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Prayerful Pondering

~ by Pat Luffman Rowland

Prayerful Pondering

Tag Archives: spiritual growth

Establishing the Faith of a Child

21 Monday Feb 2022

Posted by Pat Luffman Rowland in spiritual training

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Bible, church, faith, God's presence, handling of criticism, judged, parent's wisdom, rejection, spiritual growth, spiritual strength, study scripture, tutoring

Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old, he will not depart from it. –Proverbs 22:6

In the nine years I tutored second graders, I learned a lot about my young friends. I heard their stories. Happy stories, some sad stories, and lots of wishful ponderings. There were times they seemed to need to talk more than work on their reading skills, so we did that.

There was one little girl I think of often. Late in our year together, she told me she didn’t have any close friends in her class. She said she felt like she didn’t fit in. I couldn’t have been more surprised. I thought she had the full package: well-mannered, respectful, smart, neat in appearance, attractive in every way. Why would this delightful little seven-year-old ever feel rejected?

Maybe it was just a bad day or week for J. I hope that’s all it was. But there was one thing I knew for sure. Her young life was being built on a solid foundation of faith in the Lord. She had told me of her recent baptism and I knew she was very familiar with the Bible. J astounded me one day with the correct pronunciation of each book of the Bible! It was something that happened by accident but was the highlight of that year’s tutoring. She said she had been taught all the books of the Bible at her church.

Like J, I was brought up in the church. Also like J, I experienced times of being left out. I experienced them as a child and I’ve experienced them as an adult. They aren’t good memories.

Sometimes we feel rejected without an actual reason, of course. We have summed something up to be true when it really isn’t. Other times we are deliberately treated unkindly and those wounds go deep. I read recently of someone who moved far away from where she had known deep pain from rejection. She determined never to return to the place where people had so harshly judged her.

Feeling rejected or judged may be two of the hardest things we deal with in life. It shouldn’t matter that we don’t meet others’ standards, but it does for most of us. Some of us care too much. (Can you see my hand lifted high?) We are all different in how much being rejected or judged affects us.

J’s mother had to be soundly grounded in her own faith for she knew the importance of what she was passing on to her daughter. How I admired this woman I never met!

At the earliest age, children need Bible instruction. They need to be taught about Jesus and that He is our safe place. No matter what may be happening, or seem to be happening, we can count on Him as a friend who will never leave us. When I’ve felt rejected or judged, it has always been to God that I have turned. I’ve leaned into His embrace and found comfort and new strength.

Though something had happened to cause this child to feel rejected, I saw strength. The strength that comes from knowing Jesus. Close attention was being paid to J’s spiritual growth. I saw the solid footing for making it through the storms of life.

It is a very wise parent who makes spiritual training a priority.

__________

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. –Deuteronomy 6:5-7 NIV

Voices That Teach

04 Friday Jan 2019

Posted by Pat Luffman Rowland in Teachers

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Dunnam, inspiration, learning from different faiths, Merton, Nouwen, quiet reflection, rabbis, spiritual growth, spiritual guides, spiritual lessons, stillness

In the mid-1980s, I was drawn to the teachings of a Catholic priest, Henri J. Nouwen, and a Trappist monk, Thomas Merton. Merton’s book, No Man Is an Island, became my handbook of sorts. I read it over and over, highlighting, underlining, and making notes in the margins. He communicated in to-the-point statements on human relations. “Some people never reveal any of the good that is hidden in them until we give them some of the good that is in ourselves” was an excellent workshop opener.

Nouwen was another great teacher who spoke in pithy statements. He had a way of communicating that immediately drew people in. He taught at the University of Notre Dame and the Divinity Schools of Yale and Harvard and was in constant demand as a lecturer all over the world. Yet with all this respect for what he had to say, he struggled his lifetime with self-doubt and depression. He also felt a great sense of conflict with his many speaking engagements, nouwen books2saying “Many people ask me to speak, but nobody as yet has invited me for silence. Still, I realize that the more I speak, the more I will need silence to remain faithful to what I say. People expect too much from speaking, too little from silence. . . .” . Quite a few of his personal journals went on to be books and people read them often feeling he was telling their stories. Nouwen was ever seeking Jesus and once someone said to him after a lecture, “When I look at you it is as if I am in the presence of Christ.” Nouwen’s response was quick: “It is the Christ in you, who recognizes the Christ in me.”

