Category Archives: prayer

making it: we rise above fear by changing our minds

Posted on by September 25, 2024

It seems like when you live with boys, your immune system has the choice to either toughen up and be stronger than average, or to keel over and just let you die. So far, five boys later, I think we’re making it.

making it: we rise above fear by changing our minds | Shannon Guerra

But here’s why it’s such a miracle: Boys do things – all kinds of things – except for washing their hands. Did you scrub the toilet? Check. Clean the catbox? Yes, ma’am. Scoop out the chicken coop? Uh huh.

And we, silly parents, ask these questions as we are watching them in the kitchen, spreading peanut butter on a tortilla. And then – and only then – do we remember to ask the obvious question, which should have been the first question, even though it’s too late anyway, the damage is done:

Did you wash your hands?

“Ummmmm….” Stalling is always a bad sign. Especially when it’s followed by an almost silently whispered, “nope.”

Serenity now, Lord Jesus.

Vince and I sit on the couch dumbfounded as the boy drops the lunch implements on the counter and runs to the bathroom. I consider donating the entire container of peanut butter to the chickens, and Vin quietly but dramatically pleads the blood of Jesus over our entire home, asking for a special consecration over the fridge and silverware drawer.

(Side note: This post might prevent any dinner guests from accepting invitations for the next three months.)

There are so many things that could go wrong, and it’s best not to think of them. It’s best just to be grateful for grace, for strong immune systems, for a life that allows for such activity, and for healthy boys who are (please God) learning good habits.

And this is good to remember at night, or more accurately, at 3 or 4 am, when panicked thoughts about chickens and homeschool and kids’ behavior and inflation and taxes and paperwork and vehicle woes and world events and a million other valid concerns start crowding in as you lay there, wide awake, wondering if you’re going to make it. There are so many things that could go wrong, and it’s best not to think of them.

But we do think of them. Many of them require action on our part – like making an appointment, or paying a bill, or filling out forms, or disciplining children, or disciplining ourselves, or being more frugal…and all these actions require thinking.

But what is not required is worrying, or partnering with fear, or expecting the worst. None of those have to be in our thinking, though they tend to be our default.

So we need to be rewired. We need to forge new pathways for better thoughts.

For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.

– 2 Corinthians 10:3-5

Have you ever considered that agreeing with fear – which is what worry is – is making a “lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God?” It is.

God is not worried or fearful. And we have the mind of Christ, and we can trust God…so we need to agree with Him. (Listen, self.)

Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.

– Ephesians 4:17-19

This isn’t usually how we apply this scripture, but roll with me here: If we have a belief that truly sets us apart from our old ways, our thinking should demonstrate that. But worry is futile, a darkened understanding. Worries are ignorant of God’s love and trust; when we worry we are hardened in our old paths and ways of thinking.

And we wouldn’t normally associate it with making us callous or greedy, but consider…when we indulge in fretting and fears, are we not giving ourselves up to a sort of sensuality? Isn’t the distrust of God’s goodness and love an act of impurity?

Huh. Still thinking on this. It goes on:

But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires,

and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,

and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

– Ephesians 4:20-24

We have lain there awake in seasons of waiting and waiting, crying out for breakthrough, telling God, “I know You’re good and faithful, but this is still so hard, so it must be that I’m not good and faithful.”

And He reminds us that victory is not a pass/fail test or a zero sum game because things are much more complicated than what we are seeing. We are seeing “if not this, then this” but reality is “not this or this or this, but all these other things in varying degrees and intensities.”

Many, many things are actively in the process of working out. Together. All at the same time, and all at different times. And in the meantime, it looks like a mess.

Will we make it, though? we ask in desperation.

Did you make it in 2004? He asks, turning the question around. Did you make it in 2007, and 2008, and 2011, and 2012, 2013, and every year since then? Did you make it when you didn’t know where you’d go in 2017? Did you make it when the rug was pulled out from under you in 2018? Did you make it through the chaos and stupidity of 2020, and the upheaval in 2022?

Did you make it last year, Love?

Yes. Over and over, in every crisis, real or perceived – we made it.

