I was listening to Leonard Ravenhill at work today and I was struck by something: We don't pray enough.

For those who don't know, Leonard Ravenhill was a pentecostal preacher and evangelist, beginning before WWII and continued in the US until the 80's. In every message I have heard by him, he continually challenges the modern church to strive to be more along the biblical model in Acts. His stories of the early years of his ministry in Great Britain are inspiring.

He spoke of prayer and how they would spend hours in late night prayer meetings. He talked about how they would pray continuously, together. He talked about how they would look forward to and relish the time they spent praying to the wee hours of the morning. Why do we not do this? Why do we not have more people sacrificing an extra hour of sleep to go to the 6:30 prayer meeting? Why do we not get excited about coming together and praying for even an hour? Can you even fathom praying for two? Three?

How can we expect God to do great things through us if we aren't willing to sacrifice the time and energy to seek him for what he wants? We already know he wants people to know him. How can we expect to be at all effective if we ourselves don't have anything beyond and intellectual knowledge of God? Do you know him personally? Do you pray?

We in the evangelical world have a tendency to hear words like "revival" and blow it off as this crazy idea that those charismatics talk about. God doesn't move like that anymore. Yet I hear us pray small prayers about the spirit sweeping the city. Why not pray big prayers and pray them like we really believe it? We need to be praying more! The early church DEVOTED themselves to prayer as well as fellowship, teaching and the breaking of bread. How can I expect God to move in my life and through it if I'm just giving him a few minutes in the morning. As one man once said (I believe it was Luther), "I have so much to do today that I must first spend four hours in prayer in order to get it all done." Four hours? That's a lot of prayer. Yet the one that we follow, that was nothing.

Here is what I propose: Every other Saturday, we open up a home to pray. I'll suggest mine. We get together at seven and we pray as long as the Spirit moves us. Maybe it's an hour. Maybe it's for three. Maybe the only reason we stop is so that we can go to church the next morning. I don't know how it will go, but I think we need to focus on prayer and then go DO it. This is especially true for those of us in Symbio. We lack zeal. How else can we expect to gain it?

Yeah, I'm fired up.

What is your sentence?

Tuesday night, Mitch shared with us the idea that each of us has a "sentence", a thought, an idea that is spoken to us by the enemy to tempt us away from trusting in the Lord. He talked about how the Israelites, who had seen God perform miracle after miracle, who walked across the Red Sea on dry land, who saw the pillar of fire and pillar of smoke, whose shoes and garments never wore out, who ate manna from heaven, they saw all of these things and still said to Moses, "you and God brought us out here to die. Let's appoint someone to lead us back to Egypt." Where God was in the middle of giving them their salvation story, the act of God that they would refer back to for centuries, they wanted to go back to the land where they were slaves. They said that same line over and over and over again.

So I've been thinking a lot about this. I already knew what my sentence was before I heard the message, but tonight I've been analyzing just how deep the lie goes. The lie is simple enough: "You are not loved. You are not seen as fun by others. You are boring. If you were more like [that fun and exciting guy], you would be loved." So how does this affect me?

1. My friendships. Well, it makes me feel like I have none. If I'm not loved, then I couldn't call anyone my friend, right? So I continue trying to love others, but it becomes nearly impossible after a while when you feel like everything is entirely one-sided. So I put on the happy face, persevere and though I'm laughing on the surface, internally I'm examining everything and finding every place I fall short. I'm finding every thing wrong with me that is a road block to others loving me and I'm focusing on every time that I've seen them pursue friendship with someone else and wondering why they never invite me to grab dinner with them, or a beer, or why if they have they always do it on a night that they know I have a prior commitment? My heart is breaking the entire time and I leave depressed and in tears, wondering what exactly I can do to earn their love. The answer I always come back with is, "Be someone else." I leave in tears every time.

2. My relationship with God. If my answer to the above issue is "Be someone else," then I am infact, spitting in God's face by telling him that I'm not good enough how he made me. I'm telling him that he messed up when he made me. I'm telling him that he shorted me and because of that, I can't trust him. I may not voice this, but the attitude is still there. I also fall into the trap that if I feel so unloved by people then the only reason why God must love me is because he obligated himself to. He promised he would and therefore, even if he doesn't want to, he must. I wind up not feeling wanted by God.

