A method to ordering thoughts and desires in prayer based on the Litany

“Lord teach us to pray...” Luke 11:1

Prayer is the only thing the disciples ever asked the Lord to teach them.
I don’t know about you, but when I take time to pray, I find that my words and thoughts get somewhat jumbled and gummed up by all the conflicting thoughts, concerns and desires I have for them. Many times, my prayers became a time of frustration as I tried to maintain focus and get all my thoughts together.
As part of my Lenten Journey, I took President Matthew Harrison up on his challenge for us to pray the Litany each morning during Lent. What a blessing this has been, for it revealed to me the way of focused and blessed prayer.

I offer these draft examples of how the Litany has taught me to order my thoughts and desires in prayer for myself, others, the church, etc. In no way do I want you to give up the Litany, as I pray this to conclude my prayers.
 For MY SINS AND MY SINFULNESS -
...that I may be forgiven of my sins of thought, word and deed,
...that I may be cleansed of my guilt;
...that I may by the power of the Spirit amend my life;
...that the old man in me may be drowned and die;
...that that the power of sin be broken in me;
...and that my thinking, my speaking and my actions may be set free to honor and serve God and my neighbor:
    Lord have mercy upon me and graciously forgive me for the sake of Christ. Amen.

For MY FAMILY -
...that they may be protected from all evil;
...that they grow in the Word;
...that they may grow in their faith;
...that the Holy Spirit may sanctify them with His gifts;
...that they may be faithful to the Lord;
...and that each of them may share the love of Christ in all they say and do:
...Lord have mercy upon them and be gracious to them for the sake of Christ. Amen.

For MY CONGREGATION –
...that they may be blessed with a pure preaching and teaching of the Word,
...that they worship the true God in spirit and in truth,
...that they may hunger for and rightly receive the Sacrament of our Lord’s body and blood,
...that they may manifest their faith in the vocations of their lives,
...that they may rightly support the work of the church with their time, their abilities, and their monies,
...and that they may enjoy and share the blessings of being the baptized people of God:
...Lord have mercy upon them and be gracious to them for the sake of Christ. Amen.
 For _______________________________________
... that _______________________________________;
... that _______________________________________;
... that _______________________________________;
... that _______________________________________;
... Lord have mercy upon __________________ and be gracious to ___________________ for the sake of Christ. Amen.

I hope that this method of ordering and expressing your thoughts and desires in prayer may be of benefit to you.
This method has brought me real joy, peace and blessings in my time of prayer.

- pmwl

Anfechtung 4 ... everything does not gleam and sparkle, but everything is being cleaned.

At this point, the parables of the gospel shed light on the problem. First, the one about the Samaritan [Luke 10:29–37] who placed the half-dead man on his beast, poured wine and oil into his wounds and asked the innkeeper to take care of him. He did not straightway cure him altogether. Similarly, we too are not entirely cured by baptism or repentance, but a beginning is made in us and the bandage of the first grace binds our wounds so that our healing may proceed from day to day until we are cured. For this reason, St. James says in James 1[:18], “God has given us birth through his word, out of his sheer gracious will, without our merit, that we should be a first fruit of his work or creatures.” This is as if to say, “So long as we live here on earth, believing in his word, we are a work that God has begun, but not yet completed; but after death we shall be perfect, a divine work without sin or fault.”
The second parable is written in Matt. 13[:33]. It tells of the leaven which the woman mixes in three measures of meal until it is thoroughly leavened. The new leaven is the faith and grace of the Spirit. It does not leaven the whole lump at once but gently, and gradually, we become like this new leaven and eventually, a bread of God. This life, therefore, is not godliness but the process of becoming godly, not health but getting well, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not now what we shall be, but we are on the way. The process is not yet finished, but it is actively going on. This is not the goal but it is the right road. At present, everything does not gleam and sparkle, but everything is being cleansed.
To bring the matter to a conclusion, the Lord’s Prayer alone is enough to show that all of us are still sinners, for all the saints must also pray, “Hallowed be thy name, thy will be done, thy kingdom come,” etc. Here they actually confess that they do not now adequately hallow God’s name; nevertheless they could not even offer this prayer if the Spirit had not already begun to hallow this name. Thus they confess that they do not yet fulfil the will of God and yet they could not pray this petition had they not already begun to fulfil it. For those who have not made a beginning care nothing about the name and will of God, pray for nothing, and show no interest. Nor can it be said that in these petitions the saints pray only over their past sins and not their present and remaining sins. For there is a special Petition in the Lord’s Prayer that deals with past sins which says, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” These other Petitions, however, obviously refer to the other sins which are now present. For this reason, they ask that in the future God’s name be honored, the divine will be obeyed, and the kingdom of God be attained. These are the prayers of men who are still partly in the kingdom of the devil, partly disobedient, and partly guilty of dishonoring the name of God.