Another strong voice for me through the years has been that of Oswald Chambers. He was a profound messenger of God. His devotional, My Utmost for His Highest, is perhaps the most highly acclaimed devotional book ever written. Some pastors say it is second only to the Bible in influencing their relationship with Christ. I have several books written about this man who died young (43) due to untreated appendicitis. He was serving as a chaplain on a battlefield and would not put himself in the way of others he felt needed physician attention more. His wife recorded his sermons in shorthand and after his death published the devotional book as well as other books and articles. I have a book with some of his prayers and I particularly like this one: “O Lord, breathe on me till I am one with Thee in the temper of my mind and heart and disposition, unto Thee do I turn. How completely I realize my lost-ness without Thee.”

marriage w maxie

Richard and I were married by Maxie Dunnam in 1989.

I owe a great debt of gratitude to the voice of Dr. Maxie Dunnam, for it was he who directed me to the likes of the three I’ve mentioned. Dr. Maxie Dunnam was my pastor from 1983 to 1994. When he preached Sunday mornings at Christ United Methodist Church, he could be counted on to tell about those who influenced his life, and how. Most Sundays I left with a note in hand of someone he had mentioned or a book he had read that impacted his life. Maxie, like Nouwen, is not slow to share personal failings when he believes it will benefit others. He still writes today and anything Maxie Dunnam says is worth hearing.

I’ve talked of the influence of two Catholics, a Holiness Movement evangelist, and a Methodist minister. I want to mention one other voice that stimulates my mind, that of Jewish rabbis. If you’ve never heard a rabbi speak as a guest lecturer at a seminar, you have missed gold! Their depth of knowledge and ability to bring you along with them to their final “aha” moment is something rich and beautiful.

Who are the spiritual giants in your life? Who do you credit with pouring into your journey? Who teaches you about purposeful living? I would love to hear. Maybe you will point me to a new favorite for 2019.

Journaling Life’s Good Times and Bad

23 Wednesday May 2018

Posted by Pat Luffman Rowland in journaling

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

answers to prayer, comfort, dark days/good days, faith, God's hand, recording thoughts, remembering, spiritual growth

7064964081_2d983f7df9_mJournaling is a good thing. I wish I could learn to be steadfast with it, faithful to the recording of my thoughts, God’s hand moving in my life, scriptures of promise I claimed. When I read from old entries, I am reminded of times that God proved Himself to me in some personal way. I also read about reflections, when the Holy Spirit takes my mind down a particular pathway and talks to me about life. I was reminded this morning of such a time when I read an entry from two years ago. It was reflection and also a prompting to do more journaling. I feel led to share it with someone, though I know not who. It may not flow for everyone for I’ve written it here just as I did on May 13, 2016.

Life is made up of good times and bad. We take deeper breaths when the days of relief come, when the hard road we have traveled finally ends for a while, we let easier times embrace us. We drink in the rest and we give thanks–and for a while we may coast. We know we almost succumbed to a hard time, but “almost” is the word. God kept us from falling headlong into a pit of despair. He gave us “almost.”

We glance back and wonder at our crippled walk. We look at our panicked fear that oppression, or whatever was had, would stay forever. We know our God and He never has forsaken us, yet it seemed for just a while He might this time. The backward glance is but for a moment. We don’t want to relive even in memory the pain of yesterday.

It will always be this way: good times, bad times, good times again. We will always have our doubts in dark days whether we can stand the new test. But in the dark days–those days called trial–there is also infinite blessing. 3404886436_b08118862b_qLike the earth and blooms and winged creatures drink in water from a long awaited heavy rain, we drink in scripture and prayer with greater thirst when we are in our gray days.

