The Prayer of Tears.

They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. ~ Psalm 126:5



I said we were weird.  I said we seemed to constantly land slightly left of centre, so much so the only people I actually know who have experienced the Prayer of Tears live in my computer.

The first time I came across this expression was from Richard Foster, who is one of my all time favourite Christian writers.  He speaks to my condition, pulling his understanding of who God is from many different Christian traditions though he himself is a Quaker.  I understand this.  There is a flow to his understanding of how the Spirit operates that my spirit testifies to.  God is not limited by man~made traditions.  He is not locked into our doctrine, which is only our poor understanding of what we think God is saying to us.  There is a bigness to his understanding of God.  I'd been impressed ever since I came across his Celebration of Discipline more than 30 years ago & saw how the Quaker view of simplicity was a holisitc thing, begining with the self & spreading out in ever widening ripples to eventually include the whole earth.  It still makes complete sense to me.

So when I found his Prayer, Finding The Heart's True Home, I coveted it immediately, so much so that despite the price, which was far more than I could honestly afford, I simply couldn't walk out of the shop without it.  I'm so glad I didn't.  I have refered to this book again & again.  Dino has read it & when I went hunting it to refresh my memory before posting I found Dino had lent it to friends. 

I have lots of books on prayer ~ most of which have sat unread on my shelves, including a number of *classics*.  They made no sense to me.  My prayer life was not reflected within those austere pages.

 Towards the end of this brilliant book which lists over 2 dozen different sorts of prayer, Foster talks about the Prayer of Tears.  I was riveted.  Tears have always been a part of my Christian experience.  Even as a child, even before I would have called myself a Christian of any hue, God & tears went together in my experience.

In some ways it is easier to define this by what it is not.  It is not crying.  It may be anguished sobbing but not usually.  It is more a slow leaking of water from the tear ducts & one has absolutely no control over it.  Indeed, at times, it has been so much a part of prayer I was avoiding prayer because as soon as I shut my eyes the Spirit descended & this slow leaking of water began!   Praise, which is a type of prayer, is likely to bring it on.  Highly inconvienient!  There one is happily warbling out the hymn & a single word, a line, brings Christ sharply into focus & off I go like a waterlogged cat!

It is not selfhish tears ~ & I have wept enough of those to know the difference!  It is not the sort of crying one does before the Lord when times are tough & you want relief, or you've done something stupid & have to tell, or even when you are begging for the salvation of a loved one.  Nope.  The tears of which I speak are generated by a movement of the Holy Spirit.  One can be chipper as as one goes into prayer & within moments the tears are falling.  Stop praying & the tears immediately disappear.

So I will just mention a few of the areas where the prayer of tears seems to really like operating ~ at least as I have experienced this.

. Adoration.  Seriously, the Holy Spirit really gets up a head of steam when we enter fully into praise & worship of the Lord Jesus Christ.  I have had to stand there, completely unable to sing, the tears rolling uncontrollably down my cheeks while the Spirit highlights all that Christ has done for me.

. Breaking.  There seems to be a movement of the Spirit when He is doing a work in us that will bring us to tears.  I do not mean weeping as you may have experienced when true repentance comes upon you.  I do not mean crying per se.  It is more a sensitivity to the Spirit where even the lightest touch of Christ brings us to our kness in love & adoration ~ & with that comes the tears.

. Healing ~ especially emotional healing.

. Intercession.  I am not an intercessor but there have been times when I have been very aware of the Spirit grieving over mankind, over the state the world is in & there is a peculiar sense of sharing the burden which comes with tears. It is as though God was showing me His heart.  Just a tad overwhelming.

There is a good deal more to prayer than I think we will ever understand on this side of glory.  It is a peculiar kind of conversation but at it's heart lies a mystery.  The prayer of tears is more mysterious than most.  So often I have no idea why, let alone what God is trying to convey to me.  Sometimes He gives me a sense; sometimes not.  It doesn't matter.  What matters is the response to the touch of God.  God is talking.  The God of the universe.  The one who made the sun & the moon & the stars.  Is that amazing or what?!

And then there was *Prayer School*...

"No one is a firmer believer in the power of prayer than the devil; not that he practices it, but he suffers from it." ~ Guy H. King

One of the things I have been enjoying most about school is a peculiar little non~subject called *Prayer School*.  Strictly speaking it's not a subject.  Strictly speaking it is for practising different aspects of prayer.  That alone had my interest.  I am always interested in the different ways people like to connect with God ~ though I rarely run into people as odd as we are.  I say we because Dearest is part of the church prayer team & as such was included in a special prayer meeting on Saturday.  I'll get there but first things first.

