I 100% endorse this message. If I could skip mornings and still manage to have a full day, then I completely would. Thankfully, there’s coffee and memes like this one to help me cope with the inhumanity of early mornings.

Plus, who doesn’t like a sleeping Baby Yoda?

This is a fairly good visual representation of what my prayers look like a lot of the time. I’m super thankful for a God who hears and answers groans and sighs too deep for words.

It’s September. The first couple of days have been a bit milder and less humid. So, you ask, what difference does it being September make?

If you live in Tennessee, not much. Almost none. After this brief respite from the heat passes, it will go back to being hot and humid. Even September 22, the official first day of fall, will probably feel like a typical summer day around here.

So what’s the big deal with September?

To me, it’s the gateway month. September may still feel like summer and actually be mostly summer, but that little change in the calendar means that fall is getting closer. And I don’t mean the arrival of pumpkin spice everything. I mean actual fall with actual fall temperatures — the kind that go with sweaters, jackets, and flannel.

There’s something phycological about September versus August in terms of weather. I can truly start counting down the days and getting out my fall wardrobe (which consists mainly of flannel shirts). It means less Hawaiian shirts for a while.

It means my favorite time of year is almost here.

William Booth, who was the founder of the Salvation Army in 1865. He died in 1912, which makes the above quote over 100 years old. It’s also frighteningly accurate and prophetic. Too many so called “churches are no different than the culture that they’re supposed to be influencing and transforming. Instead, they’ve conformed to this world, adopting the same ideologies and beliefs and throwing away the tried and true doctrines of the faith that were the only hope they had to offer.

Lord, help us.

After the week I’ve had, I’m ready for some R & R. I mean I want to move just enough so that no one things I’m dead.

I’m not saying or implying that I had a bad week. It was a good one. It just felt longer than normal. I was more than ready for 4:30 when it finally arrived.

So my plan is to lie on the floor. Or possibly on the couch. The whole petting me and bringing me snacks part is optional, although I do like some snacks.

What if we really took what Jesus said seriously? What if we actually committed our selves to obeying what He told us to do? What if we stopped using the Bible as a collection of proof texts to support our own political and social and spiritual ideas and actually read it and did what it said?

What if we stripped back worship services from smoke-and-lights concert experience back to gathering together in order to love God, each other, and our neighbors? I think David Platt is the one who said that if we took away all the comfortable chairs, the glitzy production, the lighting, the air conditioning, and the state of the art buildings, would the proclamation of the word of God and the glorifying of Jesus be enough?

I don’t believe that Jesus called us to be relevant and trendy as much as He called us to be faithful and obedient. We don’t change what we believe to fit in with an ever-evolving society. We don’t compromise away core convictions and values for the sake of conforming to culture, thus throwing away the very hope we have to offer a world in desperate need of saving grace. In Paul’s words, we preach Jesus crucified, buried, and raised again. We preach that all have sinned but that God so loved the world that He gave Jesus, so that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. And if we don’t, maybe we need to start calling ourselves by other names than Christians and the Church.

“A Christian community either lives by the intercessory prayers of its members for one another, or the community will be destroyed. I can no longer condemn or hate other Christians for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble they cause me. In intercessory prayer the face that may have been strange and intolerable to me is transformed into the face of one for whom Christ died, the face of a pardoned sinner. That is a blessed discovery for the Christian who is beginning to offer intercessory prayer for others. As far as we are concerned, there is no dislike, no personal tension, no disunity or strife that cannot be overcome by intercessory prayer. Intercessory prayer is the purifying bath into which the individual and the community must enter every day” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer).

I would suggest the next time someone does something to annoy or anger you, instead of posting about it on social media, try prayer instead. Instead of passive aggression, try intercessory prayer.

I really think that most of us (including me) greatly undervalue prayer as a whole. As a result, we spend little to no time actually praying for those things that occupy our thoughts and concerns. We very rarely turn our anxieties into asking or our problems into petitions. We pray polite little prayers and seldom engage in prayer as an intentional act of the will, mind, heart, and soul. Think of Jacob wrestling with God and you have the idea of intercessory prayer.

Pray for your neighbor. Pray for your co-worker. Pray for your boss. Pray for your parent. Pray for your friends. Pray for your enemies. Pray for the leadership on a local, state, and national level (including the President). It doesn’t matter whether you voted for them or agree with their policies. You can still pray for them.

Intercessory prayer is to take your burden or concern into the throne room of God and leave it there. It’s to keep bringing it before God, day after day, with expectation that God will act. He may not act according to your will or desire, but He will always act in accordance to His will and His desire. He may not act according to your time table, but He will act in perfect timing.

The above quote has been attributed by many (including me a time or two) to F. Scott Fitzgerald, but it’s actually a line from the movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, with the screenplay written by Eric Roth. Fitzgerald may have said or written something similar, but Eric gets the credit. But whoever wrote it, the truth remains.

It’s never too late to start over and be who you always dreamed you could be or, better yet, be who God dreamed you could be. All it takes is about twenty seconds of insanely brave courage to take that first step and start over. Maybe this is your time to take that step.

“What is my barrenness? It is the platform for His fruit-creating power. What is my desolation? It is the black setting for the sapphire of His everlasting love.

I will go in poverty, I will go in helplessness, I will go in all my shame and backsliding, I will tell Him that I am still His child, and in confidence in His faithful heart, even I, the barren one, will sing and cry aloud” (Charles Spurgeon).

Face it. There will be days or weeks or even months when you don’t have it. Whatever that proverbial “it” is that makes you tick, that makes you come alive, is missing. You feel almost like a car engine that is running with only half of its cylinders firing.

The truth that is both humbling and freeing is that it was never about your ability to begin with. It was never about your performance. It was always about God’s strength being perfected in your weakness, even in those moments when you felt strong.

God has never asked for perfection from you. He never asked for flawless worship or faultless service. He just asked for you to be faithful — to show up expecting that God can still use you and can still work miracles through crackpots like you and me.

“O Word Made Flesh, stand guard at the gate of my mouth. Be my voice this day that the words I speak will be healing, affirming, true and gentle. Give me wisdom to think before I speak. Bless the words in me that are waiting to be spoken. Live and abide in my words so that others will feel safe in my presence. Place my words in the kiln of your heart that they may be enduring and strong, tempered and seasoned with love and resilience. Give me a well-trained tongue that has been borne out of silent listening in the sanctuary of my heart. May my words become love in the lives of others. Amen” (Macrina Wiederkehr, Seven Sacred Pauses: Living Mindfully Through the Hours of the Day).

I think the old adage has proven true: you have two ears and one mouth so that you can listen twice as much as you speak. May the words you choose be full of blessing and not curses. May the words you speak give life, not quench it. May the words of your mouth be pleasing and acceptable to the God who made your mouth. May we always be as merciful to others and God in Jesus has been merciful to us. Amen.