Give Pop-Up Prayer a Chance

pop-up prayer
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Pop-up ads are the scourge of the internet.  I have finally eliminated most pup-up ads, but now find myself a victim of pop-up autoplay videos.  Some of the videos are ads; some are news stories.  All of them startle me and distract me from the work I am trying to do when online.

Recently, however, I have been trying to cultivate the proactive of pop-up praying in my daily routine.  Pop-up prayers are spontaneous, short prayers triggered by something that I experience during the course of the day.  I often utter pop-up prayers when driving, talking on the phone, or working at my desk.   I find the more I have intentionally looked for pop-up possibilities, the more involuntarily they have occurred.

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The Simple Fix to This Mess We Are In

The news of late is very depressing – violence in response to violence, crime, killing, moral decay, the devaluation of traditional understandings of marriage and family. Unfortunately even the Church is not immune to this malady as so many believers treat each other with behavior opposite of the “brotherly love” Jesus commanded us to exhibit.

Yes this world is a mess, but the fix is actually quite simple. While quite simple to understand, apparently it’s very difficult to implement. Our contemporary culture scorns the council of God’s Word, even to the point of one 2016 Presidential Candidate stating, “And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed.” Yet God’s Word prescribes the most simple solution to our inability to get along with each other.

He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God? – Micah 6:8

Three simple acts that if performed regularly and universally would radically change the state of social affairs in our culture.

  1. Do Justice. Simply do right by people. Stop defrauding people, treat them fairly, treat them according to the Golden Rule – the way we want them to treat us. Justice is not some intangible ideal, it is something we DO.
  1. Love Kindness. I am afraid we have lost the ability to be nice. Is it still possible to simply “cut somebody some slack”? Please, thank you, yes ma’am, no sir are words we need to once again here regularly.
  1. Walk Humbly With God. We can actually see two parts to this prescription. First we need to restore our walk with God. At best, too many people have restricted their concept of God to what they do at church. To WALK with God is to allow  Him to shape and influence every part of our lives every day.  The second part of the prescription is that we conduct our walk humbly. In other words, life isn’t about us; it’s Jesus first, then others, with ourselves considered last.

I cannot change the evil in society on a large scale, but I can choose how I WILL LIVE. Will you join me in getting back to the simplicity of Micah 6:8? Let’s treat ALL people fairly, look for ways to be nice, and let Jesus influence the way we carry out our lives every day. Maybe if we change, and we each influence some others to change, then they each encourage some others to change…