Day 13 - 40 Days of Prayer - Paul Reiter

What God wants, and what our hearts most deeply seek, is for us to live every moment, do every act, breathe every breath in conscious immediacy with the One who is all love. 
                                                         Gerald May, The Awakened Heart
 
During Lent of this year the Presbytery of Giddings-Lovejoy began a 10 day period of discernment during the 40 days of Lent.  Sessions, congregations, ministry teams, and action groups as well as pastors and church leaders were asked to find 10 days during that period to listen for God.  As we have been setting our course for the future it has been important to take the time to reflect on Scripture and respond to three questions:
            “What does this scripture tell me about God?”
            “What does this passage tell me about God’s desire for our congregation?
            “ What does this passage say about God’s desire for our presbytery?”
 
Many sessions expressed frustration at doing Bible study.  It wasn’t doing the “business of the church” after all.  But also, most confessed after spending the time in reflection and coming back to the session table a month later that they had a greater awareness of what God was doing in their midst.  Their perspectives had changed.
 
I could not help but think of the last General Assembly where the committee on Youth Concerns and Worship was given a rather open ended agenda, to be filled with the work of discernment.  It was an anxious time for most, but one of our commissioner’s who worked in the area of youth concerns expressed how much more his eyes, ears, and mind were opened to the movement of God as a result of some of the exercises they had done in committee.  The outcomes he said were not all that it was about but more importantly, the receptivity to what God was doing.
 
As I think about those attending the General Assembly this year in Minneapolis I could not help but think about the work of discernment and how hard it is to bring into conversation and the ebb and flow of the normal “business of the church” the important role of listening for God. I am reminded in the words of the John Mark Ministries: “There is no ‘instant’ holiness.  Prayer is hard work.  It is the work of a lifetime – the longest journey is the journey inward – but we begin afresh every morning… Prayer is not what we do, but what God wants to do through us.  So prayer is not merely seeking God.  Rather it is allowing [God] to find us.”
 
My prayer is that this meeting of the General Assembly will allow itself to be found by God, and that through all of the deliberations and decision making we might remember these words of John Calvin:
“We are not our own; therefore neither our reason nor our will should predominate in our deliberations and actions. We are not our own; therefore let us not propose it as our end, to seek what may be expedient for us according to the flesh.  We are not our own; therefore let us, as far as possible, forget ourselves and all things that are ours.  On the contrary, we are God’s; to God therefore, let us live and die.  We are [God’s]; towards {god] therefore, as our only legitimate end, let every part of our lives be directed” (Institutes III 7).
 
Paul T. Reiter
Executive Presbyter
Giddings-Lovejoy Presbytery