Coming to a safe pair of hands
I’ve recently become a grandfather. Two years ago, my daughter and her husband presented to us, as in giving us a gift, a beautiful little girl.
I then sat back and waited to find out what title they would give me. The first grandchild in the family, so the first parents had the naming rights to the grandparents.
Would it be Granddad, Gogo (a family favorite), Grandfather, or something else?
They settled on ‘Poppa.’ I’m not sure where ‘Poppa’ has its etymological roots, but it’s close to Papa, and I am very excited by that. And Eliza, if you’re reading this sometime in the future, Poppa loves you and wants you to know that you’re held in a safe pair of hands.
‘Poppa’ rolls off the tongue easily, doesn’t it. Two syllables ease the connection.
You can tell a lot by the way people pray.
It is always interesting to me how people begin to pray. What words do they use to open the conversation?
- Almighty God
- Heavenly Father
- Lord
- God
- Jesus
- Daddy
- Poppa
What do you use to enter the dialogue?
Is it disrespectful in some way not to use a formal title for God?
How we refer to God in our prayer life speaks volumes, I believe, to the type of relationship we have with them.
I want my grandchildren to know the ‘Pop’ in Poppa, not the Grand in GrandFather, and I think my divine ‘let’s play in the sandpit of creation’ Papa, Spirit, Jesus wants that kind of intimacy too.
Sadly, some people get spooked by this level of intimacy. They like the formality, distance, authority, religious tradition, and a kind of liturgical class system that keeps God in their place and we in our place. It gets conditioned into the conversation.
Poppa’s go away sad that their little children think that way.
Enter the P.A.P.A. Prayer
‘The Papa Prayer: The Prayer You’ve Never Prayed’ invites us into a new way of praying.
P: Present yourself to God without pretense.
Be a real person in the relationship. Tell Him whatever is going on inside you that you can identify.
A: Attend to how you’re thinking of God.
Again, no pretending. Ask yourself, “How am I experiencing God right now?” Is He a vending machine, a frowning father, a distant, cold force? Or is He your gloriously strong but intimate Papa?
P: Purge yourself of anything blocking your relationship with God.
Put into words whatever makes you uncomfortable or embarrassed when you’re real in your relationship with Him. How are you thinking more about yourself and your satisfaction than about anyone else, including God and His pleasure?
A: Approach God as the “first thing” in your life, as your most valuable treasure, the Person you most want to know.
Admit that other people and things really do matter more to you right now, but you long to want God so much that every other good thing in your life becomes a “second-thing” desire.
Larry Crabb. The Papa Prayer
I have used this approach to prayer as a journaling prompt for my prayer life. It’s a way in which I think God uses to steady me and bring me back to a sense of being held in a safe pair of hands.
It can also be used as a prompt when listening and supporting others.
- How are they presenting themselves? – What’s going on under the surface? Where is the real struggle?
- What core beliefs about life, God, relationships need attending to?
- What is blocking the way to deeper wholeness and a knowing of Papa that needs to be purged and let go of?
- How can they approach God as the ‘first thing’ and let go of every second thing – health, wealth, popularity, control, safety etc.
It also starts to rub up against some of the ‘Sacred Cows’ of our understanding of what God is like.
Sacred Cows Make the Best Hamburger
I’m not sure where the quote ‘Sacred Cows Make the Best Hamburger’ comes from, but I like it.
So many people think that it’s disrespectful to use such intimate words to describe God. It’s a Sacred Cow – something considered immune from question or criticism.
People have criticized me for my supposed informality in addressing ‘Almighty God’ as ‘Daddy, Jesus, Spirit.’
I think Jesus felt the same sense of hurt when he saw little children being ‘shooed’ away. The sacred cow of ‘children are best seen and not heard’ strolled through the marketplace.
One day children were brought to Jesus in the hope that he would lay hands on them and pray over them.
The disciples shooed them off.
But Jesus intervened: “Let the children alone, don’t prevent them from coming to me. God’s kingdom is made up of people like these.”
After laying hands on them, he left. Matthew 19:13-15
Let’s be brave and enter into a deepening love relationship with a Poppa that runs, skips, dances, sings, and opens wide embracing arms to children that aren’t too sure about this thing called life.
There’s a safe pair of hands that wants to embrace the child within you—the P.A.P.A. prayer is the welcome.
