Soda

Link: Core Values
Focus: Worship (1/7)
Day: 17/95
Pathway summary: Committing personally to having a lifestyle that glorifies God, expressive in praise and adoration, ultimately, in everything we do.
Justification: (Psalm 150:6; Colossians 3:23)
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Setup:

Is it possible to worship soda?

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Prep:

It appears these are all building; prayer was harder than reading the Bible. Worship is harder than ether.

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Execution:

I started with prayer and direction to speak on this topic
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Day 17 Conclusions / Thoughts

So I started to pray several days ago to capture things I might worship. Some of the answers I believe God has given me have been ... non-traditional answers to the question and have made me want to redefine the term. What does "worship" mean?

How about "worthiness-ship" - the vehicle that captures all of the things that are worthy about something or someone else?  This kind of makes sense if you think of worship as a vehicle. And perhaps it is.

In practice, for me, worship is far simpler - it is anything or anyone I look forward to instead of God.

• Do you look forward to spending time with your kids when you get off work?
  You probably worship either kids in general or your family in particular.
• Do you look forward to drinking some sort of refreshing beverage when you get off work?
  You probably worship soda or beer or whatever you drink after-hours
• Do you look forward to intimacy with God?
  Then you actually worship God.

You can actually worship lots of things at once - the three above are examples of things I tend to worship. The point as relates to this challenge is that I need to drop the worship of things that are not Godly (and retain the ones that are - as long as they do not detract from my own faithfulness).

So I came to the conclusion that I worship (or have been worshiping) soda. And I took steps - I have stopped drinking soda as of last week (roughly when this post was supposed to be released).

This means that many of the foods I love are no longer as tasty - because they were really opportunities to "eat food with soda"; Pizza is a great example. I am uncertain why, but I associate eating pizza with soda.

The motivation should be simple. I realized that the Bible speaks to the body being a temple. As a human having a spouse, my body is not my own. I have been asked by every member of my family, at different times, to stop drinking soda. It has been just about a week - and I feel like I'm slipping back there.

So, for the duration of the challenge - I am no longer drinking soda.

Thankfulness - Prayer

Link: Core Values
Focus: Thankfulness (Prayer)
Day: 16/95
Pathway summary: Study of the Word of God with expectation of Holy Spirit inspired revelation.
Justification: (Deuteronomy 6:6-9; Psalm 119; John 16:7-15; 2 Timothy 3:16-17)
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Image:

Still not decided on the image - temporarily scrapping it because I am so far behind.  Will have to address this.

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Setup:

Summarizing how thankfulness can be applied to the Prayer

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Prep:

Answering the question: how does thankfulness look with respect to the path of the Prayer

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Execution:

I began with prayer - and mostly want identify aspects to Prayer for which we should be thankful and because of which we can draw closer to Christ.

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Day 16 - Observations on Week 2 (Prayer)

My first day-of-thankfulness was supposed to speak to the nature of being thankful with respect to the Holy Scriptures - and it became, instead, an observation of the need for thanks and how it relates to Prayer.  So, I will follow my own lead and explain the transition from Prayer to Worship.

If prayer is the petition, worship is the container.  We are not called to worship without respite - and I believe this is because, if our hearts are aligned to the correct vectors and our attitude is properly oriented, what we get is right prayer - which can inform our worship.  However, we pray about what we think about - and we think about what we worship. This is the bridge.

We humans are built to worship; as I mentioned previously, I believe we ache for intimacy. It is technically an ache for intimacy with God - but we humans are marvelous at filling it with not only anyTHING but anything. We can fill it with drugs, alcohol, soda, sleep, music, or a multitude of other things. We can fill it with family, friends, duty, work, and an even more grand verisimilitude of abstractions. In some ways it fits these betters - because, in spite of how REAL God is, much of the ways in which we directly relate to him have characteristics which map to these abstractions.

To conclude, my observations about prayer is that, between the Holy Spirit and Prayer, I am remarkably better at reading - hence far better at reading the Bible. It is hard to regularly put down the abstractions of intellectual effort and pick up the banner of simple prayer.  So, at this time, between the two, my simple observation is simply - I desperately need to more diligently pray, and pray with reverence, and let it inform my decisions.  Which leads nicely into worship - because if prayer is what you in response to what you worship, then prayer can be a powerful feedback loop to let you know what you actually worship.

