Category Archives: Prayer

A Generation Gap?

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Recently Louisa and I were back in the Chicago area cruising the streets of our old neighborhood. We landed at a familiar shopping center, enjoying stores our Michigan neighborhood doesn’t offer, and I noticed the absence of one I’d shopped at many times during the decades we’d lived nearby: the GAP.

Located on the “power corner” of a giant parking lot, the GAP had been full of high quality, youthful clothes for men, women, children and babies, and seemed always to be full of customers. Now it was abandoned. The chain was founded in the late 1960’s, originally stocking only jeans and white cotton shirts that appealed to young people. They chose their name as a description of the gap between generations: adults bought jeans as work clothes, while younger people were starting to wear them every day.

Whenever I drove past the GAP, the store’s name would remind me of a different sort of gap, “standing in the gap” for a friend. My impression was that this phrase referred to one person praying for someone else when that someone wasn’t praying for herself.

For example, if a friend was battling depression, unable or unwilling to ask God for help, I could “stand in the gap” between the Lord and my friend, praying for the two to connect.

When Louisa and I got back to Michigan, I decided to find out if the gap-idea came from the Bible or was just a concept I wished came from the Bible. My concordance directed me to Ezekiel 22 and a narrative about the break or gap in a protective city wall. God said, “I looked for someone… who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found no one.” (v. 30)

He was speaking in word pictures his people readily understood, about to deliver a judgment for their sinfulness. Viewing their many offenses as a break in the wall of righteousness, he was planning to lower the boom, but before he did, he looked for a righteous someone who might be “standing in the gap” for the rest of them. Such a one would have represented godliness amidst a people of disobedience and might have caused God to abort his judgment. No one was in the gap, so judgment came.

I learned that my original idea of being able to “stand in” for someone through prayer is probably accurate. And if so, what an opportunity! It brings profound implications to our prayers for others.

As for the GAP, Inc., Google said it’s been shuffling store locations recently but is still going strong in the clothing industry. As for the generation gap? I own a few GAP items myself, so I think it’s probably long gone.

“Pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying…” (Ephesians 6:18)

Pick Your Poison

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In the news recently a mother from Alaska was put on trial for using hot sauce to discipline her son. She was found guilty of child abuse because she video taped the episode to get on a TV show entitled “Mommy Confessions.”

I haven’t watched the video and don’t have an opinion about her tactics but must confess that years ago I initiated several hot sauce episodes at our house, too. I was making a point about unacceptable language, trying to fit the punishment to the crime as Dr. Dobson had taught us. I did let the offender run to the bathroom immediately to spit and swish, but a drop of hot sauce was always effective toward improved speech and usually didn’t need to be repeated.

Last night we ordered Chinese food for dinner, expecting to serve 10 or so, and in the bottom of our boxful of food was an abundance of sauce packets: sweet, soy and hot. Holding up one of the yellow packets, I said to Nelson, “Do you recognize this hot sauce from your childhood?”

“Yeah,” he said, laughing. “But I love it now.”

His comment got us talking. Was the “yucky” childhood taste of hot sauce a precursor to developing a fondness for it later?

As we ended the conversation he said, “I wonder if you drank enough poison as a kid, you’d eventually get a taste for it.”

I thought of the first time someone tastes alcohol, a poison of sorts. It’s often bitter and unpleasant. But a young person who considers beer drinking to be sophisticated will keep trying, gradually gaining a liking for it. It may lead them into alcoholism, and in a sense Nelson’s question about getting a taste for poison has its answer.

The same principle, though, can work the other way, too. Developing a taste for something positive can start with forced bits that seem negative. Take, for example, prayer or reading the Bible. For new Christians, neither is easy. We wonder whether or not our prayers are getting through, and Scripture seems confusing. But we want to obey God, so we grit our teeth and keep trying.

One day we see a prayer answered or realize a biblical passage has touched our need, and we want more. We’re developing a taste for something that was distasteful in the beginning. Eventually prayer and Scripture can become addictions of the highest sort.

Of course it’s important to put the right things in front of our children, but the same is true for us. It’s probably a good idea to be cautious about new experiences, knowing small tastes can grow into demanding addictions.

I’m not sure what will happen to the newsworthy hot-sauce-mom, but since I’ve made a true confession in this post, the authorities may come after me, too.

“Ships, though they are so great and are driven by strong winds, are still directed by a very small rudder.” (James 3:4)

Elusive Sleep

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I was 50 years old before I knew about sleep machines. Manufacturers hope these little producers of white noise will enhance sleep for those who struggle to get there. The good ones offer to transform a stress-filled bedroom into the serene environment of an ocean shore, a running stream, a tropical forest or a summer night with crickets chirping.

I first learned the benefits of white noise as a young mother. My babies were never solid sleepers, unless they had nasal congestion. That’s because when we set a vaporizer in the nursery with its gentle whirring, they slept soundly… even when sick. We were onto something and vaporized year-round for a while, until the wallpaper began falling off.

When we learned there was a name for this noise and a machine to accomplish it (without dripping water), we realized other households were having sleep issues, too.

Most sleep machines make radical claims for the sleep-deprived. They promise rich, natural, drug-free rest that can boost energy and improve overall health.

But why is the world so sleep deprived in the first place? Since all of us have tossed and turned through long nights, we can list plenty of reasons:

  • Worrying too much
  • Struggling with pain
  • Thinking too hard
  • Fearing the future
  • Regretting the past
  • And a big ETC.

We crawl under the covers at night, relieved to finally be ending a stressful day, when suddenly the woes of the world seem propped next to the pillow, poking us relentlessly in an effort keep us awake.

Drug stores have racks of sleep aids, and pharmacies carry many more. Hospitals have sleep clinics in which they watch patients in dreamland, trying to figure out what puts them down and what pulls them up. The sleep industry is big business.

The biblical David was an emotional guy, describing in the Psalms his endless ups and downs (including the evasiveness of sleep). But in Psalm 4, after many sleepless nights, he figures out what  to do when sleep won’t come and lets us in on the secret: “When you are on your beds, search your hearts and be silent… Trust in the Lord.” (4,5)

When we’re churning at night, for whatever reason, David suggests we say, “Lord, are you preventing sleep because you want to tell me something? If so, I’m listening.” And like David, we can silently wait for God’s response, paying careful attention to our next thoughts. We might even be thankful we’re awake to hear what he has to say.

During noisy days, it’s difficult to hear him. In a dark bedroom, even with a sleep machine running, we tend to hear much better. By morning, we may have accomplished something far more important than any over-full day can achieve.

Maybe if we listen carefully, we’ll hear him say, “Turn off the white noise now. No more hard-to-sleep, just sleeping-hard instead.”

“I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the Lord sustains me.” (Psalm 3:5)