Day 200

Yield fruit through work

Key Verses: 2, 6, 10, 12, 14

We get a peek into Paul’s prayer life through his prayer list. What and how we pray can tell us a lot about a person’s priorities. Are we praying for the spread of the Gospel, protection in persecution and direction for our hearts? If we are, we are in line with Paul’s prayer list. Or are we spending our time praying out hangnails?

Prayer is about entry into God’s presence, communication with the Creator, opening ourselves up to listening to His message to us. It is dialogue, a two-way conversation. I have to confess that all too often I don’t slow down enough to give Jesus space to speak back to me when I am in prayer. I feel rushed to get on with the business of life. I don’t pause and listen to His responses to my petitions. I am sure I am missing out on some really great responses.

Paul confronted laziness. There were people who were sponging off others. They were not doing anything to support themselves, to meet their own physical needs. Paul tells the believers to not associate with people like this.

Until the last 50 years or so, people did not want a handout. They wanted the dignity that came from honest work. Charities, primarily churches, provided the basics in exchange for simple work. Welfare reform a few years ago pushed for this. Now some people have moved over to using disability as an excuse for not doing anything. Our system prevents them from doing anything, or they lose all benefits. We ought to be able to do some things without forfeiting life and limb. There is now an incentive to be lazy: a paycheck.

I am clearly not saying that everyone on disability should be working. But clearly, almost all people on disability could do something small to contribute to others. This contribution should be acknowledged and encouraged. I don’t know what the solution is, but I know that Paul said idleness is not good for human dignity.

Shame can be a good thing! I think shame gets a bad rap sometimes in our culture. Shame can be is the God-given emotion experienced when we do things that dishonor His image in us. When this kind of shame is present we can choose to come closer to God and have the shame removed, because we are totally accepted and safe in His presence.

There are other types of shame, especially shame placed on us by others because of things they did, that we are right to reject. These are not our shame but the other’s to own. We reject this shame and enter God’s presence and the presence of others who will accept us. Healing shame takes a corrective emotional experience to undo. God can provide that experience through His body. We become His arms extended, His shoulders to cry on, His eyes to gaze into, His smile and head nod.