I have been a fan of the Cloud - Townsend duo for some time, as they are highly respected Christian psychiatrists. As soon as I saw Where Is God? by Dr. John Townsend, I jumped on it. The concept of addressing answers to people's struggle to find out where God is in their struggle fits well with my heart for people, which you can tell from previous posts on How Can We Thank God for Difficult Events and How Can God Make Good Out of This?.

So many people are walking around with baggage about past events that hinders them from seeing that God cares for them personally. This book was written to address these questions and to try and offer hope - hope that God's love for will move Him to act on your behalf. Townsend's ideas are formed by three organizing principles:

1. God is for you
2. Your experience matters
3. The Bible is our source for understanding God's ways in hard times

Overall, I think the book does a good job offering hope, but I particularly feel that chapters 5 & 7 provide the greatest impact. Chapter 5 lists out ways that people view God - ways He is not really like. I prayerfully looked at this chapter to see if there were any misconceptions that I needed to confess myself. Chapter 7 looks at where is God during my pain. This is something that I feel most people asking the "Where is God?" question are struggling. If God is always present, always good, and all powerful, where was He when I needed Him? Chapter 7 addresses this.

Finally, I enjoyed how Townsend stresses being connected to others. We are not meant to go it alone. We need the body of Christ, and when we face hardships, this is no less true. This book will be helpful for those struggling, but probably even more for those coming alongside those who are in hardships.

So often our lack of prayer comes from our busyness. Watch this short teaching from Doug Fields of Saddleback for encouragement to slow down.

When the fire of prayer goes out, the barrenness of busyness takes over.
George Carey, Archbishop of Canterbury

"Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective." - James 5:16

I (Kevin) have been thinking lately on accountability. I remember in college being convicted of the above verse knowing God wanted me to confess sins to some trusted friends. After some time wrestling with God, I followed through and made my confession, officially entering into the realm of accountability. Now someone else besides me and God knew my deepest darkest.

The problem I had with this experience was that it did not end my fallings or sin. I still struggled and I still fell. Beyond that, I did not start moving to get better. Why do I need to bear my pain and shame to someone else if I do not get the healing promised here?

I continued in my Christian walk with the commitment to accountability desiring freedom from sin and a closer walk with God. We would come up with great questions to ask each other to help cultivate openness and exposure of sin. Always ending with the penetrating question, "Did you just lie to me?"

Unfortunately, these times together were just a recap of how well we were or were not doing. Knowing we will be held accountable by someone else had some merit, but in the end the fruit was not healing.

As I have been rethinking accountability recently, a blatant truth just hit me about what I was not experiencing in these accountability groups. What does James 5:16 say? We are not only to confess our sins, but the requirement is also to pray for each other. It is the prayer of a righteous man that is powerful and effective; not the confession. How much more quickly would I have found the healing if I realized this sooner?

I (Kevin) hope most of you are like me and married up. You know what I am talking about - you married someone that amazes you everyday. I know I am truly blessed because I could have never been as picky to get all of the things I got in a wife.

Whether you know you are as blessed as I am or not, you can enjoy this gift even more by handing your spouse over to the Lord. Here are 10 things to pray for your wife taken from Proverbs 31. There are two extra items of prayer from the passage, but they are more items for you in regards to your wife. As you pray these things for your wife, look to how God answers your prayer. These are prayers He loves to answer because prayer is a way we can make our wife holy, care for her, and present her to Jesus without stain (Ephesians 5:25-29).

10 Things to Pray for Your Wife

1. Make her of noble character (v. 10).
2. Bless the work of her hands (v. 12-14).
   • Help me to always show my confidence in her (v. 11).
3. Give her compassion for the poor and needy (v. 20).
4. Lead her into what is best for the children (v. 21).
5. Help her love me, even when I don’t deserve it, to encourage greatness in me (v. 23).
6. Give her confidence in You, O Lord (v. 25).
7. Let the words of her mouth be wisdom directly from You (v. 26).
   • May the children and I never cease to praise her (v. 28).
8. Put in her a healthy fear of You (v. 30) and may she experience the joy of the Lord.
9. May the work she does give You honor and give her joy (v. 31).
10. May others see Your beauty reflected in her (v. 31).

Additional Resource:

• 10 Things to Pray for Your Husband

Hebrews 4:12 is a wonderful verse that solidifies the importance of the Scripture. Coupled with 2 Timothy 3:16, the Bible is the very breath of God that goes to the inmost being of people to accomplish its purposes. Scripture is what our Lord shot back at Satan in the wilderness and it is the one offense weapon described in the full armor of God.

