Praying for you

 

We say it a lot. Do we realize who else is praying?

I heard my dad one night, talking in his room.

Now understand, my father lived with us – with my wife and I, then our three children. My mother passed away before I got married, and my father had first intended to stay in Atlanta, on his own. But it wasn’t long before he called me one night and said, “Can I come live with you?”

I was single at the time, although I believe my now-wife and I were engaged. My father told me his plan was to live with me part of the year, then spend part of the year with one of my brothers, who lived in Florida, and then part with my sister, who lived in Texas.

And he did. For a while. Sometimes he would go and stay with my aunt and uncle – his sister-in-law – in Florida, and he really enjoyed that. But it didn’t take long before he became more and more fulltime with me.

It wasn’t always ideal. There were times we’d have liked to have been the “nuclear” family of just my wife and I and our kids. But there was also the bonus that he’d look after the kids if my wife and I had to run out, so that we didn’t have to find babysitters (although his babysitting generally consisted of him sitting in his easy chair, watching TV, while letting the kids play wherever and do whatever, with the occasional shout of ‘hold that down in there’ from him when they got to loud or rambunctious. In other words, it wasn’t a lot of direct supervision.)

There are a lot of stories about my dad living with us. He loved to work, and he wanted to be useful, so he’d cut the grass and do yard work. He had been a builder, so if we needed something fixed or built, he delighted in being able to do that. He was always looking for something to do, so at times it was like having a live-in caretaker.

Until he discovered golf.

Then there was his TV. He watched shows we didn’t typically watch. He particularly became a fan of “Seinfeld.” And we’d hear him laughing out loud from his sitting area, and sometimes he’d come into the family room to tell us something that just happened with Jerry or Kramer or one of the other characters on the show that he found particularly funny.

But late one evening I remember walking past his bedroom door and hearing him talking. I eased over to try to figure out what was going on, and I realized he was praying. Now my dad was an old King James kind of guy, so his prayers had a lot of “I beseech thee” and “thou hast” and that kind of language in his prayers. And I realized he was in there, praying for me, and for my kids, and for our family.

It was a really powerful moment for me, to hear my father praying in such a personal way for us.

You ever have someone pray for you, specifically? It’s pretty remarkable. Humbling. Empowering.

I was thinking about that as I was thinking about what Jesus is doing right now.

We like to talk about what Jesus did – dying on the cross, paying the penalty for our sins, rising from the grave. And we like to talk about what Jesus will do – come back one day, restore the earth to its intended glory, take us with him to live forever in eternity.

But it seems to me we don’t talk a lot about what Jesus is doing right now.

Hebrews 7 says Jesus is “making intercession for us.” He speaks to the Father on our behalf as our High Priest. That’s why we pray in the name of Jesus. We can approach God the Father with confidence because we know we have Jesus as our intercessor.

Now imagine if you walked by a room where you heard Jesus praying for you. By name.

In fact, a 19th Century minister in the Church of Scotland, Robert Murray McCheyene, once said: “If I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million enemies. Yet distance makes no difference; he is praying for me.”

Do you ever think about the fact that Jesus is praying for you personally? That He’s interceding before God on your behalf?

That, to me, is a mind-blowing thought.

Even more when you consider what Satan is doing. Sometimes I think we talk about Satan too much, and sometimes we don’t talk about Satan enough. The Bible refers to Satan as “the accuser.”

I think one of Satan’s chief actions is spelled out in Rev. 12:10: “For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God, day and night, has been hurled down.” Satan is the accuser. We see it in the Old Testament, in Zachariah 3, and famously in the story of Job.

Well, if Satan is standing there accusing me before God – like he did with Job - and saying Ray is a sinner and corrupt and deserving of punishment, I have to agree with him. I’m all those things, and more.

But then Jesus is also standing there saying “I’m here on behalf of Ray. And I took Ray’s punishment. So let me tell you about the new Ray.”

I might agree with Satan’s assessment of me, but I much prefer Jesus’ point of view.

In his old age, the “Disciple whom Jesus loved,” John, wrote (in 1 John 2), “My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins …”

Now that word “if” really means, at least for me, when it happens. I don’t want to sin. I don’t want to go against God. But sometimes that old nature has its way with me. And when that happens, John says, “We have an advocate with the Father.”

That’s pretty amazing, to think about Jesus’ interceding – praying – for me, on my behalf, this very minute, in heaven. But it’s not just me. He’s doing it for you, if you’re a Believer, and for this world.

I find myself saying this almost every day, more and more as I feel like this world is going to hell in a handbasket. But I believe it:

The world is not falling apart. God’s plan is coming together.

So when you feel overwhelmed or alone or hopeless or burdened or things just seem out of control, remember:

Jesus is praying for you.

