Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Y’all. This morning I felt like my head was full of cotton balls and molasses, and thoughts were giant marbles trying to make their way through it all. My coffee didn’t help, and I didn’t get to take even the tiniest of naps in the van or in a church pew. I didn’t have to work on a skit or lesson today, so I was able to concentrate completely on getting music together. I think I may have mentioned that our music notebook, the one I’ve been working on organizing and building up for years, is gone. It was nowhere to be found before we even headed up here, so we’re working with blank transparencies, randomly stored song sheets, and our memories. Thank goodness I have a knack for remembering song lyrics! [Speaking of which, we’ve been playing the song game this week – hello, favorite – and I’m killing it. My greatness is utterly untouchable.]
This morning we sang quite a few wonderful standards again – Awake Alert, River of Life, Psalm 9 (I Will Praise), Amazing Grace/Alleluia, Deep, the Sheep Song, I Could Sing of Your Love, Trading My Sorrows -- and it went pretty well except for one familiar song that no one else acted like they knew, which made it kind of like the Laura show for a minute (uhhh…). I had to drink lots of water again to keep my voice going, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as yesterday. You should have heard me, though, when we were practicing this afternoon. Yikes.
For class time, we chose to discuss the covenant God made with Abra[ha]m regarding his descendants and land. It was interesting to think about the sacrifices and provisions God makes for us, including telling us that He’ll forgive us no matter how many times we mess up, and contrasting that with the command that we must follow the example of Christ and live for Him. Yes, we have to give up some very fun things when we become Christians. But honestly, when you let those fun things play out in the long term, they become not so fun and kind of harmful, so we ultimately benefit from not dealing with those things in the first place. We just talked about the difference between what God does for us and what we do for Him – Who has the better deal? With a contract like this, why would we ever turn Him down? Because we’re idiots, that’s why. But I didn’t say that. It’s true, though. We’re idiots.
They made us play dodgeball in recreation. That was a little bit of a disaster. I’m personally hoping for some chalk drawings and maybe a rousing round of hopscotch tomorrow. I think my middle- and high-school girls are with me on that one.
Yesterday’s nap was not that fruitful. Today’s nap was sleep of the dead. I slept from the time we got back until right before dinner, and I’m not sure I moved. An hour and a half of knocked-out dreamless sleep. My, was it ever fantastic. Dinner next, then to the guys’ beautifully renovated and way better dorm to do our devotions. I honestly don’t remember what they were about, but that is likely because it’s 12:46 in the morning. But I remember being interested and approving at the time.
Tonight’s large group meeting was about prayers of adoration. The speaker touched on a few of the points I already mentioned from Saturday, but he added more:
To whom do we pray and how? TO the Father, THROUGH the Son, BY the Spirit; we’re transcending the earthly realm and moving into the heavenly realm, entering the throneroom of God; we enter into a state of a deep love of the Father there.
Different kinds of prayers: Petition – asking for things we or others want/ need; Thanksgiving – thanks for things God has done/is doing; Intercession – praying specifically for someone else or on their behalf; Confession – naming sins and shortcomings; Meditation – being still in God’s presence; Praise/Adoration – praising God for who he is.
Prayers of praise and adoration: One of the least used and somewhat forgotten types of prayer, though the Psalms are FULL of them. Often confused with prayers of thanksgiving (“thank You for being awesome” versus “You are an awesome God”). When we are offering prayers of this sort, we are usually praising God for His attributes, the works He has done, and His glory. All the focus is on God, and we are only referred to as the recipients of His greatness. These prayers help us get a grasp on the greatness of God – He is not a vending machine, but a gracious God who cares (Matthew 6 says he knows our needs even before we ask them).
Psalms: The Psalms are supposed to be prayers of praise (Psalm is Hebrew word for praise!). Even the laments, the anguished prayers, still praise the Lord for His strength and constancy. Most were written as songs of adoration, listing qualities of God and praise for what He’s done and continues to do. Good examples are Psalms 100, 103, 145 and 150. Psalms are especially useful for learning how to give prayers of adoration – find a Psalm and pray it repeatedly to get you started.
After the message, we had another fruitful prayer time in which many members of our group practiced using these types of prayers. I didn’t pray; I realized early on in the prayer session that I was so focused on figuring out how the adoration thing works that I wasn’t listening to what anyone else was praying. It was kind of nice to just sit and listen to others tell of God’s goodness.
I headed back to the dorm, hooked up my computer to the stable internet access that they gave us the codes for (hooraaaaayyy!!), and stayed up too late talking to some of the other girls, catching up on the WWW, and blogging. I will regret this in the morning, I’m sure.
Pray this time that I will focus on God during Thursday’s lesson, that I will keep Him the center of the morning and closing worship with the kids at Bible school, and that I will learn how to give God the praise he deserves. And don’t forget to do a little praising of your own in the meantime….
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