December 11, 2013
Dilemma
Years ago one of the ‘rules’ for the prayer
chain was that you not pass the request on to anyone other than the next person in
your link. The concern was that a prayer need could be turned into gossip.
Recently my friend was soliciting prayers, but she deliberately excluded asking
one woman to pray because the woman was a known gossip. I understand both
situations, but it is a bit of a quandary that has me asking questions. Does
the Lord care if the prayer comes from a gossip? Should we try to micromanage
prayer warriors? Can the request be worded in such a way that there is no
fodder for the gossiper? Does the Lord want us to withhold asking for prayers simply
because we don’t want a particular individual praying for us? I suppose the
real question we should ask; does our fear of gossip trump our need for
prayers?
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----God appears so paradoxical to us. Jesus taught us to pray first for the coming of His kingdom. But if His kingdom were actualized within the being of His people, I see it shrinking away, not coming. Indeed, in America, multitudes of people are off to church on Sunday mornings. The appearance of it is wonderful. But just aggregating does not make one into the substance of the rest.
-----Closely examine conglomerate. Here are rocks aggregated into a matrix with all different substances, quartz, granite, feldspar, basalt, sandstone, and such. Just because they are all aggregated together doesn’t meant everything in its matrix becomes quartzgranitefeldsparbasaltsandstoneandsuch. Even though they become one rock, they each maintain individual identities.
-----Have you ever seen a piece of conglomerate that’s rather holey (no pun intended?) Have you ever picked up a rock that just crumbles in your hand? Rocks are of different firmness. When a piece of conglomerate having some soft rocks has been subjected to a strong enough solvent, Presto! Holes. Oh, my.
-----Not everyone we worship and serve with will enter the kingdom of the Lord. The rest of us will have at least some of our works burned away before we enter, and some will have all their works burned away before then (I Cor 3:13-15.) Yet, somehow we ignore the same principles of spiritually which correspond to the principles of conglomerate. Just because we are conglomerated does not mean the sandstone piece can enjoy being obsidian. Want! Think! Try all it may! It is yet sandstone until it goes through the intense, igneous-forming heat which can turn it to obsidian.
-----A gossip is yet sandstone. Where have we gone wrong by placing solemn matters into the hands of crumbly people? “He who goes about gossiping reveals secrets; therefore do not associate with one who speaks foolishly.” (Prov 20:19) “The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects.” (James 5:16b) How is it that we can not differentiate between two such disparate concepts? Or is it that we have judged the source of those concepts as being trivial? Moreover, comb through that source to find some allusion to “prayer chains”. It is more a vulgar concept than a scriptural one. All the intimacy of prayer vanishes from it like a snowflake on a skillet. With such little honor for the source, no wonder folks request link-skipping.
-----James says if one is sick, call the elders. But, oh my, oh dear! Do the elders have time to bother with such matters? Gee. Their spiritual duties to the conglomerate are so burdensome they must even be rotated every few years (another vulgar, not scriptural, idea.) Worse yet, they must be rotated more often than that lest they lead the church amiss! Such ideas state untrustworthiness. Whoa, guys!?! If they are of such sedimentary material being so soluble in weak solutions, why are they even being elders? And we thought the malfeasance of placing gossips on prayer chains was extraordinary!
-----Then James says when asking for the prayer of a righteous man, confess your sins to one another. Such beautiful intimacy! Like that’s going to happen with gossips in the mix and elders in bed. All of what the Bible prescribes is fiber building activity. All of what we do is stabbing in the dark, which generally severs what fiber it encounters. And we call our stabbing a coming kingdom. The Biblical prescriptions are of His kingdom to come.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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