Doing the Menial?

On Sunday’s, at the church I Pastor, all the adults meet for announcements and prayer request before the start of our Sunday School. Just before we pray for the requests the Sunday School Superintendent reads the devotional for the day from My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers.  This past Sunday he read it and this portion really has stuck in my head ever since.

If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet —John 13:14

Ministering in everyday opportunities that surround us does not mean that we select our own surroundings— it means being God’s very special choice to be available for use in any of the seemingly random surroundings which He has engineered for us. The very character we exhibit in our present surroundings is an indication of what we will be like in other surroundings.

The things Jesus did were the most menial of everyday tasks, and this is an indication that it takes all of God’s power in me to accomplish even the most common tasks in His way. Can I use a towel as He did? Towels, dishes, sandals, and all the other ordinary things in our lives reveal what we are made of more quickly than anything else. It takes God Almighty Incarnate in us to do the most menial duty as it ought to be done. – My Utmost for His Highest Sept. 11th 2011

Let me say that this spoke to me.  We so often think we have to have so much in order do minister to people.  I am guilty of this – you know what I am talking about – I have to have this or that to be effective for Christ.  When I heard this and then read it later it spoke to me that I do not need those things.  Just think that Jesus did a powerful act with a towel, a bowl, and water – ordinary things in life.  Jesus used the ordinary to do the extraordinary and we so often think we have to have the extraordinary to do the ordinary.  It is simply not the case.  We have so many ordinary things around us that we can do extraordinary things with if we just allowed God to lead us.

Let me ask you:  Does this speak to you at all?  If it does, what does it say to you?  Do you see something different from me?  Please share it.

Prayer: Quotes and Help

I am doing a series on prayer in a few weeks.  I have been preparing and reading and oddly(maybe not oddly enough) enough praying about it.  I want to ask your help but before I do let me share with you some quotes on the subject to get you thinking in the area of prayer.

With the following quotes, I do not necessarily agree with them but find them interesting and they make me think.

God punishes us mildly by ignoring our prayers and severely by answering them.  ~Richard J. Needham

Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays. ~Søren Kierkegaard

Prayer may not change things for you, but it for sure changes you for things.  ~Samuel M. Shoemaker

We have to pray with our eyes on God, not on the difficulties.  ~Oswald Chambers

Practical prayer is harder on the soles of your shoes than on the knees of your trousers.  ~Austin O’Malley

Many people pray as if God were a big aspirin pill; they come only when they hurt.  ~B. Graham Dienert

Prayer is when you talk to God; meditation is when you listen to God.  ~Author Unknown

Now that I have you thinking about prayer through these quotes let me get your help: If you had to give someone advice or a thought about prayer: what would it be

Bonus question:  which quote here is your favorite and why?