Introducing a New Devotional Resource on the Psalms

Until recent decades, the Psalms have been a mainstay for individual and corporate prayer for Christians. For 2000 years, churches sang and prayed the Psalms so frequently that many Christians knew them by heart. In some traditions (Catholic, Anglican, Christian Reformed, to name a few), this is still the case. But for the vast majority of us who identify as Evangelical Protestants, the Psalms have dropped off our radar.

In our clamor for the latest worship songs, we have lost sight of one of the most precious resources of our historic faith. We cherish the fact that we can come to God just as we are, but our "vocabulary" is rather limited. We naturally gravitate toward certain language and certain topics when we pray. To be frank, our prayers often become unimaginative and dull. Believers can still value the authenticity that comes from spontaneous prayer, while expanding our language for prayer by praying the Psalms.

I'm delighted to share with you a new devotional resource that I hope will strengthen our collective prayer muscles and provide companionship on our spiritual journey. Praying the Psalms with Augustine and Friends is an anthology of devotional reflections on the Psalms by over two dozen early Christian writers. I've selected a few paragraphs on each psalm by a wide range of voices spanning the first 15 centuries of the church -- Augustine, John Calvin, Gertrude the Great, Mary Sidney Herbert, and many others. Most, if not all, of these writers prayed through the Psalms regularly and would have known them by heart. I found their words inspiring, challenging, and enlightening, and I hope you do, too.

Does your prayer life feel anemic? Are you hungry for a deeper connection with God? Consider joining me this summer in praying through the Psalms. Praying the Psalms contains a reading plan that will take you through the entire book of Psalms in eight weeks by reading and praying just three psalms a day. 

Option 1: Read the Psalms.

Option 2: Read the Psalms along with these devotional reflections.

The devotional is not meant to replace the Psalms, but to be read alongside them. I've set aside June 14 to August 14 to read the Psalms with you. That's 9 weeks, so there's grace built in if life gets crazy and you fall behind. 

All of the Sacred Roots Spiritual Classics are divided into eight "chapters" so that they are easy to read with a group over eight weeks. Each chapter has discussion questions. And each week, you'll find a free companion video on the Sacred Roots YouTube channel in which I introduce the next "chapter" of the book. Here's my introduction to the series:

If you plan to join us in reading through the Psalms, I'd love to hear about your experience! Comment below to let me know that you're joining us. Could you recruit a friend or two to join you? 

This volume is the first in the Sacred Roots Spiritual Classics series funded by the Lilly Foundation. The series is one dimension of the Sacred Roots Thriving in Ministry project led by Hank Voss of Taylor University, which seeks to connect under-resourced pastors with the riches of our historic faith. You can learn more about the larger project on the Sacred Roots website. The Lilly Foundation covered the cost of producing the first 16 volumes, so all the income from sales of the book will fund a second series of spiritual classics. You can order a copy of Praying the Psalms on Amazon. 

I hope this is a rich summer for all of us as we expand our prayer language and practice bringing our whole selves into the presence of God

Lament's Crucial Role in the Ministry of the Church

In my last post, I discussed three misconceptions about lament. Now I'd like to highlight four reasons why lament is essential to the ministry of the church. I'll be drawing on the excellent work of a Ugandan author, Emmanuel Katongole, catholic priest and professor at Notre Dame. His book, Born from Lament: The Theology and Politics of Hope in Africa, is one of the best on this topic.

Did you know that laments outnumber any other type of psalm in the Bible? This may come as a surprise because most of us rarely hear lament psalms in church. The truth is, they make up 40% of the book of Psalms! (See Katongole, 104)

Not only that. By my count almost 25% of the psalms include "imprecatory" language, which is when the psalmist prays for God to bring harm on his enemies. For reasons I'll share below, I believe that these psalms are for Christians, too. Why can we not get along well without lament? Here are four reasons:

1. God's character is the basis of lament.

As Emmanuel Katongole reminds us, 

"At the heart of Israel's social, political, and religious life is the central conviction and experience of Yahweh as a saving God. Yahweh is not only the creator of the world and sovereign ruler of nations; Israel is God's chosen nation, which, through a covenant relationship, enjoys God's special favor and protection. For biblical Israel, therefore, safety and security are found not in military strength or wealth or technological advantage, but in the covenant relationship with Yahweh. Thus in the moment of crisis, because they believed that God can, should--and indeed, would--do something to save them, they complained, mourned, wept, chanted dirges, and cursed." (Born from Lament, 103-104)

This point is especially true of imprecatory psalms (the ugly, violent-sounding ones). If we cut out the violent parts of the psalms, we deny part of God’s essential character. YHWH’s self-description in Exodus 34:6-7 highlights divine mercy, but it also says of God: “forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, yet by no means clearing the guilty, but visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation” (NRSV). The God of the Old Testament is YHWH, the covenant-making and redeeming God who rescues and saves, who demonstrates love and who takes sin seriously.

Would we prefer it otherwise? Would we prefer a world where rampant evil goes unchecked? Where corrupt despots get rich by oppressing others? Would we prefer for people to be allowed to destroy each other’s lives and reputations by spreading false rumors about them with impunity? Or are we grateful that God wields his power in loving ways by putting a stop to injustice? 

If we believe that God takes sin seriously, then we can accept the Bible's invitation to pray that he will act to bring the unrepentant to justice. 

2. Jesus modeled lament.

The book of Hebrews tells us that even Jesus lamented. "During the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission." (Hebrews 5:7)

Jesus' tearful prayers did not disqualify him. He was still "without sin." And here the author of Hebrews says that his lament was evidence of "reverent submission." Remember that on the cross Jesus prayed Psalm 22:1: "My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?" This, too, was a faithful way to pray in the midst of his darkest hour. If Jesus is our model, then lament is an indispensable part of faithful discipleship.

3. Without lament, our worship spaces are less safe.

We live in a world full of brokenness at every level ranging from international to intensely personal. The people walking through our doors (or tuning in) on a Sunday morning are the same people who are enduring hardship throughout their week. If our church services are mostly a pep rally or an exhortation to "trust more," and fail to reckon honestly with brokenness, we essentially send people elsewhere to find solutions to their problems. Introducing lament in corporate worship creates space to be real -- to bring our pain to God and cry out for healing.

When we don't acknowledge pain in church, we get less of God and less of each other. As my friend Amy Oden recently put it, "I find more of God when I am most angry with him." Expressing our true emotions in his presence opens us up to meet him in deeper ways. It also opens us to each other.