We are never quite at home on earth, always longing for that return to the Father’s home. We yearn to be closer to Him when we cannot do for ourselves, when we cannot change a sickness or injury or crisis of whatever kind. We climb into the arms of our Father, spending more time with Him then, for is there that we receive new strength. Though it may not immediately show itself, we can count on it to be there for the next hill to climb.

When we reach that place of sweet relief, that place where problems have lessened and our heart’s load has lightened, it is not a time to cast off the protection that comes with spending quantities of time with God. Yes, we take time to enjoy our respite. We give praise, we give thanks, but we need to keep building reserve. Part of that is by recording what we learn in our earth travels, so that in another time of battle we may reflect and be encouraged. The mind deceives and the memory fails. Write down the help found on the journey. Record answered prayers, the better direction learned, the greater blessing that came with the wait. 34324554473_c2ea15c73f_mRomans 8:28 forever proves true. That for those who love God, all things do work together for good when we are called according to His purpose.  And that purpose is to be shaped in the image of His Son.

 

 

 

(My appreciation to Flickr for all images.)

 

 

 

 

Pray in the Name of Your Need

09 Wednesday May 2018

Posted by Pat Luffman Rowland in claiming God's promises

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

alone, claiming God's promises, comforter, communication, peace, prayer, shelter, spiritual growth, study scripture, trust, widowhood

But Moses told the people, “Don’t be afraid. Just stand where you are and watch, and you will see the wonderful way the Lord will rescue you today.”  –Exodus 14:13 (TLB)

God is sensitive to our every need. We can count on that.

He meets us as Provider when financial needs are desperate. He meets us as Healer when we are physically ill and emotionally battered. He meets us as our Comforter, our Shelter, our Peace. In every way we can imagine, God is with us and we can pray to Him in all those ways. Our part is to know His promises and trust that He will honor them.

IMG_2212

Isaiah 54:5 (ESV)

My husband died in 2011. Suddenly, I had no one to turn to for those immediate, right-there-with-me helps like a husband supplies. I remembered a scripture that said the Lord would be a husband to the widow and I began right then to claim Isaiah 54:5. “For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts in his name” (ESV). The Good News Translation says it this way: “Your Creator will be like a husband to you—the LORD Almighty is his name.”

Many times over the past seven years, I have reminded the Lord that He is my husband and that I look to Him for answers based on that promise. Sometimes it has been when I’m anxious about handling a matter alone, sometimes when I’ve lost something I really need, and sometimes when I know I’ve made a mistake and I need help fixing it. It’s not that I can’t just pray to Father God about these same things, but I have found something sweetly different about calling the Lord my husband when I feel that’s the way He wants me to trust Him. God has shown me that His grace is always sufficient and His power truly is made strong in my weakness (2 Corinthians:9) and that includes my widowhood.

The Lord is Truth. He doesn’t tell us He will do something unless He means to do it. I find some things in scripture are harder to drink in and hold on to than others, but I know that is my weak faith and not the failure of a promise. What I have found, though, is that promises I’ve not practiced are my opportunities to grow in faith.

However you need the Lord, pray to Him in that way. Find scriptures that line up with your need. Memorize them, pray them back to Him. Believe what God’s word says. You will grow spiritually as you discover new levels of dependency.

“All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right” –2 Timothy 3:15 (NLT) 

 

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The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Galatians 5:22-23 ESV

If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. Romans 10:9

God has not given us a spirt of fear, but of power and love and of a sound mind. 2 Timothy 1:7

Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise; give thanks to Him and praise His name. For the Lord is good and His love endures forever; His faithfulness continues through all generations. Psalm 100:4-5

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9

© Pat Rowland and Prayerful Pondering, 2010 - 2013.
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Pat Rowland and Prayerful Pondering with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Hope must be in the future tense. Faith, to be faith, must be in the present tense. Catherine Marshall
Everything over your head is under his feet. Dr. Tom Lindberg
What an excellent ground of hope and confidence we have when we reflect upon these three things in prayer--the Father's love, the son's merit and the Spirit's power! Thomas Manton
Our Christian hope is that we're going to live with Christ in a new earth, where is not only no more death, but where life is what it was always meant to be. Timothy Keller

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