So we have something still to do:

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 

Wait, this is me interrupting again. Is our mind – our brain – part of our bodies? Yes? So our thoughts also should be presented as a living sacrifice. This is where we make the sacrifice of praise even when it still doesn’t feel praiseworthy yet. We lay there in the midst of the flying fears and whisper Thank You because we know He’s in control and He loves us and He has this all covered, even when we don’t know what to do. (He knows how dumb we are, remember. And that is a huge comfort.)

Okay, carry on:

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

– Romans 12:1-2

If agreeing with fear is an example of being conformed to this world (and it is, I’ll fight you over it) then rising above the fear and thanking God that we can trust Him while we let go of our regrets and insecurities and assumptions and negative imaginings…is one way we are transformed by the renewal of our mind.

We choose the thoughts that get to play. Fear wants us to just keel over and die, but God has made us to be stronger than average.

Has everything always turned out the way we wanted? No. It’s still a fallen world, a clean-up operation.

But so much has turned out better than we could’ve imagined. We’re all making it. And as we’re grateful to God and trusting Him, renewing our minds and offering the sacrifice of praise, we’ll continue to do so.

After car accidents and miscarriage and illness and grief and bank failures and huge expenses and big risks and unexpected pregnancies and medical corruption and corporate gaslighting and global deception and financial loss and leaving the familiar and starting over when it seemed like the most foolish thing to do… we made it. And you did, too.

We all made it. And here we are, by the mercies of God.

for those who weep

Posted on by September 12, 2024
for those who weep | Shannon Guerra (excerpt from Risk the Ocean)

I was surrounded by chocolates. Or, to be honest, I was surrounded by a variety of wrappers and a few leftover chocolates that barely escaped with their lives. We pitched up and down the waves, rocking and weeping until the wee hours.

If you’ve been up all night and cried till you have no more tears left in you – you will know that there comes in the end a sort of quietness. You feel as if nothing was ever going to happen again.

-C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

That eerie calm settles on the heels of grief, and when the hits keep coming we look at the future and wonder if this is a pattern we need to just face with bleak resignation. My life as I knew it is long gone, and I don’t like the way this is heading.

I was reading the book of John and got to the part about Martha and Mary and the raising of Lazarus. And He caught me on that one little verse and kept me there: Jesus wept.

Why, though? He knew He was going to raise Lazarus in just a few minutes. If He knew it was going to be good, why did He give in to grief in the meantime?

I think it has to do with what Martha said to Him a little earlier: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” And a few minutes later, Mary came and said the same thing.

Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw Him, she fell at His feet, saying to Him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” 

– John 11:32

They knew it, and He knew it. And I knew it, too. It was this: You could have prevented this.

In every loss we experience, it’s true. We’re aching and heaving, and He could have prevented it. Sometimes He does, more than we realize. And sometimes He doesn’t. And He weeps and rocks with us…more than we realize.

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in His spirit and greatly troubled.

– John 11:33

Then He does something else that seems odd.

And He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to Him, “Lord, come and see.”

– John 11:34

Where did they lay him? Why did He ask that? Didn’t Jesus, the God-man, already know? It was more than that, though. He wasn’t just asking where the dead man was.

He was saying, Show me where it hurts.

And that’s when He cried.

He weeps with Mary and Martha – and us – because He understands that sometimes we experience loss and pain for the sake of the expansion of the Kingdom. He knows we come under attack and we don’t know how to handle all the upheaval. He weeps with us because He knows we hurt and we often don’t understand why. He knows we rock in agony with no answers; He knows our ship swings between the violence and the lullaby.

In loss – whether it’s the death of a person, a pet, our plans, or something else entirely – we want certainty and explanation, but what we usually get first is refinement. We learn a little more about what it is to walk into the unknown, blank pages He sends us into. Please don’t misunderstand me; I’m not talking about accepting a hindrance, sickness, or other harassment from the enemy. We must not fall for his trick of casting righteous-sounding blame on God for attacks that come from the pit of hell. Denying ourselves and following Him is a mission, not a malady. The calling out of our comfort zone is our cross.

Sometimes, because He causes all things for good for those who love Him, grief and loss launch us farther and faster into His assignment for us. He knows it’s hard and it grieves Him, too. But He also knows what’s coming.

Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?”

– John 11:40

We learn not to love our life so much – not because we’re ungrateful or bitter, but because we are unfettered and surrendered. We know this place isn’t permanent.