Everyone's a theologian

Back in my days as a sportswriter and broadcaster, there were occasions when my wife – who, thankfully, loves sports – would make an observation about a game or a coach or a player, and then the next day hear or read me say almost the same thing in my column or broadcast.

Sometimes she’d say, “You didn’t give me any credit for that idea. What’s the difference between what I said and what you said?”

And I’d tell her, “When you say it, it’s coming from an amateur. When I say it, it’s coming from a professional.”

Needless to say, that wouldn’t go over very well. Fortunately, my wife would simply give me her equivalent of an eyeroll (something she does not do), knowing I was attempting to be funny.

Over the course of my life, I have had to occasion to teach from the Bible. It’s always a bit daunting, because I’m not a professional. In fact, I used to start most classes by saying something like, “I’m not a theologian. I’m just like you: someone who reads the Bible, trying to figure out how to have a better understanding of and a stronger relationship with God.”

Having family members who are theologians, I knew my understanding of Scripture came nowhere close to those members of my family whose “profession” it has been to study, teach, and preach on a daily basis. Like I’d say to my wife, my thoughts and views were from an amateur; they are the professionals.

Then one day I realized that was wrong. Theology is the study of God. Therefore, if you are someone who reads and studies the Bible, who thinks about God and wants to understand Him and His Word better, you are a theologian. Anytime we think about a lesson from the Bible and try to understand it and apply it to how we live, we are engaging in theology.

Dr. R.C. Sproul wrote a book with the title, “Everyone’s A Theologian,” in which he makes that argument, that all Christians are (or should be) theologians. The real question is, are you a good one or not?

Theology is the broad study of God. That study leads to what we call “doctrine” – specific teachings that reach broad agreement on what we believe.

I have heard some Christians say something like, “Doctrine divides, Jesus unites.” And indeed, doctrine has produced some major divisions in the life of Christianity (and, for that matter, every religion of any size; Islam has two major divisions, but dozens of smaller what Protestants would call denominations) that has caused disagreements, divisions, even wars.

I was reading from that amazing passage in Nehemiah, where a number of Jews came back from captivity in Babylon to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple, and in doing so came across the ancient scrolls called “The Book of the Law,” basically Moses’ writings.

The people are excited. The priests – led by Ezra – are ready to share God’s Word with the people. For many of them, it has been at least 70 years since they’ve heard these words. So, the story tells us, the people gathered “into the square before the Water Gate, and they told Ezra the Scribe to bring the Book of the Law of Moses” and read it to them.

That’s apparently around 50,000 people who come together for “church,” yet we’re told they came together with a common spirit, with the same desire and hunger for a message from God.

I can almost hear them say, “We’ve been hearing from you, Ezra, and the priests for long enough. We want to hear directly from God! Read us His Words and teach us from what He is saying.”

And so, we have the “professional” class – priests, in those days; preachers in ours – who devote their lives to reading, studying, and instructing us in what God is saying through the histories, the prophets, the apostles.

But we also have the rest of us, people who (thanks in a large part to the Reformation) can read God’s Word for ourselves, study it and ask God, through the Holy Spirit, to give us discernment as to what we’re reading.

We have our doctrinal differences. We may disagree on how baptism should be done or the level of its importance; we may not all agree on what sacraments should be performed and how often; we can have discussions over interpretations of Scripture and the proper and appropriate application to our daily lives.

And those discussions are OK and can even be helpful, as long as they are done in a spirit of love. As Paul writes in his first letter to the Corinthians (chapter 13), “If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge … but do not have love, I gain nothing.”

We should all be seeking the same thing: a greater knowledge of God and a closer relationship with Him.

While Believers may not agree on everything, there should be a common commitment to the authority of the Bible, the preeminence of Jesus as the Son of God, the priority of prayer, and the importance of worship.

And above all, a commitment to love. Paul goes on in that same chapter to say, essentially, love never dies. Eloquent preaching and spiritual gifts will one day end. Our understanding will go as far as we can go. We can only know a portion of who God is, and what we say will always be incomplete because God is so far greater than we can ever understand. Paul writes, “For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.” Or as Eugene Peterson puts it in The Message, “But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.”

But love is complete. That’s why love never fails.

Still, theology and doctrine are important. The 2025 State of Theology Survey, conducted by Ligonier Ministries and Lifeway Research, demonstrates widespread theological confusion among Believers in this country. Among the findings, 64% of evangelicals say “Everyone is born innocent,” 53% say “Most people are good by nature,” and 47% say God accepts the worship of all religions. Ligonier notes that many evangelicals hold contradictory or unbiblical beliefs, reflecting weak doctrinal teaching in churches.