Quotes to consider
- For a long time now, without even realizing it, you’ve seen God as an ally in your purposes. You’ve lost sight of the fact that He sees you as an ally in His. “God, give me the life I want” has been the theme of your prayers. But now you can hear the muffled cry coming from the center of your heart: “God, let me know You better.” And you know that’s a very different prayer. Larry Crabb. The Papa Prayer
- Nothing has relieved my confusion over unanswered prayer requests more than the realization that relational prayer must always come before petitionary prayer. Relate and then request. Enjoy God and then enjoy His provisions, whatever they are. Larry Crabb. The Papa Prayer
- Praying the PAPA prayer is not rubbing a magic lantern and making known three requests to a docile genie that pops out before our eyes. It’s simply a way to come to God and learn to wait, to listen with a little less wax in our spiritual ears, and, most of all, to be relentlessly real. Larry Crabb. The Papa Prayer
Written by Barry Pearman
Barry lives in Auckland, New Zealand, and writes about Mental Health and Spiritual Formation. Learn more about him on his website Turning the Page.
When We Don’t Know What To Do
by Kathleen Gauthier
We all face problems in life that overwhelm us and threaten to defeat us. What do we do when we don’t know what to do?
King Jehoshaphat had a big problem. In II Chronicles 20, three of his enemies united to make war against him. When the news reached him about the large armies approaching his kingdom of Judah, Jehoshaphat was afraid. He immediately turned his attention to seek the Lord.
When we are faced with adversity, what do we do first? Do we assess our resources? Find our bootstraps and give them a strong pull? Do we seek experts for advice? Do we try to make life work? Do we try to anesthetize our pain or ignore the problem by seeking relief? Do we fall in grief and despair? Do we demand someone fix it?
Jehoshaphat sought the Lord with all his heart. He proclaimed a fast and gathered his people to seek help from the Lord. Seeking God was more important than eating. He put everything aside. He asked his people to pray with him. His prayer is recorded in II Chronicles 20: 6-12
“O LORD, God of our fathers, are you not God in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. In your hand are power and might, so that none is able to withstand you.
Did you not, our God, drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel, and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham your friend?
And they have lived in it and have built for you in it a sanctuary for your name, saying,
‘If disaster comes upon us, the sword, judgment, or pestilence, or famine, we will stand before this house and before you—for your name is in this house—and cry out to you in our affliction, and you will hear and save.’
And now behold, the men of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir, whom you would not let Israel invade when they came from the land of Egypt, and whom they avoided and did not destroy—
behold, they reward us by coming to drive us out of your possession, which you have given us to inherit.
O our God, will you not execute judgment on them? For we are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.”
Jehoshaphat first remembered who God was and what He has done. The king of Judah recognized God’s place as King of kings. Jehoshaphat knew he was subject to God, not the other way around. He laid out his problem before God. Jehoshaphat knew he had nothing in himself to overcome his enemies. Jehoshaphat confessed his poverty, his brokenness, his powerlessness to change his circumstances. He was at the end of himself, empty before the Lord. There was nothing he could do to fix his problem. He asked for God’s help but did not demand it. Jehoshaphat kept his eyes focused on God.
Psalm 121:1 says:
“I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From where does my help come?
My help comes from the LORD,
who made heaven and earth.”
Where do we look when we are faced with problems we cannot solve? Do we “turn our eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face?” Do the “things of earth grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace”? Or do we focus on the enemy approaching and our helplessness? Do we demand God to fix our problem, or can we admit our helplessness and keep our eyes on Him and wait?
The Spirit of the Lord spoke through Jahaziel and said, “Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed at this great horde, for the battle is not yours but God’s. You will not need to fight in this battle. Stand firm, hold your position, and see the salvation of the LORD on your behalf, O Judah and Jerusalem.’ Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed. Tomorrow go out against them, and the LORD will be with you.” II Chronicles 20:15, 17.
Jehoshaphat and all Judah worshipped the Lord and praised Him with loud voices. The next day, Jehoshaphat encouraged the people to put their trust in the Lord God and they would be established, and they would succeed. The Judean king appointed people to proceed the army with praise. The people sang, “Give thanks to the LORD, for his steadfast love endures forever.” II Chronicles 20:21. When Judah met her enemy in the wilderness, they were all dead.
Is this a formula to overcome your problems? Look to Jesus, worship and praise Him and your enemy will be slain before you reach the battleground? Please, don’t think that! There is no formula to solve your problem. No way to manipulate God to overcome and remove your trouble in life. But what can we learn from this?
We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.
We can turn to the One who made us first. It’s so easy to worry. So easy to try everything else before we hit the wall and turn to the Living God. What if, instead of trying to solve our problem to manage our life, we made seeking God our first thing, our top priority? We don’t know what to do with our depression, our anxiety, our broken relationships, our uncertain future, or the deep ache in the depth of our soul. Why do we try everything else before we seek God?