Over the years God has gone to great pains to teach me about different sorts of prayer.  I practised first & learnt about them later ~ including the use of tongues, which for me was always done very quietly in my own prayer closet & never for public consumption, partly because it was something first imparted from the Lord Himself & not something I got from the laying on of anybody's hands.  Dearest is even weirder because for years he swore black & blue he did not speak in tongues.  He would not speak in tongues.  And he was never about to speak in tongues.  Then one night I found him deep in prayer muttering away to himself ~ & yep, he was praying in tongues.  It took him quite a while to accept it but I wasn't the only one to hear him so eventually he had to admit he too prays in tongues.

Anyway some stuff I have always gravitated to naturally ~ such as praying the scriptures, which just makes sense to me.  After all, these are words straight from the Holy Spirit himself.  And silence.  I learnt the art of Listening for God ~ something I believe more Christians need to learn instead of doing all the talking themselves!  I understand the importance of praise but I am a quiet person & exuberant worship does not come naturally to me & it is an area I have struggled in, just as I have disliked getting instructions to do this that or the other just as I'm sinking deep into prayer!  Hmmm.....I still generally find myself slightly left of centre.

Anyway our church is quite some distance away & it's not cheap to travel constantly so Dearest has never gone over for the regular prayer meetings.  Now Rhema was not discouraged by this.  They collated a blank calender & at the end of every month Dearest sends this in with me with everything he's received from the Lord in prayer marked down. The prayer leader keeps in contact via e~mail & she uses Dearest a lot because he gets revelation & insight.  He also has plenty of alone time to get deep in prayer!  We are not the only ones.  Many people travel quite big distances to attend this church [yes, it's that good!] so the church decided to organise a special day & see if they couldn't pull most of the prayer team together.  Dearest, Dino & I all went over for it.

The theme for the day was finding your place along the wall in one of the watch towers.  I firmly believe that every Christian needs to be doing this.  That way everything gets covered & no~one need feel overwhelmed because the need is so great, the prayer warriors so few.  The theme followed through for this week's *Prayer School*.  We were asked to identify anything we carry constantly in prayer.  For me this is easy.  I have such a sense of the nearness of Christ's return & the need for His people to prepare, to be ready, to bring in the harvest that it is never very far from my thoughts.  And I am aware that even in many Christian circles this makes me more than a little weird.

However today we teamed up in groups with like minded individuals to pray out the heart of God.  To my great amusement I was lobbed in with the evangelical crowd ~ which ironically does make sense; after all, they too have a sense of the impending arrival of Christ, & thus a heart for the harvest.  And it was super.  Liddy, my Liddy, towards the end the Holy Spirit led us to pray particularly for the labourers already in the field & you came very strongly on my heart.  It was really impressed on me that the Lord is with you, strengthening you for the work.  He is pleased with you.  So you go, girl.

Now I just have to figure out what the prayer of tears is all about & why I keep landing in that particular prayer spot.  I am over it ~ particularly in public venues! Hmmm...

I love spring anywhere, but if I could choose I would always greet it in a garden.  ~Ruth Stout

I think it is Spring.  There is that certain something in the air & both boys are eager to be out the door in the morning, sniffing the crisp air delicately saturated with an indefinable warmth....

I think it is Spring.  The birds are calling erotically.  Soon there will be eggs, swoopings, the plaintive, monotonous call of the baby cuckoos whose frantic adoptive parents are unable to sate the appetite.

I think it is Spring.  The wind has swung round to the west, but not so cold as it was.  The road to school, so drab all winter, is lightly painted with gold.  Soon the Brisbane wattles, thick as weeds, will burst into a golden shower & the sun will dance amongst the glittering gold with the busy bees.

I think it is Spring.  In the beginning God created a garden....such a garden as this where the land froths abundantly pouring its riches forth from the cornucopia of heaven.  Don't you love the burgeoning?  The way God's generosity overflows?  Go forth & multiply, He said.  In Spring I know exactly why....

Gab it 'n' Grab it.

Never despise the days of Preparation ~ Joe Doran.

When I first came across the term, Gab it 'n' grab it, I admit I was highly amused.  It expressed only too well my opinion of certain sections of Christianity ~ you know, the sharp suits with their hands always out stating that if you sowed into their ministry your return would be a hundredfold as they fleeced the sheep.  Um, thank you for asking, but no.