Why would we deny this opportunity to our congregations? I can think of one reason why: FEAR. We fear that if we create space for lament, people will be offended or discouraged. But in reality, the opposite happens. By restricting our prayers to praise, we deny people access to the full message of Scripture. We lose people who think that their lives and emotions are too complex for the church. If your congregation is likely to be offended by lament, then they have not embraced the whole counsel of Scripture. Teach them what the Bible says about it. Cultivate a space where people can pray how they feel and in so doing discover that they are not alone.

4. Lament is the foundation of social justice.

The consequences of neglecting lament go beyond our local congregation. Not only will individuals not feel that the church is a safe place to bring their whole selves, but the church will lose its ability to impact the wider culture by addressing societal brokenness. 

Katongole explains, "In the end, the loss of lament signals of loss of passion for social justice. A church that has lost its nerve to lament before God will likely lack the nerve to confront oppression and be prone to support the status quo. But that is also the reason why an attempt to recover the language of lament is about solidarity with those who suffer" (183).

The historic failure of white evangelicals to lament racial injustice unveils the root of our problem--we see racial discrimination as something happening to somebody else and being done by somebody else. By identifying with neither the perpetrators nor the victims, we maintain distance. As long as we are distant we cannot be part of the solution. Unless we see crimes against people of color as crimes against our fellow humans, we excuse ourselves from taking action.  

If we cannot corporately bring to God those problems that overwhelm us, where will we bring them? If we are not comfortable creating space for our brothers and sisters to pray and weep, how can we even begin to work with them to find solutions? If their grief does not become our own, on what basis will we build unity? Where else will we find the resources to address whatever threatens to undo us? The first step in imagining a different kind of future is to grieve together and to grieve deeply over what has been done and what is being done.

If we want to (1) know God, (2) follow Christ, (3) minister to broken people, and (4) make a difference in a broken world, then lament is essential. On its own, lament is not enough. It is not the whole answer. But without it, we lose our grip on the resilient hope of the gospel.

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For more on lament, see my interview with Remnant Radio. 

For more on imprecatory prayer, see my blog post for the Political Theology Network.

Three Misconceptions about Lament

Things are bad in this world of ours. An awful lot of hard stuff is going on. If there was ever a time to cry, this is it. But many Christians shy away from lament because they believe lament is somehow sub-Christian or perhaps they think it won't do any good. 

I've identified three reasons Christians avoid lament. All three are misconceptions. We'll tackle them one at a time:

(1) Lament shows a lack of faith.

If we really believe that God is good and powerful and that he will win in the end, then we would not need to lament, right? Singer-songwriter Michael Card disagrees. In his book A Sacred Sorrow: Reaching Out to God in the Lost Language of Lament, Card says this: 

"Lament is the deepest, most costly demonstration of belief in God. Despair is the ultimate manifestation of the total denial that He exists." (55)

In other words, if you did not believe in the existence of God, there would be no reason to lament. It would do no good. It's because we do believe in God, and trust him as the only one who is able to make things right that we present our most desperate requests to him.

In fact, the Bible offers many examples of faithful men and women who bring prayers of lament to God. Those prayers made it into our Bibles without condemnation. Some of them were included in the book of Psalms, the prayer book of the Bible. Their presence in Scripture implies that we are invited to pray laments, too.

Michael Card explains it this way: 

"People like Job, David, Jeremiah, and even Jesus reveal to us that prayers of complaint can still be prayers of faith. They represent the last refusal to let go of the God who may seem to be absent or worse -- uncaring. If this is true, then lament expresses one of the more intimate moments of faith -- not a denial of it. It is supreme honesty before a God whom my faith tells me I can trust. He encourages me to bring everything as an act of worship, my disappointment, frustration, and even my hate. Only lament uncovers this kind of new faith, a biblical faith that better understands God's heart as it is revealed through Jesus Christ." (31)

Lament is not faith-less, it's faith-full.

 

(2) Lament is the opposite of gratitude. 

How can we lament when the Bible urges us to "give thanks in all circumstances" (1 Thessalonians 5:18)? Doesn't thankfulness preclude lament? One might think so, but again Scripture shows us that lament and gratitude go hand in hand.

In Psalm 44, the sons of Korah remember with gratitude the way that God has acted on Israel's behalf in the past (vv. 1-8). It's against the backdrop of their gratitude that they can plead with God to rescue them again (vv. 9-25). The character of God expressed in history leads them to trust God's future deliverance:

"Rise up and help us; rescue us because of your unfailing love." (Psalm 44:26)

We need not fear that lament will shut out our gratitude. For reasons I'll explain further below, lament and gratitude actually depend on one another.

(3) Lament will lead to despair. 

Some of us don't want to lament for fear of becoming bitter old souls. We don't want to get stuck. But on the contrary, it is our refusal to lament that leads to bitterness and despair. When we try to carry the grief on our own or manage our own solutions to life's deepest problems, the pressure is too much to bear.

Emmanuel Katongole explains, 

"Pain . . . has the ability to destroy language, to reduce the victim to silence. This silence is a form of powerlessness, a paralyzing form of despair. Therefore, the ability to voice grief, to find words to speak the unspeakable and to name pain, is a form of resistance to the paralyzing silence." (Born from Lament: The Theology and Politics of Hope in Africa, 56)

The pathway to joy requires us to pass through the gateway of lament -- acknowledging that all is not well in the world and that we believe our God is able to do something about it. Until we look our pain and loss directly in the face, we will be unable to let it go. 

Have you seen the Pixar movie "Inside Out"? When it seems like everything has fallen apart, Joy learns an important lesson: the value of Sadness. You can watch a clip here. Joy tries valiantly to cheer up Bing Bong by distracting him, but Sadness holds the key: by acknowledging the pain of Bing Bong's loss and making space to grieve, he is able to move forward and soon they are (literally) back on track.

So let's imagine that I've convinced you that lament is not sub-Christian. You might be wondering what to do next. What if you are just not the "emotional" type? How can you tell if you need to lament? How do you start?

One way to tell that we have unexpressed grief is when we lose our capacity to feel deep joy. I like to think of the spectrum of emotions that we experience as a window. On the left side of the window are emotions that we tend to characterize as negative -- anger, grief, fear --  while on the right-hand side are the emotions we see as positive -- joy, gratitude, delight. 