Career of the Reformer II.
(Luther's Works 32), S. 32:24

... the noble contents of the Word, must divide souls from the world and bring them near to God.

IN PRAISE OF PREACHING
by Wilhelm Lohe

Among the means which the church uses to save souls, preaching stands first. It is the means by which those are called who stand afar off, and those who have been called are rendered steadfast in their calling and election.
In preaching, the church does not aim to support the holy Word by human art, but the chief matter is not to hinder its power and operation and not to impose upon the Word any kind or manner of operation which does not befit it.
The preacher proclaims salvation in Christ Jesus with the consciousness that not what he does, but the noble contents of the Word, must divide souls from the world and bring them near to God.
Of course the preacher believes and therefore speaks, and it is a detestable contradiction to preach and yet not to believe; but a true preacher will not try to recommend the truth by imparting his faith and experience; that would be only to recommend himself; rather does he seek to bring his people to say with the Samaritans: “Now we believe, not because of thy saying; for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world.” [John 4:42]
An upright preacher does not purposely withdraw himself, nor does he purposely make himself prominent, but he comes with the Word and the Word comes with him; he is a simple, faithful witness of the Word, and the Word witnesses to him; he and his Word appear like one thing.
All his preaching is based upon holy peace. Even when he rebukes, and zeal for God’s house eats him up, it is not the wrath of the restless world, but the wrath of the unapproachable God of peace, that burns within him.
It is not he that speaks, but the Lord speaks in him and through him, and his execution of his office is worthy of the Lord.
The churchly preacher always may be known by his manliness and maturity.
In great confidence in the divine Word he therefore despises every sort of machinery. He has a method, the method of simplicity.
He does not seek to win friends for the Lord Jesus Christ by means of human eloquence, nor by exciting the feelings, nor by a meretricious excitement of the nerves.
His object is not a disturbed awakening, but the transformation of divine thoughts.
Just as vocation goes on to enlightenment, and all progress in the inner life is conditioned by the progress of knowledge; so he seeks before all else to make the holy thoughts of the divine Word rightly known and to bring them before the memory, contemplation, will and inmost being of his hearers.
He does not despise the feelings of men, but he awakens them by holding before them the heavenly light, or rather he sets up this light and is assured that with its ray warmth also will proceed from it.
His watchwords are not Awake and the like, but those words of Scripture which refer to the gradual, silent growth of the divine mustard-seed.
His insistence and compulsion are not the insistence and compulsion of human impatience, but a just patient waiting on the Word.
He gladly waits, knowing that precious fruits do not grow in a night.
And he waits upon all his sheep, for he knows that the Lord has his own hour, his own haste, but also his own delays.

Three Books Concerning the Church,
tr. By Edward T. Horn (Reading, Pa.: Pilger Publishing House, 1908), pp. 181 ff.

Anfechtung 3 "God in his mercy ordains their sufferings and difficulties for them..."

  Let us ask further whether, when everything goes wrong [in the believer’s life] with their life, their goods, their honor, their friends, or whatever they have, they still believe that their works are well-pleasing to God, and that God in his mercy ordains their sufferings and difficulties for them, whether they be small or great.
  The great thing in life is to have a sure confidence in God when, at least as far as we can see or understand, he shows himself in wrath, and to expect better at his hands than we now know.
  Here God is hidden, as the bride says in the Song of Songs [2:9], “Behold there he stands behind our wall, gazing in through the windows.”
  That means he stands hidden among the sufferings which would separate us from him like a wall, indeed, like a wall of a fortress.
  And yet he looks upon me and does not forsake me. He stands there and is ready to help in grace, and through the window of dim faith he permits himself to be seen. And Jeremiah says in Lamentations 3[:39–33], “He casts men aside, but that is not the intention of his heart.”
  These people know nothing at all of this kind of a faith, and they give themselves over to thinking that God has forsaken them and is their enemy. They even lay the blame on other men or on the devil, and have simply no confidence at all in God. For this reason, too, their suffering is always an offense to them and harmful. And yet they go on doing their good works, as they think, quite unaware of their serious unbelief.
  But they who in such suffering trust God and hold on to a good, firm confidence in him, who believe that he is well-pleased with them, see in their sufferings and afflictions nothing but pure and precious merits, the costliest treasures which no man can assess.
  For faith and confidence make precious before God all that which others think most shameful, so that it is written even of death in Psalm 116[:15], “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.” And just as confidence and faith are better, higher, and stronger at this stage than in the first, so the sufferings which are borne in this kind of faith excel all works of faith. Therefore there is an immeasurable difference between such works and sufferings, and the sufferings are better.
  Beyond all this is the highest stage of faith, when God punishes the conscience not only with temporal sufferings but with death, hell, and sin, and at the same time refuses grace and mercy, as though he wanted to condemn and show his anger eternally. Few men experience this as David did when he complained in Psalm 6[:1], “O Lord, rebuke me not in thy anger.”
  To believe at such times that God is gracious and well-disposed toward us is the greatest work that may ever happen to and in a man, but of this the work-righteous and the doers of good works know nothing at all. For how would they know to expect God’s goodness and grace in these circumstances when they are not certain about the works they do and have doubts at the lowest stage of faith?