With that mindset a subject on prosperity wasn't getting me dancing up & down with excitement.  Now don't get me wrong.  I believe, always have, that God desires to bless His people ~ but I didn't want to be greedy, you know.  After all, there is so much need in the world & I already live in a 1st world country so I am blessed beyond measure before I begin. As so often happens when a teaching gets skewered & turns people off I actually missed the point.

Prosperity was taught by a visiting preacher, Joe Doran.  From the moment I clapped eyes on him I had an epiphany.  I sensed this man was really full of the Holy Spirit ~ & so I was prepared to pay attention.  What's more he had just, on the Holy Spirit's say so, up~rooted his entire family to serve around the world for a whole year.  He had left behind his business, a nice house, his position in his church ~ & his income! Okaaaaay......

God amuses me.  I think Dino was going a bit nuts but I don't think there were too many ways I was going to get this teaching & for me Joe was perfect because he drifted ~ sometimes a long way ~ but he was following the Spirit's leading & he spoke more about following the Spirit's leading than he did about money.  This I understood.  He spoke about following the Spirit's prompting with our giving.  Again this made perfect sense, at least to me.  Finally he pointed out we should want to be blessed because the more we are blessed the more we have to give & this is God's provision for all His people.  Light~bulb moment.

Within that framework the tithe starts to make sense.  What's more, again, following the Spirit's lead, if we allow the desires of our hearts to be the desires God plants then He will also provide.  So....I am doing some rethinking.  Reading the scriptures.  Listening for the Holy Spirit.  Because it is not about selfishness.  It is about advancing the kingdom of God.

  Just so you know, I cannot abide wanton cruelty & I think people who acquire an animal then abandon it when it has no means of adequately fending for itself are the scum of the earth.  And those who see an animal in distress & walk on by are not much better. Grrrrr......

A neighbour found this beautiful tortie in her yard but thinking it a mangy old thing left it there, untended, seriously dehydrated, starved, desperate for a little affection, to die.  To Dearest's fury I brought it home, eye~dropped water into it throughout the day, sat it on a hot water bottle well wrapped in blankets & gave it a little loving attention as I passed, & looked for a no kill shelter that might be able to help out.  

Sadly she didn't make it but every time I came by she lifted her head a little, looking for the tickle between the ears, rolling her head so I could chuck her under the chin, trying desperately to meow & purr from sheer gratitude.  She was obviously a beautiful natured cat with a very loving generous nature & such a sad waste.

I know we have too many feral cats ~ but not the cats' fault.  It is human's thinking only of their windy self~importance, taking no heed for the world they live in that are at fault.  I am so angry that any animal should have ended up in such a state, so desperate for just a little love.  Thank you, my beautiful Star, for your loving & generous help.  May your Star always shine bright!

Where is the Love?

"The Church must send or the church will end." — Mendell Taylor




I have the oddest thinks.
I don't post much on FB.  Purely from a practical viewpoint my computer is more than likely to have a conniption & melt down all over cyberspace.  For another my FB page bothers me.  It has bothered me for some time but seeing as what I do on FB [mostly] is play games I have let it ride & let it ride as if by ignoring the whole thing it would just go away & I wouldn't have to think  'cause thinking hurts, dontcha know.

My friends list divides pretty evenly into *Christian* & non~Christian.  I imagine most of my Christian friends have the same thing  Every so often something so questionable hits my wall I have to delete it but that doesn't bother me too much.  That's what the delete button is for & seriously, what else can anyone expect from those who don't know Christ yet?

What is far more bothersome is what hits my wall from Christians.  Now don't get me wrong.  I appreciate enormously the encouraging notes, the pretty pics, the links to interesting articles, you tube clips, sermons etc but more & more I have been struck by something that is making me rethink even keeping my FB page.

Nowhere in my bible can I find an injunction to argue with fellow believers over doctrine.  Yet more often than not that is what I see happening ~ not from those actually on my friend's list but there seems to be a general thing in Christian circles where Christians wade in boots & all to argue doctrine to the death with other Christians ~ after Christ so clearly stated They will know you are my disciples by your love!

And it has struck my rather muddled brain that if we were actually doing what Christ asked us to do & expending our energy proclaiming the Good News to those who have not heard it & demonstrating Christ's love to those who do not know it we would be far less likely to be involved in vain arguements ~ because I have yet to see anyone actually change their opinion over what gets posted on FB.

