Everyone has been asking. And the short answer is: Vacation was wonderful!
I am very grateful for the prayers of our church family and friends in the wider community while we were away. We were refreshed! And now, with Lenten activities and Holy Week and Easter... Oh, wow! Yes, April is a busy time, so "prayers for the pastor" continue to be very much “in order” and truly treasured and vital.
For that matter, prayer, period, is vital, is it not? Our lives... all of our lives and every aspect of our lives, yes, every breath of our lives comes from God.
Prayer is our lifeline, our connection to God in whom we live and breathe. One hymn says, “Prayer is the Christian’s vital breath, the Christian’s native air….”
Just as a fish can’t breathe without its gills which, by some miracle I'll never fully understand, allow it to pull the oxygen it needs from the water, in the same way we need prayer to connect us to the Breath of God, the Spirit of God, who daily renews and refreshes and revives us in Christ.
As I often do, I am preaching to myself here, but see if you don’t agree with this confession: We are too often “asthmatic” Christians.
According to one medical expert, “when you have asthma, two things happen inside your lungs --- constriction, the tightening of the muscles surrounding the airways, and inflammation, the swelling and irritation of the airways…. There is increasing evidence that, if left untreated, asthma can cause long-term loss of lung function.”
When we’re disconnected from the lifeline of prayer we are spiritually asthmatic. We find ourselves gasping for air! Left untreated, spiritual asthma can decrease our capacity to breathe the Spirit in deep, to fully experience God’s love and grace, to see God’s purposes for our lives and for the church.
Disconnected from prayer, we die.
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