Imagine what it would be like to have a dream where you woke one morning and your life had vanished! That dream was a very real nightmare for thousands of citizens of Tuscaloosa, Alabama and other towns all across the southern U.S. Thursday before last. On Wednesday afternoon, what was most likely an E-5 category tornado ripped through the beautiful university town of Tuscaloosa leaving a path of destruction and death in its path.

Within two or three minutes collections of pictures, sports trophies, diplomas, art, and treasured home furnishings that took many years to gather were gone. Gone too is the family home, the cars, clothing, neighbors and neighborhood. Most people who escaped death were left only with the clothing they were wearing after the storm with no name had completed its destruction.

People pick through the rubble hoping to find something…anything they can cling to of their lives before the storm. What is next for these folks?

Maybe a few articles of clothing can be found here until we can…..??

Wednesday morning the Central Church of Christ was one of the prettiest structures in the whole area. Beauty is fleeting! This beautiful place of worship and fellowship now awaits bulldozers and wrecking crews. But, they will rebuild on this site and keep loving God and their neighbors.

Volunteerism is thriving. Mike Baumgartner’s Disaster Assistance, along with Don and Rosemary Hudson, and many other helpers, are serving thousands of meals to both residents and workers each day. The positive attitudes of the volunteers and the folks who have lost almost everything is wonderful.

For many, many families the music has stopped…, but not forever! They, with the love and help of their faith community, volunteers from all across the country, and the trademark resilience that marks the American people, will go on. New homes will soon stand proudly where now there is only trash.

The beauty of those now wrecked Tuscaloosa neighborhoods has not died…it has only paused for a time, and life will resume. But not for all. Many residents died in the storm and I am praying for their families and friends. May their broken hearts be comforted and one day healed.

If you want to help, what is most needed at this moment is cash. It will be days or weeks before those losses that were insured can be reconciled. People need food, clothing, temporary housing expenses, cars, and well…just look around your house and try to imagine it being all gone.

There are many great organizations who are helping and will help. I can recommend Whites Ferry Road Relief. Since the late 70’s WFR Relief has responded to natural catastrophes around the globe and as God provides will help the people in Tuscaloosa too. You can donate online at  http://www.wfrchurch.org/relief/. Or you can mail a check to: Relief, 3201 N. 7th Street, West Monroe, La 71291. 

For now there is no mail box at the church so gifts may be sent to the above address or to the University Church of Christ, 1200 Julia Tutwiler Drive, Tuscaloosa, AL 35404-2934, and designated “Central Church”. Every gift will be used to help the people of the Central Church and then allow them to better help their neighbors.

Hope is in your mouth and help is in your hand.

Royce Ogle

Have you ever had someone ask you, “Please put her on your prayer list”, or “Please pray for xxxx who is having surgery on Tuesday”. Or, have you said to someone, “I’ll be praying for you”, or when asked if you will pray have you said, “I will”….and then not do it? I have more than a few times. It is done almost always with the best intentions, but, if we tell someone we will do something we should do it.

Here are some suggestions about intercessory prayers that have been helpful to me and might be to you.

PRAY NOW

Whenever possible pray when asked or as quickly as you can. I learned this valuable from Dr. John R Rice in the early 1970’s. I had heard him speak in a large auditorium in Atlanta and I was one in a long line to speak to him after his message. I had a prayer concern that at the time was very important to me. I quickly in a sentence or two told him my concern. He surprised my by laying his hand on my shoulder and praying a simple, to the point prayer, in two or three sentences, wished me well and was on to the next person in line to greet him. Again and again since that day I have prayed with people who have asked me when they asked, in a tire store, a hospital hallway, or before Sunday school, it is the easiest way to not forget.

And, if I can’t pray with the person right on the spot I will often breathe a prayer for their concern once I walk away. Then, if God brings it to my heart and mind later I might pray again, and again. This practice has helped me to avoid saying I will and then failing to do so.