Photo credit: Rob Wingate on Unsplash

Hanging inside our emotional window is a set of old-fashioned drapes. Perhaps you remember the kind. To close the drapes, you pull a looped cord on one side of the window and both drapes gradually close until they meet in the middle. Our emotional life is like this. We cannot block just one side of the window. Closing the left side means closing the right side as well. If we suppress our feelings of grief or anger, we make it impossible to feel gratitude and joy.

I am not a trained counselor, but it's been my experience that if I find it hard to laugh along with others or enjoy a happy gathering, there is likely some unexpressed grief lodged in my soul. We can never recover our joy by imagining away our sorrow. We have to face it. Name it. Pray it. And thereby release it to God. Then we can pull our drapes open and let light back in the room.

That's why I'm so thankful for the book of Psalms. It tutors us in prayer, giving us words when we have none, and modeling the full range of ways to connect with God. If we categorize the psalms into  lament, praise, and other psalms, we find that there are more laments than any other type of psalm. That should tell us something about the life of prayer, and it should give us courage to bring our sorrows to God. 

If you have been feeling numb, you can start by making a list of things that are bothering you. It may be news headlines or it may be personal. Then bring your list to God. Find a psalm that expresses your heart -- maybe Psalm 4 or Psalm 88. Pray those words and add your own. God wants to hear your heart.

The Danger of Success

It's been an incredible six months for me as a writer.

• Bearing God's Name is on its 5th printing in under 6 months. (And while the average print size is only 1000 copies, the need for multiple printings clearly indicates that it has repeatedly exceeded the publisher's expectations.) 
• It's received rave reviews and generated a spate of podcast interviews. 
• This week InterVarsity Press offered me a second book contract. 
• I've been invited to write for Cambridge University Press as well as Bloomsbury.
• Two other essays and two book projects are in various stages of preparation for printing. 

Most importantly, I hear from grateful readers almost every day. It's been fun and really gratifying to see people respond so positively to my work. I'll be honest -- sales stats and accolades can be intoxicating! How do I stay grounded?

A couple of months ago I listened to an episode of the Disrupters podcast in which Esau McCaulley interviewed his doctoral advisor, N. T. Wright. One moment in their conversation grabbed my attention. Wright was speaking of a semester he spent in Jerusalem on Sabbatical in which he was working on his massive book Jesus and the Victory of God. He explains, "I was trying to write the introduction to the Jesus book . . . and I remember one day as I was saying my prayers, kneeling down at the prayer desk in my little room in Jerusalem and prayed 'Oh, dear Lord, am I really supposed to be doing one volume of introduction, and then a book about Jesus, and another volume about Paul?'" Although he does not regularly hear the audible voice of God, Wright received an unmistakable reply: "Well, yes, except it won't just be three."

I love this. Academics so rarely talk about the spiritual side of their work. I treasure this window into Tom Wright's prayer life as it relates to his writing. I have always seen writing as an act of worship, alongside teaching and mentoring and leading. On the front end, prayer fuels my brainstorming, proposing, and beginning. As I write, I pray all the more -- for clarity, insight, and clear communication. As the work is published, I pray that others will find benefit in it. When God answers these prayers and I begin to see fruit from it -- that is, when the work meets success -- it is essential that I continue to see it as an act of worship.

This weekend I re-read a classic: C. S. Lewis' The Great Divorce. It's helping me recalibrate my heart in the midst of these heady days. Lewis' warning comes by way of an imaginative story in which people from hell visit heaven and decide whether or not they want to stay. Many of the characters in his story are so committed to their illusions of a meaningful life that they literally choose to go back to hell rather than give them up to live in heaven.

Some refuse heaven because it would mean forgiving people who hurt them. Others are so preoccupied with themselves that they cannot imagine a world that does not revolve around them. One man is utterly horrified to learn that in the few years since his death his artistic genius has been wholly forgotten. He sets out to return to hell straightaway so that he can drum up more interest in his work.

How could someone who produced such great works of art or music or literature on earth be so sadly uninterested in heaven? I found the mentor's words a sober warning:

Ink and catgut and paint . . . are dangerous stimulants. Every poet and musician and artist, but for Grace, is drawn away from love of the thing he tells, to love of the telling till, down in Deep Hell, they cannot be interested in God at all but only in what they say about him. For it doesn't stop at being interested in paint, you know. They sink lower--become interested in their own personalities and then in nothing but their own reputations. - C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce, 81

Contrasting this, in Lewis' vision of heaven, people are utterly uninterested in themselves and instead deeply interested in others. They are so captivated by knowing Christ that they have let go of every accolade and ambition of their own.

The mentor tells of a fountain higher in the hills which "when you have drunk of it you forget forever all proprietorship in your own works. You enjoy them just as if they were someone else's: without pride and without modesty" (82). No one is distinguished. "The glory flows into everyone."

This thought gripped me. I was compelled to write Bearing God's Name because I believed with all my heart that the church at large needed to rediscover the value of the Old Testament and meet the God of Grace in its pages. But the success of this book presents the very real danger that I'd begin to enjoy the writing more than the reality to which it points, becoming fixated on sales and reviews and accolades to the extent that I lose sight of the message. If my "ownership" of this book will be lost in the the new creation, can I begin even now to let go of it? Can I view it without pride or modesty, but just as if it belongs to someone else? I must at least try.

The alternative is terrifying.

Academic Prayer Series

As a regular contributor for InterVarsity's blog for Women in the Academy and Professions, The Well, I've submitted several prayers tailored for academics. Here's a list for easy reference with a selection from each one, plus a bonus from my own blog:

A College Student's Back-to-School Prayer

Library at Regent College, Vancouver (Photo: C Imes)

Sharpen my mind, so that I can learn to think clearly and critically.

Melt my resistanceto new ideas that are good and right and true.

A Prayer for a New Place

Grant me patience to learn, flexibility to adapt, joy to share with others, and space to grieve the loss of what I’ve left behind.

Grant me energy to make decisions and adjust to new procedures and understand the culture of my new environment. Help me to establish healthy rhythms — spiritually, emotionally, and physically. As I settle in, let me never lose this sense that I desperately need you.

A Professor's Prayer

Grant me wisdom to manage my time well so that I can stand before my classes prepared.Grant me the grace to let go of misplaced guilt for what I cannot be or do.

Grant me discerning eyes, that I may see my students as you see them and that I may love them as you love, that I may anticipate potential mental blocks, that I may discover the key to unlock their desire to learn. Let me not get in the way.

