“God’s word is His presence, when delivered in a true setting.”

by James B. Jordan. Biblical Horizons No. 245

“And hearkened Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel,
and Joshua son of Jehozadak, the great priest,
and all the remnant of the people,
to the voice of Yahweh their God,
and to the words of Haggai the prophet,
just as Yahweh their God had sent him;
and the people feared the presence of Yahweh.
“Then Haggai, the messenger of Yahweh, said
in a message of Yahweh to the people,
saying,
“I am with you — a statement of Yahweh.”
And Yahweh stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel
son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah,
and the spirit of Joshua son of Jehozadak, the great priest,
and the spirit of all the remnant of the people;
and they came and did work on the house of
Yahweh of Armies, their God,
on the twenty-fourth day
of the sixth month,
in the second year of King Darius.

(Haggai 1:12-15)

While it makes for a bit of an awkward English sentence, it is important to see that the first word in verse 12 is “hearkened.” The obedience is instantaneous. We read at the end of the verse that the people feared, or respected, the presence of Yahweh, which in this case means the words of Haggai.

God’s word is His presence, when delivered in a true setting. God had placed his “Name” in the Temple built by Solomon: “My Name shall be there” (1 Kings 8:29). When carried to Babylon, the Levites asked “How can we sing Yahweh’s song in a strange land”; how can we sing the Temple psalms away from the Name in the Temple? (Psalm 137:4). In Psalm 138:2 David gives an answer:

I bow down to Your holy temple,
And I give thanks to Your Name,
For Your lovingkindness and for Your faithfulness,
Because You have magnified Your Word over all Your Name.

Indeed, as David continues in Psalm 139:8, “If I make my bed in Sheol, You are there.” Wherever God’s Word is, His Name-Presence is.

In verse 13, Haggai is called “the messenger of Yahweh.” This is the same word as “Malachi,” My Messenger. It is also the word translated “angel” when referring to spirit-beings. In Genesis 28:12 Jacob saw angels moving between heaven and earth. Similarly, God’s prophets are consulted by Him and carry His words to earth (Amos 3:7; 7:1-8; Genesis 20:7; 18:20-33). In Acts 6:15 the Jews saw the face of Stephen as the face of an angel, which means that when they killed him they were killing God’s messenger, killing the manifestation of God’s very presence in their midst. The Jews should have “feared” the Lord through Stephen as their forefathers had feared Yahweh through Haggai, Yahweh’s messenger/angel.

In verse 9 the “statement of Yahweh” had been one of judgment, but now in verse 13 it is one of blessing. “I am with you” is Immanuel, God With Us, God’s presence among us.

Verse 14 tells us that “not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit” the Temple is built (Zechariah 4:6). In Zechariah this is the message to Zerubbabel the Davidic Temple-builder. Here it is a blessing to all the people. Interestingly, in Exodus 31 :3ff. it is only Bezalel and some associates of his who are filled with the Spirit to build the Tabernacle. Now in this more glorious time it is all the people who are stirred by the Spirit.

What does this mean for us today? We should consider that before Solomon built the first physical Temple in Jerusalem, a generation earlier David had set up a temple of psalmody around the house(s) of God. (Ark and Tabernacle were separate at this time.) God was enthroned on the praises of His people (Psalm 22:3). Those praises were the psalms.

Uh, yes. The psalms.

In heaven, right now, Jesus is singing the psalms to God the Father. He is not singing metrical paraphrases. He is “chanting” the psalms as they are written.

The gift of tongues is given to the Church to enable us to translate the Bible into all languages, improving those languages over time. We can chant the psalms in English or in any other language in union with Jesus.

So-called “metrical psalms” are fine as sermons based on the psalms, but they are not psalms. You have to be a in a strange mental state to think that they are the same as actual psalms. Anybody with half a brain can tell that they are not.

So, if God’s true temple is a house of music, where is it today? I attended Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi, and also Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, Pemisylvania. There was chapel every day. Not once was there any psalm singing. And these places advertised themselves as conservative and orthodox! (Which is some ways they were, but not at this point.) Historically, chanting the psalms along with Jesus has been central to Christian worship. In historic monasteries, all 150 psalms are sung every week!

