to be in Monument, Colorado. Our friends, in whom we invested when they were part of our Navigator team, are going to Nebraska. Others are in Nigeria, Haiti, India, Nepal, other countries, and many states. Some of those places we’ve been to, and some we haven’t.

So I’m excited for my friends’ new opportunity to reach the world from a small town in Nebraska, and I’m excited that God allows us to invest in people who then move!

…repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. (Luke 24.47, NIV)

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Years ago, a Christian leader challenged a group of us to pursue discipleship hard–practice the spiritual disciplines, be on mission, make disciples, etc.–you know, the kind of things I write about in this blog! I asked him afterward what the role of the Holy Spirit was, especially in making disciples. His answer shocked me: “I don’t know.”

I’m still working on that question, but I got some insight today. A priest, reflecting on a mass he bungled through in Spanish but which resulted in a powerful experience for all who were there, wrote:

As I stepped back and soaked it all in, I realized how the Mass was so much greater than me getting the words right. The Holy Spirit was stirring. (From The Ignatian Adventure by Kevin O’Brien.)

Ministry is more than our getting the words right. Maybe that’s where the Holy Spirit comes in.

When I was about 11 years old, a friend of my dad’s gave me a paint-by-number. Remember those? Well, I carefully filled in all the areas with the prescribed oil paints, and it came out looking something like the collie on the left. Then my mother, an artist, showed up. And when she finished blending the paints at all the borders, it looked more like the one on the right!

Maybe that’s the role of the Holy Spirit. He takes our crude efforts at using discipleship materials or teaching someone according to a template we were taught and turns it into something beautiful.

And we have received God’s Spirit (not the world’s spirit), so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us. When we tell you these things, we do not use words that come from human wisdom. Instead, we speak words given to us by the Spirit, using the Spirit’s words to explain spiritual truths. (1 Corinthians 2.12, 13, NLT)

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It’s no secret that some of us prefer some styles of church music over others. I was raised with hymns accompanied by a particular type of improvisational piano we called “evangelistic style.” I admired Tedd Smith who used to play for the Billy Graham Crusades. My CD, Impromptu Piano Praise, captures some of that. Now I like to say that I have a skill for which there is no demand. “Contemporary worship” or “praise music” has taken over.

I know people who won’t attend a church that doesn’t play “traditional” music–whatever their tradition is. I could have fallen into that mode or at least attended reluctantly until I heard a wonderful story from Randy Pope, pastor of Perimeter Presbyterian in Atlanta. As I recall, the story went like this. Randy said,

During the music portion of one of our services, the band was leading a song that I thought was the absolute worst song I’ve ever heard. In fact, it’s the only time in my ministry that I almost went up on stage and stopped the song before it was finished. I didn’t stop the song, and right after it was over, someone standing next to me said, “That’s why I come to this church: because the music is so good!”

Randy went on to say,

So I have an idea: when you’re singing in a worship service, instead of asking yourself whether you like a song or not, why don’t you look around and see if anyone else likes the song. Then you can be glad that they’re singing songs that people like, even if you’re not one of them.

That is fabulous advice! I’ve been in an auditorium with 7,000 of my closest friends and 6,999 of them were really into the music. I was the only one I could see who wasn’t. But it’s OK! It doesn’t have to be about me.

In humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. (Philippians 2.3, 4, NIV)

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If you’ve read these blogs, you know I went to Clemson and was very excited about their winning the National Championship in football. My doctorate is from Auburn so I was following their basketball team as it went to the NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four for the first time in school history. Unfortunately, they lost to Virginia in the last seconds, helped, apparently, by a double-dribble what wasn’t called.

Just as Clemson Head Coach Dabo Swinney gave glory to God when Clemson won, Auburn Head Basketball Coach Bruce Pearl gave glory to God when Auburn lost. When asked about the missed double-dribble call, this is what he said:

The biggest point I want to make is…there is human error involved in the game. Kids make mistakes, coaches make mistakes. Yes, officials will make mistakes. That’s part of the game. Get over it. Sometimes they’re going to go your way, sometimes they’re not going to go your way. Are we going to give God less glory because we lost, and it’s only when we win we give him the glory? Stop. Grow up, this is part of the game. These kids taught us, I think, in many, many ways how to handle defeat. And that’s a difficult thing to do for these young kids. And I’m proud of them.

We don’t always win. Things don’t always go our way. There are disappointments in life. Then what? Coach Pearl has given us valuable insight. Things didn’t always go well for the Apostles Paul or Peter:

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12.9, 10, ESV)

I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength. (Philippians 4.12, 13, NIV)

This [Jesus] said to show by what kind of death [Peter] was to glorify God. And after saying this he said to him, “Follow me.” (John 21.19, ESV)

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My weight spiked upward after a nice dinner out with June, but the next day I started a better routine: a decent workout first thing in the morning and sensible eating all day. The first day went really well, and I really assumed my weight spike would go away, but guess what? Same weight the next morning. “It” doesn’t work! NO! Diet and exercise work fine…if we stay with it.

Sometimes, we resolve to be more faithful with our spiritual disciplines. “Train yourself for godliness.” And the first day of memorizing and reviewing scripture and having a decent time with God is the worst day ever! Traffic causes us to be late for work; we lose our temper with a colleague; there’s a blowup at home. “It” doesn’t work! Again, we need to stay the course.

Spiritual growth (and weight loss!) take time…but they do occur over time if we stay with the process.

And he said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. (Mark 4.26 – 28, ESV)

So no wonder we don’t give up. For even though our outer person gradually wears out, our inner being is renewed every single day. (2 Corinthians 4.16, Passion Translation)

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I love Biblical accounts of people who took critical actions, often without a lot of press, turning the tide of God’s story. Examples include the young man who saved the Apostle Paul from ambush (Acts 23.11 – 22), Joseph of Nazareth who protected the infant Jesus (Matthew 1 and 2), and Barnabas, who led the acceptance of Paul (Saul of Taurus) (Acts 9.26 – 28) and later recalled Paul into active ministry (Acts 11.19 – 26).

This time of year it’s easy to overlook another Joseph, Joseph of Arimathea:

⁵⁰ Now behold, there was a man named Joseph, a council member, a good and just man. ⁵¹ He had not consented to their decision and deed. He was from Arimathea, a city of the Jews, who himself was also waiting for the kingdom of God. ⁵² This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. ⁵³ Then he took it down, wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a tomb that was hewn out of the rock, where no one had ever lain before. (Luke 23.50 – 53, NKJV)

Recalling yesterday’s blog on not following a crowd to do evil, that’s precisely what Joseph had done–not going along with the council. I understand that most crucifixion victims were just thrown into a common grave. That aside, a person of Jesus’ means would not have been buried in a tomb hewn out of a rock. But Joseph provided Jesus a rich man’s burial, fulfilling Isaiah 53.9: “And they made His grave with the wicked– But with the rich at His death.” And Jesus’ burial in a real, identifiable tomb made possible the discovery of the empty tomb and the resurrection.

¹  Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. ² Then she ran and came to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him.” ³ Peter therefore went out, and the other disciple, and were going to the tomb. ⁴ So they both ran together, and the other disciple outran Peter and came to the tomb first. ⁵ And he, stooping down and looking in, saw the linen cloths lying there; yet he did not go in. ⁶ Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb; and he saw the linen cloths lying there, ⁷ and the handkerchief that had been around His head, not lying with the linen cloths, but folded together in a place by itself. ⁸ Then the other disciple, who came to the tomb first, went in also; and he saw and believed. (John 20.1 – 8, NKVJ, emphasis mine)