Tag Archives: Martin Luther

Rote prayers

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As believers of Christ we have freedom to pray with words that come from our heart and to pray scripture to the Lord. But what about rote prayers?

 

The word ‘rote’ entails learning something by repetition usually without comprehension or understanding. We could learn our math tables by rote and not really understand how to calculate the price of groceries without a calculator. We could say The Pledge of Allegiance or the beginning of the Gettysburg Address or even memorize vast portions of scripture verses, but if we don’t understand what we’re saying or believe it, what’s the value? Does that seem like a good way to converse with God?

 

But memorizing something doesn’t have to make it worthless. Memorization is one way of committing a truth to heart. You might have memorized your wedding vows and probably remember at least some portion of them yet today. Repetition doesn’t make perfect but it makes things permanent. Repeating a memorized truth helps to embed it into our daily life.

 

I’ve known folks who say the same words at every meal to give thanks to God for their food. While you might not follow that ‘rote’ routine, do you think God minds if they’re a sincere expression of the heart? Likewise, if written prayers composed by others speak the truth in our hearts, we shouldn’t be afraid to use them in our prayer life.

 

Martin Luther recommended praying the Lord’s Prayer and the Ten Commandments in a personalized way. Many find praying the 23rd Psalm draws them closer to God and expresses what their own words fail to say. So can other written prayers. Consider committing some of these prayers to memory or adapt them to fit your conversational style:

 

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. O, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love; For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; it is in dying that we are born again to eternal life. (Attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi)

 

Dear Jesus, help me to spread Your fragrance everywhere I go. Flood my soul with Your spirit and love. Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly that all my life may only be a radiance of Yours. Shine through me and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with may feel Your presence in my soul. Stay with me and then I shall begin to shine as you shine, so to shine as to be a light to others. (Attributed to Mother Teresa; adapted)

 

And have we ever really outgrown our childhood prayer?
“Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep: May God guard me through the night And wake me with the morning light. Amen.” (Traditional)

 
One of my favorite rote prayers comes from the musical Godspell:
“Lord help me to see you more clearly, love you more dearly, follow you more nearly, day by day.”

 

Memorizing rote prayers or even scripture doesn’t make you holy. But it might help you draw closer to God, which is the purpose of all prayer.

Be blessed.

 

Heart surgery

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Jesus used an extreme metaphor to show how important living a holy life is:

“If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.” – Matthew 5:29-30

 

Recently, a Chinese teenager known as “Little Wang” took this advice literally and cut off his hand when he thought he couldn’t control his internet addiction. Is that the approach Jesus really meant for fighting pervasive sin?

 

In the context of his message, Jesus was speaking about the physical act of adultery. But he ups the ante by saying that “anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Vs 27-28)
The Pharisees would have considered the lust of the eyes as a minor sin and the physical act of adultery as a major sin. But Jesus says sin is sin and its source is the heart.

 

James tells us that we are “tempted and dragged away by (our) own evil desires…that battle within us.” Our friendship with the world makes us enemies of God, an “adulterous people.” The lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life that come from the world establish themselves in the heart and flow through the eye and the hand. We could pluck out both eyes and cut off both hands, but it would not stop our heart from sinning.

 

What are we to do? Martin Luther said, “You cannot keep birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair.” Temptation is not a sin, but providing a place for it to rest in our heart is.

 

I wonder how much sin starts with a simple curiosity. A tempting internet link begging our click doesn’t have to be particularly ‘naughty’ to be sin. The temptation to waste our lives viewing every cute video, reading every tidbit of news, catching up with the latest sports scores or the latest diet and exercise tips (the list goes on) all create temptations that can lead our hearts away from God. ‘Cutting off’ our eyes and hands from curious temptations keeps our hearts from being compromised.

 

In Hannah Hurnard’s classic allegory, Hinds Feet in High Places, the heart of the main character Much Afraid had become entangled with all sorts of irrational fears and corrupted thinking. The master had to surgically rip away what was strangling the lifeline of her heart. What we need today is not to pluck out our eyes and cut off our hands. What we need is heart surgery.

 

Give me a pure heart, O Lord, a heart that looks only to you.

 

 

Starved for solitude

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“We live, in fact, in a world starved for solitude, silence, and privacy, and therefore starved for meditation and true friendship.” CS Lewis, The Weight of Glory

My first thought in reading this quote is just the opposite; how much we need each other. I found this to be so true in the first nine months of leukemia treatment. Suddenly pulled from my normal routine of vibrant interactions with dozens of people daily, I found months of relative solitude to be a rather ‘painful’ experience. In fact, Lewis does address this earlier in his message. “We are forbidden to neglect the assembling of ourselves together. We are members of one another.” The Christian experience, without the building of true community is an oxymoron. We are meant for one another.

But what is it about our soul that leaves it starved also for solitude and meditation? We live in a world that makes constant demands for our attention. A steady flow of never-ending electronic beeps calls us to tasks, appointments, and endless access to news, social information, and status updates.

God designed us not only for activity, but also for stillness. “He MAKES me lie down in green pastures.” (Psalm 23) He prompts us: “Be still and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10) “Meditate on (His Word) day and night so that you may be careful to do everything in it…to be prosperous and successful.” (Joshua 1:8-9) The psalmist writes, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.” (Psalm 19:14)

Probably, the busier we are in our current season of life, the more we need to take time to find an oasis throughout the day where we can find restoration and peace. Reformer Martin Luther commented, “Work, work, from morning until late at night. In fact, I have so much to do that I shall have to spend the first three hours in prayer!”

Imagine going for days without any food or water. Soon you will discover the depleting effects from lack of nourishment: weakness, lack of productivity, confusion, irritability. The more you work, without replenishing your resources, the less you will accomplish. The less you accomplish, the more you will be tempted to work harder and longer. But it will not satisfy. The vicious downward spiral always works against us.

Meditation and prayer nourishes our soul. They lift us out of the depths of despair, refresh our perspective, and lead us on the path to wisdom and understanding, to peace, and renewed strength. God describes it like lifting us as on the wings of eagles! (Psalm 91)

The truth is we need both the solitude of meditation and the true friendship and community with others. We cheat ourselves when we neglect one or the other. I hope you will intentionally pursue both of these today. It is the path of experiencing God’s best for you.