We’re not resigned. We’re reloading. And He’s not taking our life; He’s resurrecting it.

This is an excerpt from Risk the Ocean: An Adoptive Mom’s Memoir of Sinking and Sanctification.

Risk the Ocean: An Adoptive Mom's Memoir of Sinking and Sanctification "Vulnerably shares the blood, sweat, and tear that real sacrificial love requires." "Integrity beams up and out of every page."

New! Desk calendars for 2025 are in, with three styles to choose from. Get your ducks in a row early! Or ordered, at least. :)

stubborn prayer: unleashing fire where others fear to tread

Posted on by July 26, 2024

It took two and a half years, but I finally finished reading Les Miserables (insert wild, nerdy rejoicing). In it, I read about a major cleanup operation – the saturated underground sewer system in Paris.

It was a formidable campaign; a nocturnal battle against pestilence and suffocation.

Trust me, it’s safe, nothing graphic. Let’s keep going.

The operation was complicated; the visit entailed the necessity of cleaning; hence it was necessary to cleanse and at the same time, to proceed…They advanced with toil. The lanterns pined away in the foul atmosphere. From time to time, a fainting sewerman was carried out.

Still with me? One more little section:

At certain points, there were precipices. The soil had given away, the pavement had crumbled, the sewer had changed into a bottomless well; they found nothing solid; a man disappeared suddenly; they had great difficulty in getting him out again.

— Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

The project was tackled in 1805 because one man was willing to go into the putrid darkness and do something about it.

stubborn prayer: unleashing fire where others fear to tread | Shannon Guerra (excerpt from Oh My Soul: Encountering God in Honest, Unconventional (and Sometimes Messy) Prayer

His name was Pierre Bruneseau. He did what needed to be done in the place and time he lived in, willing to be the cleanup operation and go into the dark when others shuddered at the thought of it.

God nudged me as I read it. What would happen if each of us took this approach with prayer?

What would happen if those darkest, most hopeless places, institutions, and people were tackled in prayer on a level that no one has had the grit and persistence to take on before?

What if we prayed – really prayed, with bright, life-giving detail – over those who’ve grown wild, refusing to admit fault, admit reality, admit their own weakness? What if we were brave enough to picture what it would look like if the darkest businesses were replaced with those that breathed life in a community – and then we prayed it into existence?

A friend said this in a sermon and it stuck with me: The presence of fire in the Bible often symbolizes the presence of God. The fire on the mountain, the burning bush, the pillar of smoke, the tongues of fire that could not be contained in a room.

His presence sanctifies, purifies, covers, and brings light.

Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.

– Hebrews 12:28-29

The light yoke of responsibility, maturity, and surrender are only a breath away. The heavy yoke of filth and blackness costs so much, and lies to those who are in it that the effort to take the deep breath of surrender isn’t worth it. What if we made the road smoother through prayer that refuses to give up on them?

I’ve also been the one who was lost, and losing, and needed someone to fight in prayer for me. Many of us would not be who we are today without those who fought the darkness for us.

We have loved ones stuck in this kind of mire, and this is where the fight comes in for those of us who love them and are tempted to just wash our hands and give up on them. Giving up seems easier to us, just as it seems to them, because the pain of disappointment after raised hopes is so hard to bear.

But this stubborn, unyielding prayer is where we fight, because the decision between hope and despair is where the battle rages. This is where the outcome of victory or defeat is decided. And we should take someone with us, because even spiritual proximity to the morass can threaten to suck us under, too. We can be the powerful loving ones, clinging to a healthy vision of the one who is lost in darkness, refusing to let it go.

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.

– 1 Peter 5:8-9

We cling to this hope and pray it into existence regardless of the blackness that pulses and threatens. We could fade away and give up, but heroes run into the battle and not away from it. Our loved ones need us to be those heroes – because they too are meant to be heroes, and that’s why the enemy fights so desperately for them.

That enemy whispers, “Give up. Lower your weapons.”

And we respond, “Fire.”

This is an excerpt from Oh My Soul: Encountering God in Honest, Unconventional (and Sometimes Messy) Prayer, shared now because it seems like a good time to lean deeper into praying light into dark places. Got a dark place you’re praying for? I’d love to hear about it in the comments, or pray with you for it if you’d like to contact me.

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