We tend to be more like the Israelites right out of Egypt facing the barrier of the Red Sea. In Exodus 14 the Israelites faced another approaching enemy with no way of escape and they were full of fear. Instead of seeking God first, as Jehoshaphat and the people of Judah did, the Israelites of that time cried out to the Lord and complained to Moses, did you bring us out here to die? We were better off as slaves! Even after witnessing the miraculous way God freed them from slavery and bondage, they did not trust their God to save them.
Sadly, we can be more like the Israelites than the people of Judah. Despite all who God is and what He has done, we doubt He will help us again. We doubt His goodness. We don’t trust He is in control when all we see is our enemy on one side and obstacles on the other. We’d rather go back to the familiar slavery of sin than to trust in the freedom our Mysterious Unseen God offers.
Through Moses, God had told the people a similar message he told to Judah, “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will work for you today. The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.” Exodus 14:13, 14. As you may already know, God parted the Red Sea and the people walked through on dry ground. After God delivered them and drowned the Egyptians, then the people feared the Lord; believed in the Lord; and praised and worshipped the Lord. Exodus 14:31, and Exodus 15.
Let’s recap this. Both people faced overwhelming enemies they could not defeat, and they were afraid. The people of Judah first sought the Lord, making it a priority even over daily things like eating. They recognized God for who He was and what He has done in contrast to their complete helplessness and powerlessness to overcome their problem on their own. They didn’t know what to do but turned their eyes to God trusting He would do something. They offered their sacrifice of praise and God delivered them. In contrast, the people of Israel cried out to God and complained to Moses. They didn’t fully trust God, yet He delivered them. Then they believed and praised God. Their trust lasted three days. It didn’t take long for them to doubt and grumble again when there was no water. This time they didn’t even cry out to God but complained first to Moses.
It’s too easy to fall back into the rut of grumbling. Our hearts don’t trust God. We doubt. We can’t fix our lives. We don’t know what to do.
But we can turn our eyes to God. Jesus knows we have trouble and anxiety in life. In Matthew 6, Jesus lovingly says, don’t be anxious. God takes care of the flowers and the birds; He will take care of you. The world looks at approaching enemies and lack of resources and is full of anxiety and complaints. Look to our Living God! Seek first God and His kingdom before you seek the things on earth.
C.S. Lewis said, “You can’t get second things by putting them first; you can get second things only by putting first things first.”*
Don’t know what to do?
Turn your eyes to Jesus.
*C.S. Lewis, “First and Second Things,” God in the Dock (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1970), pp. 278-280.
Fog, A Prayer
by Seth Gatchell
When fog of doubt rolls in, thick greyness covers all,
Like London’s Baker Street, a gas lamp breaks the pall.
When my spiritual eyes fail to see You appear,
I need not walk by sight, nor need to feel you near.
With some unanswered prayers, my heart, like a black hole.
Promises and Presence, the anchors for my soul.
Conflict I just can’t change, rebellious hearts, rock hard,
I need your healing touch from that which I’ve been scarred.
God, when my heart is dull, and life sends me reeling,
Keep me grounded in You. I won’t trust my feelings.
When I just want to sulk, and pout and brood and mope,
Strengthen me in my heart, fill me again with hope.
The way of faith is hard, eyes won’t cooperate.
But when I find my faith, then peace will operate.
So much that I can’t see, Your hand always working,
But I see Your shadow! Your presence is lurking!
Chocolate Caramel Pecan Bark
Ingredients
- 3 cups of pecans
- 1- 9oz bag of Lily’s milk chocolate baking chips
- 1- 9oz bag of Lily’s chocolate salted caramel baking chips
- Mediterranean sea salt
Directions
- Melt milk chocolate baking chips in the microwave (approximately 1 min).
- Mix with pecans, and spread on parchment paper on a cookie sheet.
- Melt the chocolate caramel baking chips in the microwave, and drizzle on the chocolate pecan mixture.
- Sprinkle with Mediterranean sea salt.
- Put the baking sheet into the freezer for 5 minutes, and then break into serving size pieces and store in the fridge in a sealed container.
Belonging
by Seth Gatchell
With God and with others, made for deep connection,
Both the longing to give and receive rich affection.
But when ugly self starts to demand its own way,
Connections will fracture; there will be hell to pay.
Connections can deepen when mercy’s a factor,
‘Tho weaknesses galore, far less of a matter.
At the foot of the cross everyone is equal,
Just wait until heaven, Oh what a grand sequel!
And shoulder to shoulder, let us together serve,
For Him and for others, resolutely not swerve.
Fellow soldiers are we, this fight against evil,
All the misery caused by ills of the devil.
This love celebrated is from divinity,
Let us reflect that love of sacred Trinity!
Life-giving love of God, like an underground spring,
Sloshing living water, and new life it will bring!
