Cliche

I'm a student of rhetoric. I love to listen to people speak. Watch the ability of a speaker to move an audience. Hone my skills to be the best communicator of the gospel I can be.

Because of my interest in speech I think I listen with different intent than most people. I become very conscious of the words that are being used, and what they actually mean. I am aware of it in my own speaking. Anyone who has accused me of saying something that I didn't knows that I'll tell you exactly what I said, the words I used, and the meaning in that context. I'm keyed in on words.

I have become much more careful about the use of cliches. The reason is that by definition they are a trite saying. They are gross generalizations that carry little credibility. I strive to be very specific when I speak.

But there is one cliche that has been ringing in my mind of late, and I have been trying to explain it away through specific examples, but I have come up short.

The family that prays together, stays together.

Cliche or not, I believe that this is more than a trite saying. This is the key to breaking bondage in our homes. Families are bound up in all kinds of things that are holding them back from the life that God wants for them.

Families, pray together!

Pray together in your home, in your bedrooms. Pray at your meals together. Attend a church together so regularly it's the norm. Remember Jesus said, "My house shall be called a house of prayer." Pray with each other, pray for each other, and pray for others.

The most meaningful times of prayer in my family growing up were when in addition to our normal prayers we would "adopt" a need from another family or friend. We would pray for them until our prayers were answered. It's a practice that my family now practices in my home. It is moving when among my 3 year old daughters prayer requests she lists my friends going through a divorce, or the daughter of a friend of mine with cancer. At three she already knows that our family stands on prayer. When she's sick or hurt, she wants to be picked up, held, and then says, "Daddy, pray to Jesus for me."

My home isn't perfect. I'm not a perfect husband, father, or man in general. And that may be why I hold even tighter to this thought. Every natural person in the world looks only to their own control to manage their life. As a spiritual person we realize that there is another choice. An option that outweighs our own frailty. We can turn to God through His Son, Jesus Christ. We can lift up our prayer to him. We can tell him our need and ask, plead, and beg for help. And then we can be assured, peaceful. He will care for us. He doesn't always do what we ask Him to. It we were to expect him to then we contradict our own faith. Many people carry this contradiction, it's no wonder they wobble on the footing of faith. James tells us that a double minded man is unstable in all his ways. When we try to give control to God, but hold onto control in our lives we can never fully rest in the peace of God.

Resting in his peace comes through prayer. Pray together. Stay together.

--Ben