Prayerfully, you were challenged to examine yourself through yesterday’s devotional. I had ample opportunity to think through and discuss the necessity of our discipleship and mission in Christ to challenge the norms and values of this world (carnal) with the values of His kingdom (Spiritual). Glory to God that many endeavor to walk worthy in this regard – being consistent in our display of the Kingdom of God with love, mercy, grace, humility, justice, and honor.
To begin our continued devotional look through Whisper and Untamed, I want to highlight the following quote by H. Richard Niebuhr, “The great Christian revolutions came not by the discovery of something that was not known before. They happen when someone takes radically something that was always there”.
That is key. We are not after some novel ideas to “live our best life now”. Much of what we talk about through these devotions, the very things that will enable us to see God’s glory in and through our lives, are simply truths we must take seriously.
The Bravest Prayer
In Whisper, Mark Batterson talks about the “bravest prayer”, and goes on to write,
“By bravest prayer I mean the prayer you can barely believe God for because it seems impossible. It’s often the prayer you’ve prayed 100 times that hasn’t been answered, but you pray it one more time anyway (whisper)”.
“…God doesn’t answer 100 percent of the prayers we don’t pray!”.
“…the genesis of every blessing, every breakthrough is the breath of God. It started out as nothing more than a still small voice”.
He then gives us some insight on how we might begin to nurture opportunities to hear that “whisper” that God is able to do immeasurably more than we think is possible (cf. Ephesians 3:20).
Silence
“Silence is anything but passive waiting. It’s proactive listening. The noted author and professor Henri Nouwen believed that silence was an act of war against the competing voices within us. And that was isn’t easily won, because it’s a daily battle. But each day God’s voice gets a little louder in our lives until He’s all we can hear. “Every time you listen with great attentiveness to the voice that calls you the Beloved”, said Nouwen, “you will discover within yourself a desire to hear that voice longer and more deeply”.
“Remember the voice can only reproduce what the ear can hear. I’m not sure what problem you need to solve or what issue you need to resolve, but my prayer is that you’ll learn to discern His voice”.
“I would recommend an eight day rest at the beginning and end of the day – a few moments to collect our thoughts, count our blessings, and pray our prayers.”.
As we move over to think through aspects of disciple, Alan Hirsch highights how our Spirituality transcends self-growth, but rather is emphasized through our mission. We grow in Christ and are discipled as we authentically live out our love for God and love for our neighbor in creative, caring, honest, and mighty ways.
Alan makes the following remarks in Untamed;
Read the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4-9; Mark 12:28-31)
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength”.
“Jesus explicitly places the Shema at the epicenter of what it means to be a true disciple – to love God, to love others, and to live this out authentically in God’s world. We believe that we must simply take Jesus at face value here; He is saying that “Shema spirituality” is core to the outworking of our discipleship – our life under God”.
“We have a God-given responsibility to the world around us. The fact is that you can’t be a disciple without being a missionary: no mission, no discipleship”.
Let’s pray that God will give us opportunities to find silence through our practice of spiritual disciples today. Lift up silence and prayer to God. Go for a walk and seek silence. Read Scripture and then meditate in silence. And of course, let’s continue to love God and our neighbors at every opportunity we get, to the extent that is our natural intentional reality.
By His ever-renewing & mighty grace,
Pastor Michael Miano