Martin Luther - The Christian in Society I.
(Luther's Works 44), S. 44:27

... it would be nice if a small group kind of magically happened in our living room

Saying you’re having a hard time “connecting” at church.
March 3, 2011


This church isn’t very friendly. Have you noticed that? We might need to change to a new church, because we’re having a really hard time connecting at this one. We’ve been coming here for six months, sitting in service, not talking to anyone, then immediately sprinting out of the building and going home. And no one has connected with us. Rude!
We haven’t met anyone in small group either. We didn’t sign up for one, but still, it would be nice if a small group kind of magically happened in our living room, on a night that was convenient for us and someone brought banana pudding. Not box banana pudding, but like the kind your grandmother used to make. Is that so much to ask for?
Probably, considering that this church doesn’t really seem to reach out to people who have spent six months attending Sunday morning service and not participating in any other activities.
No one even called us and asked why we weren’t at the fall festival. Sure, we’ve never given them our number, but google it. And then help us connect.
I thought this church was going to be different. I thought it wouldn’t be like the last three churches we attended. Remember those three? Always saying, “Please stay for lunch and learn about the church. Please let us know if you have any questions. Please come to our first time visitor’s luncheon.” So annoying.
What’s that you say? Where are we serving at the church? Serving is a great way to get connected and plug into a place that is ultimately a two way street of people loving and giving and growing together? Even something as simple as handing out bulletins can jump start new relationships with new people? Ugh, that sounds like a lot of work. Quit judging us.
And start connecting us.
We’re having a hard time connecting at this church.

- Jon Acuff

http://www.jonacuff.com/stuffchristianslike/2011/03/4551/

Anfechtung 2 - ... caught up in the complex spiritual dynamics of sin at war with the love of God.

While the author speaks of sin at work in the unbeliever, the same soul struggle takes place with the believer as his old man and Satan attempt to him take control of his sin and guilt. 

“Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound judgment.” Proverbs 18:1 (ESV)  According to this text, a person first becomes estranged or “isolated” – that is, a close relationship is broken, so that love is replaced by hatred or indifference.  

The person who is estranged then looks for “pretexts” – excuses, rationalizations, arguments, and other masks that cover up the real problem.  The person uses the “pretexts” to “break out” against the truth. 

When friends hurt our feelings, their objective faults, which never bothered us before, stand out in glaring clarity.  

It is true in our relationship with God.  When we become “estranged” from God (that is, when we sin), we often start to manufacture a whole range of excuses by which we can “break out” against the truth of His Word.  In fact, there seems to be a pattern of unbelief, a cycle that can be seen in the lives of many unbelievers. It goes something like this:

A young man is raised in a Christian home and has some measure of belief in Christ.  He then becomes involved in some overt sin.  This can be any sin-pride, covetousness, addiction, dishonoring of parents, worldliness.  It is often a sexual sin.  He has the honesty and presence of mind to realize that his favorite sin is incompatible with the Christian faith.  He has the moral sensitivity to experience guilt.

There are two ways he can respond.  He may repent of the sin and turn to Christ to receive full and free forgiveness.  Or he may hold on to the sin, treasure it, and refuse to give it up either overtly or emotionally.  He starts to center his life around the sin, to seek from it consolation, help, and escape, to find in it, in effect, the meaning of his life.

