Struggling in Prayer: Seeking to 'Pray Big' with Alistair Begg

 About a month ago, our pastor bought copies of Alistair Begg's Pray Big: Learning to Pray Like an Apostle (TheGoodBook Company, 2019) for our congregation, inviting us to pursue a life of persistent and purposeful prayer together.  Personal prayer has always been a struggle for me.  It's not that I find it difficult to find some time to pray for the needs of family and friends; it's not that I find it hard to praise God for His majesty, glory, and goodness; it's not that I doubt God's attentiveness or responsiveness.  Rather, I struggle to find intimacy and connection in my prayer life, and as a result have found it difficult to devote significant time and energy to spending time alone with God in my 'prayer closet'.  

In several other fashions, I experience what I think is a close and vibrant relationship with God: I experience His reality and presence in worship; I love His Word and experience His truth communication through reading Scripture; I enjoy learning, reading, and teaching theology, Bible, and apologetics; I find spiritual reward in serving others through church and community.  But I have always felt that my prayer life is lacking.

I'm not convinced that reading Alistair Begg's Pray Big has cured my shortcomings in prayer.  But nonetheless, I was reminded of many important truths regarding prayer, and learned a number of new things.  Given my passion for reading and teaching, I wanted to share six insights from Pray Big that I pray will be an encouragement and exhortation for you.

The Gospel in Dorothy Sayers - Part 4: Pride

 It has been a couple of weeks since I've found time to post ... suffice it to say that life has been on the busy side.  I return today to my dearly-loved and deeply-appreciated Dorothy Sayers, as presented in Carole Vanderhoof's winsome The Gospel in Dorothy L. Sayers.  Today, I want to share (without comment) Sayers' words on pride, the root of all sin.

V. Pride: The Root of 'The Other Six Deadly Sins'

"But the head and origin of all sin is the basic sin of Superbia or Pride.  In one way there is so much to say about Pride that one might speak of it for a week and not have done.  Yet in another way, all there is to be said about it can be said in a single sentence.  It is the sin of trying to be as God.  It is the sin which proclaims that Man can produce out of his own wits, and his own impulses and his own imagination the standards by which he lives: that Man is fitted to be his own judge.  It is Pride which turns man's virtues into deadly sins, by causing each self-sufficient virtue to issue in its own opposite, and as a grotesque and horrible travesty of itself.  The name under which Pride walks the world at this moment is the Perfectibility of Man, or the Doctrine of Progress; and its specialty is the making of blueprints for Utopia and establishing the Kingdom of Man on earth.

"For the devilish strategy of Pride is that it attacks us, not on our weak points, but on our strong.  It is preeminently the sin of the noble mind - that corruptio optimi which works more evil in the world than all the deliberate vices.  Because we do not recognize pride when we see it, we stand aghast to see the havoc wrought by the triumphs of human idealism.  We meant so well, we thought we were succeeding - and look what has come of our efforts!  There is a proverb that says that the way to Hell is paved with good intentions. [Incidentally, that was one of my father's favorite sayings!] We usually take it as referring to intentions that have been weakly abandoned; but it has a deeper and much subtler meaning.  For that road is paved with good intentions strongly and obstinately pursued, until they become self-sufficing ends in themselves and deified." ("The Other Six Deadly Sins," in The Gospel in Dorothy L. Sayers, pp. 67-68).

I strongly encourage you to get and read the book:

Carole Vanderhoof, ed., The Gospel in Dorothy L. Sayers: Selections from Her Novels, Plays, Letters, and Essays. Walden, NY: Plough, 2018.

Texas Abortion Law Upheld ... and Protested

 As many folks know, the State of Texas has passed a law banning abortion after about 6 weeks' gestation  in virtually all cases.  The 6-week provision is based upon clear scientific evidence that this is the point in pregnancy at which the unborn baby's heart begins to beat.  Yesterday, the Supreme Court (in a split decision) rejected a request from Texas abortion providers for an injunction against the law.  Hence, at midnight, abortion in Texas became illegal after 6 weeks gestation.

I do not intend here to comment on the law, the debate surrounding the law, or the Supreme Court decision - though I have very strong rational and emotional positions on all of those.

Instead, I would like to comment briefly on a single picture (which I have cropped) contained in a news report on the Supreme Court's decision.

CBC.ca (Canada's federally-funded media outlet) published this picture in their article, "Chaos at Texas Abortion clinic as new restrictions come into effect."  The article, unsurprisingly, painted workers at Whole Woman's Health as heroic victims fighting the oppressive machinery of narrow-minded bigots who oppose women's reproductive health - you can read the whole article HERE.  

What I would like to point out is the glaring logical incoherence of this unfortunate soul's protest sign.  Overlooking the grammatical imprecision (it should be either 'Abortion Saves Lives' or 'Abortions Save Lives'), the reality is that abortion does the precise opposite of saving lives - it is the practice of intentionally ending lives.  Granted, a small fraction of abortions are performed in cases where the mother's physical life is clearly endangered by the pregnancy - such abortions save one life by ending another; but it is also worth noting that, so far as I can tell, the new Texas restrictions do not outlaw post-6-weeks abortions where the mother's life is in jeopardy.

There can be some reasoned debate over whether an unborn baby (or a fetus if you prefer that terminology) possesses personhood and thereby is deserving of protection under the law.  But there is really no scientific or moral debate that an unborn baby (or fetus) is a living member of the human species.

I think precision in terms is important.  And frankly, trying to pretend that "abortion saves lives" is about as logically untenable as pretending that banning abortion "protects women's choices."

Perhaps the sign could instead have read: "Abortion Ends Lives - but Justifiably So."  At least then there's something worth debating.