And yet, despite what you may have heard, Americans are becoming more religious after years of decline. Yes, church attendance in the United States has declined significantly over the past two decades, with the most recent data showing only about 30% of adults attend religious services weekly, down from 42% in 2000. But a 2026 study by a political scientist at Washington University in St. Louis, Ryan Burge, found that the number of Americans who identify as nonreligious has declined three years in a row from 2022 to 2025. Among Christians who attend church, Gen Z and Millennials go more often than older generations, according to a 2025 study by the Barna Group that studies U.S. faith trends. Young people are searching, and that search is leading more and more of them to church.

Which is all the more reason for our churches to be more focused on proper reading of God’s word, on theology and doctrine. Some churches are so focused on attracting people they avoid anything that makes the marginal attender uncomfortable. Too often, our churches judge everything they do in a worship service by how it might affect other people. They don’t want to risk hurting anyone’s feelings or offending them so that they don’t come back.

The problem is that can corrupt our theology. And that’s not what true worship is supposed to be. All Christians are called to faithfully proclaim Scripture in every season, guarding truth and guiding others with sound doctrine and love.

Too many of us – me included – tend to look at our Sunday morning worship service and leave asking, “What did you think of the service?” We treat Sunday morning like it’s about us.

We should be asking, “What did God think of the service? What did God think of my worship?”

We have the privilege, like the children of Israel in the time of Nehemiah and Ezra, to read and hear directly from God’s Word.

The end of the story in Nehemiah says that the people left in a state of delight “because they had understood the words that were declared to them.”

So, as Paul puts it quite simply in 2 Timothy 4, Preach the Word.

What's in a name?

 

In the end, it matters who knows your name, and why.

What’s in a name?

The famous line from William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” suggests that names can be arbitrary and do not affect the essence of a person. As Juliet says, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

My family has done a lot of talking about names recently, with the birth of a second son to my second son. Some suggestions are serious, of course, and many are not – like my constant suggestion that the next female baby should be named “Ramona Henrietta,” which is as close to a feminine version of my name as I could come up with (but which I’d never actually want to see anyone burdened with).

I was named for my grandfather, which means I am “the second.” That caused confusion when I was a kid because people would say, “Oh, you’re junior.” No, I’m not a “junior” because I wasn’t named for my father (my oldest brother was, with a name that his line has carried on to the fourth, at least). I am “the second” because of the generational gap in names.

Will there be a third? Part of me would be flattered; another part would not want to burden a child with the name “Ray,” which I never particularly liked. I have always thought there were so many better names. Plus, when I was young and we’d take these long vacations which required driving through numerous small towns (the interstate system was not fully developed yet), it seemed the only time I ever saw my name was “Ray’s Barber Shop,” and it every small town from my home in East Point, Ga., to California had a “Ray’s Barber Shop.” When people would talk about the meaning of their names, I’d say “Ray” means “small town barber.”

But with apologies to Juliet (and Mr. Shakespeare), I do think there is something important about a name.

My family can trace its roots to a ship that landed in Philadelphia in 1734, from Germany. The colonial family’s story was written about in a book called “The Story of an Old Farm,’’ which was used at one time as a textbook for colonial life in the Lehigh Valley and Delaware River area of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. It’s actually a rather boring book, but I did use it one time in a history class at the University of Georgia, and the professor was fascinated enough by the story and detail to give me an “A,” brag about it in front of the class, and suggest the book should be republished.

I found a summary of the book that says, “The book is considered one of the best historical accounts of New Jersey in colonial and Revolutionary times, praised for its detailed depiction of social life and historical events. It is available for free download from the Library of Congress and digitized copies can be accessed via the Internet Archive.” It also has a genealogy section that documents the name changes over time, from Moelich to Malick to Mellick to Melick.

More than you – or anyone – wanted to know, I’m sure.

But when my kids were younger and would go off somewhere without me or their mother, I’d tell them one thing: Remember what your name is. The idea was that everything they did reflected on the family name. Not just on them, or me, but on hundreds of years of this families’ reputation.

I don’t say that because family name has any great significance as far as the world is concerned. But I wanted them to have a sense of who they are, where they come from, that every day they are writing their own story. I think knowing your family history – good or bad (and there is plenty of both in my family history) – gives you a sense of place, of belonging, an anchor that can be lost in today’s transient world.

It’s incredible to me that God wanted to be known by his creation. And how do you get to know someone unless you know their name?

“Then Moses asked God, ‘If I go to the Israelites and say to them: The God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they ask me, ‘What is His name?’ what should I tell them? God replied to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you.” God also said to Moses, “Say this to the Israelites: Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is My name forever; this is how I am to be remembered in every generation.” (Genesis 3).