But in regards to this Hebrews passage, I (Kevin) have been thinking that we have limited the message of this verse by only thinking of the Bible. The first four chapters of Hebrews describe how God spoke in the past, how the Isrealites heard his voice, and how we are to pay attention to what we have heard. Three times leading to the verse in 4:12, the author quotes Psalm 95:7-8: "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts." The connotation of this passage is that the word of God is the voice of the Spirit communicating to you. It most definitely means the Scripture, but it also means so much more.

When we come to prayer, we need to take time to listen to what the Spirit is saying to us. Romans 8 tells us that the Holy Spirit and Jesus are interceding for us, therefore when we tap into what they are already praying we will be effective in our prayers. Also, in regards to this verse in Hebrews, the word of God judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. I have found that listening to what the Spirit has to say illuminates what is in my heart that is keeping me from fully believing the truths of the Scripture. The Spirit, who searches our hearts, can reword the truths of God in ways that speak right into and past the pain and hurt in our lives for us to receive its truth.

Let's look at how this plays out in a real-world example. My cousin lost her three month old son to SIDs over this past weekend. As a parent myself, I can feel the pain and sorrow that her family is going through. In the midst of this pain, it is difficult to read the passages of God's love, God's plan, God's goodness and have faith to believe it is true for them. The family is left with two options: 1. to kill the desire to know why or 2. to have an encounter with God changes them. Choosing the first option deadens Christianity. Choosing the second option lives out Hebrews 4:12.

God's word in this context is God speaking to reword His truth in ways that penetrate them past our pain and experience so we can hear and believe them. In His love for us God enters into our pain in order that our relationship may be renewed.

I do not know exactly the words my cousin needs to hear from God. I am not saying this is an easy step. What I am saying is that the voice of our Father is kind and gentle. He does not break the bent reed. He goes after the lost sheep. He never leaves nor forsake us. All of this is true because He loves us beyond what we can ever imagine possible. And, in His love He will come to us and meet us in our time of need. As we draw near to Him, He will draw near to us.

Our prayers need some aspect of allowing Him to speak. Also, please pray for my cousin and others who are struggling to understand the loss of loved ones.

I just finished reading The Shack by William Paul Young and highly recommend it to anyone. The story does a great job getting past our preconceived ideas about God and challenges the lies that we believe about Him. (see our blog post on We Love Because God First Loved Us).

The story follows the character Mack through his struggle with coming to grips with a loving God and deep tragedy. As with any good book, it begins with setting the stage. This may be hard for some to read – for those who emotionally connect with stories like me. But, this beginning is necessary to understand the depths of struggle Mack will have later on trying to balance the anger he feels and the emotions he feels are being asked of him.

The unhealed pain and unresolved issues of our lives h

ave a tendency to feed lies into our hearts about ourselves and/or about God. These lies often live deep within our hearts which we keep safely hidden from others because we intellectually know they do not match the words of truth in Scripture. Unfortunately while we can keep them hidden from everyday thought, when push comes to shove we act out of those lies.

• God will not provide for me, so I spend more time away from my family to provide for them.
• I will never be free of this addiction, so I will never share it with anyone else.
• God will not take care of me, so I will live in fear of potential tragedies.
• I will never be able to manage my emotions, so I distant myself from other in order not to hurt them.
• God does not really care about me, so I manage the hurt of my life myself.
• I can never forgive my parents, so I will justify my anger to those I feel are against me.

With each of these lies, we need allow God to expose them and speak His truth to our hearts. Then we need to choose to walk out in the light of those truths. The Shack does a great job creating a story of a loving God reaching down to a hurting man to expose the lies and allow him to see the freedom of the truth.

One of the on-going lies Mack believes about God is not loving because of the tragic event that happens. In one occasion, the God figure answers Mack…

“Just because I work incredible good out of unspeakable tragedies doesn’t mean I orchestrate the tragedies. Don’t ever assume that my using something means I caused it or that I need it to accomplish my purposes. That will only lead you to false notions about me. Grace doesn’t depend on suffering to exist, but where there is suffering you will find grace in many facets and colors.” “I did not purpose [that bad thing], but that doesn’t mean I can’t use it for good.”

It is encounters like this which is why I like the Shack. I believe this book will encourage your pursuit of God and deepen your prayer life.

For other of you who have read the book, what are your thoughts?

image courtesy of Despair, Inc.

