Themes for prayer

I often say to myself when I am getting a bit bored praying "You should never be short of themes for prayer.". I just need to engage my brain a bit more and think before i disengage from prayer.

There always sick amongst us, there are those who are going through trials and hard times, there is your family, your friends, your town, your neighbours, your nation, other nations, watch the news, read a news paper. Plenty to be getting on with....

The priestly garments

Exodus 28: 11 – 12 Engrave the names of the sons of Israel on the two stones the way a gem cutter engraves a seal. Then mount the stones in gold filigree settings and fasten them on the shoulder pieces of the ephod as memorial stones for the sons of Israel. Aaron is to bear the names on his shoulders as a memorial before the LORD.

We need to carry people on our shoulders in prayer.....

Exodus 28: 29 Whenever Aaron enters the Holy Place, he will bear the names of the sons of Israel over his heart on the breastpiece of decision as a continuing memorial before the LORD.

We need to have people over our hearts when we pray.....

What’s the difference between the heart and the shoulders? Over the heart and on the shoulders? Your shoulders are strong and can take it, your heart is soft and feels it.

If you solely carry people on your shoulders it is just a function, if you carry them on your heart as well it is a life long call.

“Let my heart be broken with the things that break God’s heart” Bob Pierce. The heart to me suggest compassion.

I've been keeping a book, writing peoples names in it, and using it in my prayer times.I don't know about you but I would often say to people that I would pray for them but forget to do it, or offer up some bland thought prayer when they entered my mind and I felt guilty! I keep a book so that i do what I say I will do. This is so when people ask you to pray for them you keep your word, you get to be a part in a secret history. You can say to people with assurance “I will pray for you” Over the last few months i have in many ways crafted prayers for individuals, added little bits etc... and it's really helped me. I'm not saying any of this to show off, just found it helpful and wanted to share it.

I also keep a journal, I use it as God speaks to me from the bible, through nature or other random happenings. I write little quotes in it, prayers of repentance in it, stick things in it whatever really and it helps me.

Once I engage my brain I don't struggle so much for themes, I love painted prayers, I love meditating on objects with God in mind, I enjoy mulling over a bible verse in prayer, etc, etc.....

Prevailing Prayer

Prevailing is definitely an old school word, but I like it, that whole sense of hanging on, not letting go....

Jeremiah 13 : 17 I will weep in secret because of your pride; my eyes will weep bitterly, overflowing with tears, because the LORD's flock will be taken captive.

Jeremiah was prevailing for his people in prayer. Prevailing means persevering and inducing.

It’s that sense of keeping on keeping on! Overcoming, probably with a sense of victory....

It's like Jacob in Genesis 32 wrestling with the angel saying “I will not let go”. Kind of praying that is a hard slog in one direction and can go on for years and years. I prevail for my wife and children, I won't stop, I'll always pray for them.

One gardener said to another gardener “How is it your seed comes up so soon?” the other gardener replied “Because I steep it”

Steep according to wikipedia means: To soak an item (or to be soaked) in liquid in order to gradually add or remove components to or from the item

We need to steep people and situations with prayer. I often tell stories on this blog of our little mad adventures in the west end and some of the exciting things that happen to us. The stories are great but the reason I believe they happen is because we prevail in prayer.

Martin Luther the great protestant reformer was over heard by a guy called Theodorus whilst he prayed. Theodorus said this “I overheard him in prayer, but, good God, with what life and spirit did he pray! It was with so much reverence, as if he where speaking to God, yet with so much confidence as if he were speaking to his friend”

This man prevailed in life because he prevailed in prayer.

I recently heard a great man called Ken Mcreavy speak he said "We only have history that is seen we don’t see the secret history", the secret of our breakthroughs may not be in the fact that we are gifted and anointed but that someone prays for us. Steeps us in prayer. Many a person who has done and accomplished great things has had people in the background praying.

My father prays, prevails in prayer, for me every day. It is more likely that he and others like him are the secret to our success as a pose to our own giftedness.

Thye exciting thing is that we can also participate in secret histories by prevailing in prayer.

Prayer for life

Matthew 5: 14 – 16 You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.

I honestly believe prayer will assist you in how you are viewed in life.

I heard this once and really like it "You are your neighbours bible!"

