Not More Highway!

Guiding Prayer For Our Season of Fasting: 

Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those that trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom,the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.

Myself in Truth

Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.  Amen.

Nurtured and Nurturing 

Father, as I seek to find the calm in the midst of my own personal storms, may you guide me to safer harbors that I might be a light to those around me tossed to and fro by the waves of life.

The Gathered

May the peace of our God and Father, our Lord Jesus Christ, and Holy Spirit, three in one, invade the walls of our community of faith, filling us to overflowing, that we might take peace, healing, wholeness into a lost and broken world.

Challenge

Today you will learn a new type of prayer called The Jesus Prayer.  Your challenge today is to attempt to spend at least 5 consecutive minutes praying this prayer.

Growing up, we would take a big, family vacation about every 3rd summer or so.  This usually consisted of packing up the old family minivan and trucking halfway across this great nation of ours while vainly holding on to the hope that the 5 human beings who first stepped into the car in Waco, TX would all make the return trip from wherever we landed.  Two adults and three kids make for cramped spaces and power kegs of wants and desires ready to explode with the slightest spark. (Yes, we were the family who would use pillows, tape, or any other possible device necessary to mark off the boundaries between kids in the back seats, all with the same disastrous results as the rest of you have experienced)

On one now infamous vacation as we were beginning to make our way home from somewhere near the Eastern seaboard, we began to exit one highway and merge onto another.  My younger sister who could not have been more than about 6 or 7 years old at the time, apparently thought that by exiting the first highway we were somehow miraculously near our home.  Upon seeing the next highway she frustratingly uttered three words that have been etched into Broaddus Family lore, "Not more highway!"

How many of us, at different times in our lives, have felt as if we have finally managed to make it out of one of life's storms only to see the next storm lurking on the horizon?  We, like my sister, want to yell out, "Not more highway!!!!"  Life can sometimes feel like an endless cycle of tasks, frustrations, appointments, chores and responsibilities that will never be finished.  It leaves us feeling empty, used up, and deflated.

How are we to combat the constant strain and stress our schedules and responsibilities place on our lives?  Often times we wish or pray that God would just make them all disappear.  This leaves us disappointed more often than not as this prayer seems to go unanswered.  But, maybe there is a better way to approach our busy lives.  Maybe, instead of asking God to take away the busyness or struggles of our lives, we can ask God to be there with us in the midst of them.

I want to teach you a simple, yet powerful prayer you can pray when you find yourself in the midst of life's storms and are in need of the reassuring presence of God in your life.  It's called The Jesus Prayer.  It's very simple.  You simply prayer: Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. 

You pray this simple phrase over and over, allowing those words to fill your mind, fill your thoughts, and fill your soul as you recognize God's presence is truly with you.  It almost can become like a chant as you speak the words with the rising and the falling of your breath.  But allow the words to sink deep into your mind and take over the busyness that is desiring to overwhelm you and take over your life.

In those moments you want to scream, "Not more highways!!!", take a moment instead to pray to God, inviting his presence onto the highways of your life!