A Scholar's Prayer

Quicken my mind, that I may discern what is right and understand more fully the complexities of the subject that is before me today. 

Grant me diligence to stay on task and ignore distraction. At the end of this day may I be able to stand before you unashamed of the work I have done and left undone.

A Prayer for Academic and Professional Conferences

Help me to choose wisely between the myriads of options available to me — papers, seminars, conversations, exhibits, work, play, rest. May I discern what is best and let go of what is not.

Above all, may I bring you glory today as I bear your name in the academy and among all those whose talents and energies make this conference possible.

A Prayer for Writers 

Help me articulate truth beautifully, precisely, and lovingly. May I not be so enamored with the sound of my words that I neglect sound content. Enable me to present these ideas in a winsome way that does justice to their importance.

In a world full of distractions, help me focus on the tasks to which you have called me.

View from University of British Colombia Campus
(Photo: C Imes)

An End-of-Semester Prayer

Lord, here I stand at the end of another term. I have poured into my students — ideas, questions, caring, comments, time.
Now I entrust them to you.

Take what I have taught them and separate wheat from chaff. Blow away what I said that was empty or worthless. Help them to treasure the truth. May it nourish them in days ahead as they move into new contexts.

I hope these prayers inspire you to embrace your vocation as a Christian professor, if you are one. If not, perhaps they'll inspire you to craft your own prayers for your own vocation.

A Professor's Prayer

Have I mentioned that I have the #bestjobintheworld?

Last week the campus lay dormant, mounds of snow lining empty sidewalks. Quiet buildings stood ready, expectant. So did my heart. This week all is abuzz as students return from break and embrace in happy reunions. Classes begin with characteristic rigor. Last semester I was new here and my head swirled with names and syllabi and schedules and handbooks. This semester I welcome familiar faces with a settled heart. The inner calm permits more deliberate reflection on my role as professor and my investment in this community. Perhaps my prayer for this new term may become your prayer as well.

You can read my prayer over at InterVarsity's Blog, The Well.

Navigating the Valley of Disappointment

May 11, 2017

When I arrived on campus two days ago, the door to the faculty lounge was closed. On it a sign was posted, "Interview in progress. Do not disturb." 

A punch to the gut.

I retreated to my shared office and closed the door. Most days I am gregarious, eager to connect with colleagues. But not today. Not the day of closed doors. I had planned to join others for lunch, but instead I sit alone at my desk. I am not safe today. I cannot predict what I might say. I cannot produce a genuine smile. My love for these colleagues is no less than before. I am not angry. I am bereft.

I should be on the other side of that closed door being interviewed, but instead I am here, burying this dream in the valley of disappointment.

Sorrow is a strange companion.

Just last week, when I learned the news that silenced hope, a great heaviness fell over me that I could not shake for a whole day and then some.

But then, just as suddenly, the heaviness flew away and I was flooded with a joy I could not explain. I remembered then that sorrow and joy are not opposites. They walk hand in hand. Grief opens up the deepest parts of us, but the raw ache that takes our breath away also expands our capacity for joy.

Disappointment strips us, laying bare our vulnerable selves. As the chimera of what might have been fades, the solid reality of what is comes into view.

I am loved.

God is working out all things for good.

The door my Lord opens, no one can shut.

Jesus has good works planned for me to do.

I am called and equipped.

I am not alone.

Why do I tell you this? Why hang my innermost thoughts in plain view for all to see and read and know? Because you, too, have walked the valley of disappointment, and you will walk it again. This way we can walk it together.

Ruth Haley Barton says "what is most personal is, indeed, most universal" (Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership, 223). The more honestly I share my own journey, the more we both stand to gain. 

I shared my disappointment with my students last week. They grieved with me. And one wrote me the next morning, thanking me for my words. He, too, is in the valley of disappointment, but my story gave him the strength to carry on.

We do not grieve as those who have no hope.

But we do grieve, friends.

We do grieve.

Just yesterday I read these words, penned by Paul Pastor, but spoken as God's word to every one of us: "Give me your heart today, and again tomorrow—your whole heart, beating and full" (The Listening Day, 10).

Whether my heart is aching with hurt or swelling with hope, I am invited—you are invited—to offer it up in prayer. And here I offer it to you, too.

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January 14, 2018: Today I discovered this unpublished draft in my blog archives. I wrote it 8 months ago, but apparently thought better of posting it right away (or was I going to take a picture first of the sign on the door?). It still brings tears to my eyes to re-live this major disappointment, but that sorrow lives alongside the deep joy I have found in the door that God opened for me just weeks after that disappointment. Our heavenly Father does not promise that all our dreams will come true, but he promises to be with us all the way. What more could we possibly need?

Adventures in Prayer . . . and the Barriers that Hold Us Back

It's a special joy to walk with students as they wrestle with how to relate to God. Sometimes questions come up in class discussion. Other times its a conversation with a student in my office. This semester I get to "look over their shoulders" by reading student reflections on their small group meetings. Students are responding eagerly to these meetings, where they meet to talk about their spiritual lives with one another, using A Spiritual Formation Workbook.

Why is God not answering me when I cry out to him?
This week I tried praying 5 minutes a day. I'm embarrassed about how hard this was for me!
What is the point of fasting?
I'm so angry at God right now. How can I pray?
How can I know what God wants me to do with my life?
If God is good, why wouldn't he make it easier to communicate with him?

I'm realizing that one of the biggest barriers to prayer is the idea that we need to pray a certain way or with a certain attitude. We so easily lose sight of the invitation we have to come into God's presence just as we are. This week I encouraged one student to go for a hike in the woods and rant at God, telling him how angry he is. There's no way to get past the anger until it's expressed. I told another student that she doesn't need to swallow her disappointments so that she can come to God cheerfully. God wants us to voice those disappointments in his presence. I had the privilege of praying with another student for physical healing.

The other major barrier to prayer is busyness. We don't pray because every moment is filled with sensory input of other kinds – music, headlines, newsfeeds, conversation, podcasts, Netflix, homework. We've lost the art of sitting in stillness. One student plans to try a social media fast. Another practiced sitting quietly for 5 minutes each day this week. Inspired by the story of Frank Laubach, others are intrigued by the idea of inviting God into every moment of their day. Is that even possible? And if so, what would be the benefit?

