Don Carson - What Is Biblical Prayer And Why Should I Pray If God Know's Everything?

D.A. Carson is one of my favorite biblical scholars. I've read a few of his books and have found them to be extremely insightful (e.g., The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God, NT Commentary Survey, etc). I was really encouraged by his explanation of prayer and I hope it's an encouragement to you as well.

1st Anniversary

I wrote how wonderful my marriage was going at the sixth month point. This past weekend the wife and I just experienced our first anniversary together. Marriage is truly a wonderful thing. Most people throw out the clichés of “You’re going to learn how selfish you are,” and “It’s going to take a lot of sacrifice for the marriage to work.” First of all I already know how selfish I am. I am extremely selfish. No surprises there. I already knew that marriage required a lot of “sacrifice” in order for it to “work.” Not breaking any new ground there, Aristotle.

It’s been a great first year. I feel like I love my wife more today than the day I married her. She takes wonderful care of me and does it with such joy. I absolutely cherish her and still admire her for the very same qualities that made me fall in love with her. Through a year of being married, I just see those qualities that much more clearly. It’s fun to get to know her more and see what makes her tick. We still talk about the same things that we talked about while we were dating. She supports me in my decisions and encourages me when I want to shot myself during education classes. When I act like a jerk she gives me the “You’re acting like a jerk but I’m not going to say anything and just let you realize it for yourself” face. Ten times out of ten, I do realize that I’m a jerk and that she’s right. Amazing.

She is a constant reminder of God’s grace and kindness. When I have doubts of God’s goodness or wonder if He has my best interest in mind, I only need to look at my wife to dispel those doubts about God and to bolster my faith in Him.

The relationships I’ve had in the past were crappy. The reason being is that immature love is exhausting but true mature love is empowering and can lift you up when you’re down in the dumps. Now if there is something I have learned through marriage is the “empowering love” factor. As a young guy you don’t always recognize when you’re in a bad relationship because . . . well . . . you’re young and your stupid. Here’s a hint, if you’re constantly exhausted by the relationship it’s a bad one. And I’m not talking about just the first two weeks I’m talking about well after the “honeymoon stage.” If I had known this as a teenager I would have saved myself a lot of grief.

All the pressures of being a teacher by day and taking teaching credential classes at night, while studying for exams to remain a teacher, without my wife I would have lost my mind and gone “Into the Wild” Christopher McCandless style (But instead of eating a wild potato root with poisonous fungus or dying of starvation I would have decided to take down a bear with only a knife. Story Telling Mode: While standing toe to toe with the Beast I lunge at it stabbing him in his left eye. Fuming in rage the Beast retaliates by sinking his teeth into my left shoulder. The penetration was too deep and the lost of blood too plentiful, there was no way of escape. As I laid there with the lost of blood mounting gasping for air, the Beast standing over my body in wounded triumph, savors this victory knowing he had not met such an adversity as I. As I take my last few breaths I am grateful for I no longer have to take education classes. – Or something like that anyway.). I digress.

There are two lessons to be learned here (1) mature love is empowering and can sustain you through some tough times. (2) If I weren’t married I’d be fighting a bear out in the wild somewhere and get myself killed.

Katie,

Happy anniversary honey. I can’t tell you how much you mean to me or how much I love you. I have a lump in my throat just typing this. I know it’s the Lord who sustains His children but He’s given me you as a vessel of His sustaining power and I will forever be grateful. Thank you for a wonderful year of being my support, my friend, my helpmate, and my beautiful wife.

Junior J

P.S. – Sorry about leaving the dishes but I was going to do them when I got home but you got there first. And I think the dog needs a walk too, thanks.

The Land of Sod

The in-laws have been working on their backyard for quite some time now and I must say, the process is coming along nicely. When they first got their home the backyard had a filthy pool, broken down fence, a rotting tree house, and a slum of an extra room separated from the house.