JUST ASK

I think most of us would have much more time for prayer and for other things if we would just ask what we want and leave off much of the extras. Saying in a prayer “Lord you know…” and then talking for 10 minutes telling God what He already knows is not very helpful in most cases. I really doubt that God wants a few minutes added to the beginning and ending of our requests where we present a brief presentation of the theology of God done in King James language. God knows us! We don’t need to bring him up to date on any current or future event.

Bible prayers were always asking. Thanksgiving goes will with prayer, and we should always be thankful, but being thankful isn’t prayer. It is an addition to prayer. And so it is with everything we tell God. It is good and right to tell God how we adore him and love him and appreciate what He has done for us. But when it’s time to pray for a particular need, just go to him and ask. He again, and again, and again invites us to do just that.

PRAY ONLY TO GOD

This might seem like a foolish thing to say but it really isn’t. Pray only to God and not to the person who is listening. I have done it and you have done it. For sure we are blessed and encouraged and helped and edified listening to others pray. However, our prayers should be directed only to God.

A proud grandfather asked his small grand daughter to pray before the evening meal. She mumbled something and said Amen and started after the mashed potatoes. He said to her “I couldn’t hear a thing you said!” She replied “I wasn’t talking to you.” Lesson learned! She was taking to God not the people at the table.

Far too often our public prayers are mostly to those listening and not to God. I suggest that our public prayers should be short and pointed, asking for something specific and expecting an answer. Prayers that take 2 to 5 minutes and ask for little and expect nothing are not useful and I think probably not very pleasing to God.

Above everything else PRAY! Don’t miss out on the some of the unmatched blessings of knowing that God has heard and answered your specific prayers. God is delighted to to things for his children. He will always do what is good and best for his own. He has promised to care for our necessities but oh how he want us to come daily in prayer to ask for “daily bread”. He doesn’t want us to ask for a week but to come daily to him with our needs.

I can never be thankful enough for my dear mother, who is now with the Lord, who taught me by example how to pray and get answers from God. I only heard he pray in public a few times before a meal. But she delighted to tell me and others of how kind God was to give her the smallest requests in answer to prayer. I never have known anyone personally other than mom’s brother Bill Wheeler who had such a rich prayer life with regular answers routine.

Just ask and see that the Lord is faithful.

Royce

Expository preaching is the form of preaching where the preacher expounds on a verse or passage of Scripture. Both his motive and method is to mine the passage for its truth and then to make application to himself and the listeners. This method of preaching is much more difficult to prepare for and requires discipline that many do not have. But going chapter by chapter and verse by verse through books of the Bible will cover every doctrine, expose every sin, correct every error, and potentially heal every heart. There will be very difficult passages that the preacher might not understand. That is absolutely true in my experience. When one of those awkward times comes, and they will, the honest preacher should just admit, “I am not sure what is meant here, this is a passage I have not mastered. But I have done some research and here are a few of the most prominent views and here is the way I am leaning, but I am not ready to take a firm stand at this time in my study.” That sort of transparency will be appreciated by the people and everyone, including the preacher, will learn from the experience. It is not a sin to admit you don’t know everything.

I challenge my friends and those I have never met to consider giving it a try. Today there are tons of resources to help you as you study. Pray, pray, pray,and read, read, read, sermons, commentaries, illustrations,etc. and then make it your own, in terms you are comfortable with, and give it to the people in the power and authority of the Spirit and you will grow a healthy church, one that keeps the main thing the main thing.

I am for Christ and the Bible and I am against any agenda that vies for His place as preeminent in our hearts and lives. Only when He is lifted up do sinners come to Him. The word of God exalts Him above every thing in heaven or on earth and ours is to make Him known by our lives and our lips. The Word of God, not the traditions we cherish, is to be the final authority for both faith and practice for every believer. Preach the Bible!

(This post is a part of a post I wrote in Jan 2009 ( http://wp.me/p2PSx-5y )

Royce Ogle