In Brief — Where I’m Going With This
I’m thinking about prayer, imagination, and what it means to carry someone before God. Along the way, John White, Shakespeare, a dream about my daughter, Samson, and the book of Ephesians all find their way into the conversation. What begins as a reflection on prayer becomes something larger: a consideration of our calling, our weakness, and the strength we find in Christ and in one another.
- Imagination and Prayer — Richard Foster, drawing near to God, and testing what we believe we hear.
- Books as Companions — John White, Shakespeare, Earl Palmer, and the wisdom we discover through reading.
- Quit Pointing Out the Dents in Your Car — An unexpected message while revisiting an old book.
- The Burden That Calls Us to Prayer — Daniel, intercession, and the tension we need not escape.
- A Dream About My Daughter — Weakness, love, forgiveness, and the strange language of dreams.
- Into the Throne Room — An image of coming before God with nothing left to hide.
- Samson Between the Pillars — Failure, guilt, and the possibility that our calling is not finished.
- We Are His Workmanship — Ephesians 2:8–10 and the significance of the plural “you.”
- We’re Not Lone Superheroes — Leaving behind the solitary hero and discovering our place in Christ’s body.
1. Imagination and Prayer
Richard J. Foster wrote a book on prayer, and in it he gives the OK to using my imagination to pray. It was good to hear that. I didn’t need to have permission, I had learned in my life to do whatever it takes to break through the muss and tangled mess in my mind to pray. To reach beyond my limitations to gain access to him. To draw near to God.
I have certain images in my mind that depict various thoughts I believe have been conveyed to me by God. That’s a pretty bold statement, isn’t it? To think that a thought or image might be from God himself, I mean. And I don’t want to confuse my imagination, however useful it may be, with an unquestionable message from God. That’s where discernment comes in.
1 Thessalonians 5 comes to mind. To test everything, hold on to the good, and run from evil. Is that what it says?
Final Instructions and Benediction
1 Thessalonians 5:12–22 ESV
12 We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, 13 and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. 14 And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle,[c] encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. 15 See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone. 16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 19 Do not quench the Spirit. 20 Do not despise prophecies, 21 but test everything; hold fast what is good. 22 Abstain from every form of evil.
In a darkened confessional a man confesses to his priest that he watches Reels.
Squirrel…
2. Books as Companions
I noticed that in Daring To Draw Near, John White uses allusions to literature without mapping it out for the reader. One would have to notice the wisdom, or strangeness of a statement like “out out damn spot” to isolate it, and search for the origin of it. The origin is from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, and the words are spoken by Lady MacBeth.
Out, damned spot, out, I say. — One, two — why,
then, ’tis time to do’t. — Hell is murky. — Fie, my
lord, fie, a soldier, and afeard! What need we
fear who knows it, when none can call our power to
account? Yet who would have thought the old man
to have had so much blood in him?
Lady Macbeth, Macbeth Act 5, scene 1
As you can see I am driven to talk down to my reader, I guess, not believing for a second that they’ve read anything. But, on second look at myself, without being so harsh on myself I mean, I am speaking to a young person, and by pointing to the origin of a quote that has come into play I am doing a couple of things.
First and foremost I am making sure that I don’t get the credit for the quoted bit of wisdom, and secondly I am pointing that person to a whole body of work from which they can gather their own knowledge, and thirdly I am enticing my reader and/or listener, to read!
Earl F. Palmer does this in his preaching, and I have gained so much by jotting down a book title from which he’s quoted, and reading such books as “One Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovich” and “Les Miserables“.
I do the same with movies, sort of. If I enjoy a movie, for example, by Denzel Washington, I will look for other movies by him available on my favourite streaming media platform.
3. Quit Pointing Out the Dents in Your Car
In a recent email to a new friend I wrote:
Nice to hear from you. I’m doing well. My latest book is “Daring To Draw Near” by John White (1977) I gave it to a young man who rode my bus during the last week of my being a bus driver. I guess it must be somewhere in the realm of Matthew 7:1-6… taking one’s own advice. Long story short… I read that book in my teenage years, and it is expositional teaching on some major prayers of the bible. The young man I gave it to is Jacob. Anyways, I thought of once again reading it myself, and as it turns out, God had a message for me, too.
Quit pointing out and talking about the dents in your car, is a word for me, and for you.
4. The Burden That Calls Us to Prayer
I am an intercessor, that’s one of my spiritual gifts. When I got to chapter 8 of 12 chapters, I once again found myself “longing to be like that” and realizing that God planted the seed way back then. I think Psalm 139 teaches us that the way we will be in life is programmed or pre-wired into us in the womb by our creator. White points out that Daniel was bothered by what he saw going on in the world around him. And he took it to God in prayer. He didn’t try to soothe, nor mask, nor eliminate the tension. The tension is a call to prayer, and the very posture of prayer.
Last night I had a dream about my oldest daughter that I am trying to unravel, that’s why I’ve been up since 3:30 am. I lay in denial until about 4:00 am, then got up, made coffee and . . . here I am. 🙂
5. A Dream About My Daughter
I’m going to share something personal here. What follows is a mixture of the dream itself, my thoughts upon waking, and the images that came to mind as I prayed. I’m still sorting out what it all means. I believe God can use such things to draw us toward him, but that doesn’t mean every detail of a dream should be treated as a message from God, or as a statement about another person’s life.