Science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke wrote a short story called “The Nine Billion Names of God,’’ which I read back in the 1970s and had enough of an impact on me that I still think of it after all these years. (Basically, a group of Tibetan monks seek to list all the names of God, of which they believe there are nine billion, and when the task is completed, the universe ceases to exist).

But God says it’s not that complicated. He gives Himself the name “I AM,’’ and goes on to say He’s to be called “Yahweh.”

Or rather, we know from Hebrew Scripture that God gives his names as YHWH, the closest English equivalents to the Hebrew letters, since ancient Hebrew did not have vowels. That’s where we get idea that the name is Yahweh (pronounced yä-wā).

There are a lot of other names which refer to God. Moses calls God “Elohim” and “Adonai.” There are a lot of other names used, but they really aren’t “names” so much as they are titles, and absolutely appropriate to be used when referring to God.

I was thinking about names when reading from the book of Matthew, when Joseph is considering what to do after his fiancé, Mary, turned up “with child.” An angel comes to him and says, essentially, the child will have two names: Jesus and Immanuel (or Emmanuel).

“Jesus” was a common name at the time (the Old Testament equivalent of Joshua) and means “The Lord saves.” “Immanuel” was not so common, from an Old Testament (Isaiah) prophecy, and means “God with us.”

It occurred to me that when I see Jesus’ names, I’m reminded that He is both a historical man that bore a common name, and He is the Son of God, with a name above all names. Both of those names reveal His identity.

In keeping with the common name “Jesus,” his birth – Jesus’ coming to earth - was witnessed by only a few people: Mary, Joseph, and maybe a couple shepherds. His leaving earth – what we call the ascension – was witnessed by only a slightly larger group, the 11 remaining apostles.

But when Jesus comes back, as over 1,500 passages in the Old Testament and an estimated one out of every 25 verses in the New Testament say, it will be in all His Glory, as Immanuel, as the King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Prince Peace, Light of the World. Jesus will set up His kingdom and “The Lord will be king over the whole earth” (Zechariah 14:9).

What’s in a name? Philippians 2:9-10 states, “Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name above all names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth.”

What about your name? Revelation 20 says, “If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.” This will be the set of names of those who will live with God forever in heaven.

At that point, your name is going to be - as a friend of mine who is a master of understatement once said - “kind of a big deal.”

Jesus didn’t go by Immanuel in his life on earth. But he is truly Immanuel, “God with us.” Isaiah told us to watch for Immanuel, the virgin-born Son of God. He will save us. He will reconcile people to God. He will restore creation to its original beauty.

We call Him Jesus. But He is also “God with us,” Immanuel. It’s a name that is the difference between life and death.

“Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom. or the strong man boasts in his strength. or the rich man boast in his riches. But let the one that boasts boast in this: that he knows Me, the living God.” (Jeremiah 9:23-24).

We know His Name.

Whom Shall I Fear? (Thoughts on 9-11)

 

September 11 has always been a special day for my family. It is my father’s birthday.

And so I was with him on September 11, 2001. I remember standing with him, staring at the TV, watching the images from New York as the two planes flew into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. We stood side-by-side in my living room, not speaking, just watching – amazed, shocked, horrified, afraid of what we were seeing.

It occurred to me as we stood there if what I was feeling was something like he felt on December 7, 1941 – the attack on Pearl Harbor that took the United States into an active participant of World War II. They didn’t have CNN back then, so there was no 24-hour visual coverage of what was going on. But as the news reports spread, the country was shocked, saddened, angered – many of the same feelings the rest of us had on 9/11.

My father and mother were both veterans of World War II. He spent the war on a sub chaser, and it wasn’t until much later when I read about the history of submarine warfare by the Germans along the East Coast and especially in the Caribbean that I realized just how dangerous his job really was.

I doubt any Americans who were alive on what we now call 9/11 that have no memory of the events. At the time, we didn’t know if indeed it was the beginning of another World War. We didn’t know if it was just the first of multiple attacks – and it turned out it was. The crash of Flight 97 into the West side of the Pentagon resulted in the fourth-highest number of ground fatalities in plane crash history, while the brave travelers on United Flight 93 found out what was going on and rebelled against their captors and crashed the plane into a Pennsylvania field.

There are so many stories of bravery, many of which were not as well known at the time but continue to be told.

The story of Lt. Heather “Lucky” Penney and Lt. Col. Marc Sasseville, of the D.C. Air National Guard’s 121st Fighter Squadron at Joint Base Andrews, is amazing in that they were ordered to intercept and destroy Flight 93 before it could reach Washington D.C. There was no time to arm those two fighters with weapons, so both pilots were committed to crashing into the plane – Sasseville said he would hit the cockpit, Penney the tail – knowing it was a suicide mission. The actions of the passengers on board that flight means Sasseville and Penny did not have to take action, but that they were prepared to do so should never be forgotten.