Prayer may not make you eloquent in your natural human self but it will on another level make you very eloquent. Prayer will start to produce in you the ability to speak fluently from the heart. To live from the heart. This will shine before men. People somehow know if you have been with God, prayer will give you a realness in life. Although I have met the occasional prayer warrior who is so disconnected from reality they may as well move on to heaven!.

I am increasingly convinced that living as a person who spends a lot of time at the foot of the cross will do me more good than ever mastering the ability of great speech! This is a challenge to me.

I will struggle to live as a Christian and shine in life if I don’t have a place for regular prayer in my life. Man, it's so easy to slip but the more prayerful I am the less I slip.

Spurgeon said this “How dare we pray in the battle if we have never cried to the lord while buckling on the harness”

God does help us in the battle maybe Spurgeon was being a little extreme but when we are out there trying to shine before men, we shouldn’t just pray when it gets hard or when the battle comes but prior to that, in the private place.

Prayer is for life, not just the hard times.

If we are going to be true messengers of grace to others we have to see the God of grace for ourselves. I can't express God grace here in Ibiza if I haven't spent time understanding and comprehending his grace in prayer.

This will take quantity as well as quality time. Sometimes prayer is boring, but we just have to put in the quantity then we get some quality.

Prayer and the Bible

This ambassadorial role that we have as christians, this place of representing Christ will only be enhanced if you use our bible in the private place of prayer.

I don't think you can separate the two, I try to approach the bible with prayer and try to approach prayer with the bible.

My private prayer place is the greatest place to study the bible.

Texts and verses that I read can often prove a little difficult to understand, in prayer I can work yourself into the text.
As I stumble upon verses I mull them over in prayer, I get into them and they get into me, I love this process.

Waiting upon God often turns the darkness that we sometimes feel when reading the bible into light.

When Jesus was with his disciple after His resurrection this happened: Luke 24: 45 "Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures."

It’s in prayer and close communion with God that the scripture comes alive, Jesus somehow opens our minds!!!!.

An old preacher was seen at a conference and he was noted to keep writing all the time, when some men looked over his shoulder he had written next to the verses he was looking at “More light Lord, More light Lord”

I've started to use this phrase a lot.

Robert Murray M’Cheyne was asked about his diligent approach to prayer and the bible when preparing for a sermon his response was “Beaten oil – beaten oil for the lamps of the sanctuary”

This comes from Exodus 27: 20 "Command the Israelites to bring you clear oil of pressed olives for the light so that the lamps may be kept burning.

King James Version: that they bring thee pure oil olive beaten for the light, to cause the lamp to burn always.

What you bring to others has to have been purified and refined in you. Do we beat what we have been reading do we squeeze it to get all the goodness out of it? This is what we need to do

Matthew 5 says We have been called to shine as lights, burning lamps, we will shine more greatly if we spend time alone with God and the Bible, getting more light and refining what we are reading .

Pray without ceasing

I've just been teaching on prayer this weekend, and thought that I would save myself some blogging work whilst away and post the points of my talk, which will give me 7 posts! (It was a long talk!) Weirdly I read a book by Charles H Spurgeon called "Lectures to my students" there is a chapter called "The private prayer of the preacher" I've borrowed a little inspiration from that chapter.

Pray without ceasing

Henri Nouwen, The Wounded Healer.

The Christian leader must be in the future what he has always had to be in the past: a man who has to pray and has to pray always, a man of prayer…..
For a man of prayer is in the final analysis the man who is able to recognise in others the face of the messiah and make visible what was hidden, make touchable what was unreachable.

1 Thessalonians 5: 17 Pray without ceasing

Ephesians 6: 18 pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

As christians we need to become distinguished in prayerfulness, it's a big ask but of uttermost importance.

As citizens our country benefits from our prayers, as neighbours to others, those who live nearby should fall under the shadow of our prayers, as a friend our companions should be bathed in our prayers, as a family member we should always have a flame of prayer burning for our relatives and this is just the tip of the iceberg!

A puritan non conformist scholar and pastor called Joseph Alleine, who was imprisoned on a number of occasions in the 1600’s for his faith said this:

“though I am apt to be unsettled and quickly set of the hinges, yet, methinks, I am like a bird out of the nest., I am never quiet till I am in my old way of communion with God; like the needle in the compass, that is restless till it be turned towards the pole. I can say, through grace, with the church, ‘with my soul have I desired thee in the night, and with my spirit within me have I sought thee early’ My heart is early and late with God; ‘tis the business and delight of my life to seek Him.”

