How do you steal from a giant?

In the classic fairy tale “Jack and the Beanstalk”, Jack is a young lad living with his widowed mother. Their only means of income is a cow. When this cow stops giving milk Jack is sent to the market to sell it. On the way, he meets an old man who offers to give him "magic" beans in exchange for the cow. Jack takes the beans but when he arrives home with no money and no cow, his mother gets angry and throws the beans out the window, sending him to bed without supper.

As Jack sleeps, the beans grow into a gigantic beanstalk. The next day, Jack climbs it and arrives in a land high up in the sky. There he follows a road to the home of an ogre. He enters the house and asks the ogre's wife for food. She complies, but the ogre appears and senses that a human is nearby:

“Fee-fi-fo-fum,” chants the ogre, “I smell the blood of an Englishman. Be he alive, or be he dead I'll have his bones to grind my bread!”

Jack is hidden by the ogre's wife, overhears him counting his money, and bravely steals a bag of gold coins as he makes his escape down the beanstalk. Jack repeats his journey two more times, each time he is helped by the increasingly suspicious ogress and narrowly escapes with one of her husband’s treasures.

During Jack’s third venture, he wakes the ogre up from his afternoon nap and the chase is on. Jack is almost caught, but chops the beanstalk down before his pursuer reaches the ground, killing the ogre. Jack and his mother then live happily ever after with their new riches.

Jack and his mother were probably not people of faith. But his mother’s questions: “What do we need to do to get money?” and “Why doesn’t God answer my prayer?” are answered by Jesus anyway. In John 9:3, Jesus answers the question of why prayers may or may not be answered. In Luke 18, He reminds us ‘how’ the simple intricacies of prayer work and in Luke 11, He tells us ‘what’ we need to do so God might work on our behalf. If Jack and his mother were asking any questions of God, it was this third one. All three of these questions have been addressed elsewhere (see “Why do Bad things happen to Good People?”, “Miracle on Fox Street” and “We’ve Got to Pray Just to Make it Today!”). Here we will focus on the question which Jack and his mother were asking. “How do I steal from a giant?”

In short, the answer is persistence. We may conclude: “if I see the giant once, I don’t want to see him again. He freaks me out!” and persistence is the last thing on our minds. I am sure that when Jack first saw the enormous house in front of him, he wondered why he climbed the bean stock in the first place. But his need for food was so great that he was determined to press on, rather than make his way, slowly and sheepishly back to his angry mother.

But in Luke 11, Jesus tells the story of a man who goes to his friend at midnight and, like Jack, asks for bread. Here the stories change, but the lesson is the same. In Jesus’ story, the man continues to knock on the door which remains shut. The only response he hears is a voice saying “Go away!” In Jack’s situation, though I am sure he was shaking in his shoes, the words of the ogress are kind. In Luke 11, we don’t know what the persistent knocker said to those on the inside, But Jesus says: “though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, it is because of your shameless audacity that he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.” (Luke 11:8) In the same way, the only way that Jack got what he got was by pleading, persisting and stealing.

Therefore, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door (however big it is) will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” (Luke 11:9-10)

Song 1-23-12

King David is famous for writing down his prayers. If he didn’t, we would not know how to pray. But did you know that fifty-six other authors wrote their own personal prayers which ended up in the Bible? Just as each psalm is different, each author provides a different slant to how they see and experience the work of God in their lives.

The following prayer is how I saw God work in my life this past week. And I learned again that writing down my prayers rather than just saying and then forgetting them is a practice well worth repeating.

Just as the psalms show us a plethora of emotions, none of our feelings make us unfit to approach God. Like keeping a diary, writing down your prayers is an act I encourage heartily. But if you can’t do that yet, start by reading Psalms and let them be your prayer. That’s what they are there for!

God, why is it that You raise my hopes,

Only to dash them against the rocks?

Why is it that You get me excited about life,

And then it slips through my fingers?

You made me this way.

You knew exactly what You were doing.

But like a child with a dog, You play ‘keep away’

You are playing this game with my heart,

with the things I desire most.

You say, “Here is your opportunity!”

only to change Your mind a millisecond later!

God, You are the reason why I live.

You were healing me before and after I left my mother’s womb

And I will never stop praising You because my gratitude to You is immense!

But why are You making things so hard?