So Haggai asks us: Is now the time for you to have your 35-inch flat-screen television and your microwave, while the house of God is lifeless and desolate? Do you not care about all the suffering Christians around the world who need you to stand before God during the Lord’s Day and chant the psalms, especially the imprecatory ones? Should you not be building the house of God, that house of prayer and psalms?

Biblical Horizons is published occasionally, funds permitting, by Biblical Horizons, P.O. Box 1096, Niceville, Florida 32588-1096. www.biblicalhorizons.com Anyone sending a donation, in any amount, will be placed on the mailing list to receive issues of Biblical Horizons as they are published.

“Real supernatural power is always found in the last place we want to look, the place of humble submission to God and His Law.”

Without fail, the simple passing of time exposes all the man-made isms for what they are: sophisticated attempts to obtain the blessings of God while avoiding obedience to the Law of God.

The more complicated something is, the more likely it is to be contrived. Even Christian bookstores are filled with complicated “how to” solutions. It’s a symptom of the wonderful pragmatism of our culture perversely allowed to step beyond its God-given bounds. [1]

Only a depraved heart prefers sophistry over simplicity. The problem with “simple” is its admission that we don’t have all the answers, its main ingredient being something we have no taste for: humility.

Tim Challies unearthed a quote from Thomas Chalmers that highlights how ordinary is the Biblical solution to our most perplexing problems, to our deepest fears, and even our fatal flaws:

While doing some research this week I came across this wonderful little quote from Thomas Chalmers. Here he discusses the central role of the very ordinary means of God’s grace.

In bygone days when God’s covenant people sought to strengthen their piety, to sharpen their effectual intercessions, and give passion to their supplications, they partook of the means of grace in all holiness with humble prayer and fasting.

When intent upon seeking the Lord God’s guidance in difficult after-times, they partook of the means of grace in all holiness with humble prayer and fasting.

When they were wont to express grief—whether over the consequences of their own sins or the sins of others—they partook of the means of grace in all holiness with humble prayer and fasting.

When they sought deliverance or protection in times of trouble, they partook of the means of grace in all holiness with humble prayer and fasting.

When they desired to express repentance, covenant renewal, and a return to the fold of faith, they partook of the means of grace in all holiness with humble prayer and fasting.

Such is the call upon all who would name the Name of Jesus. Such is the ordinary Christian life. [2]

______________________________
[1] This is also the problem with modern science. See Supermarket of Ideas.
[2] The Ordinary Means of Grace.

The recent Australian federal election resulted in a hung parliament, with the balance of power held by a small number of elected independents. Not being forced to toe the party line, each of these men is free to stand for the needs of his own electorate. This can certainly slow down the process of government in the courts of men, but not in the courts of God.

As Christians, we are taught to toe the party line. This is a false piety. Our Father actually loves a lively, argumentative parliament. The process of maturity is supposed to bring us to the point where we are wise judges whom He can include in His government (pictured in baptism), standing on the crystal sea as joint heirs with His Son, Great Prophets whose very words change history.

Back room deals and bargaining with God are an abuse of prayer. Or are they? Not when those disputing with God are men whose hearts are like those of the Father. Abraham and David did it. God’s desire is that we should be like them.

As Covenant heads, Christ, the ministers, the husbands and the fathers to whom He has given authority, have the same responsibility as the ascended Son of God: advocacy. Sadly, our lack of perseverance in prayer becomes an unspoken fatalism. As is the way with our appointed political advocates, the church culture’s party line is to pray like Sir Humphrey Appleby in Yes, Minister. Doug Wilson says,

There is a great difference between complaining about God and complaining to God. Arguing with God, complaining to God, is not inconsistent with piety. We must let the Bible teach us how to relate to God.

When the children of Israel are in the wilderness complaining about the food; when you’re driving around downtown in the rain and the windshield is fogged up and the kids are irritating you from the back seat, and you are muttering under your breath, you are not bringing your concerns to God.

We all understand that such murmuring is sinful. We don’t want to be like the Israelites whose bodies were scattered in the wilderness because they displeased God. But if we turn to the Psalms, we find that David and the other psalmists bring their complaints, concerns and agonies to God. They let God know all about it.

If you try to avoid murmuring about God by not saying anything at all, you are actually trying to be holier than the Bible, holier than the men whom God has set before us as a godly example.

We should all know what happens to those who murmur, complain, moan and grumble. Their bodies are scattered over the desert. But the alternative to this is not stiff-upper-lip stoicism.

