The Voices in My Head

I think we can all relate to having various voices in our heads – some with a positive message or perspective, and others that can have an unhelpful effect at best, or a destructive effect at worst. You know, those times when you are weighing out your choices and trying to lean in to the most reliable of those voices to lead you down a wise path without regret.

When I reflect on the decades or seasons of my life, I can come up with a list of what I call Vital Voices for each time period – those significant sources of strength and truth I could rely on to navigate what each season brought.

Vital Voices for me can come from books, podcasts, speakers, mentors, journaling, friends or family members, or my spouse. These inputs become significant because of their timing, as well as their reliable content.

They arrive as real-time answers to questions with which I am dealing. Regardless of the particular source, they have some elements in common – like, can stand the test of truth, which for me, means fits into my biblical perspective of life.

So as a part of sharing my journey through this blog I am adding a category of posts called: Vital Voices, in which I will share some of these significant sources that are markers on my life’s timeline.

Let me start with one Vital Voice that shows up in several seasons of my journey: Oswald Chambers - in particular, his devotional, My Utmost for His Highest. If you are familiar with his writings, you will be shaking your head in agreement right now. He was an early-twentieth-century Scottish Baptist evangelist and teacher whose writings have stood the test of time for millions of Christians over centuries now.

The outside of my well-used, well-worn copy of My Utmost for His Highest

from the 1970's

I could fill a volume with all the journal entries I have had over the course of my faith journey that reference one of his daily devotional writings. Let me share just one of Oswald’s teachings that has proven a timely source of truth and clarity repeatedly for me.

It’s about the inevitability of affecting other people and upsetting their plans when we obey God. How do we reconcile other people being upset or disappointed because of a decision to which we feel God has led us?

We can disobey God if we choose, and it will bring immediate relief to the situation...Whereas if we obey God, He will look after those who have been pressed into the consequences of our obedience. We have simply to obey and to leave all consequences to Him. Oswald Chambers

To read the entry in its entirety, click on this link: What My Obedience to God Costs Other People .

One of the repeatable personal applications of this principle during my journey is when I have had a point of growth that demands a change in my behavior, decisions, boundaries...etc.

Haven’t you experienced the wretched-gut response when someone who is used to you reacting in a certain way is reviled that you are now responding differently – perhaps in the opposite of what they have grown accustomed to? This is especially true when your ‘old way’ provided a benefit for them that they are not willing to give up.

A Vital Voice for me during a time when I was grieving over such a situation, came through this statement from one of my instructors during my Enneagram Practitioners certification course:

Sometimes we lose people because they will not allow us to change.

I felt my gut start to untangle as the statement went from my ears to my head to my soul. Sigh....not easy or comfortable; but I have found it is an unavoidable part of respecting myself and trusting God as I endeavor to get closer to who I was created to be.

To Ponder....

What are some of the Vital Voices in your life?

Have you experienced the pain of disappointing others while you were trying to obey something you felt was God-led? What emotions did you experience? How did you regain your peace from the situation?

If you would like to follow me on this adventure, and receive notice whenever I post something new, please subscribe. (It’s simple – at the bottom of every page on the Perils & Pearls blog site. *No need to be a 'member.')

**A word about POSTING COMMENTS: I LV engaging with your feedback/responses to my writings! Let me cut through the tech hassles re: POSTING COMMENTS:

When you click to add a comment, you will get a choice of leaving a comment "AS A MEMBER" or "AS A GUEST."

CLICK THE CHOICE "AS A GUEST" (-even if you are a SUBSCRIBER) & your life will be simpler- ha! And as many have done, feel free to send me a private message using the "Let's Chat" option on the Perils & Pearls Home Page.

And if you know people who would benefit from the support, and/or enjoy the short writings, please share the site or a post with them. Heck, just share it on your social media…Let’s grow it together!

Blessed to play a part ~

g

Singing Prayers: Singing Them Thru

My last post – Standing in the Gap – was about intercessory prayer. Specifically, as I have experienced it, it is praying as someone, rather than for someone. It is a powerful form of laying down your life for another, of agape love. And I have experienced the deep joy of being the receiver of such prayer as well as playing that role for others.

