Advent Thoughts: On Prayer

Prayer is the ultimate act of subversion~ it shows that we place our trust not in the evil structures that jockey for power and control, but in a helpless babe and a crucified man. Prayer subverts the kingdoms of this world by putting weakness on display. It screams that our hope is not in what we can see, but in what we have seen and what we will see. Moses told YHWH in Exodus that he would not leave Sinai unless YHWH went with him; prayer reminds us that we wait and will not move until God goes with us. The ultimate redistribution of power. 

Advent: If your God is so great, why doesn’t he speak my language?

As I ponder the greatest event in human history and antipate the culmination of that historic event, i cant help but think about how through the Advent of Christ, He really does “speak our language!” Through the Incarnation, Christ became human, He became one of us. As we ponder that and the 2nd coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, let us remember that we are not only called to remember, but we are called to embody the Advent of our Lord for a world that is desperate to know that God speaks their language. Here is a piece from a former professor of mine on his blog www.timothytennent.com:

There is a famous story in missions circles about the origin of the Wycliffe Bible Translators. Cameron Townsend was a missionary in Latin America distributing Spanish Bibles when he met an indigenous Cakchiquel man in Guatemala who, using broken Spanish, asked him if he had a Bible in his language. When Cam Townsend said “No” the man famously replied, “If your God is so great, why doesn’t he speak my language?”  This was the haunting question which led Townsend to found the Wycliffe Bible Translators which has now put the Bible into thousands of indigenous languages around the world. Townsend spent the next fifteen years learning that man’s language and translating the Bible into that language. The ten Christians who live in Kwamadebe are there to say to these beloved families, “yes” God loves you and he speaks your language! The Day of Pentecost was not just a sociological event, it was a theological statement by God himself that all the nations of the world “would declare the wonders of God in their own tongues” (Acts 2:11).  John the Apostle envisioned the day when men and women from every tribe, tongue and language would gather in the Eschaton to worship the Lamb of God.  Yes, heaven would not be heaven without the Alagwesa there!  I, for one, can’t wait until harvest time!

A people who sat in darkness have seen a great light! May we be the city on a hill bolding shining that light.