In Psalm 55:2, David makes a noise so that God will hear him. If you want to pray like God’s saints in the Bible, lay out your case before Him. Reason it through. Don’t pray like you were a block of wood or you will get answers of the sort that would satisfy a block of wood: tepid, anaemic responses.

The Psalms teach us to sing and pray and argue rightly. The faithful servant in prayer does not want to simply “say the right words.” He wants an audience. He wants God to hear, and prays as though he wants God to hear. He wants to offer up prayers that cannot be refused. You come like the widow who wanted justice from the unjust judge: she wouldn’t leave him alone. Jesus said, “Be like that!”

But we, thinking that it reveals a high doctrine of the sovereignty of God, fall into, not Calvininsm, but stoicism. “Whatever was determined from the foundation of the world is going to happen and I can’t stop it.”

But that is a distortion of the sovereignty of God. He does not teach us to pray, “I am the sovereign God. Just sit there like a block of wood and take it.” That is not what we are called to do.

The great Puritan Goodwin said that when we pray to God we should “sue him” for things. A Puritan said that? Yes, they were Biblical people.

Now, we shouldn’t sue God in the court of the devil, or in the court of the world. But we should go into the courts of heaven and plead our case with God. You might say, “I’m not competent to plead a case of any complexity.” Well, John Bunyan said it’s better that your heart be without words than your words be without heart. It’s not prim and proper words that count. It’s heart.

This is the first thing we learn from Psalm 55. David is in trouble, and he itemises his troubles to God. He wants to tell God all about it and he wants God to do something about it. He pleads his case with Him. “Lord, hear me. Give ear to my prayer, O God, and hide not thy face from me.” Where are you going, God? Don’t hide! Hear me out, here. Attend to me, I tell you!

Now, does that sound godly to you? No it doesn’t, and the reason is that we have our own tradition of what a pious prayer sounds like:

“Dear Father in heaven, Whatever happens, happens. And bless everybody indiscriminately in such a way as I can’t tell whether or not anything has ever happened.”

We’re afraid of getting a “no,” so we build escape hatches into all our prayers. If you get a “no,” you are getting some feedback and you are learning how to pray. What you want to do is submit yourself to the text of Scripture, pray the way God’s people prayed, and as you do so you will discover that you are imitating it rightly in some instances and wrongly in others, and you make adjustments.

Remember the acronym, G.A.S.P. God Answers Specific Prayer. If that doesn’t sound pious, then we have something wrong with our definition of piety. And I submit that we have allowed ourselves to drift into these misunderstandings of piety because we have not been singing the Psalms. We are not steeped in the Psalms. If kids in the Christian church were steeped in the Psalms, marinating in them for ten or fifteen or twenty years as they grew up in the Covenant community, these false traditions of piety could not take root. You could not get away with telling people, “This is how you pray. Don’t say anything specific.”

There are actually seminars for aspiring politicians which teach them how to answer questions without saying anything. When someone on television talks for three or four minutes and nothing clear ever comes out, that’s not natural. One has to study to do that, and they do study. And we have our own schools which teach Christians how to pray that way.

Argue like David did. Argue like the apostle Paul did. Don’t complain about God. Bring your case to God. [1]

For me, one of the most striking examples of such prayer comes from the life of John G. Paton. What made it so memorable for me was the common, uncomplicated and very achievable ministry of advocacy it portrays, and the results that simple, persistent dealing with God can have as a foundation for the courageous faith of those for whom we advocate, and for the sovereign God in changing the history of His world. John Piper writes:

John G. Paton was a missionary to the New Hebrides, today called Vanuatu, in the South Seas. He was born in Scotland in 1824. I gave my Pastors’ Conference message about him because of the courage he showed throughout his 82 years of life. When I dug for the reasons he was so courageous, one reason I found was the deep love he had for his father.

The tribute Paton pays to his godly father is, by itself, worth the price of his Autobiography, which is still in print. Maybe it’s because I have four sons (and Talitha), but I wept as I read this section. It filled me with such longing to be a father like this.

There was a “closet” where his father would go for prayer as a rule after each meal. The eleven children knew it and they reverenced the spot and learned something profound about God. The impact on John Paton was immense.