God Displayed
by Seth Gatchell
I think I “heard” God’s voice, though not His voice, per se.
“I’m glad that you are here. That’s true for you, alway!
Will you believe that’s true? It can anchor your soul.”
Something strengthened inside, drawn, yearns to be made whole.
Is the voice of God heard sometimes through a dear friend?
The whispers of God’s truth, faintly heard? Hearts to mend?
A sister’s thoughtful words pierces my heart’s hard crust,
Stirring thirst to please Him, and anchors me in trust.
Do the eyes of Jesus, look at me through your eyes?
Is that His care I see, power to break shame’s lies?
Is that His smile at me, the smile that’s on your face?
Can His smile through you break my shame? My guilt? Disgrace?
Does God’s Holy Spirit comfort me through your touch?
Does a friend’s robust hug galvanize me as such?
When someone is with me, a hand on my shoulders
Is that Your presence which helps me face my boulders?
Is God’s delight for you seen in my countenance?
Could my attentive glance give your heart sustenance?
If I had been with you, would someone know He came?
Let God be on display through me who bears His name!
Easy to love others when things are smooth and “right,”
But when in trials and pain, you’re in for a hard fight.
Self-centered? Justified? “Love pays this heavy price?”
Reflecting Jesus’ cross, in pain and sacrifice.
Is it too much to ask?
by Jason Kanz
Larger Story’s book of the month is Becoming a True Spiritual Community, my favorite Larry Crabb book and the one I have probably read most often. His honest wrestling was one of my favorite things about Larry. In BTSC, he wrestled with what genuine spiritual connection looks like.
One of the traits I share with Larry is that of a restless spirit. He was rarely satisfied with accepting the status quo when it came to Christianity, a truism that resounds through his books. He pressed into his challenging questions, always from a desire to know the true God more completely.
I, too, have wrestled for a long time with seeking to know God better. The battle has intensified in the last few years. I am dissatisfied with the church in America. If I am honest, I don’t want to go to “church.” In many cases, we Christians don’t represent Jesus very well. I have no doubt some consider me a bitter cynic, maybe even an apostate. You may be right. God knows.
Here’s the thing: We talk about the importance of church attendance, but can we honestly say that our church rhythms model those things that Jesus valued? We gather in groups of tens or hundreds or thousands, all facing forward to listen to an “expert” in the Bible tell us what we need to know, which leaves little room to listen for God’s Spirit or share what is happening in us. Numbers of bodies, volunteer hours, and dollars determine success. Nevertheless, not a week goes by without another story of how some pastor or religious group has abused power.
I long for something more profound, but I find myself in the unfamiliar place of not knowing precisely how to put words to my longings. Still, here are some fragments:
I want to gather with people who are trying to understand and live an integrated life. A few years ago, I was involved in a weekly “integration” meeting. People from multiple backgrounds would gather for lunch and have lively conversations that mattered. Sadly, they are no longer scheduled when I can attend, and it is a considerable loss. I want to hear from people who think as I do and those who do not about how we live in a world that feels increasingly fragmented. What does it mean to live whole and holy lives?
I want to know and be known by the God of steadfast love, the one who is reconciling all broken things. I want to hear from others how they experience God and to know where they meet God. I want to share my doubt and confusion with others who are willing to share in return. I am not interested in neatly packaged answers but in acknowledging that the world is a muddled mess and that God is still bigger.
I want a community that fosters self-awareness, self-acceptance, and self-compassion. Too often, well-meaning Christians reject these ideas, but healthy spirituality does not neglect loving ourselves. I want to be reminded that there is a God who loves me “without condition or reservation,” as Brennan Manning would say.
I want a community that practices love for others, especially those who are often on the fringes or even outside neatly labeled biblical boxes. I want them to know, as I want myself to know, that God loves them and to demonstrate that truth not only in word but in deed. I long for a place of radical welcome and acceptance. I want to feast around a table where people of different worldviews and mindsets aren’t trying to fix or convert one another but celebrate their shared humanity and belovedness.
I want to honor and celebrate all of God’s good creation, to look for and celebrate beauty and goodness wherever it may be found: in late-blooming flowers and early falling leaves, in gently falling snow and torrential rains, in the warmth of the sun in a blue sky and the cool of a cloudless night. God called creation very good, but sometimes I think we’ve lost sight of that truth. God invited us to be creation’s caretakers, but we have instead abused it for our own ends.
I long for wholeness. I desire goodness, truth, and beauty. I want to honor each person’s unique journey and remember that we, the human race, are traveling together, and every one of us brings something needed by the whole group. I long for fellowship with those who long for integration, wholeness, and reconciliation.
Is that too much to ask?