Psalm 29:1-2 — Give unto the Lord, O ye mighty, give unto the Lord glory and strength. Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.

Of my four basic elements of organized prayer adoration is the one I find hardest — perhaps because of my English background. Not for me, the outpourings that Paul was blessed with:
O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen. Romans 11:33-36
But adoration isn’t optional. It is commanded. “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.” Deuteronomy 6:4-5

Adoration is commanded. How is it to be managed? I cannot give a general answer. I can only say what I do.

When I have done what I can by way of confession and repentance, I turn my heart to adoration.

I take one of God’s attributes. I consider it. I try to understand how it affects me. I soon come to a point where I remember that it’s beyond my ability to grasp the fullness of it. That is enough to turn my heart to wonder.

Consider, for an example, the infinity of God. God fills all of space and all of time … In fact all of space and all of time exist, somehow within the infinity of God. How does that work? How far is infinity? How long is forever? How far have I ever been? How long will I live? God is all there is, and I am not even a speck in that everything — and yet, somehow, incomprehensible, God cares about me. How can I do anything but worship Him, full of grateful awe?

I’m an inadequate amateur when it comes to prayer — and especially adoration. Matthew Henry, though, wrote a book, “A Method for Prayer: Freedom in the Face of God”. On this matter of adoration he says:
Our spirits being composed into a very reverent and serious frame, our thoughts gathered in, and all that is within us charged in the name of the great God carefully to attend the solemn and awful service that lies before us and to keep close to it, we must, with a fixed attention and application of mind and an active lively faith, set the Lord before us, see his eye upon us, and set ourselves in his special presence, presenting ourselves to him as living sacrifices, which we desire may be holy and acceptable to God and a spiritual service;
That is the perfect preparation for adoration! 

Myra adores differently — but there is a similarity. She considers creation, “When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;” Psalms 8:3. From there, as she loses herself in contemplation, adoration flows. 

Neither Myra nor I feels able to look directly into the blazing fire which is the heart of God and cast ourselves down before it. It is too much for us. We must come to it gradually. But we do adore Him!

1 John 1:9 — If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Luke 12:8. — Also I say unto you, Whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God:
I wrote, the other day, of four essential elements of prayer. I mean, in particular, the elements of a planned time of prayer. There are of course those other times of prayer — prayers of desperation, perhaps — when no such structure is possible. Over the next several days — interspersed with other devotions — I intend to comment on each element.

Confession is an interesting word. The English, Hebrew and Greek equivalent words all carry the double meaning implied by the two texts at the start of this piece. It can imply taking ownership of ones sin, or lining oneself up with another.

I said, in my earlier piece, that different people arrange the four aspects of prayer in different orders. For me, though, confession always comes first. It is the business of setting myself right with God, and once again trying to put myself in line with His will — whatever it may be. 

The words of the Anglican General Confession — based, it seems, on Romans 7, — expresses perfectly my need for repentance and forgiveness:
We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against Thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done. We have done those things which we ought not to have done. And there is no health in us.
As to that other kind of confession — the best example of that is surely Peter’s confession of Christ:
He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar–jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. (Matthew 16:15-17)
I am not saying that I have a universal answer to the question “what is the right way to prepare for prayer?” All I can say is that this is what is right for me. The first two things I have to do in prayer are to acknowledge who God is and to admit who I am. He is God. Almighty, all-knowing, all-seeing, all good. He is my Lord, and I am bound to wish that His will be done. I am sinful me. Without His in dwelling Spirit, I am nothing. Now I am ready to go deeper in prayer.

Luke 15:11 — And he said, A certain man had two sons:

Every so often I am reminded of the depth, the riches, of Jesus’s parables. I go back, and revisit, and marvel. The parable of the Prodigal Son might be the best example.

On Sunday we were blessed to watch a DVD on which Ray Vandelaan (see more about him at https://www.thattheworldmayknow.com) taught through the parable, adding a perspective on how the village community would have reacted to the events the parable relates. It made me go back to the parable and search out something I had missed.

Whoever first called the parable “The Prodigal Son” did Bible students no favors. It has led generations of preachers, teachers and eager learners to miss three key points about the parable.

First, “The Prodigal Son” focuses on the wrong person. The behavior of the younger son is shocking — but not all that surprising. Young men sin, and go off the rails. History is littered with stories of squandered inheritances. No, what is surprising — startling — is the behavior of the father. It is had to think that many Western father’s would kill the fatted calf for a young wastrel who had spent all the money he had so prematurely grasped. It is unthinkable that an Eastern father, so scorned, could set honor aside and fly in the face of community opinion.

