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Bold Prayer

Question: Can I honestly pray, “Lord, complicate my life?”

This question comes up anytime I begin reading and studying about prayer. Eventually it always comes to opening myself up to God’s calling, and what I view as a risk or complication to my life.

Isn’t life already full of complications?

Relationships – Spouse, children, family, friends

Employment – Satisfaction with the current job, always looking at something “greener”

Money – Not enough, never enough, regret from not handling it well

Health, car trouble, church committees, school committees, and on, and on, and on.

So, why in the world would I intentionally ask God to complicate my life? Wouldn’t I be better served by asking God to make my life easier?

And there is the problem.

Did you notice the selfish words in the sentence?

So often I don’t even realize how selfish I am with my prayers.

What would my prayer life look like if I focused on truly praying for God to be served in all that I do in my life? I’m not talking about adding the typical “If it is your will” line at the end of the prayer. Those words are almost a cop-out in my book. His “will” is ALWAYS done.

I’m more thinking along the lines of these words: “Lord, complicate my life. Grant me the boldness you desire for my life. Use me to fulfill your incredible plan. Open my eyes and heart to follow through on what may seem scary for me, but is from you and for you.”

For the past few weeks, I’ve been rolling around an idea in my head. It’s an idea that scares me. It’s an idea that would require me to pray for a miracle in my life.

Can I pray for a miracle? Am I allowed to be so bold when talking to God?

(Even typing out those words scares me.)

How about you? Can you, or do you, pray for God to complicate you life?

On Reading and Learning

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I take notes when I read books. Not every book, but most. I try to read for pure enjoyment sometimes, but even then I find myself taking a few notes.

One book I recently finished is Jon Acuff’s new book Start. I took 12 pages of notes. Some of you may think I’m nuts. That’s fine. My feeling on taking notes goes something like this: “Why read something if I don’t plan to take something from it to improve my life?” Hence, I take notes.

When I’m finished with the book, I review the notes. Then I make notes on my notes. Here are my notes on the notes from Start.

Action Points / Steps To Take

What is my passion? Inspiration?
Discover/uncover what inspires my wife and boys.
Sing.
Serve. Help others.
Awesome is taking the detour in your day and enjoying the change of path it is taking you on.
Be brutally realistic about your present and dream honestly.
Forget about spending time “finding” your purpose. “Live” your purpose today. Start! Take the step. Open the door and walk through it.
Gather trusted advisors. Stand on their shoulders.
Document your voices. Share your voices. Share your fear and doubt.
Be selfish at the appropriate time of the day. Claim your time, not others.

So now you’re asking what I did with the notes on the notes. Did I follow through on any of the 10 points? Yep. Every day I’m working on these points. Sometimes I need reminders though.

Also, writing this post ties into #7. I’m still working on all of these, but today is a new day, and I’m “punching fear in the face”.

Q: What actions do you take to remember and learn from the books you read? Let us know in the comments! Thanks for joining the conversation.

(This post originally published on August 12, 2013 on https://ricktheule.com.)

Book Review: Creative in God’s Image

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Creative in God’s Image: Engaging the Creative Good

What does this mean? When I first glanced at the book title, and for a few times after, I was reading it as “Created…” I know what “created” means, at least partially, but was does “creative” mean? I was pulled in by the curious title, and now I’m glad I took the time to find out what Nate means by it.

The key verses offered by Nate to support his premise are found in Genesis 1:26-27. These verses talk about us as humans being “created in God’s image.” But, I believe what Nate is saying God is CREATIVE and we are made to be like him. God had finished creating and concluded his creating with us. Human beings. People like him. We are not like the other animals. We are like God. Like God in that he is creative. If you doubt God is creative, take a moment to be still in a nature preserve. Take a few moments watching a bug. God is most certainly creative.

“God is not a wasteful Creator. You are designed with purpose. There is not one part of you that God can’t restore and repurpose for the work of the Kingdom of Heaven.”

So, God doesn’t waste, but do we? Do we always follow the path laid before us by God? No. We don’t. God has created us for a purpose, a calling, in this life. Many times we ignore the obvious calling of God, or we aren’t listening when he calls us. We choose to ignore and hide from God. This is Fear. Nate discusses this fear as well. We take this fear and use it to put what God has created for us in a box. We take the box and hide it in a closet. We choose to avoid. But we know the box is in the closet.

At some point in our lives we will remember the box. We won’t be able to ignore the box any longer. But can God redeem what we chose to ignore? Yes. He certainly can redeem and he is willing and ready.

We need to humble ourselves and willingly allow God to redeem what we have chosen to ignore.

Toward the end of the book, Nate offers these words:

“We’ll never realize how ‘good’ we can be until we give everything to God, even our fear and shame, so that something more incredible can be put in their place.”

I believe this sentence is the heart of this book. For us as humans, created to be like God, as creative beings, we need to give our everything over to him. Or as I like to think, we need to give our everything “back to him” on a daily basis.

Nate Pruitt has written a wonderful book. A few times I needed to read over passages more than once to follow his thought process, but he does make valid points. As Nate writes and publishes more, I look forward to seeing how his writing improves.

Nate has something to say. He is actively following God’s call in his life to be creative.

Let us know in the comments how you are following God’s call to be creative in your own life. What do you understand “creative” to be for you?

Learn more about Nate at http://www.natepruitt.com.

Follow Nate of Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/natepruittcom

Creative in God’s Image: Engaging the Creative Good