He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy. - Proverbs 28:13

What is the importance of confession? Have you ever thought about this question? So many times in my Christian walk I have been told that without confession there is no forgiveness. "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us of all unrightousness" (1 John 1:9). The problem is we have already been forgiven (1 John 2:12). And, if that were not the case, we would never have confessed all of our sins in order to find complete forgiveness.

So, what is the importance of confession? There is an interesting passage in Hosea that I believe brings to light God's desires for confession. It is found in Hosea 2: 5–13 and Hosea 14–23. The book of Hosea is about how God made the prophet go marry a prostitute to symbolize God's love for Israel. This passage shows the rationale of the importance of exposing sin.

What is God’s response to Israel’s sin? He actively blocks her path to keep her from her lovers; he takes away His provisions for her; and He exposes her lewdness.

Is the response based out of anger or love? LOVE. How do you know? Israel could not receive God's love for her while she was still holding on to other lovers. He removed His blessing, not as a form of punishment, but in an attempt to make her feel her weakness without Him. He knew her attachment to these other lovers would hinder her from receiving the full measure of His love, and He loved her too much to leave her sin hidden.

What is God’s attitude once He exposes her? This part is just amazing. Once He gets her to a place of weakness, He tries to win back her affection. He allures her. He speaks tenderly to her. He starts to give back that which He withheld. It is amazing to see God as such a jealous lover that fights for His bride, yet after fighting He does not assume her love. He humbly seeks to win her favor. The God, who can do anything He wants, does not presume that we will respond, but seeks to make us want to by courting us.

How does the relationship change between them? Before the relationship was a servant/master. Now, it is one of lovers - a husband/wife. Do you see? This is God's plan. He wants intimate lovers, but sin hinders our view of Him and the best we can see the relationship being is servant/master. We confess our sins, not for the forgiveness. We confess our sins in order to walk out our forgiveness. Because I know that I am forgiven, I can expose my sins to the light of His love to see He does not hold hatred or disappointment in me, but love and forgiveness.

Leaving our sins hidden in darkness exposes lies we believe about God's forgiveness - that we have gone beyond His grace or He will not take care of me. We are not some sort of project that we have to be corrected or supervised in order to gain His favor. He loves us because He delights in us. We bring Him joy.

Sin saddens God's heart not because it angers Him (remember Jesus dealt with that), but because He loves us so much He wants us to experience all of the joy in His heart for us. Stop worrying about your ministry or what other may think of you. Confess your sins so that you may run in the delight of God's extravagant love for you.

Romans 8:1,

Kevin Shorter
follow us at @praytelNET

We had great success in 2009 as we started this prayer blog. Thank you for participating with us on this journey. For those who are new, here are the top 10 posts for 2009 based on a combination visits, length of views, comments, and social bookmarking. For more prayer information follow us at @praytelNET

1. We Love Because God First Loved Us: We can only love God because He first loved us. Therefore what is keeping us from loving God more? We must not believe the extent we are loved in Christ. This post describes potential lies we believe about ourself and God.



2. What I Have Learned From Fasting: Fasting is an often neglected discipline of the Christian faith. This post shares the experience of one whose gone 40-days. Be sure to check out the comments as we have been collecting several comments from others about their experiences.



3. 10 Things to Prayer for Your Children: Do you want to broaden what you pray for your children, check out this list for ideas from my former priest's wife.



4. Prayer: Top Issue Facing Today's Church: Prayer is the top issue critical to the church today based on study from LifeWay Christian Resources.  Full survey attached in the article.



5. Prayer Alert: Islam Rally on Capital Hill: We encouraged people to pray for the September 25th Isalm rally at the capital. May this be a reminder of the need to continue in prayer for our country.



6. Four Keys to Prayer: The Scripture gives us many promises that lead us into a deeper relationship with God. This was four keys to prayer that will increase your confidence in going to God.



7. The Sweetness of Children and Prayer: Never discourage your children from going to God in prayer. This is simple story of my oldest daughter's question to God.



8. Why is Giving Thanks Important?: This was part 3 of 4 on the series of giving thanks, and the post takes a look at the importance of giving thanks with regarding to how it benefits our relationship with Jesus.



9. God Works All Things For Good: If God works all things for the good, then please explain... We all have events in our lives that seem to prove that God does not love us. We need to go to Jesus for His reinterpretation of the events in order to keep coming to Him.



10. Thank You For the Fleas - Corrie ten Boom Story : Corrie Ten Boom suffered many trials in her life, but she learned the importance of giving thanks to God for all things. This is the story of where she gave thanks for the fleas.