Christian Women in Leadership

the Now and the Not Yet

it's all over the blog-o-sphere.

Sure, I should be reading my Bible, but instead I'm reading this girl's blog.

when I get to praying for a hotel room, I read the following:

Either way, all I really know is I don't get it. I do get that we are meant to bring all that concerns us before God, so praying about a hotel room doesn't seem like a bad idea in itself. But in some ways, to me, it seems more like superstition - rubbing a lucky charm and repeating my wish over again until I believe that my efforts led to the positive outcome I wanted all along.

All of this came to mind for me because I saw that someone had written on Facebook about her iPod being found. "God is good all the time!" she said."Oh, the power of prayer!" And I just don't know how to respond to these kinds of comments. Why would God bring you back your iPod, but not get me on an earlier flight at the airport? Why would God save your child with cancer, but let your friend's child die? Is it because of prayer? Is it random? Some combination of the two, or is it how we pray, or our motivation for prayer? These aren't rhetorical questions - I would really love to know . . .

In the meantime, I'm going to pray for a nice dinner with my friend emily

Great questions. I first heard of "the Now and the Not yet" from this 19-year-old who was leading a group called "Capture" at LUC. When he said that phrase...*it was a beautiful moment.* (He's my friend on FB now, by the way)

This is what I said--thank you, Bill Johnson--in response to Turner's post,

the vineyard movement would explain this--why some of our prayers are answered & others remain unanswered, why one person is healed of cancer, and another person isn't-- as "the Now and the Not Yet" We live in this paradox between-the Kingdom of Heaven has broken through (& there's no cancer in heaven) yet, it's not completely broken through yet (am I making sense?) Yet, when we pray, "your will as it is in heaven" --we're helping to bring *heaven to earth* which is the purpose of a Christian.

There is hope in *every situation that would not exist in heaven*, since Jesus left us with the Holy Spirit and brought us a whole new lifestyle. Now we can try to cultivate that "culture of heaven"(just even your simple prayer to have a good dinner w your friend Emily) with our prayer life. And I'll give you an insider hint: the more you're around people whose prayer lives are like: miracles, miracles, miracles...then it get's imparted to you. (and soon you're prayer life is like: miracles, miracles, miracles)

Although miracles is a spiritual gift too (some people would say it's the same as Evangelism) it's listed in 1 Cor 12:28.

How'd I do?

posted by the princess @ 3/29/2010 08:56:00 PM