In you, O?Lord, I seek refuge; do not let me ever be put to shame; in your righteousness deliver me. Incline your ear to me; rescue me speedily. Be a rock of refuge for me, a strong fortress to save me. You are indeed my rock and my fortress; for your name?s sake lead me and guide me, take me out of the net that is hidden for me, for you are my refuge. Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O?Lord, faithful God. You hate those who pay regard to worthless idols, but I trust in the?Lord. I will exult and rejoice in your steadfast love, because you have seen my affliction; you have taken heed of my adversities, and have not delivered me into the hand of the enemy; you have set my feet in a broad place. Be gracious to me, O?Lord, for I am in distress; my eye wastes away from grief, my soul and body also. For my life is spent with sorrow, and my years with sighing; my strength fails because of my misery, and my bones waste away. I am the scorn of all my adversaries, a horror to my neighbors, an object of dread to my acquaintances; those who see me in the street flee from me. I have passed out of mind like one who is dead; I have become like a broken vessel. For I hear the whispering of many? terror all around!? as they scheme together against me, as they plot to take my life. But I trust in you, O?Lord; I say, ?You are my God.? My times are in your hand; deliver me from the hand of my enemies and persecutors. Let your face shine upon your servant; save me in your steadfast love. Do not let me be put to shame, O?Lord, for I call on you; let the wicked be put to shame; let them go dumbfounded to Sheol. Let the lying lips be stilled that speak insolently against the righteous with pride and contempt. O how abundant is your goodness that you have laid up for those who fear you, and accomplished for those who take refuge in you, in the sight of everyone! In the shelter of your presence you hide them from human plots; you hold them safe under your shelter from contentious tongues. Blessed be the?Lord, for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me when I was beset as a city under siege. I had said in my alarm, ?I am driven far from your sight.? But you heard my supplications when I cried out to you for help. Love the?Lord, all you his saints. The?Lord?preserves the faithful, but abundantly repays the one who acts haughtily. Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the?Lord.?

Romans 8:26-30?

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.?And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.?We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.?

http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/calvin/cc38/cc38011.htm?

Last week, I started off the new year with the challenge to be more prayerful. For all of us to examine our prayer lives?no matter how big or small they are?and spend some time in prayer about what does your prayer life need to look like for 2018. The challenge came through the story I shared about the columns placed under the bridge in West Virginia to make it look like it was holding the bridge up during construction. I shared with you that I didn?t want to have a prayer life that looked like it was doing something like the columns did. I desire to have a prayer life that is part of the bridge with God, to be solid, secure, and dedicated in my prayer life. I want people to know I am a Christian and a pastor, that they look at me and know that I am a bridge builder with God for the people in our world. But in order to get there, we have to have three assumptions about God and prayer. I wanted to review those with everyone.?

First, in order to answer those questions, I think we have to first make 3 huge assumptions.??

God exists.?

God is capable of hearing our prayers.?
God cares about our prayers.??

In making these 3 assumptions, none can be proved or disproved and it must either be believed or disbelieved. If we decide to accept these 3 assumptions, then we can continue to develop and deepen our prayer lives.??

In talking about prayer being strategic last week, we were reminded that prayer takes commitment and it is about connecting with God. In the epistle of James, James says: James shares: if you are suffering, pray. If you are cheerful, praise. If you are sick, asked to be prayed over. If you need to be forgiven, pray. Pray for one another. Prayer is healing. Prayer is powerful and effective. James says, PRAY. In praying, we are connecting with God by pouring out our hearts, realizing God will answer, always believing, and yielding and responding to what God tells us. PRAY. The strategy is to pray. No matter what, pray.??