But what about the guilt?  If he is not interested in repenting and being forgiven, then there is only one way to end the torment: To reject whatever it is that brands his life as evil.  If what I am doing is not really wrong, then I can “feel good about myself.”  If there is no objective standard of right and wrong, I can do as I please.  If there is no God, then I am not a sinner.

At this point, the “pretexts are discovered.  There are many reasons not to believe in God.  They become extremely persuasive to someone who does not want God to exist.  The arguments with the most force become those that turn one’s own moral failures against the Judge, so that the person’s own sinfulness is projected onto God Himself: “I can never believe in God because He allows so much evil in the world.”  

God becomes imagined not as the source of good, but as the source of evil.

The moral crusade becomes directed against Christians in general – a narrow mined, intolerant, hypocritical lost – and against the Church in particular.  The moral zeal creates a feeling of self-righteousness, a precious feeling to someone who has been tormented by guilt.

But his confidence is not totally secure.  The very smell of Christianity or the very mention of Jesus Christ triggers his defenses.  He lashes out at anything or anyone that represents the old belief that is still so accusing him.  He “breaks out” with startling emotion and aggressiveness against something that, supposedly, he does not even believe exists.  He may lose himself in humanitarian causes.  He may develop new theologies.  He may become one of those professors in a university who delights in tearing down his students’ faith.  But there is a presence that will not go away, something looming in the background that he must always either fight against or give in to.

This psychological pattern can be broken at any point by the Word of God, by the devastating truth of God’s Law and the penetrating grace that is offered in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, who died to save sinners.  

The unbeliever is not playing an intellectual game but is caught up in the complex spiritual dynamics of sin at war with the love of God.  For a Christian, this pattern illustrates the slippery slope of unrepentant and rationalized sin.

pp. 78-80 

LOVING GOD WITH ALL YOUR MIND

Thinking as a Christian in a Postmodern World.

Gene Edward Veith, Jr. 

The Anfechtung - The Soul Turmoil of The Christian Life - 1

Anfechtung - the painful turmoil and struggle of a believer’s soul that takes place when worldly events and experience seem to wholly contradict the Gospel message of our sure victory in Jesus Christ.

“I will give an example to confirm this faith and console that evil eye which suspects God of injustice. As you can see, God so orders this corporal world in its external affairs that if you respect and follow the judgment of human reason, you are bound to say either that there is no God or that God is unjust. For look at the prosperity the wicked enjoy and the adversity the good endure, and note how both proverbs and that parent of proverbs, experience, testify that the bigger the scoundrel the greater his luck. “The tents of the ungodly are at peace,” says Job [Job 12:6], and Psalm 72[73:12] complains that the sinners of the world increase in riches. Tell me, is it not in everyone’s judgment most unjust that the wicked should prosper and the good suffer? But that is the way of the world. Here even the greatest minds have stumbled and fallen, denying the existence of God and imagining that all things are moved at random by blind Chance or Fortune. The prophets, however, who did believe in God, had more temptation to regard him as unjust—Jeremiah, for instance, and Job, David, Asaph, and others.
Yet all this, which looks so very like injustice in God, and which has been represented as such with arguments that no human reason or light of nature can resist, is very easily dealt with in the light of the gospel and the knowledge of grace, by which we are taught that although the ungodly flourish in their bodies, they lose their souls.
In fact, this whole insoluble problem finds a quick solution in one short sentence, namely, that there is a life after this life, and whatever has not been punished and rewarded here will be punished and rewarded there, since this life is nothing but an anticipation, or rather, the beginning of the life to come.”

- Martin Luther   (Luther's Works 33), S. 33:291

Blessed Lent & An Invitation To Prayer

Lent is a time for step back from the world and take time to get on our knees and repent and pray to the Lord. Pres. Harrison, who wishes us a Blessed Lent and invites us to pray the Litany daily with him in the video below:


Blessed Lent from VimeoLCMS on Vimeo.

It is my goal to daily take Pres. Harrison up on his invitation and begin each day throughout Lent by praying the Litany (LSB 288-89). I will further close each day with Suffrages (Responsive Prayer 1 or 2 LSB 282-84 / 285-87).

I invite you to take this journey in prayer.

- pmwl

Living according to a reality greater than your plans

 
LUTHERAN WITNESS  June 21, 1887 pg. 14  - Google Books
http://books.google.com/books?id=GMEpAAAAYAAJ&dq=lutheran&pg=PA6#v=onepage&q&f=false