You say “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle

Than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

But is it also easier for a camel to take this same passage

Than for a man who tries to do right to be satisfied?

I am making mistakes left, right and centre

and You do not notice.

If You do, You sit in Heaven and laugh.

You say, ”Oh, he fell. He messed up!”

Why is it that You do this?

God, I don’t know what to do!

I don’t know how to live!

Teach me how!

Lord Jesus, be magnified in the opportunities I miss.

May Your power be magnified in the balls I drop.

They are not mistakes I make

more than they are mistakes You make.

You created me and knew exactly what You were doing.

And You were pleased.

The mistakes I make, are You pleased with them?

Do You want me to continue in my fumbling ways?

They drive me nuts, but if they praise You than by all means!

I desire to praise You because that is true life.

You have made my hands frail

so that what I drop, You can catch.

Catch me! Catch the ones I care about!

And may You be honoured by my fumbling ways.

Daring God

Two times in the gospel of Matthew (Matt 3:17, 17:5) and twice in the Gospel of Mark (Mk 1:11, 9:7) we hear about God’s pleasure with His Son Jesus Christ. “It’s easy to love Jesus,” we might think, “he was perfect after all!” We may conclude: “God loved Jesus that much because He was with Him since the beginning of time, therefore they have a very strong relationship.” Or “God loves Jesus so much because God knew that Jesus was 100% obedient to his every beckon call. How could you not love a son like that?”

The next time you ask these questions, I challenge you to dare God. Ask Him something like this: “God, I’m harder to love. I dare you to love me like that. I’m not that Holy you know!” Talk to Him about the things that make you both lovable and loathable, a Superman and a sissy and listen to his response.

Next, take those verses and make a slight change to each one. Each of them says something like this: ”This is my son, whom I love very much. I couldn’t be happier with Him.” For this exercise, I encourage you to paraphrase the Bible slightly so it says something like this: “I am your son / daughter; whom you love very much, you couldn’t be happier with me.” Then put these words on repeat in your mind as you go through your day and see how you feel at the end.

I can hear you objecting: “I thought Christ’s purity and Godliness was what set Him apart from the rest of mankind. God could love Him because Jesus could hold His side of the bargain. But I can’t. So therefore, I can’t talk to God like that.”

And you’re right, he is the only one who can do this. But He is willing to hold up your side of the bargain as well.

The question is: do you want Him too? He will accept your dare!

High Five

Lectio Divina is a Latin term meaning ‘holy reading.’ This centuries old practice of prayer and meditation involves reading passages of scripture several times. All the time listening to what God might be telling you through what you read or hear. Earlier this year, I was introduced to this spiritual practice and have recently begun practicing it with a close friend.
One of the passages Pete and I read recently was the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13). While we read and reread it, we talked about what words or verses had impacted us. Pete wondered allowed why Jesus had asked for God’s “kingdom to come soon” (v10a). As God incarnate, couldn’t He have ordered God’s kingdom to arrive at any time? My query came a few verses later.
In verse twelve, Jesus prays for God to “forgive us our sins, just as we have forgiven those who have sinned against us.” As I read and listened to this passage, I realized how soul shaking this idea is. If I ask God to forgive me for my sins in the same way that I forgive those who sin against me, I’d better do a pretty thorough job of forgiving other people.
When he walked around town, Jesus knew how to forgive people thoroughly. Whether it involved someone being healed (Mark 2:1-12, Luke 5:17-26), caught in adultery (John 8:1-11), or dying for the people He was forgiving, (Luke 23:34, 23:43) Jesus was in the business of offering absolute forgiveness. Instead of offering absolute forgiveness however, we may offer partial forgiveness to others, but expect absolute forgiveness from God. An example of partial forgiveness versus God’s absolute forgiveness is found in Matthew 18:21-35 where Jesus tells the story of the unmerciful servant.
In the story, Jesus talked about a banker who came to collect his dues, but the debtor was unable to pay him. The debtor begged, “please have patience with me sir, and I will repay you everything.” Instead of charging interest, the banker forgave the man outright of his debt. The forgiven debtor must have been at least a little grateful. But instead of expressing joy at what had just happened, he pounced with rage upon a colleague of his who owed him a tiny percentage of what he had once owed.
The second debtor pleaded, “Please, please have patience with me sir, and I will repay you everything.”
Instead of forgiving the man, or simply adding interest to the man’s debt, he demanded that the man be tortured until he paid the measly amount he owed.
After hearing rumors of this, the banker then called the forgiven debtor into his office to set the record straight. “Didn’t I let you off the hook from paying me that huge debt? What is this I hear about you torturing a man who could not pay you? That’s it, your debt has been reinstated, and you must pay me every cent!”
The morel of Christ’s story is known as the Golden Rule: “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” (Luke 6:31) Or, as I heard recently from a colleague of mine: “Forgive me as I forgive.” Mr. Stevens calls this the “High Five” rule as each of the five fingers corresponds to a word in his paraphrase.
We often forgive people in light and flippant ways. And we believe that we must sugar coat our wrongs so that forgivers may consider forgiveness as an easy thing to do. But the forgiveness you offer should be based entirely upon the amount of forgiveness you need. As we live in whatever season we find ourselves in, may we forgive as the banker forgave. May we remember that forgiveness is something that everybody needs, and may we be generous to give it in full.