If you have been reading my posts, or if you perused the pages of my Perils and Pearls blogsite, you know that music is integral in my experience of faith, God, and life in general.

I have a music page on my site for sharing the tunes and lyrics that move me. The name I gave that page is Sing My Way Thru, which accurately articulates how music is essential in my journey, and it has always been a primary channel of expression for me – that includes, singing prayers, or intercessory worship.

Music with a meaningful message can pull me through the toughest of times, as well as become an outlet for expressing my gratitude or joy.

It is also a means of supporting others for me. When I sing prayers for others, (many times it is scripture put to music), I am holding up their weary arms to God as they wait on Him to hear and answer their heart’s cry. I’m singing them thru.

I shared in my last post how it took time to learn and grow comfortable in praying for others, and then experiencing what it is to intercede for another. But what came more naturally for me, was finding prayers in (sacred) music.

As an Enneagram Practitioner, I believe that each of us identify, albeit uniquely, with one of the nine Enneagram Types; and likewise, I believe we are unique in the channel(s) of communion with God in which we are most comfortable.

Some people, like me, find an easy flow with using faith-filled music for relating our emotions and cares to God, and hearing His voice. Others prefer scripture reading and meditation as their go-to communication channel. While there are other faith-followers who feel closest to God in silence, or being in nature. I love picturing God being delighted by whichever channels each of us feels comfortable with in communing with Him!

When I enter God’s presence through worship music, someone may come to mind who is experiencing something similar to the writer of the song. I then picture the person singing this song, this expression of their heart cry, to God. Just as in intercessory prayer, I am singing as the person, rather than for the person. I am supporting them by singing prayers, or intercessory worship, pleading their case to God in their stead, through the message of the song lyrics.

My communion channel becomes my community channel!

I know I have felt the exhaustion – mind, body and soul - of a hard battle, or a long dark night, where my arms felt too weak to raise to Him. For instance, during over a decade of chronic pain, I had many times where the wear-down of the constancy and daily debilitation of pain brought me to doubting God’s goodness and good plan for me.

And yet faithfully, He would put my cause on someone else’s heart to pray, to lift my weary arms up; and upon hearing of their vital vigilance on my behalf, I would receive His reminder that He will never leave me nor forsake me – even when my feelings or fatigue tell me differently.

Here is a great story that creates a palpable word picture for the power of holding up the arms of another when they are in a battle of some kind and have grown weary:

Lifting up the arms of Moses – Exodus 17:8-13

The Amalekites came and attacked the Israelites at Rephidim. Moses said to Joshua, “Choose some of our men and go out to fight the Amalekites. Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hands.”

So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered, and Moses, Aaron and Hur went to the top of the hill. As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning.

When Moses’ hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up—one on one side, one on the other—so that his hands remained steady till sunset. So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword.

Thank you for allowing me to share an intimate part of my faith journey - the channels of communion and community that come easiest for me. I hope this and the last post have stirred your curiosity about the many modes we have for expressing and nurturing our relationship with God and our love for one another as we walk out our daily lives.

Wondering....Do you have an awareness of your go-to channel(s) for communing with God? Can you describe it? How might you develop it further?

Here’s a resource if you would like to explore this topic further: Sacred Pathways: Nine Ways to Connect with God (by Gary Thomas).

If you would like to follow me on this adventure, and receive notice whenever I post something new, please subscribe. (It’s simple – at the bottom of every page on the Perils & Pearls blog site. *No need to be a 'member.')

**A word about POSTING COMMENTS: I LV engaging with your feedback/responses to my writings! Let me cut through the tech hassles re: POSTING COMMENTS: When you click to add a comment, you will get a choice of leaving a comment "AS A MEMBER" OR "AS A GUEST." CLICK THE CHOICE "AS A GUEST" (-even if you are a SUBSCRIBER) & your life will be simpler- ha! And as many have done, feel free to send me a private message using the "Let's Chat" option on the Perils and Pearls Home Page.

