paravanes:meditations

(c) Deborah Evans These words from the prayer known as The Lord's Prayer and also  referred to as "the prayer Jesus taught", sum up the essence of true Christian discipleship. The one who prays this prayer desires God's visible and open rulership: "your kingdom come." But more than that, this prayer seeks an unchallenged and uncontested rulership : "your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven." Whether you understand Heaven as a physical place or a state of being, or both, Heaven is the place where God's will is done instantly and without delay, question, debate, or negotiation.  In the heavenly kingdom, this immediate and complete obedience is expressed because those of that kingdom know God's love as deeply as they know God's holiness and power. Consider Jesus' prayer in the garden of Gethsemane just before his arrest and crucifixion. Even in that place, he said to the Father "not my will, but your will..."

(c) Deborah Evans The best advice I ever received about prayer came from my father. This is what he said: "Pray as if everything depends upon God and work as if everything depends upon you." My father was very well read, so it's possible he found this somewhere, or modified a quote he remembered from someone who advised him. My father passed away over 20 years ago, and this is some of the best advice he ever gave me. Prayer comes first because the disciple always seeks the will and the way of the teacher. Work can show up as: embracing new habits, accepting a new level of discipline, resting-eating-exercising sensibly, learning to speak up, learning to speak less, saying yes to new and different experiences, or in a hundred other ways. Prayer is an invitation for God to change you.  If you want to pray the prayer that works, be ready to change yourself, your perspectives, and your actions.  For prayer to work, your actions must align with the words of your pra

Photo (c) Deborah Evans Cancel. Correct. Cure. Think of these three words -- or this short phrase -- as a way to measure your spiritual progress. Your spiritual progress is defined as how closely your character (choices, actions, priorities) conforms to the character, or likeness, of Jesus Christ: Romans 8:29 - "For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers." Now, try using these self evaluation questions. What is God canceling in my life? What am I directed to release? What is God correcting in my life? What priorities and preferences and proportions are in God's revisions of my personality, habits, relationships,  and intentions? What is God curing in my life? What am I choosing to do - or not do - to keep and grow the new perspectives and purposes God has gifted me with? Cancel. Correct. Cure. It's self check time. Look at your results and plan your next steps. I

Photo (c) Deborah Evans Another Black History Month has come and gone. A most important message is:  know and understand Black history is more than trauma. The inescapable inequities built into American history, traditions, and common practices tell any objective observer about the extreme trauma experienced by the ancestors of those trapped in American chattel slavery and the legal barriers of state enforced segregation.  But undeniable is the determination of those who survived the worst things any modern culture has imposed on enslaved people and their descendants. No one survives a life filled with nothing but trauma. Survivors and thrivers have moments and hours and days of love, caring closeness, laughter, connection, goodness, and support -- even small victories are not absent from the survivor's life. When you examine or attempt to understand Black history, beware of those who would define this history as nothing but a series of traumas. That viewpoint, though p