A third barrier is unfamiliarity. We can't expect to become spiritual giants overnight. Spiritual growth takes time, and spiritual disciplines take practice. I'm praying that God would reward each student's efforts to connect with him and would stir their hunger for more.

Prayer is like the old game "Othello" — it takes a minute to learn and a lifetime to master. Prayer is nothing more and nothing less than a conversation with God. That seems simple enough. But creating space for prayer, learning to truly open up in prayer, exploring new ways of praying, discerning God's voice, coming to love prayer . . . these things take time. It's the adventure of a lifetime!

a prayer companion for the next four years

Evangelicals have found ourselves in an awkward place this election season — heavily courted and yet publicly disdained. One day wooed, the next betrayed. There has been no easy way to navigate political conversations with friends and neighbors as emotions run deep and issues flare. Choosing how to vote created a conundrum for many people. Which policies are most compatible with Christian faith? Which issues should be highest priority—the economy? immigration? the unborn? race relations? How much should a candidate's personal beliefs (or lack thereof) and character (or lack thereof) play into our decision?

Some Evangelicals concluded that the only Christian vote was a Republican vote because it had the best chance of overturning Roe vs. Wade or was most likely to preserve the freedoms enjoyed by Christian institutions. Other Evangelicals felt passionately that the Democratic candidate best embodied the biblical ideals of caring for the poor and the oppressed. Still others felt that neither candidate had the personal character necessary to occupy the oval office. Some of us voted for a third party candidate. Others abstained in protest.

Wherever you find yourself on that spectrum, if you consider yourself an Evangelical, like it or not the polls have securely linked the president-elect with your vote. That means the world is watching, and you will be blamed for whatever happens next. A change in leadership always brings opportunities and risks. Whether you are concerned about what these next four years may hold or you are celebrating regime change, I've got a book to recommend just for you.

In a world full of pressing needs and deep divisions, this book is a call to prayer and fuel for action. For those whose hearts are heavy, this is one way to transform your burden to focused prayer. For those who are optimistic about the incoming administration, this book will augment your prayers for our new president in ways that consistently reflect God's kingdom priorities.

Offering a quote each week and a Scripture verse for each day of this four-year administration, Praying for Justice functions like a lectionary. As the authors describe it,

The title of this book contains an invitation to pray for justice, but this book contains no overt prayers. Many of the more than fourteen hundred Bible passages contained here are prayers or portions of prayers. To read these texts is to be invited to join them in prayer.  

This book invites us to use each day's verse as a meditation or reflection for that day and each week's quotation as an examination of the ways in which your life images God's redemptive justice in the world. 

This book is also a call to action. Now is not a time for Christians to sit and trust that others will take care of people on the margins of our society. Christians must not content themselves with mere social media activism or personal piety. Christians must act often. Christians must act publicly. Christians must act sacrificially. Christians must act with courage and compassion. Christians must act as if it matters - because it does.

This book was a labor of love by three of my colleagues at George Fox University. Anderson, Steve, and Paula worked like the wind for four weeks straight after election day so that you could have this resource in your hands in time for the inauguration. All the proceeds will be donated to Church World Service, to aid them in their work resettling refugees.  You can order your copy on Amazon.

Remembering the Alamo: A Thanksgiving Homily

By Unknown - Frank Thompson, The Alamo (2005),
p. 106, Public Domain 

"Remember the Alamo!"

The cry, unbidden, echoed through my mind the moment I saw it. I was staring at Google Maps, locating my hotel in relation to the rest of the conference venues. And there it was: "The Alamo." Right across the street from my "home base" in San Antonio.

I paused, 5th grade history lessons distant and faded.

"Remember the Alamo?"

What exactly was I supposed to remember? Something about Texas, I think. An old fort, maybe? But that's as far as I got. Whatever happened there had long ago had been discarded as one of those "useless" facts that would not help me in real life.

Israel was also called to "Remember!" Remembering was not just the means to an "A" in history class. It was the key to the survival of their faith. Without memory, faith fades.

And here's where the Alamo comes in. Why don't I remember the Alamo? Because I only heard about it once, in a history class. In order to truly remember, in order for it to matter, the story must be consciously inscribed on my memory through recital. I don't remember the Alamo because the story has not become part of my story. I ceased to tell it as soon as the childhood test was turned in.

Psalm 135 and 136 are psalms of remembrance. They walk through Israel's history, retelling what God has done and thereby keeping those memories alive for each new generation. Psalm 136 sounds the rhythmic refrain, "his love endures forever."

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good.
His love endures forever...who by his understanding made the heavens,
His love endures forever...to him who led his people through the wilderness;
His love endures forever...and freed us from our enemies.
His love endures forever. (Psalm 136:1, 5, 16, 24)

For Israel to cultivate a faith that endured, they knew they must keep telling the story.

My quick weekend trip to San Antonio left no time for sightseeing. I attended three breakfasts, two receptions, ten paper presentations, a council meeting, seven meetings reconnecting with friends and mentors, a podcast interview, and two publisher meetings. In between all this I wove my way through the book displays, hunting for spring textbooks, pitching book ideas, and buying the books on my list.

I was told it only took a half hour to see the Alamo, but since my hotel was a 10-minute walk from the conference venue, and I was going strong from 7am to 10:45pm each day, I missed the opportunity to see it.

The Alamo (Photo: Rex Koivisto)

Ironically, though, I will always remember the Alamo. I will remember it as the place where God came through in a dramatic way for me. I arrived in San Antonio with a "hole" on my resumé. I was (essentially) unpublished. Sure, I had written several book reviews, and I had a small contribution in a student resource on the Septuagint, and I had been blogging for years, but in order to get a permanent job, I would need a book contract. This was the next crucial step in my transition from "student" to "professor"—to demonstrate that I could and would make an ongoing contribution to scholarship.

I went to San Antonio with one prayer and one goal: a book contract.

And I came home with two!

It was a miracle weekend, and we will always be grateful.

Wikipedia tells me that the Alamo was an important battle in the fight for Texan independence. It was not a victory, but a battle the Texans lost to the army of Santa Anna. That defeat became a rallying cry for Texans to join the cause and take back territory. In a sense, then, my Alamo was years ago, when I stared failure in the face and considered giving up.

I am so glad I didn't. God has carried us through thick and thin.
His love endures forever!

What has God done in your life this year? Today is the day of remembering. Tell the story as you gather with family and friends. Only in the retelling will we "remember the Alamo."

the surprising beauty of unanswered prayer

Do you ever wonder if you're missing something when it comes to prayer?
I'm right there with you.