Yet, what about those times that it is too hard to pray? Or when we don?t have the words to pray? Or the words don?t come and it?s just tears. What about those times like in Psalm 31, where it seems that every word we want to utter is hard, pain, sad, difficult, angry, or mean? What about those times when we are weak and frail, tired and stressed, weary and feeling alone? When it takes all we have to get out of bed and face the day? I believe this what is happening in our scripture lessons for today. The psalmist reminds us that there are times when we cannot articulate our feelings and only sighs are possible. In Psalm 31, the depth of honesty in this prayer and psalm to God causes my heart to ache. And then there are these words: ?For my life is spent with sorrow, and my years with sighing; my strength fails because of my misery, and my bones waste away.? Have you been there? I have. And I wish it was only once. And after all the heartache that has been pinned in this psalm, the sighs turn into gratitude and the reminder to wait: ?But you heard my supplications when I cried out to you for help. Love the?Lord, all you his saints. The?Lord?preserves the faithful, but abundantly repays the one who acts haughtily. Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the?Lord.??

Then as we move into Romans, we are reminded of these powerful words: ?Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.? When we are in a low places, our hard places, the Spirit intercedes on our behalf. The Spirit of God takes on our burden, our weakness, our pain?The Spirit not only helps and supports us, but lifts us up; as though going under the burden with us. I have this image of someone carrying the world, or a super heavy backpack. And then Jesus/Spirit/God, coming up and carrying everything for me?and you.??

I also believe this passage reminds us of the importance of the sighs and groanings. There are going to be times when that is all we can do. We can just sigh, grown, cry?and to remember that we aren?t doing it alone. The Spirit is sighing with us. Not against us. In our prayers to be strategic, the sighs are sometimes the places where are hearts our stirred and we need to release what has stirred us up. I think the sighs allow us to go deepen in our relationship and connection with God. Our desires are known. All of us is exposed.??

I want to leave us with this image today. I just finished listening to the book ?Present over Perfect: Leaving Behind Frantic for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living? by Shauna Niequist. She shared this image in prayer that has been incredibly helpful to me this past week. It is looking at prayer like a jar of oil and vinegar. So, I decided to actually use a prop to illustrate the importance of the sighs. I think the sighs are like the vinegar. The vinegar alone is acidic. The olive oil alone is rich, flavorful, thick. You have to shake the bottle to mix the two before pouring it on a salad. Shauna shares that our prayer lives need to get rid of the vinegar, the pieces that are troubling you, what feels harsh, hard, unjustified, wrong in ourselves and the world, the things that put our nerves on end, and crush our spirit. We need to pour those things out-what makes us sad, upset, disappointed, depressed, confused, resistant, evil, ugly?and we keep pouring those things out to God until they are gone. And the vinegar isn?t in the bottle anymore and there is only oil left. Once we have poured all of that out and have reached the oil, we realize that things are going to be fine (or better), that God is present and working with us and through us. At that point we are grounded in the truth of God, not of the lies we tell ourselves and the lies of the world. It is the reminder that life doesn?t have to be acidic like vinegar, but it can be luscious like oil with God. But if you don?t start with ridding yourself of the vinegar, or you will never experience the goodness of the oil. We ignore the vinegar and stuff it down. We keep trying to mix the bottle, but the oil settles too quickly. We aren?t honest in our prayers and hold back the things that we think are too acidic for God to hear. But God wants us to pray about everything-God wants us to bring all the acidic vinegar in our lives to God, so that we can taste the richness of the oil.??

If we really let go of all these things, all the vinegar, we become vulnerable and real before God?we are opened up and our hearts are released and held by God. When we aren?t trying to hold on to our vinegar, when we truly bring it all before God in prayer through silence and sighs, true connection begins because we have brought our whole selves before God. Friends, remember, we can?t taste the oil until we pour out the vinegar, and it is okay to admit there is vinegar that needs to be poured out. In doing so, we allow our whole selves to be seen. Then we are truly grounded in love. We have to pour out the acid before we get to the richness and you can?t get there until you are willing to be truly seen, vinegar and all.??

The vinegar, the acidic, is the sigh. It is the burden. It is what God wants to carry with us. Our prayer lives should be full of sighing, so we can get rid of the vinegar and get to the true goodness of the oil, being fully known and seen and loved by God.??

Our prayer lives matter to God. God cares about our lives. I pray this week, we can all work on pouring out our vinegar, knowing the Spirit sighs with us for each vinegar pour, and is carrying us into the goodness of God.??