Prayer

An Inheritance of Prayer

/ pastorpete51 / 1 Comment

To an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you. 1 Peter 1:4 ESV

Recently Dave from Dave’s Daily Dose wrote on the subject of solemn assembly. For those not aquatinted with solemn assembly, it is a meeting something like a prayer vigil involving an entire church. I remarked that I remembered prayer vigils -vigílias de oraçãoes- at our Brazilian church where we served on staff for about 14 years. When Dave challenged me to write about it, in spite of my fear of diving into the deep end of the subject, I had to accept his double dog dare!

But to explain the unique experience of a vigília will take at least two posts. Today, I will just offer a little glimpse of what the Brazilian church in America is like. Like a fish being unaware of water because he is in, none of us really understands our own cultural inheritance and the Brazilian community is no exception. So f there are any Brazilians out there in my reading audience, I apologize if I am over simplifying, but if I were to start with a single word, it would be saudade – roughly translated homesick. Though saudade may fade after many years here in America, it is never truly absent and it touches every part of life. It effects who you work with, what food you cook, who you tell your secrets to and most of all how you pray. Saudade includes a deep longing for things that are far beyond our control and forces us into a desperate dependence on God.

But when we as Americans think of prayer we think of our devotional time, our prayer closet and time alone with Jesus. But Brazilians almost never do anything alone. If somebody has a baby, not only the entire family, but also half the neighborhood shows up at the maternity room to visit! Communion at church often included all of us crowded around the front to receive it together. Birthday parties for a one year old featured more than half the church showing up of every age and of course lots of food!

This is me with the youth after church

When the church was healthy, that same togetherness happened when we went to prayer. In fact, that unhurried time at the altar with people all around each asking for God’s help, was the single greatest attraction of us when we began attending. That intensity of community prayer was and is a special part of the inheritance that God has given the Brazilian church and the single greatest reason we remained through thick and thin for so long.

Tomorrow, I promise I’ll dive straight into what it is like being a part of my favorite -vigília de oração of the year – New Years Eve, so stay tuned and have a blessed week!

Are You Waiting?

/ pastorpete51 / 4 Comments 
 
 
 
 Will you spend time alone with Jesus
 Is His will what you’re looking for
 Is there a place He can go to meet with you
 To come in and then close the door?
  
 Is your heart like a freshly turned garden
 That is ready and prepared for seed
 A place where His word can take root
 And His plan is your deepest need?
  
 Then listen you’ll hear HIs footsteps
 It’s the Master now coming our way
 And He’s asking to sit here with you
 If you’re waiting for Him today-


  
  
  
 Are You Waiting?  by Peter Caligiuri 
Copyright 2021 All rights reserved

Two Tires on the Stairs

/ pastorpete51 / 3 Comments

The angel of the Lord encamps
    around those who fear him, and delivers them. Psalm 37:4 ESV

You need to know that I have never seen an angel, but I believe in them. Yet the entire concept of angels seems pretty strange to me. Why would an all powerful God who can command light into existence and who holds every atom in the universe together by the power of His word, want to use angels to do stuff? And yet, the Bible tells us that, God chooses to employ angels to take care of us.

Photo by Anastasia Zhenina on Pexels.com

When our kids were still in diapers and credit cards were only issued to folks who didn’t need them we struggled financially. Though we had enough to pay for our groceries, rent and the electric bill, by the end of the month, there was nothing left over. Each morning as I got the car, glanced at the front tires, which were daily growing balder, I breathed another prayer and put the key in the ignition. Every afternoon when I pulled back up into our parking spot, I racked my brain trying to figure how we could squeeze a few dollars together, then put it out of my mind, picked up my lunch box and trudged back up the stairs to our apartment.

Though we didn’t have much mullah, we did have plenty of friends. One of those was a confirmed bachelor named Bob and my wife insisted that we invite him over for dinner at least once a week. She worried that otherwise he would never eat a decent meal. Bob became like an uncle to our boys and they loved nothing better than running full speed and jumping onto his lap unexpectedly, then laughing hysterically as he let out a loud groan. Regularly, Bob would remind me about those tires, and regularly I would tell him that we would get to it next month. But whether it was an unexpected doctor’s visit or a new pair of shoes for our growing boys, it seemed “next month” never came.

All the time I worried about those bald tires I never once thought about praying for new ones. Not that I doubted God, but it simply never occurred to me to trouble the almighty with mundane issues like tread wear. He probably had important stuff to do like taking care of orphans in Africa or rescuing beggars in India. But one day I discovered that God isn’t too busy to notice even the tiniest problem we face while He is taking care of folks with bigger issues. He sends angels to camp out around us, to help in every struggle we face.

It was a Sunday morning and just as always we scrubbed up the boys and squeezed them into their church clothes then headed off for the 11 AM service. I put my worry about the tires into the back of my mind convinced I could only pray about life threatening issues. Yes I know I should have prayed but I am glad that our Father in Heaven doesn’t always do things according to formula. I have no idea what our pastor preached that morning, but engraved forever in my mind was the miracle of two brand new tires sitting at the top of our stairs on our return. Yes our angel that day actually was named Bob, but I’m pretty sure that he was enlisted into the service of the ones with wings. What was best of all was the astonishingly wonderful discovery that God knew and cared and sent angels to take care of every detail like stubbing our toe or getting a flat. God wanted me to know that whether He was washing my dirty feet, leaving tires on our stairs or dying on the cross for my sins, that He loves us all completely, in every detail and forever!

Two Tires On the Stairs by Peter Caligiuri copyright 2021 Use by permission only, all rights reserved.