We’ve got to Pray, just to make it today!

In Luke 11, Jesus teaches us how to pray and immediately follows it with a practical story of its importance. In it, a man is confronted at midnight by an acquaintance who knocks on his door and asks for several loaves of bread because a friend of his has just arrived and he has nothing to give him to eat. The man inside counters, “I am warm and comfortable with my wife and children in bed. The door is locked, and I need a good night sleep. So I can’t help you.” The man’s prayer to his friend for help has apparently been denied. But the impact that persistent prayer makes is so remarkable, that it can move the hearts and minds of the healthy about the sick, parents about their children, masters about their pets, and even of God regarding his creation.
In his book, ‘The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God’, Dallas Willard expresses an unfortunate yet common perspective that many share regarding prayer:
“Suppose your children believed that you didn’t do anything differently because they asked you. For example; you will give them money on Friday evening regardless of whether they ask you for it or not. But they also believe that you require them to go through the ritual of asking, and so they do it. . . . They do it even though they believe you will or will not give it to them regardless of what they do, and you know they believe this.”
Is prayer a matter of ritual, or does it involve exercising faith?
In Dr. Randolph Byrd's 1988 study on intercessory prayer, a percentage of 393 coronary patients, who were hospitalized due to heart attacks or equally traumatic experiences, were prayed for, while the remainder were not. The study concluded that whether the patients were receiving prayer from across the street or across the country, distance did not play a role in the effectiveness of the prayers given. And considerably fewer patients, who received prayer, died or needed to use the most potent drugs, not one requiring life support.
We have two cats at our house who regularly meow, demanding that I (or anyone else within earshot) would stop what they are currently doing and attend to their immediate and desperately important need. On most occasions, this involves lifting them up to where their bowl of food is kept, on top of our washing machine. Sometimes I complain, “can’t you jump? It’s not that high!” Or attempt to ignore them entirely. But my frustration with their persistent and distracting noise always results in giving them my attention for at least a second or two so they will stop meowing.
If you were a cat who needed just a little bit of help to get to its food supply or a patient in a hospital who needed healing of some kind, what route would you take to get it? Cats would probably continue to meow and hopefully America would continue to pray for those in need. In Luke 11, the man waiting outside his friend’s house was also persistent, continuously knocking, talking and waiting on his friend to get up and give him what he needed.
If however, the man outside decided to leave, his friend inside would not need to do anything about his situation. However, if the man inside finally did decide to get out of bed, but his friend outside had decided that this situation was a hopeless one and left, he would not be there to receive the things that he had asked for. If my cats had decided to stop meowing and instead lie in front of the fire, they would still be hungry and not be ready to receive another meal from me. And if America had stopped praying for their countrymen in need, they may just die.
How important are the things you are currently praying about? Are they worth waiting for? As the man waited, all the time explaining his situation, repeating his request, and not allowing his friend inside to sleep, his request was finally granted. Are you willing to wait long enough for God to answer? If you do, you may just be rewarded.

Ask and you'll get;
Seek and you'll find;
Knock and the door will open.
Don't bargain with God.
Be direct. Ask for what you need.
This is not a cat-and-mouse, hide-and-seek game we're in.
Don't you think the Father, who loves you, will fulfill your needs when you ask him?
Luke 11: 9-10, 13