PP 262

Dear Prayer Partners,

You may not have realized it but my email capability had been down for a day and a half and it was a killer for me. The holiday weekend was the longest time in my life. With Tom's move some of my PP were delayed and you probably got them around Memorial Day so maybe the gap was filled on that end. On this end it was quite a different thing. I am reminded how everything is so much more appreciated if it can be shared with someone. I know when I get out, if I can see the mountains, the Grand Canyon, or what ever it is, I will always say, "If only the grandchildren were here". I did a lot of business travel alone in my life and every time I came to a beautiful spot, I would say that, "I must come back with Jan and the kids".      This is why the PP emails are such a blessing for me. It gives me the opportunity to share thoughts, experiences, conversations and concerns; and you in return sometimes respond, pray, or hopefully enjoy them as well. While discipling is fun, it is a lot like parenting. It brings with it concerns for the new births, that they show signs of life, health, nourishment and growth. Yes, I can't help but be concerned for them much as a parent.

    Example: Elijah made a confession and prayed the prayer. I have not seen him since. I know he may have been busy with visits or whatever, but it's a concern. As I read Rob Moran's letter a short time ago about his family's needs. I do wish his needs would be met, but I am concerned that he might have developed the idea through some other teaching that it's God's job to keep us happy. There is much teaching in prison that if you have enough faith, you can ask God for anything at all and he will give it to you. If you don't get what you ask for you don't have enough faith. I am saddened by that, almost anxious for Rob and Suann. I wish their needs were met. We have prayed and asked, yet at the same time if they are not met, we must trust that God has a purpose or another way.

     I think of Charlie and Kelly whom I just told you about. Charlie wants to be a Christian , but his approach is still to talk to a lot of people. An old man here, a kind hearted, sweet spirit man who is a Methodist minister is taking Charlie to different studies, and the last one was the Catholic Mass. The minister himself is not established. I am having trouble getting time with Charlie where we can sit down for a significant time. Pray for Charlie. We have a friendship, he often waits for me for meals. We need time to sit with the Bible. But no matter how well we understand the concepts that Jesus taught, we need to be born again. Just as Jesus told friends, we must be born again. When a person is born again they truly have new life. I tell them the things they worry about going back to when they get out will go away if they are truly born again, and ask Jesus to give them a new heart; meaning cleaning out the temple inside them where God intended for him to dwell, for his spirit to live. With a new heart God cleans that place out and he lives there giving us new wants, new desires, new things to satisfy us. Christianity is more than teaching - it's a way of life. In fact, it is life itself. "He who has the son has life," When we talk about this kind of life we are talking about something that is far more than morality, far more than doctrinal accuracy. This new life is radical, not superficial. It is humble, not self-promoting. It's compassionate, not indifferent.

     I want these guys to realize the kind of Christianity that can bring us safely through any crisis, so that when we get through the crises we can look back on our life and our crises and say, "I have truly known God. He was truly with me. He was moving sovereignly before me. What an amazing Savior, and now my Redeemer".

    While I pray that for these guys, I pray the same for all of us. Myself, my family, and all you prayer partners regardless of your circumstances, that we will experience God in such a way we will desire him, and walking with him, even more than we desire our circumstances to change.

    A friend sent me the book "Authentic Christianity" by Ray Stedman, some time ago. I'm reading it for the second time and parts of it for the third time. I highly recommend the  book. I want to quote him on the subject I was just talking about with my concerns for the guys and maybe us as prayer partners as well. Just as I have people I'm concerned for, you may as well, maybe grandchildren or children.

     He was writing about signs of life of new Christians and then goes into three possible choices Christians can make as they become older in the faith. "Inevitably , sooner or  later, the old natural life begins to reassert itself. The glow begins to fade from Christian worship;, and Bible reading becomes less and less rewarding".

    First the young Christian may continue his decline to the point of dropping out of all Christian relationships, neglecting the Bible, abandoning prayer, losing interest in spiritual things, falling back into the previous life style. This may be a temporary backslide, or if longer term or permanent, of course, the question can really come whether this person was really a Christian in the first place.

     Second, the young Christian may become aware of his cold and rebellious heart, become frightened by the thought of regressing to what he was before, and repentantly cast himself upon God's mercy, renewing his trust in God's promises. Such Christians often seek the help of older, more experienced Christians as mentors and prayer partners who encourage them  and hold them accountable as they return to a state of obedience, peace, and joy. This cycle may be repeated many times until it becomes habitual and he becomes to think of it as normal Christianity.

    Third, and most likely possibility, is that the new Christian may discover what millions of others before him have learned; It is possible to avoid the pain and humiliation of these cycles of repentance and renewal by maintaining an outward facade of spiritual commitment, moral impeccability, and orthodox behavior. One can simply maintain an outward reputation for spiritual maturity that is satisfying to the ego, even thought he is inwardly haunted by the fact that his 'Christianity' is a hollow shell. Such an outwardly Christian lifestyle is so prevalent today that a new Christian can hardly be blamed for adopting it and regarding it as normal. He drifts  into it with only an occasional twinge of doubt or a rare, faint pang of conscience.

     I am praying for the kind of Christianity that can bring us safely through any crisis, that will enable us to look back on the timeline of our life and say, "I have truly known God". Yes, dear Partners, I think many of us have been in the faith for many years, and I would be so blessed, to the point of sensing a calling fulfilled if all of us can say, from walking through this experience together, "I really know God".
   
    One more airplane metaphor: As a student pilot I had to learn to do stalls. Stalls bothered me. It is where you must climb the airplane (at reduced power) and hold the nose up until the airplane can't fly anymore and it "stalls" meaning it stops flying , the nose drops until you pick up airspeed and then you recover. I told my instructor, "Stalls make me nervous". He said, "You need a confidence builder, you need to trust the integrity of the airplane". He said, "We need to do some maximum maneuvers". We climbed this time at full power. He had me continue to hold the nose what seemed like straight up and with the rudder pedals kept the wings straight so the plane didn't spin. When the plane couldn't climb anymore we began sliding backwards down out of the sky. He said, "There, now you know the airplane won't fall apart, and won't crash. It just gains its normal characteristics again after you resume a normal attitude". I have often thought of that experience. It was a confidence builder for me. It made a normal stall seem like a very moderate thing. In flying, in order to learn, you need to be somewhat of a risk taker. It seems to me, the same thing is true. We must take some risks with our faith. We must step out of our comfort zone where we need the Lord. Sometimes we step out, some times he pushes us out, but no matter how we get there, we must come to the end of ourselves, our resources, to find the amazement of his.

In the Lord,
Bob