‘TIS THE BUSINESS AND DELIGHT OF MY LIFE TO SEEK HIM.

I am striving that it would be the business and delight of my life to seek Him, striving probably not the best word but I hope you get what I mean?

2 Corinthians 5: 20 We are therefore Christ's ambassadors

An ambassador is a representative

An ambassador is a high ranking diplomat who represents their country, for instance an ambassador for the UK, represents The Court of St James, the official residence of the British monarchy.

If we are to be representatives of Christ here on earth, His ambassadors. We need to spend time in His courts, the courts of heaven, the courts of his presence, we do this in prayer.


Charles Haddon Spurgeon said:
“All that a college course can do for a student is coarse and external compared with the spiritual and delicate refinement obtained by communion with God… all our libraries and studies are mere emptiness compared with our closets. We grow, we wax mighty, we prevail in private prayer”

He wasn’t anti study, just saying knowledge on it’s own knowledge won’t suffice.

I was walking around on our farm repeating this to myself over and over the other day, I love it "We grow, we wax mighty, we prevail in private prayer"

I am serious about my growth and effectiveness as a Christian, therefore my private prayer life must have a special place of significance and become a long term and sustained practice in my life.

Recovery

I've recovered from the bat attack and am now in England. I am doing a young leaders retreat in Norfolk and then on Monday we are setting up a board for 24-7Ibiza. Just trying to get more organised as we get bigger!!!

I am then off to ireland for few days and return for Tracy's brothers wedding in Sheffield.

Had a nice flight out on Ryanair last night, although I am still pretty well convinced that they should give people a body weight allowance.

You and your luggage should be weighed, this would be fairer.

Having said that I love Ryan Air it's great for Ibiza and I hope they keep it up next winter. The flight was full which is a good sign. For the past 3 years there have been no direct flights from Ibiza to the UK we have always had to travel via some other spanish airport. So Ryan air are a God send.

I'm enjoying electricity, water and fantastic internet connection.

I may have under packed I thought it was spring in the UK!

Had my first charity shop foray this morning, bought an Armani shirt for £3.00 which I will wear to the wedding, just got to find a tie and I'll be sorted. I like weddings.

Bat attack

I was sitting in on my own last night channel hopping, when I stumbled across a movie called "30 days of night" I don't normally watch horror stuff but I found my self getting sucked in.

Basically it's about an alaskan town that comes under attack from vampire type humans. The lead vampire looked a bit like one of the guys from Sigour ros, obviously they where all very pale and had a kind of icelandic vibe going on so it was easy to make the link. It was a slightly crappy but jumpy movie!

Anyway I get comfortable and settle in to watch the movie, I put on a little lamp, crank up the fire and sit on my own in our 800 year old high beamed, dimly lit, living room, the wind is blowing outside, the front door keeps creaking and a faint howling is coming from the chimney as the wind scuffs the top of it.

I lean forward to turn the TV up when suddenly out from under one of the arches in our living room flies a bat, missing my head by inches! I jumped out of my skin. The bat then proceeded to bomb around the living room, with me ducking and diving and generally getting jumpy, this lasted about 3 minutes it eventually landed on the floor about 6 feet from my dog who was asleep in front of the fire, he raised his head looked at the bat then looked at me, sighed as if to say "you deal with it" and then went back to sleep. I'm going to rename him killer!!!

Anyway I am trying to watch this movie with a bat sitting on the floor about 8 feet in front of me, I can't focus, so I go and get one of the boys fishing nets and put it over the bat. I can't actually get the bat caught in the net, just covered up. So I decide to leave it there and when someone else comes home we can both sort it out. So I settle back down to watch the movie with the bat safely under a bright yellow childs fishing net.

About 5 minutes later I look across at the net and the bat has crawled out from under it, it lifts it's slowly head and turns looks up at me with a menacing grin, by now I am just thinking about walking over and stamping on it. So I jump up to kill it, I'm thinking if I stamp on it I can then drive a stake through it's heart and end this nightmare, and as I do this the bat rears up, takes off and heads straight at me. This is all happening to the background noise of shrieking and screaming, melancholic, icelandic looking, sigour ros type vampires!