Though everything else in religion were by some unthinkable catastrophe to be swept out of memory, were blotted from my understanding, my soul would wander back to those early scenes, and shut itself up once again in that Sanctuary Closet, and, hearing still the echoes of those cries to God, would hurl back all doubt with the victorious appeal, “He walked with God, why may not I?” (Autobiography, p. 8 )

How much my father’s prayers at this time impressed me I can never explain, nor could any stranger understand. When, on his knees and all of us kneeling around him in Family Worship, he poured out his whole soul with tears for the conversion of the Heathen world to the service of Jesus, and for every personal and domestic need, we all felt as if in the presence of the living Savior, and learned to know and love him as our Divine friend.” (Autobiography, p. 21)

One scene best captures the depth of love between John and his father, and the power of the impact on John’s life of uncompromising courage and purity. The time came for the young Paton to leave home and go to Glasgow to attend divinity school and become a city missionary in his early twenties. From his hometown of Torthorwald to the train station at Kilmarnock was a 40-mile walk. Forty years later, Paton wrote,

My dear father walked with me the first six miles of the way. His counsels and tears and heavenly conversation on that parting journey are fresh in my heart as if it had been but yesterday; and tears are on my cheeks as freely now as then, whenever memory steals me away to the scene. For the last half mile or so we walked on together in almost unbroken silence – my father, as was often his custom, carrying hat in hand, while his long flowing yellow hair (then yellow, but in later years white as snow) streamed like a girl’s down his shoulders. His lips kept moving in silent prayers for me; and his tears fell fast when our eyes met each other in looks for which all speech was vain! We halted on reaching the appointed parting place; he grasped my hand firmly for a minute in silence, and then solemnly and affectionately said: “God bless you, my son! Your father’s God prosper you, and keep you from all evil!”

Unable to say more, his lips kept moving in silent prayer; in tears we embraced, and parted. I ran off as fast as I could; and, when about to turn a corner in the road where he would lose sight of me, I looked back and saw him still standing with head uncovered where I had left him – gazing after me. Waving my hat in adieu, I rounded the corner and out of sight in instant. But my heart was too full and sore to carry me further, so I darted into the side of the road and wept for time. Then, rising up cautiously, I climbed the dike to see if he yet stood where I had left him; and just at that moment I caught a glimpse of him climbing the dike and looking out for me! He did not see me, and after he gazed eagerly in my direction for a while he got down, set his face toward home, and began to return – his head still uncovered, and his heart, I felt sure, still rising in prayers for me. I watched through blinding tears, till his form faded from my gaze; and then, hastening on my way, vowed deeply and oft, by the help of God, to live and act so as never to grieve or dishonor such a father and mother as he had given me. (pp. 25-26)

The impact of his father’s faith and prayer and love and discipline was immeasurable. O fathers, read and be filled with longing. [2]

Quite a few people have asked me for a more clear definition of what Ascension means in the Bible Matrix. This is it. A Covenant head who is bread and wine: the ceaseless, specific advocacy of an upright man in the throneroom of God for those whom God has given him as a body. After twenty-six years of being a Christian, I feel like I am only just beginning in prayer.

__________________________________________________
[1] Doug Wilson, Psalm 55: Mischief in the Midst of It. Christkirk sermon podcast, 12 October, 2010.
[2] John Piper, John G. Paton’s Father.

Some great quotes from an interview by Barbara Demarco-Barrett with author Mary Karr:

“[My young son] came flouncing in in his Power Ranger pyjamas and said “I wanna go to church.” I said “Why?” and he said, “To see if God’s there.” It was about the only sentence he could have said that would have gotten me to go. So we did this thing we called God-a-rama in which we went to various temples and mosques and zendos. I had no interest in going to church so I brought a latté and a paperback.

I was praying at the time. I was sober and the only way I seemed to be able to get sober was to pray. But I was praying to some kind of vague, I don’t know, what native Americans would call the Great Spirit but what Catholics would call the Holy Spirit; a force for good in the universe would be about all I could call it. So I was still a long way from conversion.”

“[At university] I went to every other church but the Catholic church due to its stance on choice for women, the fact that women can’t be priests… I guess I thought of it in very medieval terms. I thought of it solely in terms of the hierarchy and probably the Spanish inquisition! I had figured I would go for some free-wheeling, breezy hippy deal or something.