But if you know Big Poppa (aka, the father-in-law), he enjoys a project of restoration. I certainly don’t because it takes work, and I don’t like to work. Since they bought their home they have filled up the pool because they don’t want grandchildren, current and future, falling in and becoming a headliner in the local paper. They rebuilt the fence, took down the rotting tree house and trimmed the tree, and restored the slum of an extra room separated from the house by remodeling the bathroom, giving it a fresh coat of paint, and new carpet. I now affectionately call it “The Man Room” (aka, Jon’s room).

Not too shabby. There’s heavy rain coming this week so the sod had to be laid down rather quickly before the backyard becomes muddier than NBC and The Tonight Show. The wife kindly says to me, “Honey, my dad needs help laying sod. Do you mind if we help him out this weekend?” I said, “Sure honey, I love back-breaking manual labor and getting completely dirty on my day off.”

To the Land of Sod we go. Now getting up early is not one of my specialties so getting up early on my day off is down right dreadful. Once we got there I didn’t anticipate being in an interactive sitcom.

Big Poppa is a perfectionist and I hear that men are particular about their grass. As it turns out, he shows me the pallet of sod in the front yard and tells me it’s like a “puzzle.” A “puzzle?!” Well I never heard of a puzzle with all of the pieces shaped like rectangles. That’s one boring puzzle. Big Poppa goes on to tell me the proper way of laying sod, “You have to stagger the lines, lift the sod in a particular manner, and each piece needs to go in a certain place.” I say to myself, “Whatever.”

While the rest of the family (Momma, Becky, Jon, and the wife) were working I hear this dialogue in a span of 47 seconds:

Big P: “Honey, turn the plant the other way so the stick is facing the fence.”
As Momma and Jon roll their eyes they both say, “Okay.”
Big P: “Becky, are you digging that hole too deep?”
Becky: “You just told me to dig a hole, how was I supposed to know how deep the hole needs to be?”
Jon: “How often does Brianna text you Becky?”
Big P: “Becky put the phone down!”
Jon: “Becky, did you tell that A-hole who stood you up off yet?”
Momma to Jon: “Watch your language young man.”
Jon: (rolls his eyes)
Becky answering Jon’s question: “Why would I waste my minutes?”
Big P to Junior: “Could you move the dirt into the front yard?”
Junior: “Can I bury Puggles with the dirt?” (Puggles is grandpa’s annoying little rat-dog nobody likes)
Katie to Big P: “Can we start putting down the grass already?”
Big P: (no response, just a look of deep contemplation)
Junior: “Look, when I roll up a piece of sod it looks like a giant joint.”
Momma: “Did you ever imagine our little girl marrying a man who thinks sod looks like a ‘giant joint?’”
Katie: “Dad! Can we start putting down the grass already?”
Big P: “Hold on I’m thinking.”
Big P to Momma: “Honey, don’t plant that. Let Jon do it or you’ll hurt your back.”
Momma: “Okay I only hurt my back that one time.”
Katie: “But that was the only time you planted anything and you got hurt.”
Jon: “Yeah mom, you’re going to hurt your back.”
Momma: “Nobody lets me do anything around here.”
Jon: “Becky, let me dig this hole.”
Becky: “Can I go donate some blood for the people of Haiti instead of doing this?”
Big P: “Becky, go get us some water.”
Becky: (frustratingly goes and gets us water)
Katie to Big P: “If we could start laying down the sod we could get this done sometime today.”
Big P: (no response, and still with a look of deep contemplation)
Momma: “Junior, none of this better end up in your blog!”

Junior: (Sitting back and enjoying the show)

We can’t lay down the sod until Big Poppa sprays the ground with water and sprinkles some fairy dust on the floor to help the sod grow. As he sprinkles the fairy dust he looks like an elderly person who’s lost his mind feeding pigeons at Central Park.



I was working so hard and fast bringing the sod from the front yard to the backyard the neighbors starting wondering if Big Poppa picked me up in front of Home Depot. As it turns out, Big Poppa ran out of grass and we couldn’t finish the work. Although we got most of the yard done I asked him, “Why didn’t you order more grass?” He replied, “I didn’t want to order too much and waste it.” Growing up in East Los Angeles there are three lessons you automatically learn: (1) how to barbeque carne asada, (2) how to make guacamole, and (3) you can never have too much grass. Let that be a lesson for all of us. Until next time . . .