And if you know people who would benefit from the support, and/or enjoy the short writings, please share the site or a post with them. Heck, just share it on your social media…Let’s grow it together!

Blessed to play a part ~

g

Standing in The Gap

With that image at the top, you may be expecting something inside the topic of clothes shopping; and those who know me, know I do love to express myself through what I put on! But what I am excited to share with you is inside the topic of how we can support or love those in our lives: by standing in the gap for one another.

I did some googling and surprisingly, found several definitions for this phrase. The one that fits my usage here is:

To stand in the gap is to expose oneself for the protection of something (or someone); to make defense against any assailing danger; to take the place of a fallen defender or supporter.

ChatGPT answered the question of What is standing in the gap? with this:

To ‘stand in the gap’ for someone means to act as mediator or advocate on their behalf. It typically implies that the person standing in the gap is taking a position of responsibility and support for someone else, often in a difficult or challenging situation. This can be used in a variety of contexts, from religious or spiritual contexts, to more practical or everyday situations.

I’ll bet you have done this – many times – in your life for loved ones or a cause about whom or which you are passionate. Times when you took responsibility for the support of someone in crisis. Maybe you took meals to them, shopped for them, took them to appointments, cleaned their house, listened to them as they shared their pain, supported them financially...Maybe you did several of these acts of service for the same person(s)!

In the context of this blog post, I’d like to touch on the idea of prayer as one way of standing in the gap. This has been one of my top love languages to care for those God brings into my life. And - how precious the gift when someone who knows me, my heart, offers to lift up my causes to God on my behalf.

There are many types of prayer. I am not attempting a study of prayer in the small space of this post. But there is a specific type of prayer that is near and dear to my heart because I have experienced both sides of it – the giving and the receiving. I’m talking about intercessory prayer.

Once again, googling produced a plethora of definitions and concepts about intercessory prayer. I also did a cursory search in scripture on the topic. I’ll share just a few thoughts here...

My own initiation into this type of prayer came through a young moms’ group I was a part of when my kids were preschool-to-grade school age. We shared our zeal for learning more about God as well as our stage of life. We studied the topic of prayer together and then we practiced it as a group – standing in the gap for one another through prayer.

I can’t tell you how meaningful it was to know there were other moms praying for me, motivated by their own experiences of parental anxiousness, when my kids (and I) were up all night due to a high fever or a croupy cough. I felt seen, heard, known and cared for. I believe that tangible act of love – interceding on my behalf – got me through those early years of mothering.

Let me share one definition of intercession I found:

Pleading with one party on behalf of another, usually with a view to obtaining help for that other.

Another added this: Intercession implies, first, a distance between suffering believers and God that must be overcome and, second, a mediating party who bridges the gap.

So, you may be wondering, what is the difference between praying for someone versus interceding for them? Well, that doesn’t have a short answer, if you want a comprehensive one. It would be a worthy topic for study. There are dozens of scriptures that refer to prayers and intercessions as two distinct forms; and many books written on the topic of types of prayer.

One easy-to-grasp distinction that I found to ring true is in the duration. That is to say, we can pray one prayer for someone, at one specific time, and will have fulfilled the practice of prayer. But, with intercessory prayer, it almost always goes on for a longer period of time – days, weeks, months...even years of lifting to God a person or situation for which or whom He has given us their burden.

It was as a young Christian woman, I began the journey of learning how to pray, which eventually led me to this practice of intercessory prayer. What I found to be helpful for me to distinguish this type of support prayer from general supplication, was to delineate this concept:

I can pray for someone, or as someone. Hmm...perhaps the former is prayer, and the latter is intercession.

Reflect with me on the initial definition I shared for standing in the gap – it included this phrase: to take the place of. That’s what I’m talking about here: to be in the stead of, whether in the form of beseeching or thanking – to take the place of another before God. It is in this posture I learned to ‘take on’ the concerns or gratitude/glad heart of the one I’m interceding for; perhaps not unlike an actor becomes their character. The prayer intent and wording take on a different intensity and focus. It becomes easier to separate my desires for this person from what may be God’s will for her or him.

