Marissa Henley

Encouraging weary women to hope in Christ alone

Cookies, Counting and the Cross

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Do you know the difference between a two-year-old and a three-year-old? A two-year-old will share her cookie with you. A three-year-old won’t.

 

Sometime around our third birthday, we learn that the quantity of the cookie is limited. We realize that giving part of our cookie to mommy means less cookie for us. And we’ve known for some time that less cookie for us is a very bad thing.

 

I think this understanding of limited quantities of desirable things can hinder us from understanding God’s grace and forgiveness. It’s hard to wrap our brains around a fountain of grace that never runs out . . . that never lessens later no matter how much I need now . . . that never lessens for me no matter how much you need.

 

I love these thoughts from The Valley of Vision, “Calvary’s Anthem”:

“At the cross there is free forgiveness 

       for poor and meet ones, 

       and ample blessings that last for ever; 

The blood of the Lamb is like a great river of infinite grace 

       with never any diminishing of its fullness as thirsty ones without

       number drink of it.” 

 

Can you imagine a river of infinite grace that never diminishes in fullness? We can never exhaust God’s grace and forgiveness. Christ accomplished this for us!

 

When my troubles exhaust my emotional resources and when my sin exhausts my spiritual resources, this truth brings great comfort – the resources of grace and forgiveness that I own in Christ will never run out.

 

My daughter likes to beat me in the “I Love You” game by saying she loves me to infinity. The other day, she confessed that she can’t count to infinity because she doesn’t know all the numbers. I told her that even if she did know a lot more numbers, she could never count to infinity.

 

Infinity means there is always one more number. And the reason there is always one more number is because we live in a world created by an infinite God. We can never get to the end of His numbers, and we can never get to the end of His grace.

 

“O Lord, for ever will thy free forgiveness live 

       that was gained on the mount of blood;

In the midst of a world of pain

       it is a subject for praise in every place, a song on earth, an anthem in

       heaven, its love and virtue knowing no end.”

– The Valley of Vision, “Calvary’s Anthem”

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Prayer Binder: Confession

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For an introduction to my prayer binder, click here.  For the post on the Adoration section, click here.

For those of you who just came to this post hoping for a photo of the inside of the confession section, forget it!

Ah, good old confession.  It’s just about enough to make us want to throw that whole ACTS thing out the window, right?  But one thing I’ve been learning lately is that the Christian life is a life of ongoing repentance.  So this might be one of the most important aspects of prayer.  I think it’s important to remember that we not only need to actively confess the sin that we’re aware of, but also take time to be quiet, asking the Holy Spirit to prick our hearts and show us the sin we have been ignoring.

The confession section of my prayer binder is simple.  It is a page where I have listed patterns of sin that I struggle with the most often, such as materialism, pride, selfishness, lack of self-control, envy, discontentment, and anxiety.  I pray through the list, focusing on things I am currently struggling with the most, and then asking God to show me if there’s anything new I need to jot down.

At the top and bottom of my confession page, I have two very important reminders.  They are quotes from Valley of Vision: A collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions (page 74).  At the top of the page, I have written:

“Thy blood is the blood of incarnate God, its worth infinite, its value beyond all thought.  Infinite must be the evil and guilt that demands such a price . . . “

At the bottom of the page, I have written:

” . . . yet thy compassions yearn over me, thy heart hastens to my rescue, thy love endured my curse, thy mercy bore my deserved stripes.”

I love these daily reminders of two very important truths.  First, that my sin is serious.  Christ’s blood is infinite in value.  And that was the price demanded by my worry, my pride, my selfishness, my discontentment.  These are not small issues.

Second, that Christ paid the price for my sin so that I can stand righteous before a Holy God.  God Himself worked in history to secure my rescue.  In light of the ways I rebel against His Word every day, this is truly amazing grace.

