Funny how ubiquitous things can be...like....uhm...prayer!

Pastor W posted the following on Wednesday--one of his insightful comments that does such a wonderful job of offering a reminder of what God gives us. Here, he is talking about the prayers for the day in the Treasury of Daily Prayer. I have posted my favorite, Prayer on Wednesday, and often pray that one in addition to others on days that are not Wednesday. I also posted the Prayer on Friday, which at times I struggle to pray because I know I am more mindful of my own suffering than of His...especially of late. In fact, I have prayed through these prayers thinking most often of myself, my own walk in Christ, and all the stumbling that I do. I find in them gentle chastisement to keep my focus where it ought to be: on the Author and Perfecter of my faith.

However, Pastor W looks not at the self, but at the whole of the prayers and what we are given through them:

Fr. Fast has posted up on his facebook an insight from Loehe, that the Church is not liturgical because she possesses certain beautiful and ancient texts, but because she intercedes for the world. How utterly right on! One of my Treasury joys is the manner in which the daily prayers lead us weekly to pray for all sorts and conditions. Today, Wednesdays, we devote to praying for the dying. I'm so thankful when one of my parishioners dies that I've been asking these things for them together with countless others who are praying with me. Tuesday we remember prisoners of war and especially all who are persecuted for the faith. Thursday we remember the communicants and pray for a fruitful use of the Sacrament among us and in our own lives. On and on. Each day there is something we are particularly interceding about and by the time the week is done, we've done what Schmemann once described: taking the world in our hand as an apple and handing it to God. This is how we live the Christian life - we intercede - for our life is union with Him who lives to intercede for us, and as the Larger Catechism confesses: "All our shelter and protection rest in prayer alone."

I had not thought, even once, how we do indeed leave the whole world in God's hands from Sunday to Saturday.

[Who is Loehe? And for that matter, who is Stark?]

But Myrtle, how does his post make the ubiquitous? Well, it made me think about the Small Catechism on the forth petition of the Lord's Prayer.

"Give us this day our daily bread."

What does this mean?

God gives daily bread, even without our prayer, to all wicked men; but we pray in this petition that He would lead us to know it, and to receive our daily bread with thanksgiving

What is meant by daily bread?" Everything that belongs to the support and wants of the body, such as meat, drink, clothing, shoes, house, homestead, field, cattle, money, goods, a pious spouse, pious children, pious servants, pious and faithful magistrates, good government, good weather, peace, health, discipline, honor, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like.

You know what strikes me here? That discipline is on the list. Part of our daily bread is self control? I know how much I need it, how much I have battled falling into despair this long summer of illness, uncertainty, and trials. I have needed the discipline to pray when I felt as if I had no more words to say, borrowing the words of the psalmists, letting them fall from my lips as I struggled with God's good in all of the circumstances and experiences that have troubled me so. He has certainly given me the discipline to keep one foot in front of the other when I found no reason.

That's two Myrtle, that does not make ubiquitous yet!

Well, Pastor's book arrived! He told me the other day he had ordered me a book, but I did not realize he directed its shipping to my door. I was surprised, actually, that he bought me one in the first place...after already giving me the Book of Concord (2 copies), the ESV bible, the Spirituality of the Cross, Bonhoeffer's treatise on Psalms, O Sacred Head Now Wounded devotional series, the Lutheran Service Book, the old Lutheran Hymnal, and the 24-part lesson book on Lutheran Catechesis during the past few months. For me he chose the book upon which he drew the inspiration for his series of meditations on prayer last year. At first he was planning on typing up some bits for me to read since I have been struggling with some of that which I have read on prayer since opening the Book of Concord and beginning this journey of becoming a Lutheran. [I cannot believe I am there now!] But then he decided that he should send me the whole book. [We all know how much I am still in need of instruction!]

Today, when I arrived home just after 9:00 after a very, very long day, I found his gift tucked behind the bushes in my front flowerbed!

[Mr. UPS man has decided that this is a safe place, so all my boxes appear there, wrapped in a plastic bag. I once found a box on Sunday because I am not yet accustomed to checking behind the dwarf Japanese holly for packages.]