We went to a Midrash, a conservative temple, a zendo—which really wasn’t the place for an eight year old. But we ended up at the Catholic church. I don’t know what happened. I just stopped bringing a paperback. A couple of the Protestant churches I had gone to were so vague. It was kind of like, you know, “Today’s gospel is from Glamor magazine… It was like little hopeful things you might find in the Reader’s Digest, and I thought, well, there’s not much God here. And the episcopal church, which had women priests and so forth… the fact that they didn’t believe in evil, theologically… in a way that was more horrifying for me than the Spanish Inquisition! How can you not believe in evil? I knew I believed in evil long before I believed in any force for good.”

“What I loved about the Catholic church was the carnality. First off, the fact that there is an actual body on the cross. It’s so… meaty? You realise what a hunk of meat you are from the minute you walk in. And also (and I know this sounds incredibly nuts) but the way you kneel and stand up and pray. Everyone moves and says the same words the same way, you pray with other people in concert, breathing the prayers and saying them together. A lot of “cradle Catholics” complain about that stuff—you’re a sheep in a herd—but for me it was strangely comforting. Just going through the motions to be polite, kneeling and standing up—even with my cup of coffee and paperback—I realised, “My body bends the way these people’s bodies bend. I’m not so different than they are.” I found that when you read a poem that someone wrote a long time ago that you are breathing the way that person breathed. You are taking their words into your body. I guess it was a eucharistic quality even then that I was attracted to.

Also, it wasn’t the ritual. It was the faith of the people. When they would ask people to state their prayer intentions… I was very moved by people bringing their suffering and their hope together into this public place. I guess I really did think that when you spoke those things together, that it was something sacred.

Again, it was still very vague. I didn’t have much to do with Jesus at the beginning. When I stopped bringing the paperback and visited the peace and social justice committee, I noticed that the people who brought people over from El Salvador and did the prison ministry and ran the soup kitchen all talked about Jesus a lot. They were really into Jesus, and I thought, gosh, these are really nice people. They’re trying to get cribs for these people who don’t even speak English and trying to help them find jobs. They’re running an HIV hospice and bringing meals to people who are gay for God’s sake! I saw a lot of the lay tradition among the poor… which is not peculiar to Catholics, but I guess I just saw it first hand up close.”

You can hear the entire interview at the Pen on Fire podcast.

No, I’m not heading for Rome, ever. I have just found that Catholics often have a much healthier sense of the poetic “earthiness” of truth. Cerebral Protestants might understand sola fide better, but they don’t do mercy ministry like Rome does. There is much good in Rome despite its twisted doctrines and errant traditions that we must recover for Protestantism, or whatever this becomes. Much of it has been ditched by Protestantism since the Reformation, so I guess that is really what we should be drawing on. But who is living it out, in the flesh? This razor-humoured, delightful lady, who has been through some very tough times, experienced a miraculous work of God through some very godly people.

Disgraceland

BY MARY KARR

Before my first communion, I clung to doubt
as Satan spider-like stalked
the orb of dark surrounding Eden

for a wormhole into paradise.
God had formed me from gel in my mother’s womb,
injected by my dad’s smart shoot.

They swapped sighs until
I came, smaller than a bite of burger.
Quietly, I grew till my lungs were done

then the Lord sailed a soul
like a lit arrow to inhabit me.
Maybe that piercing

made me howl at birth,
or the masked creatures whose scalpel
cut a lightning bolt to free me.

I was hoisted by the heels and swatted, fed
and hauled around. Time-lapse photos show
my fingers grow past crayon outlines,

my feet come to fill spike heels.
Eventually, I lurched out
to kiss the wrong mouths, get stewed,

and sulk around. Christ always stood
to one side with a glass of water.
I swatted the sap away.

When my thirst got great enough to ask,
a clear stream welled up inside,
some jade wave buoyed me forward,

and I found myself upright
in the instant, with a garden
inside my own ribs aflourish.

There, the arbor leafs.
The vines push out plump grapes.
You are loved, someone said. Take that

and eat it.

Source: Poetry (January 2004).

The Bible tells us we were created for God’s glory. Glory means, in a very simple sense, to make one famous. Our job therefore is to make God famous. We do this by praising Him, bragging on Him, telling others of His glorious works in our lives and in the lives of our brothers and sisters in Christ, both now and in history. When others hear about the mighty works of God, they believe our words and put their trust in Him, and He is made more famous than He was before. He gets glory.