Perhaps an example would help convey my thought here:

Let’s say a friend shares her concern about some bullying her son is describing going on at school. I can pray for the situation: Lord, You see Sarah’s anguish re: this situation at school involving her son. I ask You to intervene on Tommy’s behalf, change the heart of the one(s) doing the bullying, and bring Sarah peace...Thank You.

But what also could transpire: The Lord invites me to take on Sarah’s burden. To step into her shoes – take the place of her - and view this situation through her eyes, her mother’s heart. I might start by asking myself this: What would my prayer sound like if it were my son who was the object of the bullying? That prayer will be impassioned – and will go on until I see the change for which I am praying.

May I share one other definition and analogy re: what intercession or standing in the gap (or the breaches) can look like? Both of these passages are speaking of the role of intercessors:

Ezekiel 13:5

You have not gone up into the breaches, or built up a wall for the house of Israel, that it might stand in battle in the day of the Lord.

Isaiah 62:6-7

On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have set watchmen; all the day and all the night they shall never be silent. You who put the Lord in remembrance, take no rest, and give him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem and makes it a praise in the earth.

I found a beautiful wall analogy by Reverend Linda Smallwood, that creates a simple image to illustrate the role of standing in the gap through intercessory prayer:

The word "intercede" comes from the Latin "inter" meaning "between" and "ced" meaning "go". So it literally means "go between".

(Now) think of a brick wall, in particular, the mortar in the joints between the bricks. That mortar "goes between", or "intercedes", between the bricks to bind them together and strengthen them. Without the mortar "going between" the bricks, the wall would collapse.

So when I intercede for another, my intercessory prayer is the mortar filling in those gaps = strengthening their spiritual wall for whatever battle they are or were in. I like that analogy; I can grasp that image.

There is so much more to say, and scriptures to dig into, about this powerful form of love through intercessory prayer...Such as: God sent Jesus to be our Once-&-Forever-Intercessor – first by taking our place on the cross (Isaiah 53); then after His resurrection, promising to forever intercede on our behalf with His (and our) Father. (Romans 8:34; Hebrews 7:25)

No one has a love greater than this, to lay down your life for your friends. John 15:13

There are an endless number of ways we can lay down our life for another, to stand in the gap as a form of loving them. Perhaps praying for others is one of your go-to ways of loving, or maybe your heart gets expressed through other venues or acts of service. Whatever the expression, our joy is sure to be full when we respond to an invitation from God to be used in His intervention in or pursuit of another’s heart and wellbeing.

[*Stay tuned! Intercessory Worship? ...In my next post.]

Might you consider...

What feelings, memories, images come up when you think about the topic of prayer?

Have you had someone in your life who has been an intercessor on your behalf? How did it feel to know another was spending their resources standing in the gap for you?

Maybe there are other ways that come easily for you re: standing in the gap for others. Can you think of one or two? What do you experience when you get to play a role in supporting another’s journey?

If you would like to follow me on this adventure, and receive notice whenever I post something new, please subscribe. (It’s simple – at the bottom of every page on the Perils & Pearls blog site. *No need to be a 'member.')

**A word about POSTING COMMENTS: I LV engaging with your feedback/responses to my writings! Let me cut through the tech hassles re: POSTING COMMENTS: When you click to add a comment, you will get a choice of leaving a comment "AS A MEMBER" OR "AS A GUEST." CLICK THE CHOICE "AS A GUEST" (-even if you are a SUBSCRIBER) & your life will be simpler- ha! And as many have done, feel free to send me a private message using the "Let's Chat" option on the https://www.perilsandpearls.com Home Page.

And if you know people who would benefit from the support, and/or enjoy the short writings, please share the site or a post with them. Heck, just share it on your social media…Let’s grow it together!

Blessed to play a part ~

g