A Good Night Almost Foiled

This past Friday night I decided to go to the Lakers’ game with my buddy Ronnie whom I’ve only seen a handful of times since high school. It was a good night to do some catching up. If you’ve ever been to Staples Center you’ll know that they jack up the prices about 600% on everything there. It’s as if Staples Center was its own country and can pretend that food is so rare there they could charge whatever they want.

And just like any country they have boarders and security checks before you enter. Here’s where a good night was almost foiled. Now I like to think that I’m a rational guy most of the time. So I’m not going to pay a ridiculous price for food when I could get the same thing for one-eighth the cost somewhere else.

My buddy Ronnie got us some nice burritos before the game. They were pretty big and it was going to be difficult sneaking them in with all the security but of course we were going to try. The burritos were wrapped in foil. I said, “What a minute, the foil is going to set off the metal detector.” Ronnie replies, “No it won’t. Your jacket has zingers. The zingers doesn’t set off the metal detector so why would foil?” He might be right but I still wasn’t feeling confident. I put my big burrito in the inside pocket of my jacket on the left side.

As we entered the security check I tried to keep it cool by pretending to have a conversation with Ronnie. Sure enough the metal detector went off. I was asked to move aside so they could check me with the hand-held metal detector. Can you guess where the hand-held metal detector went off? That’s right, the inside pocket of my jacket on the left side. The security guy says, “Please empty your pockets.” You could imagine now I was sweating some bullets. Not to mention that everyone else was looking to see what was going on wondering why I was setting off the metal detector. “Maybe he’s a terrorist!” they thought. Great, all of this trouble for a freakin’ burrito.

I complied without saying anything hoping that I could find something else in my pockets to pull out other than my big burrito. I was digging in my pockets so hard I almost poked a hole through them. Nope. Still searching. Nothing. Then I came clean and just told the security guy, “Look man, it’s just my burrito and it’s only loaded with beans and rice. It’s completely harmless, I promise.” The security guy cracked the kind of smile that says, “I’ve gotta tell my friends about this one. A dude tried to smuggle in a freakin’ burrito! That was a first.” But he says, “There is no outside food allowed.” Dejected and a little embarrassed I grabbed my things and took my burrito outside.

Did Ronnie get caught? Of course not. Now if you knew Ronnie, that wouldn’t surprise you at all. He gets away with these things. There is no method to how he does it, he just has the “I don’t get caught” gene. But like a good friend he went back outside with me and said, “I’m sorry dude, but you were right. The foil really did set off the alarm.” You could imagine that his acknowledgement of my correctness about the foil was small consolation.

Afterwards, both of us decided to go in by another entrance. On our way we were “unfoiling” our burritos and wrapping them in napkins. We made it through the second time without a hitch, got to our seats, and took a nice sigh of relief. Just in time for the game introductions. We sat and enjoyed the rest of the night by watching the Lakers destroy the Clippers by 40 AND eating our burritos (although it was cold by now because it had no foil to keep it warm)! I think the whole ordeal actually made the burritos taste even better.

In conclusion, there are two lessons we could learn here. Foil sets off metal detectors and don’t listen to Ronnie if you ever meet him because if he talks you into anything you'll be the one caught. A great start to the weekend. I hope the rest of you are having as much fun with life as I am.

A Typical Morning

6:00am – The alarm goes off and I’m hating life. I hit the snooze bottom several times and curse Adam for getting us in this mess (work) in the first place.

(The wife has been up for a little over an hour eating breakfast, praying, reading her bible, and preparing my breakfast as I’m cursing under my breath that I have to get ready for work).

6:30am – I walk around like a zombie to get my bearings and bump into walls and stub my toe on something, I can’t remember on what, and start cursing louder.

6:45am – Once I stumble into the bathroom, I decide weather or not I should shave. “One more day?” Yes. I start picking out my clothes for the day (this actually takes me appropriately four seconds) and slowly put it on while again cursing under my breath because I have to get ready for work.