One of the impediments to our making God famous is when the words of our message don’t match our behaviour. It sends mixed signals to those who are hearing the story. But we believe God’s story is glorious, so why don’t our lives match our story? I believe it is a combination of two very simple things.

First, we become more Christlike when we spend time with Christ. It only makes sense. Love is efficacious, and when we spend time with the One who is love, our lives automatically become more lovely. Jesus said, the student becomes like his teacher. When we spend time with our Great Teacher, we become like Him. Why don’t we live like our Teacher, Saviour, Older Brother, Lord? Because we don’t spend enough time with Him.

Second, our lives don’t match our story because our lives are subject to a slippery slope related to the idea that our sinful actions really aren’t that bad. God tells us that when we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and will cleanse us from all unrighteousness. This means that after your sins are confessed and repented of, you are clean in Christ. You have a clean slate with regard to your walk with God. Then, as James said, you are tempted when your desires are enticed, and you sin when you indulge in those desires. But think about your sin for a moment. How often, when confronted with a particular temptation do you think, “This isn’t such a big deal. It is a sin but it’s of very little consequence. Hardly worth noticing at all.” But how many “hardly noticeable” sins can you string together before it is noticeable, at least by others? How often do you realise that you are sinning in really large ways and didn’t notice that you had stopped doing those inconsequential sins and had begun doing some humdingers. This is because sin blinds the sinner, and renders him unable to see his life the way God sees it. The slippery slope of little sins rapidly turns into very large sins without our even noticing it.

And this reminds us of our need to confess our sins, so please kneel as you are able.

Subscribe to the Christkirk podcast at www.christkirk.com

NOTE: THIS POST HAS BEEN REMIXED AND INCLUDED IN GOD’S KITCHEN.

Behind Closed Doors

“…who shut in the sea with doors, when it burst forth and issued from the womb?” Job 38:8

As with all good government, important kingdom decisions are carried out in private. This is pictured in many ways, not least in God’s design of our everyday lives.

You must be logged in to see the rest of this post.

Join now for a year for $15!

Pray until you pray. That is Puritan advice. It does not simply mean that persistence should mark much of our praying—though admittedly that is a point the Scriptures repeatedly make. Even though he was praying in line with God’s promises, Elijah prayed for rain seven times before the first cloud appeared in the heavens. The Lord Jesus could tell parables urging persistence in prayer (Luke 11:5-13). If some generations needed to learn that God is not particularly impressed by long-winded prayers, and is not more disposed to help us just because we are garrulous, our generation needs to learn that God is not impressed by the kind of brevity that is nothing other than culpable negligence. He is not more disposed to help us because our insincerity and spiritual flightiness conspire to keep our prayers brief. Our generation certainly needs to learn something more about per-sistence in prayer. Even so, that is not quite what the Puritans meant when they exhorted one another to “pray until you pray.”

What they meant is that Christians should pray long enough and honestly enough, at a single session, to get past the feeling and the formalism and unreality that attends not a little praying. We are especially prone to such feelings when we pray for only a few minutes, rushing to be done with mere duty. To enter the spirit of prayer, we must stick to it for a while. If we “pray until we pray,” eventually we come to delight in God’s presence, to rest in his love, to cherish his will. Even in dark or agonised praying, we somehow know we are doing business with God. In short, we discover a little of what Jude means when he exhorts his readers to “pray in the Holy Spirit” (Jude 20) — which presum-ably means it is treacherously possible to pray not in the Spirit.

If God is the one “who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose” (Phil. 2:13), then of course he is the God who by his Spirit helps us in our praying. Every Christian who has learned the rudiments of praying knows by experience at least a little of what this means. The Puritans knew a great deal of it. That is why they exhorted one another to “pray until you pray.” Such advice is not to become an excuse for a new legalism: there are startling examples of very short, rapid prayers in the Bible (e.g., Neh. 2:4). But in the Western world we urgently need this advice, for many of us in our praying are like nasty little boys who ring front door bells and run away before anyone answers.

Pray until you pray.

— Don Carson

“Prayer is not a retreat from the history of redemption into private ecstasies of communion. Prayer is a chief instrument by which the Father renews the world through His sons who are in the Son and who have received the Spirit.”

Peter Leithart, Romans 8, continued, www.leithart.com