I do understand we are to study the Word to ensure we are not in error ~ we are to study ~ because it is the Spirit who leads us into all Truth.  What has left a bitter taste in my mouth is that in the name of proclaiming the truth Christians have waged an internal war that is an incredibly poor witness to unbelievers.  Given the sheer savagery with which some commentators express their opionion [backed by scripture] I don't wonder why the world wants nothing to do with us when we know [or should know] it is the kindness of God that leads us to repentance. [Rom.2:4]

So is it just me or does this bother others also?  And what is the answer?

Jesus is not an idea...

I imagine you are all tired of me rabbiting on about school but then I'm not doing much else just now ~ not even singing ~ & trust me, my housework woes are dull beyond belief.  Eight loads of washing today because the lad's been fishing as well as needing his school stuff done.  Still that is better than waiting while the auto~electrician pronounced judgement on the car, which is what Dino did for me this morning.

Meanwhile both Dearest & Star, who is almost never sick, are both down with a most virulent lurgy. Ick!  I am fighting it off tooth & nail.  I cannot afford to be sick.  Not at any price.

Star has her piece of paper stating she has been trained to teach reading to the struggling readers & is just waiting on her Blue Card arriving so she can get going.  She's pretty peeved though as the powers that be managed to misspell her name & if there's one thing Star cannot abide it is seeing her name spelt wrong!  Meanwhile our church bulletin managed to get both my first & last names wrong! Um, yeah...

And Star, who really does go off the air rather blatantly, arrived home just a little shell shocked having thought she was sitting at the back of the classroom to find that, no indeed! She was in the very front row & having mistaken the teacher for some stray mother!  What can I say?  Star is always immense fun.  Meanwhile she has found herself sharing classroom space with people she's known all her life, which I guess is a good thing, but they are just that bit older enough to take a proprietary & motherly outlook for Star!  Even without her mother in tow she gets mothered! lol

I have finished my assignment on hermeneutics; just have O.T people of faith to go.  I am surprising myself by how much I have actually retained over the years ~ retained & actually practised without ever having stopped to analyze it.  It gives me a head start, which I am appreciating enormously.  Most of the history I have ~ which can be frustrating if I catch errors & though I understand not getting the whole class bogged down in unimportant details I can be pernicky. *sigh*

Now the cats have stuffed their faces they are both looking for cuddles so I guess I am occupied for the rest of the evening.  Blessings on all my bloggity friends.

Not the Same God.

Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.  ~G.K Chesterton




I'm not much good at Apologetics.  Apologetics requires logic & logic is not my strong suit.  Besides, I hate arguing about stuff.  During the course of a misspent life I've discovered most people aren't shifted by logic anyway.  They just go on thinking whatever they want to think.  So when I run into something that is simple, straightforward & irrefutable I am delighted beyond words!
When we got given our seating arrangements for this term I rather felt for my seat~mate.  She is one of the loud exuberant charismatics ~ & she got landed with me!   I'm not sure if the powers that be had twigged but we actually get on rather well together. S~M thinks I radiate a deep peace.  If only she knew!  She is a generous soul with a sharp eye for freebies & so an assortment of things have landed on my desk over the weeks.  One of those things was a free paper called Eternity which, though very thin, had some surprisingly interesting articles.  What caught my eye was this little gem on Islam & Christianity that took place on a Melbourne Uni campus.

Now you don't have to be overly conversant with Islam to realise that Muslims & Christians do not speak the same language when it comes to religion but I've lost count of the number of times I've heard people mutter inanely, But we all worship the same God.  We don't.  There are any number of good reasons why that is just not true but a good debater can tie most Christians up in knots in no time at all & the argument goes no~where & nothing like the truth gets spoken.  I know Uni campuses all too well.  It's not about being right.  It's not about being true.  It's about being clever enough to win. *sigh*

I guess Bernie Power knows Uni campuses too because he didn't even try to defend a Christian position.  He did something so simple a child could do it & defend the faith.  He asked all the Muslims in the room to raise their hands & to lower them when they heard something they disagreed with then ~ joy, delight, dancing a little jig here ~ he began to recite the Apostle's Creed.  You know...

I believe in God the Father Almighty,
Maker of Heaven & Earth....

At the word *Father* some hands went down.

And in Jesus Christ, His only son, our Lord.....most hands dropped.

He was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
Born of the Virgin Mary,
Suffered under Pontious Pilate
Was crucified, died & was buried... & every hand in the room went down ~ & not even halfway through a creed that was one of the Church's earliest statements of faith & which lays out the fundamentals accepted by most Christian denominations no matter what colour, shape or denomination!