Our prayer life is often anemic.

We pray for good weather, safe travel, good health, a good night's sleep. We pray for good news from the doctor, success in our job interview, a good grade on a test. We thank God for all the blessings we enjoy -- like food, shelter, family, friends. And then we dive back into the cacophony of noise and images and urgent to-do lists that distract us from thinking much more about it. In a pinch we send up a rocket prayer for peace or strength or wisdom to make it through whatever threatens to make us late to our next appointment or miss our next deadline.

Is that all there is to it?

The more I read the Psalms, the more I'm convinced that we need a prayer overhaul.

The Psalms invite us to come as we are, to express the full range of our most carefully guarded thoughts in God's presence. They model for us raw emotion -- unflinching honesty, unhinged violence, unabated longing, unadulterated gratitude, unfiltered praise. Biblical Psalms run the whole gamut of attitudes and experiences -- settled, wrestling, protesting, celebrating, lamenting.

Until we're desperate for another way to pray, I suspect most of us prefer the cheerful psalms -- psalms that offer reassurance and comfort, reminding us of all that our great God has done, assuring us of all he will do to make things right. But there comes a season when these psalms merely rub salt in the wound. It is then we need the darker psalms -- psalms that echo our own experiences of alienation and struggle, psalms willing to voice the questions we thought were off limits. Most of these darker psalms have a note of hope that resolves the tensions of the psalmist's experience. They begin with questions and end with answers.

But not all do. This week I discovered two psalms that break the pattern: Psalms 88 and 89. These come at the end of "Book 3" of Psalms (Psalms 73–89). Neither one ties a neat bow on the psalmist's ache. They simply leave it there, heaving and trembling, waiting for a response. And that response never comes.

Psalm 88 is strikingly different from other lament psalms for other reasons, too. While others complain about vicious enemies who attack, bent on destruction, Psalm 88 mentions no human foe. Here the problem is none other than God.

You have put me in the lowest pit, in the darkest depths.

Your wrath lies heavily on me; you have overwhelmed me with all your waves . . .

Why, LORD, do you reject me and hide your face from me? (Psalm 88:6–7, 14; NIV)

Can you see the direct challenge to God? Instead of resolving this tension with a closing note of hope, the psalm ends in darkness.

You have taken from me friend and neighbor — darkness is my closest friend. (v. 18)

In Hebrew, "darkness" is the final word of the psalm. No happy endings here. The psalmist has dared to confront God. And now he sits alone in darkness.

Psalm 89 begins with praise, and a long recital of all the cosmic wonders God has done. We might initially think that this psalm offers relief from the despair of Psalm 88. Another long stanza retells the glorious covenant with David from 2 Samuel 7 -- God's promise that David and his descendants will reign over God's people "as long as the heavens endure" (Psalm 89:29). This is the centerpiece of Israel's national theology, her most treasured promise.

But.

Everything changes in verse 38. Clear through to verse 51, the psalmist confronts God with the brutal reality that does not match God's promise.

But you have rejected, you have spurned,

you have been very angry with your anointed one.

You have renounced the covenant with your servant

and have defiled his crown in the dust. (Psalm 89:38–39; NIV)

The psalmist is understandably distressed. We could understand if Israel's enemies attacked her king. But God? And he dares to call God to account.

How long, LORD? Will you hide yourself forever?

How long will your wrath burn like fire? (v. 46)

And then the piercing question, one that looks God full in the face:

Lord, where is your former great love,

which in your faithfulness you swore to David? 

Whatever happened to the Davidic Covenant? Has it expired? Can we no longer count on God to fulfill the promise?

The last word of this Psalm in Hebrew is Mashiach (=Messiah). But this is no triumphant Messiah. He is the subject of mockery, shamed, plundered, and scorned, with his crown and throne in the dust.

Don't be fooled by the statement of praise in verse 52. This is not the end of the psalm. It is the standard closing to the end of this "book" within the larger book of Psalms, added by the editor of the entire collection (see 41:13; 72:18–19; and 106:48). While it affirms that the LORD is still to be praised, it does nothing to answer the psalmist's prayer.

We sit, with both psalmists, in the dark, in the dust. Waiting.

I find a strange comfort in these psalms. They may be unanswered, but they have been kept for us. That in itself implies that God heard their cries. The fact that these appear in sacred Scripture tells me that unanswered prayer is a normal part of the experience of faith. They invite us to bring our darkest and most dangerous questions to God. Doing so does not disqualify us from the faith. Quite the opposite. Doing so is the prerequisite of faith — trusting God with how we really feel and with what we really think.

These unanswered psalms are a snapshot of faithful prayer. Having voiced our desolation to God, we wait. That praying, that waiting — they are the stuff of faith. And while we don't see an immediate answer to Psalms 88 and 89, they are beautiful in their own way because they preserve a part of our shared experience. They show us we are in good company. And because they are tucked in the middle of a host of other prayers, answered ones, we know that they are not the end of the story.

Do we perhaps avoid certain kinds of prayer because we doubt they will be answered? God invites us to pray without holding back. No desire is too deep, no darkness is too ugly, no hope is too outlandish, no accusation too blasphemous. We can say it all. And then we wait.

Perhaps this is what we've been missing.

a college student's back-to-school prayer

Thank you, Lord,
for a new semester.

Thank you for providing the means for me to study
in a community of fellow learners.

Sharpen my mind,
so that I can learn to think clearly and critically.

Melt my resistance
to new ideas that are good and right and true.

Calm my anxiety,
as I face an overwhelming list of assignments to complete.

Banish fear
so that I can embrace the task of learning with joy.

Help me to take one day at a time.

Open my heart
to those around me,
so that I can form deeper friendships.

Make me a blessing
to my fellow students
and to the faculty and staff who serve us.

Create here a community
in which transformation can take place
together.

Equip us
to carry out the work you have planned
for us to do.

Above all, may we glorify you
through all we say and do this semester.

For the honor of your name,
Amen.

encountering the light of Christ

When you enter the doors of a new church, anything could happen. Churches with dwindling numbers are often surprised to see a new face, as the greeters were this morning to see me. But their warmth made me feel right at home.

A single ring of chairs stood empty around the center microphone on the circular platform, expectant. A Steinway occupied the far end of the circle, its melodies soaring to fill the sanctuary and encircling all of us.