There are so many more.

For me, there was another story from that day, far more personal beyond the fact that it was my father’s birthday.

As I watched what was happening in New York City from my TV screen, I will be honest: I thought to myself, “I’m glad I live in Birmingham, Alabama. That would never happen here.”

And no sooner had that thought crossed my mind that a thought – I can’t say voice, but I have no doubt that it was from God, the Holy Spirit, however you want to say it – said, “Ah! So you base your security on where you live and not on me?”

Americans used to think we had a natural protection of two huge oceans on either side of the continent that acted as a barrier to any invasion of forces that meant us harm. We found out on 9/11 that was no longer the case.

I seemed to think that my distance from places like New York and Washington D.C., cities that seemed like prime targets for those evil forces, somehow would protect me.

But then, I was covering the Olympics in Atlanta in 1996 and had just walked out the far side of Olympic Park when a bomb went off, killing one immediately and injuring 111 others. As a child, I was taught what to do in case of a nuclear attack and was shown these concentric circles of potential target areas and discovered where I lived was indeed within one of those circles.

I have been in venues that were closed due to bomb threats and taught how to handle mail that could contain anthrax or other material sent to do harm.

All that is to say, we’ve all been exposed to more potential harm than we probably think about.

It may sound silly, but that message I heard within my head (or heart?) was a profound realization for me. God has never spoken to me from a burning voice or from a cloud or in any audible way that I recognized (other than perhaps the advice of a friend), God tends to teach me things in simple ways, and this was one of those.

That moment, that message is one I have never forgotten.

And when I think of that moment, I think of Psalms 46, that begins,

“God is our refuge and strength,

an ever-present help in trouble.

Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way

and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,

though its waters roar and foam

and the mountains quake with their surging….”

On that day, 25 years ago, it hit me that if I believe God is indeed my refuge, the source of my security, then it doesn’t matter where I am or where I go. We are all vulnerable. For the vast majority of us, we just don’t know from what.

But God does. So – as the Bible says in Psalms 27 – whom shall I fear?

“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”

Don't like the 10 Commandments? Work on these

 

There’s been a lot of talk about the Ten Commandments and whether it should be required that a copy be posted in public school classrooms. By my quick research, four states – Texas, Louisiana, Alabama and Arkansas – have passed laws required public schools to display the Ten Commandments.

Alabama, which has a long history of battles over the Ten Commandments, mandates public schools display the Ten Commandments in fifth through 12 grades “where U.S. history is taught,’’ as well as common areas “subject to the availability of donations for posters or framed documents.” That’s an interesting caveat, don’t you think?

Louisiana’s House Bill 71 requires poster-size displays in classrooms, emphasizing the historical significance of the Ten Commandments in American law and education. That fits within the historical context of this country, where for the first couple hundred years or so of public education, the Ten Commandments were commonly displayed or taught as part of moral or civic education, as opposed to explicit religious instruction.

Frankly, I don’t want public school teachers engaged in religious instruction. But I do see the value of using the Ten Commandment in public schools as a historical basis for law, particularly in Western Civilization and the United States in particular. It’s nearly impossible to separate the two, such was the Judea-Christian influence on our leaders (whether they were actually “Christians” or not).

However, I also understand the objection. It’s impossible to separate the Ten Commandments from the faith which produced them, simply because even if you say they were authored by Moses, you have to say Moses believed he was given these words by God.

As a Christian, if I were in a majority Muslim or Hindu or Rastafarian or Zen culture, I would prefer not to have texts from those faiths posted for my child to see every day, even if they were strictly used in a historical context (I would have no problem with them being taught in a historical context; in fact, in my 1970s public school our English teacher did include texts from other religions, as well as the Bible, for purposes of styles of literature).

Still, there have been things taught to my children by teachers and professors that I disagree with – at least, disagree with the interpretation given by those teachers that often have nothing to do with religion – and it has led to good discussions with my kids. Such discussions should be part of raising children and teaching them what I believe to be important, ultimately allowing them to decide for themselves.

I also believe Christians are no longer under the law, that Jesus fulfilled the law and we come to God by faith, not by our attempts to keep the law. For me, as I read the Bible, I see plenty of other “commandments” that I would like to see emphasized.

But while saying that, it's interesting to note that the New Testament, or New Covenant as it’s sometimes called, include some commands that are tougher than the original Law of Moses. It’s not just don’t commit adultery, it’s don’t lust; it’s not enough to just not murder, we’re told not to hate.

It seems Jesus was more interested in our internal thoughts and desires, knowing that those are what led to most of our significant outward action.

