Six card revision
Saturday, 10 November, 2007
We cannot get internet at our house today, and perhaps it is just as well because Ben needs to study and I always get distracted by it anyway. I console myself by saying I can use the day to catch up on all the things I've been meaning to do for the past six months—one of which is revising my prayer cards. I've been operating on the six card system for a number of years now. I usually pray through one card per day but given I often don't get to pray every day, the six cards prevents me from feeling guilty about it because there are only six cards, not seven. The Bible Brief section in The Briefing is written with the same principle in mind: you might not get to read the Bible every day or you might want to do something other than the Bible Brief studies, so that's why there are only 20 studies in each one, not 30 or 31. I think that is one of the chief problems with the Robert Murray M'Cheyne Bible Reading plan: it does not take sin into account (that's why I never stick to the dates when I do it). (Of course, there is always the danger that I will use my freedom to slack off, and that has happened before, but I figure that when I fail, it's best I don't beat myself up about it so that guilt becomes an excuse not to read my Bible or pray.)
The last time I did a revision of the cards was in 2005 and now things are looking very different. I've been meaning to do it for a while—in fact, I started a couple of months ago—but it was around the time my grandma died and it was too hard to take both her and Ben's grandmother off the list. It's hard to take anyone off the list, but at the same time I know I need to be wise about these things and recognise that there are some people that I just don't have a relationship with any more so I don't know what to pray for them, and there are some people who really ought to have been added to the cards a long time ago. So begins the rather painful process of working out who should come off and who should be added, and I try to shrug off the nagging feeling I'm being faithless to some of these people. Still, I need to be realistic: I cannot pray for everyone.
The cards are roughly divided into the following categories:
- Family (the shortest card);
- Friends and blogroll;
- Church (including the churches I used to go to, the Anglican Church of Australia, the Archbishop and the Dean [I'm not Anglican but I pray for them anyway]);
- Universities (meaning ECU Wollongong and Campus Bible Study UNSW and associated people);
- Bible college (Moore plus a couple of others who don't go to Moore); and
- Missionaries (in which I've lumped not just the CMS missionaries but also AFES, Christians in the Media, CASE, Matthias Media and our writing group, Word by Word).
Most of the people I pray for fall into one or more of the groups but I try to just put them in one group (Little, for some reason, gets on the list twice because she's with ECU Wollongong and I also associate her with Seamus under Bible college). I also try to pray for people in couples (e.g. Brandon and Wendy, Ben and Lorien, Haoran and Sarah, Guan and Mary) but their names don't get coupled together on the card unless they're married or about to be (so Fish and Judith get prayed for separately).
Ben is supposed to be on every card since he's my most important prayer priority. But at the moment he's not on every card so I need to fix that.
When life circumstances change, I wonder whether I should be creating new categories or making other categories obsolete. For example, I'm no longer as involved with Bible college as I was in 2005 but instead most of my time is spent at Matthias Media (which currently only rates as one entry on the “Missionaries” card). Should I be devoting one whole card to MM? (Lots of things to pray for there!) (I think I'll probably make that one half Bible college and half MM which, unfortunately, splits up all the writing ministries but oh well.)
And then the other question is whether to tell people I'm praying for them. Sometimes I feel uncomfortable about doing it. Richard always used to say that it's encouraging for them, but sometimes, to me, it sounds like boasting. Or it feels embarrassing (but I don't know why it does). At the same time, when people tell me they've been praying for me and they're sincere about it—sincere enough to be asking how I am and what they can be praying for me and how did that thing go that I asked them to pray about last time?—it's really nice. So perhaps the telling depends on relationship and context. I will have to think about that some more.
Blinks:
A way of funding writing in the future: pitch and idea and get people to support it.
Place where you can hire play equipment for parties, etc.
How to recalibrate the home button on your iPhone.
Unsolicited manuscripts accepted by Pan Macmillan with certain conditions.
Thought Balloon is a group blog in which the writers tackle a new theme every week? month? with one-page scripts. This URL is for their Phonogram ones.
How to sew a zipper on a knitted garment.
Issues organised by tale.
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When you say cards, do you mean literal 5"x7” cards, or does it work a different way?
I usually print out my lists and stick them to index cards ... the little ones. I forget what size they are in inches. They get fastened together with a little foldback clip and they normally lie around next to my Bible and For the Love of God (Volume 2) by Carson. That’s normally on the dining table, unless we have company, in which case it all gets moved to the bookcase. Okay, I’m rambling. Why do you ask?
As far as telling people you are praying for them, I personally feel it is really encouraging to be told that. Its nice to know people are thinking of you and care about the important things in your life.
But if people want to pray and not tell me, I’m all for that too.
I pray for you from time to time, but then my prayer life is about as disorganized as your is organized.
8-)
Matt
Thanks Matt! I do appreciate the prayers, even if they’re disorganized! I don’t think God cares about their organizational state.
It’s there infrequency (as a result of disorganisation), rather than their organisation that worries me…
mostly trying to picture how the system would work… I have a lot of 5x7 cards in my life, but they’re mostly greek vocab and essay-writing notes.
it’s getting to the new-years’-resolution season, and having some kind of disciplined system for prayer sounds like a good thing to consider for 08.
I like your idea! I have a box of cards, which was this grand idea I invented, but it’s too complicated and it doesn’t work - and basically I don’t do it. Sometimes the simpler things are far more doable and productive.