Pews faced the middle. I sat in the second row, waiting, observing. I was early. In time, others came and found seats in the first few rows. I knew no one. I had been invited by the son-in-law of a member to speak during the Sunday school hour. That was my only earthly connection.

A pamphlet in the pew back explained how a Quaker-style service works. Quakers embrace silence as they embrace each other, welcoming the opportunity to listen and learn from the spirit of Christ in their midst. The unprogrammed quiet is a soothing balm in a hurried life.

A man rolled in on a motorized wheelchair, making his way to the front to greet another worshipper, and then me. Jerry refused to let his disability cripple his contribution to the warmth of the community. (I learned later that he was relatively new himself, and that the man he greeted was there for only the second time. Signs of life.)

As the service unfolded, I gathered that this was a grieving community, searching for direction, wondering how to respond faithfully to a series of events that left most of their pews empty. I wondered, then, if I should scrap my seminar on 'Understanding Biblical Prophecy' and speak instead about lament, or about how to be rooted in the face of life's storms (Psalm 1–2). How does one walk into a community and speak without first listening long? first loving and hearing?

In those quiet moments, I asked the Lord to guide me. By the time I reached the classroom after the service, I knew I should stick with my original topic and trust that God had guided my preparation. I suspected (rightly, I'm told) that Quakers typically camp out in the Gospels. That was my bridge to the prophets. How can one possibly understand the richness of the Gospels without an understanding of the Old Testament prophets? Spontaneously, I began in John 9, linking Jesus' miracle to Isaiah's commission in chapter 6. Then we moved into Isaiah 7 to examine verse 14, always a Christmas favorite. Both passages illustrate the value of reading the text closely for its historical, literary, and theological dimensions. They also illustrate the inherent dangers when we don't.

The hour flew by, followed by several follow-up conversations and a long lunch. I returned home with a full heart, grateful for the privilege of fellowship with other Christ-followers and grateful that I have the most wonderful subject matter in the world to teach -- God's Word -- which truly does not return void.

Encounters like this one are not accidental. God uses each personal connection in some way as we spur one another on to love and good deeds. A Quaker might say that the light of Christ within each of us illuminates the community as we gather. I'd say that pretty well sums up what happened today!

faith in search of lament

If our picture of the Christian life is primarily shaped by the evangelical church service, what is missing? How might it be skewed?

This is the question I posed to myself after a campfire chat with a faculty colleague.

The Scriptures contain the full range of expression that animates the life of faith, and we develop the capacity to live faith-fully by patterning our own expressions after these.

Lord, teach us to pray. 

But for our church services we typically take a select few of these elements and canonize them, leaving others nearly untouched.

We sing praise.
We greet one another.
We preach the Word.
We exhort.
We take up an offering for those in need.
We pronounce a blessing.
We remember the Lord's death by celebrating communion.
Occasionally we baptize.
We pray for the sick.
Now and then we pray for our nation's leaders.

What's missing?

We generally don't confess our sin (at least not out loud, to each other).
We don't seek refuge.
We don't complain.
We don't wrestle out loud over what's wrong and broken in our world.
We don't lament.

That is a problem.

It's a problem because the lack of confession and lament leaves us with a monotone, anemic faith. We miss out on the richness available to us in the Scriptures, and we lose touch with reality. Our faith becomes compartmentalized rather than a fully integrated part of our selves.

Put another way, Job and Jeremiah and David and Habakkuk and many other biblical writers model for us the language of lament. Do we think we no longer need these vehicles of expression?

What would it look like to incorporate the language of the Psalms -- not just the praise psalms, but the laments, too -- into our services? How can we create a reverent space where the groans of the human heart may be articulated?

How might it feel to leave things unresolved -- to refuse to tie a neat bow on it all at the end of the service because we as a community have become accustomed to letting God do the answering and not to answer for him?

Here I'm thinking of Elihu, the "friend" who shows up out of nowhere in the book of Job. After Job's complaint is laid out before God, Elihu rushes in to answer on God's behalf. Like the other three "friends" who respond to Job, Elihu is angered by Job's words (Job 32:1-5). He feels a strong need to defend God and put Job in his place, rushing in to fill the silence with correction. But when the Almighty does reply, Elihu's words are swallowed up in the storm with everyone else's. Literarily, the lesson is clear: God doesn't need us to answer on his behalf. God can speak for himself.

When we rush to the answer we lose the depth that comes through sustained waiting. To brood over our grief -- to articulate our deepest longings for God to do something -- positions us to experience God's answer more profoundly. Ignoring our wound, we miss out on the opportunity for healing.

Lord, teach us to pray. 

Sure, now and then we're brave enough to complain to God on our own. Why did you let this happen? God do something! But communal lament -- lament as a body -- is a lost art. If we could find the voice of corporate lament it would open up new avenues to enter into one another's journey. Rather than fixing each other, we could join each other side-by-side in articulating the heart's cry.

Why should we be scared of lament when the Scriptures devote so much time and space to it? Why do we feel it's irreverent to complain when complaint is the backbone of books like Psalms, Lamentations, Habakkuk, and Job?

Life hurts. Missionaries get stabbed. Cancer returns. ISIS prevails. Lives are lost in meaningless altercations. Believers are falsely accused. When grief, complaint, longing, sorrow, and confession are kept to ourselves, out of sight, the muscles of our faith atrophy, and we lose the art of responding faithfully to our trials. It's a missed opportunity for our community to grow together in love.

One of my students, Beth Erickson, created this beautiful graphic poster of Habakkuk's lament in light of the recent racial tensions in America. I share it here with her permission. This poster is an example of one way we can begin to incorporate lament into our worship.

Every year, Jewish communities read the entire book of Lamentations aloud together. When I did this with my class on the Old Testament Prophets this summer, the effect was powerful.

Lord, teach us to pray.

a simple path to joy (part 1): the gateway to honesty

Last week I had the opportunity to speak at the May Festival at Evangelical Bible Church in Dallas, Oregon. My assigned topic was "Joy in Simplicity." Here's a glimpse of what I shared:

-----

How do we find joy? Joy is not automatic. A life free from trouble is no guarantee of joy, and a difficult life does not prevent it.

From 2002 to 2005 we lived in the Philippines. In spite of widespread government corruption, crippling poverty, oppressive heat, and high unemployment, we found Filipinos to be some of the happiest people we've ever met. They can fall asleep anywhere, turn a 1-year-old's birthday into a wedding-sized celebration, and laugh in the face of trouble. They are among the poorest in Asia, but arguably the happiest. Clearly, joy does not depend on circumstances. So how do we get there?

