Soul Sister Time

I love to pray biblical prayers.  I’m grateful that God is willing to listen to my babble and lists, but I feel even more connected to Him in prayer when I pray His own words back to Him.  Typically I pray the Lord’s Prayer two times a day.  I try not to do it as a ritual, but as an example of how Jesus tells me to pray.  I reflect on the meaning of each phrase to me as I say it.  I have been drawn to the Prayer of the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15:21-28.  It has become a model for me.   Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon.   A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.” Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said. He replied, “I

            While celebrating our 75 th Anniversary, our church is going back to the basics remembering what we have been about all these years.  Our values as a church have never changed.  The basic value that caused a group of people to gather together and start a church 75 years ago was inspired from recognizing the boundless gospel.  The boundless gospel is the beginning of every real Christian church.  Our church founders wanted to spread the gospel to a section of Dallas where the gospel could reach more people.             As I have I have been reflecting on and teaching this value, I realized how easy it is to begin with the boundless gospel and then think we understand it and move on to deeper things.  The truth is that the boundless Gospel can never be comprehended—it is truly boundless.  It is so amazing, so incredible that I could contemplate it every day of my life and never fully understand the ramifications of this boundless gospel on my own nor be able to see its

            I spend my life trying to follow Jesus and teach others how to follow Him also.  I love to hear how unique each person’s story of transformation in Christ becomes.  There are no instant formulas to transformation and Christlikeness.  I stopped looking for the formula long ago.  There is a pattern of transformation.  Christians for centuries have been talking about spiritual growth using three stages—purgative, illuminative and unitive.  I have recognized these patterns in my own transformation and in the lives of others.  I find them helpful to understand what is really happening to our souls.             I am astounded when I find myself at peace in a storm or not fuming at someone who has acted against me.  That is not me!  I know that it is Christ living in me.  How does that happen?  How do we open ourselves to the kind of transformation that makes us better than we are?             I see the pattern in Luke 9:23.  It is the instruction that Jesus gave to his di