By now the dog jumps up and starts chasing the bat, which is totally useless, because he is about a foot tall and the bat is now flying around about at about 6 feet in the air! I grab the net and start swinging it around trying to catch the bat, the background noise has intensified, and it's all getting a bit frantic. Eventuallly the bat lands on a wall, I wait to see if it morphs into some form of human, it doesn't, I see my moment, I pounce and trap it in the net, this time it gets tangled up. So I quickly open the door and ping it out into the night air, the dog runs out after it and I quickly bolt the door, switch the lights on and pour myself a drink.

5 minutes later there is a scratching at the door, it's my dog wanting back in, phew!!!

We both settle down in front of the fire and watch the rest of the movie

Gran Torino

You should watch Gran Torino. I won't give the plot away although redemption, sacrifice and atonement all came through for me.

I found it quite moving and I am a fan of Clint Eastwood. Did you know that he is allergic to horses!

Personally I think "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly" is one of the greatest westerns ever made, although the end of "Unforgiven" is superb and might just pip it.

Saint Patricks Day

This day changed my life!!!

A number of years ago i travelled to Chichester on St Patricks day to meet with Pete Greig about a book we had an idea for doing called "Writing on The Wall", one of the lesser known and publicised 24-7 Titles. Although it is available here on Amazon!

This meeting led to having to travel to Kansas to meet with Pete for further work on the book and this was the place where he uttered a life changing sentence to me"would you like to go to Ibiza and plant a church for 24-7 prayer?"

Well we are still here!!!

We prayed this and said the Canticle of St Patrick in our morning prayers today, it was just what I needed at this moment in time:

Christ, as a light
illumine and guide me.
Christ, as a shield
overshadow me.
Christ under me;
Christ over me;
Christ beside me
on my left and my right.
This day be within and without me,
lowly and meek, yet all-powerful.
Be in the heart of each to whom I speak;
in the mouth of each who speaks unto me.
This day be within and without me,
lowly and meek, yet all-powerful.
Christ as a light;
Christ as a shield;
Christ beside me
on my left and my right.

Window on centre is fixed and life goes on.

Break in

We had our centre in the west end broken into on Saturday night, they broke a window, stole the wii, the plasma screen, one computer, some petty cash and our stereo. Thankfully we are insured. I slept in the prayer room last night just because the whole place wasn't very secure, my dog accompanied me and we both had a great nights sleep.

In many ways it was a slap in the face moment for me, one that I needed, you may have noticed my lack of blogging recently. This has primarily been down to the fact that I have been really struggling at getting to grips with our new way of living, in all honesty I still am. It's not all farmer giles up here, it's hard graft and it's a little frustrating. We know the farm is a gift but it's like when we first moved to Ibiza, it took us nearly 18 months to get our westend centre sorted and our work on the streets going well. When people rock to help in the summer or hear me talk they don't see all of that, most are just pretty complimentary about what we are up to. Then in my own head I start to forget that it took graft to get this centre and street work happening, and believe my own rose tinted rear view of it all. It was hard to get the first level of what we do up and running.

Now we are on the second level I need to be patient get my head down and remember that advancement and building take time, if the foundations aren't right with the farm it will never work. I need to realise I may not get a great story from the farm for a couple of years but need to not be frustrated with that.

Kingdom building takes time, foundation laying takes time.

The centre will be fine, I am waiting to get the windows fixed, but I am also filled once again with a new resolve to push through to stick it out and see what happens.

Summer Teams

We now have all our dates up for summer teams and we also have a prayer team coming out at the end of April. For all the information including costs and application forms just click HERE

Here's a little idea of what you would get up to if you came on a team.

We seek to care for the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of the people that we meet and we do this by…

offering to pray with people,
cleaning up someone who’s vomiting,
helping vulnerable people – drunk, drugged, injured or alone - to a safe place,
listening to someone’s story or frustrations of the day,
celebrating good news and happy times with people,
taking someone who’s been injured to the medical centre,
sharing our faith and stories of God with those who are keen to hear
seeking to bring calm to agitated people and stressful situations
We practice a rhythm of breathing in and out – time spent with God breathing Him in, and time spent with others, breathing out the life of God.

While half of the team are out on the streets, the other half will be praying for them and the people they are meeting.

And there will be other times of prayer – individually, as a group, in different places and settings, including prayer and worship, dancing with hundreds of others in packed and energetic clubs…

Of course it is also sunny.......

We will also practice ‘ora et labora’- working prayerfully on the farmland, offering our physical labour to God as an expression of prayer.

If you or anyone you know fancies joining us, please get in touch.