The New Testament doesn’t free us from commands. They don’t sound quite as harsh, but they are just as tough. Things like “Do not let your hearts be troubled” or “Be completely humble and gentle” and ‘’be self-controlled” and “rejoice in the Lord always.” We don’t necessarily think of worrying or not being gentle or failing to rejoice in the Lord as sins, but these are things we’re “told” (which sounds gentler than “commanded”) to do.

I admit I don’t treat being joyful as a Biblical command. But nobody argues with Jesus’ command to “love one another.” Why do we so casually read through commands to be joyful as if these are somehow just suggestions or good ideas? Paul says it multiple times – “Further, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord!” (Philippians 3:1); “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4); and another of one of those short verses, “Rejoice always.” (1 Thessalonians 5:16).

Actually, Paul gives us another “10 Commandments” in 1 Thessalonians that I number this way:

1. Comfort and edify one another (1 Thessalonians 5:11)

2. Respect all leaders (verses 12-13)

3. Warn the unruly, comfort the fainthearted, uphold the week, be patient with one another (verse 14)

4. Treat everyone with kindness (verse 15)

5. Rejoice always (verse 16)

6. Pray without ceasing (verse 17)

7. Give thanks (verse 18)

8. Do not quench the Spirit (verse 19)

9. Test all teachings (verse 20-21)

10. Avoid evil (verse 22).

I’m commanded to do these things, even if we don’t like to think of them as “commandments.”

These things don’t come naturally to me. I have to remind myself. I need to, as it says in Deuteronomy 6, “… talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up.” These “commands” aren’t for just when I feel like it, or for special occasions; they are supposed to be part of every moment of my life.

It takes energy. And there are days when I don’t feel particularly joyful.

But then, just because there are clouds in the sky doesn’t mean the sun isn’t shining behind them.

These don’t seem to be suggestions. I need to quit thinking of them as such.

I was listening to some old old contemporary Christian music, by Andre Crouch. He has a song which says, “Somebody told me about the joy they have. Somebody told me that in their sorry, they could be glad. Then they told me they were blind but now they see. I didn’t think it could be until it happened to me.

“You won’t believe that it’s true until it happens to you.”

Talk to God; He really does want to hear from you

 

I was talking to my dog the other day when she told me …

Wait. The first part of that sentence is ok. According to a quick Google search, “One estimate from the Institute for Environmental Research and Education suggests at least 80% of people talk to their pets, including dogs, across age, gender, and socioeconomic groups. More specific surveys of U.S. pet owners find that 55% of cat and dog owners have regular conversations with their pets, while a 2024 survey of 1,500 American pet owners reported that 84% of respondents regularly talk to their pets like fellow humans.”

Talking to my dog is one thing. But “she told me” … that’s a something else.

The idea of having a conversation with animals has captivated humans for centuries. You remember Hugh Lofting’s 1920 story about Dr. Doolittle, a physician who could speak animal languages? It’s been turned into movies and TV shows and musicals.

More realistically, remember the gorilla Koko, who achieved quite a bit of fame back in the 1980s for being taught sign language? Koko was said to a have had a vocabulary of around 1,000 words, using an adaptation of the American Sign Language (ASL). But there was a lot of controversy over just how much Koko actually was able to communicate and how much was a trained reflex to her handler. Koko apparently could communicate at a very basic level, which is remarkable; unfortunately, much of whether she actually “communicated” was doubted because her handlers and trainers were the ones interpreting what Koko “said.”

I grew up on stories of talking animals. It’s politically incorrect now, but I was read and later read for myself the Br’er Rabbit stories as a child, the story of a clever rabbit who was a notorious trickster, out-smarting a variety of others by his wits rather than muscle.

I am a dog lover. I talk to my dog as if she understands what I’m saying. And indeed, my dog is trained well enough to understand words like “heel” and “sit” and “shake” and “down” and “place” and “go get your toy” and even “wait.”

Truthfully, she doesn’t understand “words;” rather she recognizes sounds that she has been trained to respond to in a certain way that brings a reward. But she really does seem to want to please, to figure out what I’m trying to tell her. Sometimes she’ll even go through a series of responses to see if what she is doing is what I’m asking of her.

I was thinking about this as I was trying to communicate with God.

In my faith, we call it “prayer,’’ and a 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study said 44% of U.S. adults report praying every day (a number that is on the decline). A 2024 Barna Research report said that 84% of U.S. adults have prayed at least once in the past week.

Apparently, a lot of us feel this urge to talk to God, even if it’s that simple cry of “Help me, God!” when we’re in trouble (basically what we call “foxhole prayers”).