Tessellations

Link: Core Values
Focus: Prayer (2/7)
Day: 10/95
Pathway summary: Being faith-filled, fervent, continual, and heartfelt in my expressions, petitions, and supplications to God.
Justification: (2 Timothy 1:3; 1 Thessalonians 5:17; Matthew 6:5-13; Mark 9:23)
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Setup:

Scripture talks about different kinds of spoken prayer

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Prep:

I feel like being a prayer aficionado might help speak to how one ought to pray - but might also draw one away from simply praying in truth and wisdom

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Execution:

I started off praying - and did this entirely on my phone. There is a different feel to communicating via laptop vs a tiny screen.  If nothing else, having to type and retype the same words (due to spelling or flow) is simply more work on the phone.  On the flip-side, I am a little more thoughtful in the post because one-handed is slower than two.
The core of today's study came from something I stumbled onto during a different study - and the newness of it seems interesting.
Ultimately this post took 1.5 days to write - tied to both the bulk of the post being written on a phone (and later on a borrowed laptop) but also because it simply took more gumption to write it on the phone - and, given the late hour, I feel asleep before finishing.

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Day 10 Conclusions / Thoughts

On thinking about the different classes of prayer in scripture, I am gently struck by how much of a tessellation they are - where thematically they all have distinct voices but do the same thing.  For the curious, the list I ran into includes 8: of faith, of agreement, of supplication, of thanksgiving, of worship, of consecration, of intercession, and of imprecation.  In each case, the flavor of prayer is informed by who is being prayed for and with whom one is praying.  Some kinds of prayer only make sense if they are done alone, and the like.

In retrospect, this makes sense - as emotional tessellation is the heart of human relationship and intimacy. We have very distinct, but very similar relationships with everyone - each relationship is defined by the unique characteristic of the participants. Yet, to an onlooker, the basic tools for communication would appear the same, and without some additional information or relationship-specific gestures, most relationships are identical in appearance. And that is normal too - because it would be weird to shake elbows, smear ice-cream, or yell up another's nose.

Perhaps, then, the purpose of having specific kinds of relationships with others is intended to help us having a more streamlined relationship with God. If anyone could be said to be alien, it would be God (ironic, of course, in the sense that he was here WAY before we were, so we're functionally the aliens in that discussion - but all of those discussions would rationally be human-centric) which means that it is God that establishes the template of normality, and it is God that goes WAY past half-way to ensure we are given the opportunity to connect with him - to pray in a way that we can appreciate, emulate, and perceive.

Ultimately, prayer is an intensely quotidian opportunity to talk to the creator of the universe about literally anything. It is so easy to take it for granted because Christ has put in so much effort - something most of us like to use as an excuse for an apathetic attitude.  If we valued, consistently, those things around us based upon the effort of others, it would be a radical shift in the socio-economic infrastructure around us. I actually think we would convert from a Capitalistic to Socialistic society overnight - because the problem with socialism isn't the system: it's the people.  But that won't happen as long as sin abounds.

Which is when we ought to get all Romans 6 up in this piece ... but, given this post's focus - let us instead get proactive about being mindful of the voluminous blessing around us. There are reasons that Christ commands us to give thanks in all circumstances - and a huge part of it is the abundance that God puts before us:

• in faith (infrastructure exists wherein simply listening to scripture builds faith)
• in agreement (because when two or more are gathered in His name, Christ is present - an astounding thing that is terribly easy to take for granted)
• in supplication (that God has an expectation implicit to our relationship that we have consistent, enduring occasion to actually be able to ask for things)
• in thanksgiving (because without Christ, we wouldn't even be aware of what we need, that we need Him, or that our hearts are able to contain gratitude in the first place)
• in worship (because, by building in a need for intimacy and the discernment of awe, we are able to recognize and associate the daily amazement of existence with its creator - and with words that are convenient to us, while luxuriating in physical circumstances that just happen to be comfortable)
• in consecration (because being set apart has a cost - and the consequence of that cost is internal consecration - which helps us appreciate who God wants us to be and why it matters)
• in intercession (because God allows us to help others while simultaneously recognizing that help will ultimately come from Him, all in a reusable and convenient medium)
  and 
• in imprecation (because sometimes God wants us to speak truth into a situation by recognizing those who God ought to judge - but holding back the actual judgment - which provides us a way to literally get angry without sinning - because we're encourage to focus that anger in a way that honors God)

Ultimately it is simply amazing how many different directions our prayers can take - let us be mindful of this awesome capacity and respectful of its intent. And let us walk a righteous path so that our effectual fervent prayers can availeth much.