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Prayer: Some Ideas

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About six months ago (wow, how time flies), I sent out an email to many of my friends digging into the personal depths of their prayer lives.  To the brave ones who wrote me back, thank you so much.  I promise to mention you by name only once or twice in this post.  😉

I was not surprised to find that I am not the only one who struggles with inconsistency in my prayer life.  We are all a little too tired, a little too busy, a little too undisciplined, a little too interested in tv and the internet and all the distractions of life.  Our mind wanders; the dryer buzzes; we get sleepy; the kids wake up.  We like to talk to people who audibly talk back.  It is difficult to carve out time to present our prayers and petitions to the Lord, and it seems nearly impossible to take the additional time to be still and listen to what He has to say.

I was also not surprised to find that my friends have some really good ideas when it comes to prayer . . .

On planning for prayer:

  • Have a shared prayer time with your husband.
  • Have a scheduled time to pray with a group of women (e.g., Moms In Touch at school).
  • Keep long-term needs and short-term needs in separate sections of a notebook and record answers to prayer.
  • Have a specific prayer task for each day of the week:  Monday–husband, Tuesday–kids, Wednesday–friends, Thursday–missionaries, etc.
  • Maximize family prayer time before meals, at bedtime, etc.  Pray with the kids while driving in the car.
  • Twice a year, take a significant chunk of time away to pray through needs of marriage, kids, family, and friends.  Journal and write down goals and prayer requests for the next 6 months to review next time and see how God is working.

On praying for our families:

  • Keep notebooks for each member of family, including self, write prayers for that person, or if there are not needs, how you can minister to them.
  • Pray over each person at night after they are asleep.
  • Read through the Bible in a year and make notes in that Bible for one specific family member.  Write prayers in it for him/her to have later.
  • Praying for your husband from his head to his feet–protection from temptation with his eyes, those he comes into contact with with a handshake at work, etc.

On praying for others:

  • Pray for someone immediately when you learn of the request so you don’t forget.
  • View intercession as something we can do as a ministry even when we have young kids at home and may not.

Helpful books/resources:

I love my friends and all their great ideas!  But if you’re anything like me, I suggest praying for discipline first and foremost.  I can have all the great tips and tools in the world, but I still have to make the decision to stop doing something else and go to the Lord in prayer.

What are some ideas or helps that have improved your prayer life?

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I Don’t Wanna.

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I’ve been reading Valley of Vision: A collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions, a collection of Puritan prayers compiled by Arthur Bennett.  I highly recommend it.  They are short (perfect for a quick morning reading before the kids are up), and they have been very encouraging and challenging to me in my personal prayer life.  One of the prayers that I read weeks ago is still lingering with me.  It is a prayer that I want to pray sincerely for myself, but it’s a tough one:

“I am well pleased with thy will, whatever it is, or should be in all respects,

And if thou bidst me decide for myself in any affair, I would choose to refer all to thee,

for thou art infinitely wise and cannot do amiss, as I am in danger of doing.

I rejoice to think that all things are at thy disposal, and it delights me to leave them there.

Then prayer turns wholly into praise, and all I can do is to adore and bless thee.”

–Valley of Vision, p. 4

I’ll be honest.  When I read this, I thought for a moment how wonderful it would be if God let me decide how things were going to go.  Never in a million years would I “choose to refer all to thee.”  I’d be in charge, and it would be awesome.  And rejoicing that all things are at His disposal?  Delighting to leave them there?  I’m too busy trying to yank things out of God’s hands so I can manage the situation and manipulate things according to my desires.

After typing the above paragraph, I did some strategic formatting.  As you can see, it’s all about me.  My wisdom (ha!) and my wants.  The way I think things should go.  One problem (among many) with this way of thinking is that my desires (happiness and comfort) are rarely in line with God’s desire for me (to make me more like Christ).

I want to desire what God desires for me.  I want to be more like Christ.  I want to glorify God with my life and point others to Him and His grace.  I want to so fully trust His goodness and faithfulness to me that even if he bidst me decide for myself, I would choose to refer all to the all-wise, all-loving, sovereign Creator.  But I’ve got some growing to do in this area.  So I guess it’s good that God’s in control, whether I like it or not.  🙂

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