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By that I mean your dying, your weakness is what you bring to the table. God brings to the table his grace, his resurrection.
The means of communication is secondary to a surrendered heart. Our responsibility is to cultivate a listening heart in the midst of the noise from our own hearts and from the world, not to mention the Devil.
When life makes sense, it becomes a journey, a spiritual adventure. Writing down the adventure as it happens gives us a feel for our place in the story God is weaving in our lives. Journaling helps us to become aware of the journey.
It was a small step from Puritan journal writing to John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress and Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. Both are interior adventure stories that paved the way for character development in the novel.
Edward Said, a leading Palestinian scholar, pointed out that “the novel is a specifically Christian form of writing. It presupposes a world that is incomplete, that is yearning for salvation, and moving toward it. By contrast . . . the world of Islam is a closed and complete world.”[2]
Writing in a prayer journal helps us take stock of our location on the journey. We can become poets, artists with our souls. When we keep a prayer journal, we can reflect on what God is doing, on the patterns of our Father’s care instead of reacting to life.
The discovery of self in relationship to God leads to a lifestyle of repentance. For example, we are seldom aware of our impatience. What we feel is everyone else’s slowness. Because we are naturally the center of our own universes, we don’t feel irritable. We just notice everyone getting in our way.
How am I doing? What is coming at me? Am I happy, sad, thankful, discouraged, angry, frustrated? What is God saying to me? What does the Word say? When I reflect on these two questions in my prayer journal, the Living God removes the fog, and I see my true self. This leads to repentance.
When I think I am right, I tend to be quick to defend and slow to incarnate [understand]. I can be intense, judgmental, and proud. Jesus, make me quiet, prudent, and humble, and until you do—help me to shut up!
I realized that God didn’t seem particularly interested in saving me from the difficult situation. He just wanted to change me.
journaling allows us to discover the story that God is writing in our lives. Instead of rushing through life, it allows us to pause and reflect.
The key was being honest about what I was feeling and then letting Scripture speak to my heart. By being honest, the real me was talking. I wasn’t trying to be good. When we look at our life through the lens of Scripture, we seldom lose our way. We can be real, but we don’t get lost in our feelings.
CHAPTER 33 REAL-LIFE PRAYING
I’m actually managing my life through my daily prayer time. I’m shaping my heart, my work, my family—in fact, everything that is dear to me—through prayer in fellowship with my heavenly Father. I’m doing that because I don’t have control over my heart and life or the hearts and lives of those around me. But God does.
I’m not hunting for an experience with God; I’m inviting God into my life experience. He is in me, and I am in him.
Learned helplessness lurks just underneath the surface of that prayer time. I simply can’t do life on my own. Without God’s intervention, I am completely helpless. I need Jesus.
People are far too complicated; the world is far too evil; and my own heart is too off center to be able to love adequately without praying. I need Jesus.
We don’t need a praying life because that is our duty. That would wear thin quickly. We need time to be with our Father every day because every day our hearts and the hearts of those around us are overgrown with weeds. We need to reflect on our lives and engage God with the
CHAPTER 34 UNFINISHED STORIES
“through such trials, God bids us to choose: Do we believe, or do we not? Will we be bold enough to love, daring enough to serve, humble enough to submit, and strong enough to acknowledge our limitations? Can we surrender our concern in things that don’t matter so that we might devote our remaining days to things that do?”
Living in unfinished stories draws us into God’s final act, the return of Jesus.
Keep it simple. Don’t overthink it! Use tools that help you, and ignore those that don’t.