Already I am a bit torn between Walther and Kleinig. I peeked. I promised myself that I would finish Walther, since I am not the sort of person who reads multiple books at a time. Given my still admittedly lack of appreciation for Preus, I was a bit hesitant about trying another book, but I should have known Pastor would not give me another "milk" book even though even my godmother chides me to give Preus another chance. [Her suggestion is to wait until I've been a Lutheran for a few years and then go back and re-read The Fire and the Staff. I am wondering if I just ought to forgive him for not being the book of doctrinal teaching I thought it would be.]

Now, this book, Grace Upon Grace: Spirituality for Today, is not just about prayer. I actually wanted to jump ahead to that section just to see what inspired Pastor so and to see if I could find the words to untangle the knots I feel about the Lutheran perspective on prayer...or more accurately what I perceive to be the Lutheran perspective on prayer and the contradiction with/judgment of how I've approached prayer since I first learned of the Gospel.

When I saw the title and the word "spirituality," I thought that I didn't want to read about spirituality because I had already gobbled up The Spirituality of the Cross five times (it is about time for me to read it again) and didn't feel the need to go down that road when I am rather happily ensconced in The Proper Distinction of Law and Gospel. After all, I've been sharing bits and pieces of the first three evening lectures with anyone who will listen and a few who just tuned me out as they worked!

But then I opened the book and started reading. The second paragraph of the preface was God's loving message to me:

If we have problems in living the life of faith, if we have challenges in the practice of prayer, the solution is not to be found in what we do, our self-appraisal, or our performance. The solution to our problems is found in what we receive from God Himself, in His appraisal of us, and in His gifts to use. Like our physical life and health, our spiritual life is something that is given to us, something that is to be received and enjoyed and celebrated. Our piety is all a matter of receiving grace upon grace from the fullness of God the father.

[Read John 1:14-17]

I had not yet mentioned here that I got an emergency appointment with a second endocrinologist for today, so that I did not have until my November 5th appointment with the first one. I did not hear what I was expecting. Yes, the symptoms I am having are classic thyroid symptoms, but my values are fine. She cannot tell me why have I have lost an alarming amount of hair, nor did she have any suggestions as to where to turn next. She did confirm that I had diabetes according to my previous blood work, but the substantial weight loss over the past 3 months has essentially mitigated that disease. Now, I am left with one of three things, all of which have to do with not being able to handle glucose properly. More tests. More waiting. Much pricking of my finger from now on. [I already have four bruised fingertips and am wondering if I am doing something wrong.]

Tonight's shower was bittersweet. More handfuls of hair are piled on the side of the tub. Yet, as I pulled the comb through my wet hair and grasped the chunks no longer attached to my head, I kept hearing Pastor's encouragement that the God of the Universe has numbered the hairs on my head and not one of them falls out without Him knowing it. As I weep, He captures my tears in a bottle. I am that precious to Him.

Despite the frustrating news. Despite the long day ending a long week. Despite the fact that nothing has changed. Despite everything...I am still walking in the peace showered upon me Wednesday evening. Oh, I am hesitant to even speak of peace for the attacks such boasting could draw from our enemy. But ought we not boast in the Lord? He has blessed me. He has blessed me. He has blessed me!

I shall close with a bit from Kleinig on how our faith is actually a faith of reception (translate: a no works-zone):

Our whole life as the children of God is a life of reception. We have been justified by the grace of God the Father, so we now live by faith in His grace. Because we believe in Him we now receive every spiritual gift from Him. We receive grace upon grace from the fullness of the incarnate Christ.

God is the giver of every good and perfect gift (James 1:17), the ever-flowing fountain of life and light (Psalm 36:9), and we receive everything from His hand. This affects us physically and spiritually. At creation, God the Creator gave our bodies all their powers and gave us the physical world that sustains us in our earthly journey from conception to death. We depend on Him f or everything at every moment of our journey through life. Whether we know it or not, "we live and move and have our being" in Him (Acts 17:28). If God, for one moment stop giving to His creatures, we, and our world, would cease to exist. As His creatures, we depend upon Him completely.

Selah.