50 Prayers Challenge

The 50 Prayers Challenge is a challenge I’ve posed myself to complete as many prayers on this list as I can throughout 2014. The list is originally titled ‘50 Ways to Become the Answer to Our Prayers‘ and is posted on the website of a group who’s faith, and the practices it leads them to, I respect very much, The Simple Way. When I first found the list, I thought it would be a good challenge for someone (not me of course) to give a shot. Maybe I’d give it a try when I got back to the States, but not now. I’m currently living in Zambia and while it’s become familiar, it is far from home and I have zero clue how to go about some of these here. Then it struck me that I have zero clue how to go about some of these back in the States where I am home, comfortable, and acquainted. There will always be excuses to made so it’s go time.

Some of these prayers will actually be easier to accomplish while in Zambia and there will be some that I’ll probably save until I get back to the States in – Lord willing – August. Then, there are some where my location makes absolutely no difference. Finally, there are also several prayers on this list that I have no intention of completing, at least in 2014, based on who I am (single male) and what stage of life I am in. With all this said, embarking on this challenge, much like the Christian life, is not about success, it is about glorifying God. I want to complete as many of these prayers as possible, but that is not the goal. The goal is to grow in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. It’s not about crossing items off a list (literally) in order to become a better Christian, but an exercise in pushing my idea of what it means to follow Christ’s example and falling more in love with my Creator.

If you’d like to join me, either physically or in spirit, in one or a few or all of the prayers, let me know. Email me and we’ll figure it out.

To see the list and follow along either go to the ’50 Prayers Challenge’ button at the top of the blog or click here.

Visit this place, O Lord, and drive far from it all snares of the enemy;
let your hold angels dwell with us to preserve us in peace;
and let your blessings be upon us always;
through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen

– from the Book of Common Prayer

Excerpts from “Reborn on the Fourth of July”

by Logan Mehl-Laituri

Logan Mehl-Laituri was a solider in the USA military. Along his journey into a deeper relationship with Christ, he became convicted that he couldn’t love his enemies while killing them. He applied for status as a conscientious objector, not to seek discharge but to return to Iraq with his unit, unarmed. He was denied this and discharged. Logan Mehl-Laituri has returned to Iraq as part of a Christian Peacemaker Team and is a founding member of The Centurions Guild.

I just thought a little bit about the author would provide a foundation for his quotes.

“Most (soldiers), if not all, … are forever altered by the performance of (their military) duties, no matter (the) legality or justifiability. The door through which you go in taking a life doesn’t remain open behind you; the threshold cannot be uncrossed. It alters your very consciousness; the truths you learn about yourself can never be unlearned.”

“When Jesus told his followers to love their enemies, I realized, he certainly did not intend for that love to be expressed at the business end of an artillery shell.”

“To love is not always the most expedient action – it might not even be the most rational – but Christians are not called to efficiency or rationality.”

“It is our duty as Christians to question war. The church’s task at the least, is to critically consider whether or not centuries-old criteria for just war have been met, like there being a just cause and right intent, a clear declaration of war, noncombatant immunity, and so on. Christians are not free to blindly follow orders; instead, we ultimately obey God rather than men.”

“I feared most a life of complacency, a life that denied my past and ignored my transgressions, a life that refused to acknowledge the presence and urgency of evil.”

“My favorite class in high school was an introduction to psychology, led by a white-haired thread of a man whom I admired. He taught us that love and hate are actually not opposites but emotionally related. Hate, he would tell us, is really just frustrated love. The opposite of love is indifference.”

Albert Einstein believed ‘peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding’ [written in his Notes of Pacifism]”

Rule of St. Benedict

Let us get up then, at long last, for the Scriptures rouse us when they say: It is high time for us to arise from sleep. Let us open our eyes to the light that comes from God, and our ears to the voice from heaven that every day calls out this charge: If you hear his voice today, do not harden your hearts.

“Because white congregations in America have so often intellectualized faith and individualized our relationship with God, people who are hungry for community and drawn to justice movements are usually white. So we find ourselves trying to learn how to be the people of God with other white folks a lot of the time. The trouble with this isn’t just that we end up reproducing communities marked by racial division (though this is something that troubles us deeply). We also continue to suffer the deficiencies of white theology.”

– Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove in Becoming the Answer to Our Prayers

Canticle of Brother Son

by St. Francis of Assisi

Most high, all-powerful,
all good, Lord!
All praise is yours,
all glory, all honour,
and all blessing.

To you alone, Most High,
do they belong.
No mortal lips are worthy to pronounce your name.

All praise be yours, my Lord,
through all that you have made,
and first my lord Brother Sun,
Who brings the day;
and light you give to us through him.

How beautiful is he,
how radiant in all his splendor!
Of you, Most High,
he bears the likeness.

All praise be yours, my Lord,
through Sister Moon and Stars;
In the heavens you have made them,
bright and precious and fair.

All praise be yours, My Lord,
through Brothers Wind and Air,
and fair and stormy,
all the weather’s moods,
by which you cherish all that you have made.

All praise be yours, my Lord,
through Sister Water,
so useful, lowly, precious,
and pure.

All praise be yours, my Lord,
through Brother Fire,
THrough whom you brighten up the night.
How beautiful is he, how gay!
Full of power and strength.

All praise be yours, my Lord,
through Sister Earth, our mother,
Who feeds us in her sovereignty and produces
various fruits with coloured flowers and herbs.

All praise be yours, my Lord,
through those who grant pardon for love of you;
through those who endure sickness and trial.

Happy those who endure in peace,
by you, Most High,
they will be crowned.

All praise be yours, my Lord,
through Sister Death,
from whose embrace no mortal can escape.
Woe to those who die in mortal sin!
Happy those she finds doing your will!
The second death can do no harm to them.

Praise and bless my Lord,
and give him thanks,
and serve him with great humility.