Month: April 2020

Breath of GodBreath of God

Prayer about the Holy Spirit

Dear Heavenly Father, as a child I was afraid of suffocating. My older sister would come up behind me, covering my nose and mouth with her hands, watching me squirm and squeal. I was a reluctant swimmer, cautious about putting my head under water, always fearful I’d drown. Even now, I get panicky when I have a head cold, lying awake, monitoring my breathing.

What about those suffering from COVID-19 and the symptoms they may experience?. Problems with breathing, loss of oxygen in their blood, and the need for supplementary oxygen. Some even undergo intubation so a ventilator can breathe for them. How terrifying it must be to lose the very breath of life!

Lord, You have given us a ventilator that infuses us with Your breath–the Holy Spirit. This is Your true presence, filling us with Your purpose and love. In Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was a rush of wind, inflating the souls of the disciples, giving them the gifts of language to speak Christ’s message. I crave that same spiritual fulfillment so I too can speak more effectively of Your love. Now, more than ever, I am gasping for Your presence—fearful, weak, alone.

I recognize , Lord, there are those suffering from a spiritual virus. They may choose to wear symbolic masks of doubt and rejection, closing themselves to Your life-affirming Spirit. Some experience spiritual hypo-ventilation, the failure to breathe in the breath of God. Reluctant to accept the gift of God’s inspiration, choosing to live lives apart from God, they never appreciate Your gifts of love and hope, Your promise of salvation.

During these crucial times, Lord, we need Your Holy Spirit more than ever. Just as virus patients may require supplementary assistance in breathing, we too need the support and the vitality Your breath provides. Because we can’t gather to reinforce one another’s faith, it is more important than ever we seek Your supply of the Holy Spirit. Studying the Bible, especially verses like the 23^rd Psalm, provide comfort, linking us with the Holy Spirit. Connecting with one another by whatever means possible provides the spiritual ‘oxygen’ our souls require. And most of all, prayer is the ‘ventilator’ of spiritual connection. When we pray, deeply and honestly, we can find an infusion of Your spirit, giving us the strength and courage to carry on, no matter how overwhelmed we may feel.

This is the time to inhale deeply, to fill ourselves with Your blessed Spirit.

I remember the lines of one of my favorite hymns:

“Breathe on me, Breath of God, fill me with life anew

that I may love what thou dost love, and do what thou wouldst do.”

After Easter PrayerAfter Easter Prayer

An After-Easter Prayer

“Behind him [John] came Simon Peter, and he went straight into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, and the cloth which had been around Jesus’ head. It was not lying with the linen cloths but was rolled up by itself” John 20:6-7

Dear Lord, I’ve always wondered about this detail in the Easter story. John describes the cloths so carefully, as if they have significance. What if the new year begins the day after Easter? Jesus went through abuse, torture, and crucifixion for my sake, because He valued me highly. Why? Why go through all that agony for me? Having learned of His sacrifice, what’s expected of me? How am I supposed to live my life Post-Easter?

The period following Easter is the perfect time to self-examine, determine the issues and problems that trouble my life. There are weaknesses requiring treatment, behavior I need to cast off. Those discarded funeral wraps Jesus left behind are a symbol of sins in my life, sins making my life tattered and soiled. As an example, forgiveness is difficult for me; I claim I’ve forgiven individuals, but again and again I focus on their behavior and become angry once more. It’s not only others I can’t forgive, Lord. I accept your forgiveness, I try to convince myself you’ve washed me clean, but things I’ve done still trouble me, making me ashamed. I need to take off that wrapping of guilt and hardness of heart—leave it behind and work to forgive myself and others.

We’re told to love; love is the most emphasized gift of the Holy Spirit. I know this and yet I love like a miser, carefully weighing slights, balancing my love against the love I receive. I accept the endless love you have for me, Dear Lord, but I distribute love as though it’s a finite amount, against your infinite love. My failure to love with abandon is another layer of torn wrapping that needs removal, cast off and left behind in an empty tomb.

Judge not, we’re told, but my judgment is immediate and stern. How easy to win my approval—do what I do, think as I do, and behave as I prescribe. For ‘the other’, those who don’t behave as I like, my judgment falls hammer-like. I understand in my heart it’s wrong to be self-righteous, but breaking away from old habits is difficult. This too, Lord, needs to change. I want to accept others without assessing their ‘value’ to me. Help me strip away my soiled coat of judgment, leave it behind, old and out-dated.

I know, Lord, change will be difficult. How can I battle these old, familiar sins and become the resurrected woman you want me to be? Please lend me that linen cloth, a cloth that covered your face, a cloth so carefully folded and set aside. Let me use that cloth to cleanse, to give me a clean purpose once I’ve discarded those raggedy clothes. Only with your help, Lord, can I dress myself in a new Easter outfit, clad in your gift of redemption and grace. With your help I leave behind the tomb rags of the past and move into new life.

He Has RisenHe Has Risen

 Prayer for Easter

      Dear Lord, every Easter card shows flowers blooming, bright sunshine, and smiling disciples. But it wasn’t that way, was it, Lord. It was chilly and dark when the women went to the tomb. In their scarves they carried gums and spices to undo the abuse and torture your body had suffered two days earlier. So much fear! The boulder blocking the tomb, the soldiers guarding it, the Roman soldiers patrolling and then, to add to the fear, an earthquake.

