Welcome to Pastor Jack Buckley's weekly blog and podcast.
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Monday, February 20, 2006
Practical Praying
James 5:13-20
"Talk It Through" is Pastor Jack's message about how to make your prayers as practical as can be. Not one thing in your life is spiritually unimportant, so it's all worth talking through -- with God and with trusted friends who know what prayer is all about.
Listen to the GODcast!
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"Prayer moves the hand that moves the world." I think it was the poet Alfred Lord Tennyson who said that. It's a concept to conjure with, for sure.
Imagine having the power to tell God what to do, and having God go ahead and do it!
A recent e-mail listed several little prayers written by children on request. A bit too cute for words, maybe, but still some food for spiritual thought....
"Dear God, thank you for the baby brother, but what I asked for was a puppy. I never asked for anything before. You can look it up. -- Joyce"
"Dear God, maybe Cain and Abel would not kill each other so much if they had their own rooms. It works out OK with me and my brother. -- Larry"
"Dear Mr. God, I wish you would not make it so easy for people to come apart. I had to have 3 stitches and a shot. -- Janet"
"Dear God, please send Dennis Clark to a different summer camp this year. -- Peter"
"Dear God, I am doing the best I can. Really!!! -- Frank"
Now that, my friends, is practical praying!
We laugh because children have a way of saying whatever they're thinking, unworried about its consequences. We hear in their words the kind of things we also think, but have learned to cover up for the sake of being nice. Or acceptable. Or just plain safe.
I wonder if God doesn't sometimes laugh as well, at a kind of childish frame of mind we easily fall into when it comes to prayer.
I mean, we human beings do tend to fall short of God's perspective on things. Who of us has been around as long as God has? Or stands tall enough in the realm of the spirit to see everything from God's point of view?
So we give prayer our best shot, and hope we're not missing God's point in the praying.
There's a wonderful prayer promise in Psalm 37:4 -- If you delight in God above all else, God will give you your heart's desires. At first glance that reads like a kind of Blank-Check Theology. Like, just hold out your prayer list and say, "Sign right here, Lord!"
But think about it: If God is really Number 1 in your life, then your desires will line up more and more with what God wants for you. So naturally your prayers will be answered more and more with God's "Yes," instead of "No" or "Not Now."
The good news: It's not just your problems that are worth praying about, but anything at all. As far as God is concerned, there's not one piece of unimportant business in your life.
The better news: God wants the very best for you, all the time. So as long as you're willing to put God first, you can be sure God's best will come your way. Just not always the way you'd like, nor wearing the big blue ribbon you would award for "Best In Show."
For example, when Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, he pled with God to save him from crucifixion (Matthew 26:36-46). I'd sure second that emotion.
Imagine all the good that could have happened if God said "Yes" to that prayer, and Jesus lived a long, full life. But he died the very next day. Cut off way too soon, in the midst of great promise.
And yet, for 2,000 years Jesus' legacy has multiplied far beyond anything he accomplished in his short life. God wisely foresaw what Jesus could only hope against hope for -- Ever-widening concentric circles of blessing, touching who knows how many millions of people who have heard Jesus' story and been helped in his name.
The hand that moves the world also moves us when we pray. Sometimes in the most amazing ways.
Ask God for anything you want. Give God thanks for everything you get. And trust God to sort out the difference always with your very best interest in mind.
posted by Jack Buckley at
4:22 PM
Monday, February 13, 2006
A Story
"Get Real: How to Cancel Conflict" is a message that -- sad to say -- is timely all the time. Pastor Jack takes a fresh look at James 4:1-10 for practical advice about where our conflicts come from and some godly ways to resolve them.
Listen to the GODcast!
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She cried as she sang her song.
On Valentine's Day, at our Rotary Club lunch meeting, Kathy chose a Jacques Brel ballad of lament and ironic hope. Musical images of love conquering prejudice and melting cannons brought the tears and shook her voice a bit.
Not your average soft pink ode to romance.
Our featured speaker was Joel Ben Izzy, a professional story-teller. He developed the love theme further for us. Like a verbal magician, he drew moral tales old and new out of his hat -- each a variation on the idea that real love delights in giving itself away.
Joel lost his voice a few years ago, unable to speak a single word, and he feared it was gone for good. Fortunately, he found a doctor who had one last experimental procedure to try. And Joel could speak again! But in that same season his aging mother lost her hearing forever.
During his speechless stage, Joel visited his mother. She said among other things, "I'm dying." He scribbled notes for his half of the conversation, finally asking, "Tell me your story."
Joel's mom had loved to sit on his boyhood bed at night, asking for and listening intently to a new story he would make up on the spot, just for her. Now, he said, it was her turn.
The story she told was about attending a concert with her dear friend who'd recently lost her sight. Both of them had always loved classical music. That night the orchestra played Beethoven's sixth symphony, which he composed after he too went deaf. She "heard" the music, she told her son, in several different ways. Vibrations in her seat. The conductor's graceful gestures. And, best of all, the sheer joy on her blind friend's face as the music worked its magic.
Joel told us that single story was his mother's greatest gift to him. She knew he would find ways to retell it in his travels here and there spinning his magical tales.
In a way, all of his stories are gifts, too. He freely gives them away, no strings attached. Let them do what they will in a hearer's heart, soul, eyes, and throat. Then his listeners give them away all over again. Passed on from one hearer to another, time after time, in place after place, they do what they can to change the world a little bit.
I cried as he told his tale.
We'd come full circle in one brief hour. Hear and tell enough stories like that one, and you get to witness the power of love disarming prejudices and melting down cannons.
Cupid doesn't know what to make of that. St. Valentine would be proud!
posted by Jack Buckley at
4:53 PM
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
To Tell The Truth
James 3:1-12
"Watch Your Words" says the Apostle James in his letter about how to put your faith to work. Talk is anything but cheap! In fact, every word you speak makes life better or worse. Whether you mean it to or not.
Listen to the GODcast!
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Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me!
A friend recently fascinated me by saying he at some point had turned that phrase all around. If mere words don't compare to physical damage, he felt encouraged to tell the truth at all cost.
Along life's way he was amazed that people sometimes felt hurt by what he said. He only meant to help clarify things, to move them toward some realistic resolution.
How interesting.
A childhood sing-song defense against bullies became the rationale for accidental bullying.
Well, at least no sticks or stones were involved.
Our mothers knew better. They cautioned us, "Bite your tongue and count to ten." And then, if necessary, count to ten again!
You never have to say everything you happen to think. Good thing, too.
Jesus warned we will be judged by our own words (Matthew 12:36,37). So, regardless of the old cliche, talk is anything but cheap! In fact, everything we say makes life better or worse.
If that's a scary thought, it's not the end of the story.
The Apostle Paul has encouraging news. In Ephesians 4:11-15, he says God's intention for every Christian -- and all of us together -- is that we will grow up spiritually to be just like Jesus. To embody everything he's all about. And one major spiritual growth hormone is (drum roll) "speaking the truth in love!"
Telling the truth with no concern for kindness makes you cranky. Caring about people without being honest with them is simply sentimental.
Put them both together, it sounds a lot like heaven on earth.
posted by Jack Buckley at
3:27 PM
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