Second, “The Prodigal Son” suggests much too narrow focus. I had started to work this one out previously. All of the people in the parable are interesting. We talked about the father and the younger son. But there’s the older son, too. He has been obedient — but there is little sign of love in him. Mr. Vanderlaan pointed out the role of the local community who would have been outraged at the younger sons behavior and willing to formally ostracize him on his return. And what is the role of the citizens in the far country, or the servants in the father’s household — there’s a lot go see in the parable.

Finally, “The Prodigal Son” suggests that the parable stands on its own … and it really doesn’t. It’s one of a set of three. They might be called “The lost sheep, the lost coin and … the lost son”. The three stories have a common theme, something which is lost, and then recovered. They are the redemption parables. I’ll do a piece on another day that looks at the similarities and differences — they are not the point of today’s piece. 

If your eyes have a tendency to slide over the Parables, stop and dig a little deeper. There is always much to see. I’m looking again, deeper.

1 Chronicles 29:14 — But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? for all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee.

I was educated in schools that, one way or another, were mainly Anglican foundations. From time to time, although the faith didn’t really stick, I heard a lot of the Church of England Book of Common Prayer. A lot of those texts, it seems, did stick — and since I got saved, and as I get older, they mean more and more to me. The scripture at the start of this piece is one of those texts. It’s one of the “offertory” scriptures — one that might be read before an offering as part of the service of Holy Communion.

One of the themes that I find running through my faith is the idea that there is a spiritual power circuit running from God, to us, and back again. So many things run over that circuit — love, especially, and worship, and even material blessing.

David sees something extraordinary in the idea of him, and his little people, giving anything to an almighty God. Of course he’s right. There is nothing God needs from us. Nothing He needs, and nothing He wants — or at least nothing material. But I believe there is something He wants passionately. 

God wants us to be plugged into His power circuit, to love, to worship, and to give. I don’t really understand it but that’s why He created us. Somehow, when we plug in we give glory to God and increase the amount of love in circulation.

David makes another point too. It’s not just that we can give, but that we can give willingly. It is some sort of miracle that our hearts and minds can turn to an almighty God and find a willingness, a desire, to give to Him. How is it that we can imagine that there is value and point in little insignificant us giving to infinite all-powerful God?

This giving circle is an amazing thing. God gives us what we need, and we give back what we can. We give back what we can, and God gives us the next thing we need. Of course it’s not, now, a perfect circle. When Eve was seduced by satan and Adam stood idly by a fault was introduced. Now we can’t always accept that God is giving us what we need, and we can’t always give back what we should. Jesus came to repair the fault. I don’t understand it — but I know it is so, and the circle will be healed.

Genesis 3:16 — Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

Myra and I listen to NPR in the morning — because it is at least better than any of what passes for TV news. Today there was a segment that featured Hanna Rosin talking with Renee Montagne about the #emptychair “hashtag” that has been used by many people to comment on Twitter. It refers to a recent New York Magazine cover featuring thirty five of the women alleged to have been assaulted by comedian Bill Cosby — and one empty chair.
M/s. Rosin’s commentary struck an interesting note:

“It serves so many purposes. First, it’s a rebuke, like a classic rebuke. You know, here … history, America, the patriarchy, whatever you want to call it, has made it difficult for women to speak their truth. So there’s a chair that represents silence, something that didn’t happen. …”
It’s not surprising that M/s. Rosen should look at the hashtag that way. She is one of the current generation of feminist thinkers. In 2012, she published a book called “The End of Men: And the Rise of Women”. In it she described a view of American society in which gender roles are reversing with multi-competent “Plastic women,” dominating institutions of higher education and taking over corporate America and increasingly irrelevant “Cardboard men,” seeing their jobs disappearing to less expensive labor markets and not able to find a place in and economy that values brains over muscle.
It’s hard to deny M/s. Rosin’s thesis — but it’s important to understand what lies beneath.

When Satan tempted Adam and Eve, God laid a curse on the serpent, the husband, and the wife. The woman was cursed with pain in childbirth and with frustration — “thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee”. The “desire” is a desire for dominance … a glorious partnership became a never-ending struggle for primacy in marriage. Paul gave the great counsel as to how the struggle should be handled — ““Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. …Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;” — Ephesians 5:22, 25. The relationship between man and woman, husband and wife, should be a balance. Sadly, as the end times rush upon us and spiritual warfare intensifies, the balance is increasingly disturbed. Not the end of man, nor the rise of woman, but the undermining of yet another of the foundations of our society.