I have a lot of tools in my garage. There are countless tools. I have tools to fix cars, tools to work the ground, tools to fix plumbing, tools to work with wood, and tools to fix electric and tools to do a ton of other tasks.
Several of these tools are ridiculously dangerous. I’ll never forget the time when I saved my dad’s pointer finger from being severed on a table saw. (That story later) I have another friend who nearly lost his finger to a table saw. Every time I operate a table saw I think about lopping my finger off. I have a chainsaw that loves to rip through wood. This thing is mean. Since I heat my house with wood, I have spent a lot of time cutting up trees with this saw. I have heard horror stories of people who have done incredible damage to themselves with their chainsaws. Those thoughts run through my mind every time that thing rips!
As I have a garage full of tools to fix my house, garden, or vehicles, as a follower of Jesus there are certain tools that I have at my disposal. I think that one of the most dangerous tools is prayer.
In the voice of prayer we can diminish others and elevate ourself. Jon Acuff has a pretty funny blog post about the prayer shot block. (quite the funny read) Because we know and believe that prayer is powerful it can be incredibly tempting to use it like one uses a tool to fix their home, car, or yard. Too often I use prayer as a tool to change God.
I can focus a majority of my prayers on changing God instead of praising God. I can spend 80% or more of my time asking God to change this person, or give __________ to that person, or even to help me do __________. It is good and right to be praying for others. But it seems to me that we miss the boat when all we do is direct God to do this that or the other thing.
What about spending time praising God for who He is? What about spending time thanking God for what He’s done in your life and the life of others? What about spending time asking God to forgive you? What about just being silent before God and listening to what He has to say? Must you really hear yourself talk the whole time?
When most of your prayers begin with Dear God, please… there may be a problem.
I might even go out on a limb and say that this is an effort to play god. In a sense to be god over God. Every time I see someone trying to be god it never ends well.
I am afraid that this is the pattern of my prayer life far too often! It’s time to make a change. Anyone else with me?
~Peter
This morning I read an interesting article over at 
This morning as I was reading from the book of Isaiah I started to laugh out loud at what was on the page before me. Have you ever done that? Do you ever find the Bible funny? (You should, there are some really funny parts…) I was laughing at the mental picture that was forming in my head as I was reading. I was reading 
Have you realized yet that you interact with hundreds and thousands of people a year? Dependent upon your job, you may meet and greet several thousand people a year. If you live in a neighborhood, or development. If you live in what we have commonly called a town, city, or village… likely you will run into people. And here’s the deal. People are messy. People are really dirty. They have problems. They have issues! BOY DO THEY HAVE ISSUES! Everyone has issues but me. (Ever find yourself saying that?) What do we do with all of these dirty, messy, smelly, people filled with issues when we run into them. You know, the kind that barge into your life with all kinds of problems. How do you and I handle these moments? What is it that we will do?
Ever caught yourself saying something like this, “A person like that could never come to know and have a relationship with Jesus”? Maybe we wouldn’t say that, but what about think it? I know that I have. I have let those words formulate and begin to posture themselves for vocal utterance. What do you think, do you think that there is anyone who is too far, too full of sin, too rebellious, too hard hearted, too difficult? 