3. Romance. I will see myself as wholly unattractive and am afraid that if I don't become [insert amazingly fun guy's name here], then I'll never win anyone's heart and I'll be rejected always. In the end, I may have an amazing relationship with a girl and really like her a ton, but I will slam on the breaks and run away because I'm afraid that I'm burdening and annoying her by even approaching her. In the end, I destroy the friendship I have, along with any chance for a romantic relationship because I'm so afraid of rejection that I avoid it altogether and wind up inadvertently rejecting her. In my mind this is ok because I'm convinced that she never wanted me around anyway and she's happier that I'm avoiding her.

4. My own life. It keeps me awake at night. I lay in bed and can't sleep because I'm convinced that I'm utterly alone. I wonder why people don't call me, why they don't want me around. I wonder why others are being pursued and I am not. I wind up depressed, sobbing and wondering why I'm even still where I'm at. Surely the grass is greener in another city/country/continent. Surely there I'll find friends and be loved, right? Why even bother, no one will love me there either.

I really started to see this lie for what it was about six months ago. It's a lion, crouching right in front of me, ready to pounce and devour me. It's patiently waiting for me to drop my guard for even an instant, and when I do, it attacks. I've let this lie over power me for so much of my life that I find now that I have only one defense. Thankfulness.

All throughout the new testament, Paul and others speak about having a heart of thanksgiving. four times in Colossians 3, for example, does Paul say that we should do things "with thanksgiving." We are to be abounding with thanksgiving, praying for requests with thanksgiving, be thankful in all circumstances, and it goes on and on. Getting up in the morning and going for at least a 30 minute prayer walk before work Got the Lion off of me, but still, it waits. I can feel it ease in closer, and when I feel that, I stop what I'm doing and praise God.

We cannot be thankful to God and still focus on our circumstances. I cannot be thankful without experiencing joy. I cannot be thankful without recognizing his goodness, mercy, grace, love, might, majesty, strength and glory. I cannot be thankful to God without aiming my gaze directly at him. Thanksgiving is the key to being able to live a life worthy of the calling we have received, and it is VITAL to the gospel. We get what we don't deserve and we don't get what we do. We get God and heaven and eternal peace. We don't get Hell. Who wouldn't be thankful for that?

But this lion is still crouching, waiting to pounce. Perhaps recognizing the lie for what it is is the first step towards really seeing victory. I've more victory over this lie in the last six months than I have in my entire life, and that was when I started reorienting myself to thank God more in my prayer life than to request of him. My prayers of desperation ceased and instead the same prayers were prayed with expectant joy and thanksgiving, rejoicing. Then, for whatever reason, I stopped and sure enough, the lion pounced and now, three weeks later, I am coming out of the funk and getting the lion back off of me, beaten, bloodied, but hopeful.

So why am I posting this? I suppose you could call it some weird form of closure. To confess the lie for what it is and examine how deep it goes helps me to see where God is also at work. I still struggle with feeling like I bore people, but I also recognize how God uses me to impact people around me. I can see that he is at work despite my short comings, and in some cases, he uses them to display his strength. I can see how good he is, how amazing he is and for the first time in my life, I've been able to experience the satisfaction of really knowing him. Satisfaction that can never be matched by any human interaction, period. I am really starting to see how people love me. I'm starting to see that there is no need for me to prove that I'm just as funny/cool/exciting/adventurous as that guy. I'm starting to see that all of my "evidences" to support the lie may exist, but I'm misinterpreting the data. At times those evidences in fact prove the lie wrong altogether.

So why am I posting this? My hope is that in the same way that exposing this lie for what it is has helped me, I pray that my life can encourage you and point you to real hope.

Why am I posting this? Perhaps it will better help you to understand why I did/said some of the things that I have. Perhaps I pushed you away. Perhaps you're confused as to why I seemed so upset. Perhaps you want something to pray for in my life. My hope is that this may give you further insight into the enigma that is Lee Vary. Perhaps it will help you better understand youself. I don't know. Perhaps now I'm just reaching for straws...

What are not reasons why I'm posting this? I'm not looking for affirmation. I'm not looking for attention. I'm not looking for you to tell me what I want to hear. I am not looking for you to bolster me in this struggle. If you want to help at all, pray and point me to the truth. Always.

So what is your sentence?