      They whispered to one another as they walked. Hopeless. Disappointed. The loss of everything they believed. Jesus wasn’t powerful as He seemed. He could heal and restore and feed and make people believe—but it all came down to this—a broken body in a borrowed tomb. Here was the hard truth; Jesus was a mortal man like every other man. Shivering in the darkness, bent over as they hurried, eager to have this business finished, to show their respect for a dear friend who had taught them so much.

      It’s ironic, Lord, isn’t it, that none of the followers coming to the burial site in small, separate groups, expected an empty tomb. Though Jesus had told them repeatedly, at least nine times, that he would rise from the dead, they didn’t believe him. In fact the only ones who heard Jesus’ message were the Jewish rulers. The high priests and Pharisees warned Pilate Jesus spoke of rising from the dead. They heard the message, though his followers didn’t. To prevent their stealing the body, Pilate posted guards.

      When they reached the tomb in separate groups, there was no sudden epiphany, no delirious shout of joy over what had taken place. No. Fear, confusion, disbelief overwhelmed the followers as they scuttled back and forth, reluctant to believe the angel’s message. Only John announced his belief as did Mary Magdalene after Jesus spoke her name. It took hours, days, weeks in some cases, before skeptic followers could believe in the living Jesus. Even those who saw Jesus in person were reluctant to believe!

      And what of us, Lord, what of our disbelief? All the Easters since that first morning and we continue to wonder, still question if it’s real. Like those followers we grope in the chilly darkness, doubting the value of life, despairing of purpose. We go to wrap the dead, not celebrate the living. The search is the same, Lord, a hunt for meaning. Strangely enough it is only an empty tomb that contains all we need to know. In that emptiness lies fullness and joy—promises kept and new life given.

      Easter isn’t a one-time event; it is a repeated search whenever we forget the promise or reject its premise. Each time we face that empty tomb, we find a living Lord who is among us, loving us, forgiving us. Dwelling with us until the end of time. Never has empty space held so much. On this Easter morning may each of us find our way to an empty tomb regardless of the pain or doubt that drives our search. With courage we look inside rediscovering the life that lies beyond. “He is risen!” So will we.

Sandra Ratliff

Prayer for Palm SundayPrayer for Palm Sunday

Prayer for Palm Sunday  

Dear Heavenly Father—I wonder what it was like for Jesus on that Palm Sunday so very long ago. All the crowds cheering and praising him. Streets crowded with followers, shouting his name, some trying to out-yell the others, so caught up in the frenzy of adoration. The donkey, just as Jesus predicted, found and brought to him so he could ride into Jerusalem as a hero. The scent of crushed palm branches heavy in the air.

And yet, Jesus must have scanned the crowd, looking at individual faces and wondering. “Perhaps that woman waving her palm branch and shouting my name—will she soon be among those shouting “Barabbas—free Barabbas—we’d rather free a robber-murderer than Jesus”? Or that man, so impressed to be near me, so full of adoration, will he be part of the crowd that screams “Crucify him! Crucify him!”. And the disciples, caught up in the scene, basking as part of Jesus’ entourage. “We know him,” they may have shouted back at the crowd, eager for Jesus’ reflected glory. “We know him well! We’re his followers!” How excited everyone was, the weather perfect, the crowds lining the street all of one mind, all intent on acknowledging Jesus and his power, his miracles, his authority.

I’ve had days like that, Lord, days when everything seemed to go so well. Praise ringing in my ears from people I cared about. “Good job!” they said, or “Sandy you scored higher than anyone else!” Or even, “No one but you could have done so well!” Words that stroked my ego, words that wrapped themselves around me and made me feel important, valued loved. But unlike you, Lord, I had no idea of what lay ahead. I never anticipated hearing, from the same people, “We’re disappointed in you, Sandy, we thought you would have done better” or “You surely let us down with that performance”. I tried, in my own mind, to question their authority or their validity, their judgment. Sometimes I took away my love, feeling they no longer earned it.

That palm strewn Sunday, with all its hoopla, all of its celebration, would lead within a few days to a dark afternoon on a hill named Golgotha. And you knew it Lord, you were perfectly aware of the events awaiting you—events that would erase this sunny day and its crowds and its adoration. You knew the agony of torture, dragging through town the very cross on which you would hang. You knew the denials and betrayals and fear that would turn the crowds against you and make them kill you.

The difference between you and me, Lord, is that you knew all of this and, with an intensity beyond my comprehension, continued to love. Continued to love those who shouted loudest and were equally intense spitting on you that same week. Loving those disciples who couldn’t stay awake and watch with you on an agonizing night of pain and fear. Loving those who claimed not to know you because they were afraid they’d suffer your fate. Loving each of us despite our failures and our on/off again relationship with you. Loved us when we didn’t love you back. If there is a message to be gained from that sunny entry into Jerusalem, a celebration like that given to Super Bowl heroes, it is love. Unrequited, undeserved, unwarranted love. Wave a palm branch and scream “Hosanna” or scream equally loud, “Crucify Him!” It’s still love.

And so, Dear Lord, I come to you on this Palm Sunday. Forgive me for the times I betray you, forgive me for my tepid love, and most of all please forgive me for failing to forgive. Remind me always your response to all the crowds—those who come to praise you and those who come to crucify you, your response is the same, “I love you”. That’s all we need to know.