After I finish putting on my clothes and log on the Internet and do typical things like, check email, check my facebook, see if there is any news worth reading, and place my bets for that night’s ball games (still using fake money). While I’m doing this the wife brings in my breakfast and knows I’m a zombie but still wants a kiss from me. I can’t remember if I give it to her or not.

7:15am – Suddenly, when breakfast is finish, I realize that I’m running late and bolt out of the door and forget to take my lunch. I’m about half way to work when I realize I forgot my lunch and start cursing again.

I guess I’m not much of a morning person. My wife is a great example of how to treat your mornings and how to start your day. I might realize this if I weren’t a zombie. Maybe I’ll give it a try. Starting off the day in worship might put my frame of mind in the right place. This may result in me not beating my head 27 times throughout the day. But that’s for tomorrow’s blog, “A Typical Work Day.”

Serious note: I really don’t curse . . . much.

2009 in Review

How do I review a year in which I got married, got a dog, got reassigned to a different school and the Lakers won the NBA Championship? Where do I even begin? For years as a single Christian man trying to honor women in a way pleasing to the Lord, I often found myself scratching my head wondering why women never appreciated that from me. I was discarded like trash often times (even by my wife although she was not my wife at the time – more on this in a later blog). But in one week’s time, I will have my first anniversary with my wife. Amazing.

I never had a real pet in my entire life. I don’t consider goldfish as “real” pets. Once, while I was in high school, my mom had some exotic birds from Thailand she kept in the front yard. She took a trip to Thailand for about a month and told me to take care of them. I said, “Sure mom, whatever.” A month passed by and I saw my mom driving up on her return home, I felt like I was forgetting something. I think you know where this is headed. Yes, I forgot about taking care of the birds, namely by feeding them. I went to check out the cages and sure enough they were dead. Don’t worry I got rid of their carcasses and told my mom they died of natural causes. So when my wife wanted a dog I thought it was a bad idea considering that I didn’t like added work and having a dog just felt like a lot of work.

It’s been almost six months since we have had Buddy and an interesting thing has happened. Even though there have been plenty of times that I wanted to kill the dog, he’s been growing on me. I can say that I actually like him. Of course the dog has taught me a lot of patience. That doesn’t come as a big surprise. What is a surprise, however, is how taking care of a dog is similar (at a much smaller scale) to raising a child. You have to constantly affirm it and give it affection. There are times when I’m on the computer doing important things like checking the NBA standings when the dog comes in and wants more affection. Initially, I would tell him to go away, but I realized I wouldn’t be able do that to my future child. So the dog is actually helping me become a better parent before I become a parent. I’m sure Junior Jr. will appreciate that.

It’s been seven long years since the Lakers won a Championship (I’ve been a season ticket holder for four years). I wrote a blog after they lost to Boston in the Finals in 2008 that it had a 1984-1985 feel to it. What I mean is when the Lakers lost to Boston in 1984 (a series they should have won) they came back the following year and destroyed the rest of the league and won the 1985 Championship against . . . wait for it . . . wait for it . . . Boston! Although the 2009 Lakers, in my opinion, weren’t quite as good as the 1985 team, I’m not going to complain when we win Championships. When the Lakers are Champs all just feels right in the world.

What do I expect in 2010? I’m not much of a New Years Resolution type of guy. It never made any sense to me why if a person needed to “start a healthy diet” or “workout consistently” they would wait until the beginning of the year? Just start now. In short, 2009 ended two terrible droughts for me, namely, singleness and Laker Championships. Yes, the Lord is good and He does provide everything that we need and all in His proper time. Whether it is a spouse or Laker Championships, the Lord knows exactly what we need and when we need it. So what do I expect from 2010? The Lord's continued faithfulness. How is that going to look? You're guess is as good as mine.

Educational Torture

I should be studying for my CSET exam right now but instead I’m blogging. It’s Friday, I got up early this morning and went to work, stayed late to finish a paper (on a freakin’ Friday!), worked out like a beast, watched my Lakers lose for the ninth straight time in Portland and I have to take my CSET at 7:15 am tomorrow morning (if I don’t pass all sections this year I will be out of a job). Wonderful.