If we imagine a pathway to joy, forward movement depends on three deliberate choices. (There may be others; I'm addressing three here.) The first comes at a gateway, the second at an intersection, and the third at a bend in the road. To enter the gateway we need to choose honesty. To navigate the intersection we must choose gratitude. And to lend perspective for the bends in the path, we need faith.

We make the first deliberate choice at the gateway of honesty. We will never arrive at true joy by pretending to be happy. Denial is the enemy of joy —a closed door to joy's garden path. We cannot bypass grief and pain, guilt or unforgiveness and expect to find joy. That thing that robs us of joy must be faced head on. We must look it in the eye and name it.

In fact, psychologists tell us that when we avoid honesty, we invite poor health, both emotionally and physically. In the words of one scholar who has studied this phenomenon (Brent Strawn, on James Pennebaker's study, in Brueggemann, From Whom No Secrets Are Hid, xix), "Inhibition is hard work, and that work eventually takes its toll on the body's defenses." So you want real joy? Step one is to grieve your losses. Admit your fault. Express your anger. Own your failures. Voice your disappointment. Forgive those who have let you down.

This is a bit awkward to say in church. Most churches have lost the art of making space for this kind of honesty. We give the distinct impression that "putting on your Sunday best" always includes a bright smile. We rarely confess our sins, name our failures, face our fears, and grieve our losses in community. And so our unexpressed emotions become roadblocks to joy. One way to recover these practices is to pray the Psalms together. The Psalms let it all hang out. Every ugly emotion you can imagine.  It's like reality TV, minus the TV.

God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer! By night, but I find no rest! (22:2)

Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help! (22:11)

Break the arm of the wicked man; call the evildoer to account for his wickedness (10:15)

All night long I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears (6:6)

Heal me, Lord, for my bones are in agony. My soul is in deep anguish. How long, Lord, how long? (6:2-3)

Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight. (51:4)

Troubles without number surround me; my sins have overtaken me, and I cannot see (40:12)

Let evil recoil on those who slander me; in your faithfulness destroy them (54:5)

Through prayer, all these raw and gritty realities are brought into the presence of God and given over for Him to handle. The Psalms are proof that God invites us to come as we are. To say it like it is. And by doing so, to find a new way forward. There's no way around it.

So we begin our journey to joy by choosing to be honest.

Then we come to an intersection, and we have to make our second choice: gratitude. I'll talk about that intersection in my next post on joy. 

15 best blog posts of 2015

Are you counting down 'til midnight? Wondering how to stay awake for the rest of the evening?
Join me in re-living this year's highlights by re-reading some of my best blog posts from 2015.
Some of these had the most hits, while others are simply my favorites. It's been a good year.
Thanks for giving me over 13,000 reasons to write in 2015!

on the academic journey (and life in general)
Feb 20 - now is the time for no
July 18 - on being finite
July 9 - why bother writing a dissertation?

on finding beauty in the ordinary
Aug 23 - unforgettable day
Dec 8 - a beautiful thing

on life and ministry
May 19 - an unlikely blessing
Sept 15 - life in the middle of nowhere
Nov 16 - when you don't (think) you have what it takes

on parenting
May 11 - Best. Mother's Day. Ever.
Aug 7 - how I've failed my kids
Dec 11 - another beautiful thing

on the Bible
July 25 - bored by Leviticus or lost in Numbers? don't miss this
Oct–Nov - does the new NIV distort the Scriptures? (a 7-part series)

in loving memory
Mar 13 - a giant has fallen (tribute to Dr. Harry Hoffner)
Sept 7 - four things I inherited from Oma

a scholar's prayer

My Desk (Photo: C Imes)

For those whose desks, like mine, have been swallowed by dissertation research . . .
For those in the throes of writing a book or an essay . . .
For those laboring over a new language or a new discipline . . .
For students just starting out in academia . . .

I invite you to pray this prayer with me. You can find it in full at InterVarsity's blog for Women in the Academy and Professions, but it applies just as well to men.

May He be glorified by the works of our minds!

Lord, 

as a new day dawns,

I offer thanks for the privilege of learning —

For the time, the mental acuity, and the resources at my disposal. 

Thank you for the delight of discovery. 

These are precious gifts... 

Let me love the truth 

more than I love what I have thought or said or written. 

Grant me the courage to confront falsehood, even in myself, 

to defend an unpopular position, 

or to surrender a cherished opinion found wanting...

For the rest, click here.

adventures in noticing

Prayer prepares us to see what we would otherwise miss. It conditions our soul for richer relationships. It "tunes my heart to sing thy grace."

It's a phenomenon common to every short-term mission trip. People who are normally rather shy and private about their faith and whose day-to-day experience is not terribly prayerful become bolder, full of faith, and fervent in prayer. The prayerful-ness of missions opens us to see what God is up to. We celebrate it. Seize opportunities to participate. And pray some more.

I remember those prayer-filled moments in Latin America as if they happened last week. I was only 14 at the time, on a short-term mission trip with Teen Mania in Venezuela. If we saw an ambulance go by, we would stop to intercede. When one of us was sick, we prayed. At a new ministry site we would pray, go out to invite people to come see our drama, and then pray them into the kingdom. Every moment was fueled with prayer.

How can we capture that kind of fervor for ordinary days?

During our pastor's sabbatical, he has invited us to read Mark Batterson's, Draw The Circle with him. Forty brief chapters, spread over forty days, invite readers to pray, and in so doing to draw circles around areas of life they want to see transformed by God.

I'm drawing circles around my students, my neighbors, family members, unbelieving friends, my dreams, and yes, my dissertation. It's amazing to watch God answer. Did he change the course of history because of my prayers? Or did my prayers simply wake me up so that I could watch him at work? Or is it some of both?

Batterson says that praying makes us "first-class noticers," people who "see things no one else sees" (67). "Prayer," he says, "is the key to perception" (70).

And so I pray for a student who has been absent from class. That prayer prompts me to write them an email. I continue to pray, and they respond, asking if we can talk. Their struggle fuels more prayer (and along with it the sense that we are in this together). Meanwhile, I begin to pray for another student who appears burdened, drawing a circle around that name and asking God to intervene on their behalf. And then I watch and wait. I don't want to miss God's answer!