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Things I think my daughter needs to know:
1) her daddy, that’s me, is flesh and blood weak, but Spiritually strong
2) is praying, interceding for her
3) I will not articulate it in English, but I will pray in the spirit
I do not pray so that the burden will be lifted from me, but I pray with the Joy of being included in the fight.
As I prayed, these were the words of encouragement that came to mind. I offer them as the language of my prayer, not as a claim that I can speak for God without question.
God would say this to you:
He is your strong tower, and you are his swift arrow, and a sword to be feared, that he wields!
The task you have been called to will not break you, because YOU are his workmanship!!! You are forged in the fire of God’s forge! You will not break, because HE is mighty that has called you.
6. Into the Throne Room
Even so, not in your own strength… kneel before him, look and see… there are huge doors which lay between you and his throne room… as you pound on them, they yield… you run through them… past the palace guards, and into his very presence, and you throw yourself into the folds of his flowing robes… your height is shorter than his shins… and as you weep, and hold on against the expectation of the guards trying to pry you away, God lifts his hand and bids them to leave off… and with his other hand he gently holds your head, and without a word, you know his love, and peace, and that it is ok, to let all of your troubles and sorrows flow through your tears… soaked up by his robe… absolutely weak in his presence, to go forth strong in HIS MIGHT
like Samson when his hair started to grow again, and he asked that young man to help him to stand between the two pillars that supported the building…
Intercessory prayer.
God woke me up this morning, and instead of rolling over and going back to sleep, I got out of bed… to meet with God, alone.
The dream that woke me up was about you.
I was yelling commands to my children down a well LOL or a mineshaft… they all felt safe to be disobedient and rebellious… so I climbed down the pipe to confront them… they burrowed into rooms and closed the doors, but you just lay there on your bed, and as I lay you across my lap to give you a good spanking, I relented… because you were passive and non-combative… and I gave you a symbolic smack, stood you on your feet, and held you close to me as you nestled your head into my shoulder. In the strange certainty that dreams sometimes give us, I felt as though I knew all that needed forgiving, without words needing to be spoken. I prayed for you. I held you, loved you, forgave you, and was strong for you.
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My daughter is wife of her husband, and mother to 5 children. She carries the weight of the world on her shoulders, ably.
I’m examining my dream. I believe God may be using it to draw me into prayer, but it also comes from deep inside my own heart. I don’t want to confuse those two things. I’ll let you know more as things come to light.
7. Samson Between the Pillars
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I went to see Glenn yesterday, and we went out to Walmart to pick out an Air Fryer for him, and some food for an in-home cooking demo. Then Ashton and I went back to his place and showed him how to cook chicken and potato wedges with his new appliance! He loves it!
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The significance of being awakened to pray is that God has often tried to rekindle this calling…. and I have resisted, not so much out of rebellion, but more along the lines of refusing to throw off the guilt of my past deeds.
The image of Samson between the pillars is one of a man who is blinded and bald… and imprisoned. Too late! It screams, one final act before I die!
But there’s a lie in there, at least when I begin to apply that picture to my own life. The lie is that failure has brought me to a place where nothing remains but one final, desperate act. Samson’s story is not identical to Christ’s, and I don’t want to force the comparison. But the image leads me to think of another man who willingly entered into suffering, not as a final attempt to recover what he’d lost, but to accomplish what the Father had given him to do.
Christ has already accomplished what I could never accomplish for myself. I don’t have to spend the rest of my life trying to make up for my failures. I can walk in obedience, doing the work he has called me to do, not to earn his acceptance, but because of what he has already done.
8. We Are His Workmanship
Did you ever stop to think that the book of Ephesians is written to a group, not an individual? So when we quote Ephesians 2:8-10, the YOU is plural?
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Ephesians 2:8–10 ESV
Greek Interlinear — Ephesians 2
In the older English translations, you can sometimes see the distinction more clearly through words like “ye.” The Greek makes it plain that Paul is addressing people together, not merely one isolated individual.
I grew up not knowing this.
And I wonder how much of my understanding of the Christian life was shaped by reading words addressed to a community as though they were written exclusively to me. Of course, each of us is personally called to respond to God. The plural doesn’t make the individual disappear. But neither should the individual make the rest of the body disappear!
Notice how Paul moves from “you have been saved” to “we are his workmanship.” There’s a shared identity here. We belong to Christ, and we belong to one another. Those good works prepared beforehand aren’t simply a collection of private assignments for independent Christians. They belong within the life of the people God is forming together.
9. We’re Not Lone Superheroes
And I think it is borrowed narcissism.
No, wait, maybe it’s taught! Yes, I would say it is. There’s obviously the message that the world pumps out. The superhero, alone to go save the world.
And perhaps we’ve borrowed more of that thinking than we realize. We hear about our calling, our purpose, our gifts, and we imagine ourselves standing alone before some enormous task. But Paul is writing to a people, a body, a community. The Church is not a collection of solitary superheroes who happen to meet on Sundays.
Quit being so caught up in your own mess! Get up out of that scene, and see yourself like God sees you! And part of that message is that we are not alone, we are a part of the body of Christ. But being “a part of” calls for effort, for intentionality, for actually belonging to one another.
And perhaps that’s another reason we pray for one another. Not because we are responsible for living someone else’s life, but because we are members of one another. We carry one another before God, while leaving room for each person to walk in the obedience that is theirs.
Related Reading
Some prose to my wife.
Another post that mentions Sarah.