Some people ask me why I wanted to be a teacher. The funny thing is that I didn’t want to be a teacher but the job just fell in my lap. My buddy Brent told me about a position opening up at La Mirada High School and suggested I apply for it. I said, “Sure, why not?” I didn’t get the job but my application circulated around the district and I got hired on a Benton Middle School. This year I was reassigned to another school.

Why am I telling you this? It’s because I can’t tell you how much I HATE (and I don't like to throw around the "H" word that often) all the hoops you have to jump through to become a teacher. At the moment I have no choice. I just have to deal with it. The kicker is that I have to finish my credential soon or I will lose my job. Taking education classes has been nothing short of pure torture. I find it irony that it’s “education classes” are completely worthless and I’m not the only one who believes this. I’ve asked numerous people who have finished their credential (the wife included) and they all say it was a big waste of time and money.

I am currently attempting to finish my teaching credential at National University. Every time I walk into one of these classes I feel a part of me die. Throughout the class I feel like I’m in a Saw movie and Jigsaw is lecturing to me on “How to make a lesson plan.” If I had to choose between being in an episode of Man vs. Wild with Bear Grylls and have to eat goats testicles instead of taking these education classes, I would take it in a cocaine heartbeat.

The fact that my buddy Jordan is getting his PhD in theology only makes it worse. I think that’s part of the problem. After getting two graduate degrees in Bible everything else you learn just doesn’t seem as interesting (more on this in a later blog, right now I just want to vent).

IMPORTANT NOTE:
I’m really grateful for my job (even though I don’t like it). I’m just venting. I promise the next blog will be uplifting.

Good Time For a Blow-Out

My buddy Jordan was in town for the holidays. He’s currently getting his PhD in Bristol, England (jerk!). Jordan has been a close friend of mine for several years now and we’ve had conversations from “Who would you rather date; Angelina Jolie or Jessica Biel?” listing all the pros and cons for each person to discussions of the historical development of Soteriology and how it currently affects the contemporary Christian worldview. We haven’t talked in a few months and were in need of some serious catch-up time. Is there a better way to catch up than to go to a Lakers’ game? I say no.

Last night we attended the Lakers/Mavs game. When we were roommates through graduate school. He was the guy I would take to most of the games. He played basketball in high school and understands the game. It was nothing new to attend a game with him.

However, this time it was different. I have been married for almost a year, and I don’t like my job. I also feel trapped by my job. Jordan makes up his own schedule and meets with his supervisor every few weeks to revise his thesis. Did I mention he’s in Bristol, England (jerk!)? I remember the days in college, having that freedom to spend the majority of your time simply learning and thinking about ideas and concepts; synthesizing all the information you were acquiring, making cross-disciplinary connections, and forming your own conclusions about academic issues and making the bridge to how that affects everyday practical living.

On the other hand, although Jordan is enjoying what he’s doing, he realizes that he’s getting older and wished, to some degree, that he already has his career. There is no guarantee of a job at the other side of his PhD.

So during the game we talked and cheered and talked and cheered and talked and booed and booed some more when Sasha entered the game. Both Jordan and I are at different life stages but are still a huge encouragement to each other. He helped me feel that I was ahead of the game even though I felt trapped. He pointed out how wonderful it is to have a wife like Katie. He also reminded me of how heartbroken I was the 27th time Katie kicked me to the curb, and now I’m married to her. Victory! Life really isn’t so bad.



I pointed out that he has a great opportunity to pursue a career dream and that there is a girl who will be dumb enough to give him a chance out there. My buddy Bryan once told me that he was at a home Bible study once and most of the people were college students asking for prayer to focus on their studies and to do well in school. He thought that it was lame because he was in a “different life-stage” and that kind of stuff didn’t really concern him. I thought to myself, “What a jerk!” If I could have punched him through the phone I would have. He didn’t realize the diversity within the body of Christ is exactly what builds the body of Christ. Although Jordan and I are in different places in life, that in no way hindered our fellowship and even added to our ability to encourage one another.

Surprisingly, I didn’t pay very close attention to the game. It might have been that the Lakers were up 40 at the time (they won by 35) or that I saw Sasha playing. Whatever the case, it was a good night for a blow-out win.