It seems only natural. The Genesis creation story essentially says God created man to have someone to communicate with, that before sin entered the world, God regularly walked and talked with Adam as a friend. Nothing seemed more natural for Adam than for God to show up and say, “How’s it going?” and for Adam to tell God about what he’d been doing, and for God to listen and respond, since it takes two to communicate.

I can hear Adam seeing God and saying, “I saw the most amazing creature today. What is it?” To which God would reply something like, “It’s pretty cool, isn’t it? You tell me. Give it a name.”

But since what we call “the Fall” – when Adam and Eve decided they could do something outside of God’s parameters – God has been increasingly remote, and it’s become easier to wonder if He’s listening, if He’s even there.

Some people make fun of prayer. But then, many of those same people make decisions for their lives based on cultural trends, media reporting, instinct, hormones, superstition, horoscopes, listening to “experts” … seeking guidance from somewhere.

I admit I struggle with prayer. I wonder what to say, and if it really makes any difference. But then, Jesus prayed. And for me, in its simplest form, that’s reason enough. If I’m trying to be like Jesus, then I need to pray like Jesus (so I pray, but whether I actually pray like Jesus – probably not).

Sometimes I feel guilty for asking God for so much. Then I think about the famous “Lord’s Prayer,” when Jesus’ followers asked him to teach them to pray. It’s really a list of asking for things – give me food, forgive me when I screw up, protect me from evil. So maybe those quick “Help me, Jesus!” prayers that so many of us say without thinking are not that far from being what’s expected.

I wonder if, in many ways, in trying to communicate with God we’re not like Koko, or our dogs, trying hard to please our teacher/master/owner. Sometimes we don’t have a clue what is expected of us in a specific situation, but that doesn’t stop us from trying both to figure out what God is saying and how to communicate in a way that elicits some response from God.

There are all types of prayers and, I believe, a place for all of them: for formal prayers, for communal prayers, for written prayers, for spontaneous prayers. We know from reading the Bible that we can be formal or casual with God. We can be awed by Him, but in the next minute be angry with Him. We can thank Him for giving us what we have and then ask Him for things we don’t. It can feel like we’re really communicating one day, then within 24 hours wonder if He’s even listening at all.

But then, isn’t that how we communicate with friends? With the people closest to us?

Isn’t that probably the way God and Adam communicated in the beginning?

There is a classic book called “The Practice of the Presence of God,’’ by Brother Lawrence, a French monk who lived in the 1600s. It’s a short book, simply written. It is primarily about Brother Lawrence’s “practicing the presence of God” (as the title suggests) daily, while washing dishes or sweeping or walking or just going about his daily life.

Brother Lawrence writes “We must try to converse with God in little ways while we do our work; not in memorized prayers, not trying to recite previously formed thoughts. Rather, we should purely and simply reveal our hearts as the words come to us. … Talk to Him often; forget Him a seldom as possible.”

Sometimes I realize I’m not sincere when I pray. Often, I wonder if I’m doing it right. But I think the very fact that I recognize those things - I believe God wants my authentic self more than the idealized version I have of myself. So I keep talking.

It’s complicated. There are all kinds of reasons to wonder why we pray, if we can actually “change God’s mind” or if there is a gray area in God’s will where he allows us to intervene or if in reality (as I was taught years ago) we pray until God changes our mind into conformity with his.

There is a lot of research that shows real benefits of prayer, on mental, emotional, and even some physical health outcomes. Studies indicate prayer can reduce anxiety, depression, and stress by lowering cortisol levels and promoting relaxation, greater emotional regulation, resilience against depression, and a stronger sense of purpose.

More than anything, I find myself just talking to God. Maybe to God I’m on a level of Koko, or my dog (as smart as she is!), except He does understand me. I’m amazed that the God of the Universe wants to have a relationship with me.

And with you.

And more than anything, I want to keep the lines of communication open.

Jazz and predestination vs. free will

 

Do you remember the first album you bought?

Maybe the better question is, do you even remember record albums?

Music has always been a big part of my life. Some of my earliest memories are of sitting in the family living room, listening to music on the big Zenith stereo console - basically a piece of furniture that oriented the entire room. My mother loved music, and one of the first LP (long playing) albums I remember was her recording of George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.”

The first album I remember buying for myself was Blood, Sweat, and Tears, the one with the song “Spinning Wheel.” I tended to go for those bands that were more than guitar, bass, keyboard and drums. I liked horn sections, maybe a by-product of listening to so much Gershwin when I was younger, or the Big Band music my father listened to on the radio in his truck.

Listening to an album back then was an event in itself. You gently placed the vinyl record on the turntable, set the needle on the first groove, then sat on the floor in front of the speakers and studied the album cover and what were called liner notes while listening to the music.

