11/09/2023
Do you have routine habits of faith? Are you made proficient in your faith by setting aside certain times each day to regularly read, pray, or just contemplate God, and Jesus? If not, and you are just depending on random thoughts, or going to church once or twice a week, then you are missing out on a wonderful growing relationship.
“For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.”
Colossians 1:29 ESV
I come from a family of farmers, and if that taught me anything it taught me about routines. I learned that you rose each day before the sun, prayed before your feet hit the floor, and while the wood stove heated up for breakfast you went to the barn with a pail and a stool to milk the cow. Then, you brought that milk into the kitchen where some of it was used for breakfast, some was poured into the churn on the back porch, and a little was set aside for the other meals later in the day. Then you fed the chickens, robbed their nests for the eggs that would be used that day, and then slopped the hogs. These are just a few examples of the routine things that farmers do every day like clockwork; all before the prayer that thanks God for breakfast. This is part of the daily routine, and personal liturgy of a farmer’s life, and these are only the things I can remember from boyhood as my grandmother took my hand and let me listen to her wisdom and prayers as I walked through them with her.
We understand the Liturgy of our church, we greet it like an old friend, and find comfort in the fact that it keeps us from forgetting certain interactions we should have with God, but do we have a routine, and Liturgy, for our everyday lives? Do we carry the idea of having routine habits of worship in church forward into our everyday lives as Christians? The Apostle Paul talked about being a Pastor, and in so doing he spoke of helping others mature in Christ. Do we have the evidence and instruments of this maturation within us as we go through our days?
“Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.”
Colossians 1:28 ESV
I used to pray when I thought about it, went to church when it was convenient, didn’t think about God unless I needed something, and avoided any situation in which I might be convicted by my actions. Does this behavior sound familiar to you? How about promising to read the Bible tomorrow, or hearing the Lord’s voice and convincing yourself that it was only your imagination? These actions come as the result of not placing most of your life’s activities before God. These are the examples of an infancy and immaturity of faith.
Then one day I realized how little I was actually thinking, praying, and dedicating myself to Jesus. It happened when I saw my life for what it was... unfulfilled. You notice that I didn’t use the word unsuccessful, but instead used “unfulfilled.” Success is easy to identify, but feeling that your life really matters is harder to come to grips with. I was successful enough; I had a good job, a good family, my health was alright, I believed in God and Jesus Christ, I gave to charity, and yet there was something missing. What was it? Why was I feeling this way?
As I searched, I began to pray; telling God about where I was and how I was feeling. It was then that the Lord led me into a more mature faith, and closer walk with Him, and it came as the result of a very specific conviction... “Do you really know me? Why have you ignored me?” To which I responded that I did believe, and that no, I really wasn’t ignoring Him... I had just been too busy! Looking back on that time I realize those words of denial were the words of a child.
God’s response was not one of anger, but a challenge. He asked that I set aside a few minutes each morning for prayer; not a rushed couple of words, but a good talk. So I did, and a couple of sentences in prayer became a couple more, and a couple more, until I was telling God all about my day, and the things that were happening to me. Then one morning when I thought about how wonderful this was, God asked “Can I talk now?” And my one way prayer became a conversation.
This was the beginning of my life’s liturgy. It took a lesson I knew from childhood on my grandfather’s farm and applied it to my modern life of faith. I developed habits and routines that actively engaged God and Jesus in my daily tasks and happenings. My prayer times soon became times of reading, and then writing, and we began to talk constantly throughout the day. I had a certain chair that became a refuge to me. I was maturing in faith, and that feeling of being incomplete vanished.
“For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power:”
Colossians 2:9-10 KJV
Liturgy isn’t just for church! Our lives should be steeped in it... the liturgy of a life of worship and faith. If you begin down this road of habit, routine, and making prayer and other spiritual practices your everyday liturgy, then you will undoubtedly mature in your faith. If we do this then scriptures that say things like “pray without ceasing” will cease to be so daunting, and the emptiness that you once tried to fill with more work, or good deeds will suddenly be full to the brim with God’s presence and will for you.
“Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. Quench not the Spirit.”
1 Thessalonians 5:16-19 KJV
So I challenge you as God challenged me… Can you set aside a few minutes at the beginning of each day as a routine time of prayer? Can you use this time as the first act of defining the liturgy of your life? If the answer is yes then God will join you there, and you will become more than successful… you will be completed, and fulfilled.
Prayer:
Father, I thank you for my mornings and rising to find you waiting there for me. I thank you for all of the miles we have walked together as we talked about the liturgies that you have instituted in my life. I thank you for the comfort of my prayer chair, and the constant conversations we have in my car. I thank you for the prayer rock I received from a friend, and how each time my hand touches it in my pocket I trace the cross etched into it and pray. I thank you Father for the small vial of oil that you asked me to carry, for all those who I have anointed through the years, and for the personal commitment of those who have come and asked me to pray for them, and anoint them as I did so. I thank you Father for the passages of scripture you reveal to me as I read your Word each day, and the words you ask me to write. I guess Father that I am thanking you for all the routine things in my life that I have captured and made prisoner to my faith, and for your filling the void within me with your presence. I thank you for my constantly increasing maturity in you, and the relationship that each moment of Daily Liturgy has helped to perfect. Praised be your name Father, for you are my life, and my all in all.
“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.”
Philippians 4:8-9 ESV
Rich Forbes