Irrefutable.  Because the Muslims could not deny that they did not believe what the creed stated.  Yay for Bernie Power!

"If you think practicing what you preach is rough, just try preaching what you practice." ~ Baxter, Bowen

Besides the Star doing her starry thing we have had a car on the blink again.  Not fun with our early morning temps hovering around 4 degrees C.

I have been wading through assignments  ~ some with more enthusiasim than others.  Sadly Evangelism 1~o~1 is never going to be my favourite subject.  I understand but I hate the practical element & it has been driven home with a vengance this fortnight.

Firstly the practical witness day was a shocker.  Unbeknown to us we hit one of the most spiritually resistant shopping centres around.  I sensed this through the spirit but academic that I am I was focused on meeting the critea for the assignment instead of listening to what the Spirit was actually telling me. Duh!  I know.  I know.  I'm a little slow that way sometimes.

Anyway, having beaten myself up over yet another witnessing failure I was given the opportunity to preach again.  Seriously, mousy little me who thinks people have the right to go to hell if that's what they want without being badgered as they go about their own business, has no problems getting up in front of a crowd & proclaiming.  I just don't.  Everything I've been told about the street witness happens for me when I preach.  I know the anointing is on me.  It is tangible.  I sense the presence of the Holy Spirit so strongly I literally start "quaking" ~ an experience the early Quakers were very familiar with!  I know I have a calling on my life to do this ~ which helps enormously!  None of which stops me getting in a tizz prior but as soon as I stand to speak the anointing is there & with it comes incredible focus, the peace that passes all understanding & the sense that I am exactly where God wants me to be doing exactly what He wants me to do.

Just the same one of the reasons I am in bible school just now is to do with preaching.  God wanted me to change the way I went about things because being academically minded I did my reasearch.  I noted all my reference verses.  I wrote down exactly what I wanted to say & I timed it for exactly the 20 minutes I am usually allowed.  I know how to do public speaking from notes.  I have all the moves down pat.  The thought of trying to do all that without my stalwat bits of paper did not make me a happy me ~ & yet that is exactly what God wanted me to do: Ditch my handy bits of paper & get up close & personal. Oh.  My.

I knew I was to speak on the Holy Spirit.  I can rabbit on about the Holy Spirit ad infinitum!  I nearly did.  I love how the Lord leads & the good things that happen when He is in control.  He showed me how to lead with questions so that I had people thinking & engaging, not just sitting back like stunned mullet.  And he had me practically in the front rows laps!  Um, yeah....

Dino, who came along, had some good pointers on things I need to do a bit differently another time but he seemed to think it went ok.  I can never tell. I am so caught up in conveying what God wants said I'm not cognizant of much else.

The first time you try something new is always the roughest ~ & we haven't done Preaching 1~0~1 yet!  I expect there's a lot of room for improvement.  I expect I will learn something new.  Meanwhile if God is prepared to work with me as I am, I am prepared to speak his word.  With boldness even. And with great joy.

I own my curves...The Star


 Seventeen years ago Dearest & I did a very late run to the mainland where we spent an exhausting night encouraging our reluctant youngest into the world; a world where she has expected to shine as its brightest STAR ever since.

Seventeen years.  My baby hardly qualifies as my baby any more & yet whenever I look at her I still see, through the lying patina of the years, the dimpled, roly~poly with the crinkled red curls who had so inexplicably  wedged herself across my pelvis till she could neither turn  nor straighten through the long hours of the night.  We were very glad when she finally got her act together & emerged bright eyed & bushy~tailed to exert her charms on all & sundry.

She spent her special day in Performance at Cooparoo.  What can I say?  Happy as a lark in mud.

Tomorrow she heads up to the island school ~ the first time ever the child will be spending a prolonged period of time in a public school classroom ~ as she has put her name down to be trained for the reading program.  Somehow I think she will make rather a good teacher.  She's firm but very fair & she has a great sense of humour! Wow.  I can remember teaching her to read ~ an exceptionally easy task with a little chocolate as bribery!  It hardly seems possible so much time has passed ~ & yet it has.  Inexorably.   All those years ago the nurses ribbed me about never ever putting the child down.  She was held & cuddled 24/7 ~ if only because, as I pointed out, there were 4 others at home all competing for my attention so once home I was unlikely to have another opportunity like this.  I did not know my Star.  No~one gets to ingore the Star!

Next year we will have to put her celebrations on hold till our Liddy gets home.  That is going to be one very special get together!  Twelve months & counting down...

Big personality.  Quirky.