Liner notes were writing found on the back or inside cover of the album or, later, the sleeve that protected the vinyl record. They might include a message from the band, something about how the record came to be, and then usually a list of each song including who played on each recording. There would always be studio musicians who weren’t part of the formal band, but who played specific parts of the recording, and if you studied enough liner notes, as I did, you began to see certain musicians who played on multiple recordings, whose names became as familiar to me after a while as the actual band members.

That’s where I learned to look for musicians like Steve Lukather, Carol Kaye, Hal Blaine, Dick Dale, Dave Sanborn, Richard Tee, Leon Russell, Donald “Duck” Dunn, Wynton Marsalis – those are just some of the many names that, after a time, I felt I could recognize their style regardless of the record. Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band played on a ton of records that were not Springsteen.

Muscle Shoals, as Lynyrd Skynyrd sang, had the “Swampers,” a bunch of white, Alabama-bred country musicians who played country, rock, R&B, soul – anything and everything. They were on something like 75 gold and platinum hits and brought musicians from all over the world to record in this studio on north Alabama.

More than a few went on to have successful careers as headliners. Grover Washington Jr. – I developed an affinity for jazz – was one of those great stories. He was scheduled to back up saxophonist Hank Crawford on a studio recording session, but for some reason Crawford didn’t make it and the producers had Washington Jr. step up and take the spotlight. Washington went on to be a star in jazz and R&B in the 1970s-1990s.

In the late 1970s, a friend and I went to see Rickie Lee Jones at this club in Buckhead (Atlanta, Ga.). Jones was popular at the time with her song “Chuck E.’s in Love.” But when we got there, we realized David Sanborn was playing in her band, and we were more excited to see him than Rickie Lee. We were big Sanborn fans, who was so distinctive you could pick up his saxophone style on any number of records, until he became so copied that a generation of saxophonists were sounding like Sanborn derivatives.

The Rickie Lee Jones concert demonstrated that you might buy the tickets for the headliner but the people in the supporting roles, the backing musicians, were as important to the quality of the song as the lead.

I thought of this the other day when reading the Apostle Paul’s writing in 1 Corinthians 12, “For just as the body is one and has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body …” and “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I do not need you.’ Nor can the head say to the feet, ‘I do not need you.’ On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable.” He goes on with this idea, saying “If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.”

In a sense, being a Christian is like being in a band. There are many parts to the music – vocals, lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass, drums, keyboards, horns – and depending on the song, their individual part may be big or small. I remember a percussionist with Spyro Gyra who played a number of instruments, from conga to triangle, and was fun to watch because of the way he seemed to scramble from one instrument to the next within the context of a single song. You wouldn’t pay to see him front a band, but his contribution to the music (as well as the live show) was undeniable.

I really like this analogy in the context of jazz, or at least of a live performance, where no song is played exactly the same way twice. Everyone knows the melody and the rhythm, but there is usually space for a featured musician to add notes or runs or riffs that weren’t written into the original score. One person may have the featured instrument, playing what he’s led to play, but the rest are basically staying within the music as written, holding everything together

Jazz is one way I resolve the theological issue of predestination vs. free will or foreknowledge. In live jazz – the best way to hear it – everyone is playing the same song and knows how it starts, where it’s going, how it’s going to end. But along the way, individual musicians have freedom to experiment, to try different notes that hopefully contribute to the overall sound. But still, that individual freedom is curtailed somewhat within the limits of the song they are playing. The overall song is predestination; the individual experimentation is free will. God wrote the music, so He knows where it’s going and how it’s going to end, even as He takes great delight in the individual talents displayed within the structure of the song.

A casual listener may not realize how important the bass player is, or what the percussionist adds to a song (“More cowbell” as the famous Saturday Night Live skit goes), and at times certain individuals may not be playing at all, sitting back while other musicians take over.

To Paul’s point, in the church we all have a part to play. Some are more obvious than others. Sometimes, as in music, the part we play might change. If it’s your turn to solo, you do so; but at the same time, if it’s your turn to rest – a very important part of any musical score – you have to do that as well, because if you decided to just jump in and play whenever you wanted, the whole song would be ruined.

We won’t all be Dave Sanborn, adding something so distinctive everyone notices even when we’re supposed to be in the background. We can’t all have our picture on the cover of the album. That doesn’t make us any less important, because certainly the person that wrote the music, that envisioned the total sound, appreciates how important each part is to – in the case of music – winning that Grammy.

But, as Paul writes, “God has placed the parts … every one of them, just as He wanted them to be, so there are many parts, but one body.” (I Corinthians 12:12).

So, learn your music. Hone your craft. Know that even if you never get to be the headliner, the producer – God – knows the part He has written just for you and applauds every note you hit that adds to the heavenly sound of His music.