The Everyday Prayer

It is a common tragedy.  A Christian stuck in the “ditch of disappointment” aka unforgiveness.   We rarely say “He hurt me and now I have retained a resentment toward him”.   We give ourselves too much credit for passing through the stage of “boiling hatred” not admitting that the simmering “record of wrong” stage is still with us.  The tragedy is the impact  on our own life and energy. “Keep fervent in your love for one another for love covers a multitude of sins”. (1 Peter 4:8)   If abundant life is what you desire, one of the disciplines is to release others fully from your judgement re. their failures.  Imagine a dry, bare spot in your backyard.  Think of the work required (planting, watering, fertilizing) so that it can be covered.  Think of the daily effort, the determination.  Now think of doing that with your brother’s sin.  Hard work?  Yes.  Love?  Same answer.  “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

“Now unto Him who is able to do far more abundantly above all we ask or think.”  (Ephesians 3:20)  Part of prayer’s purpose, I believe, is to help us embrace a dream.  The Bible reveals a God who is able to act in the world for our good and His glory in ways that we cannot imagine.  So, perhaps we should (imagine).  One of the affects of sin is severely lowered expectation.  We become “earth-bound”, desiring only to “get by”, empty of any dream of glory.  When Jesus taught us to pray “Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory”, He was insisting that His children think again of what God has and is willing to share with those who are surrendered to Him in obedience and faith.  What is God able to do?  For us?  For others?  Part of our privilege is to ask and then to imagine even more.

Parenthood, perhaps, is the closest we get to loving in a divine way–love that wakes you up in the night to feed a baby, or keeps you up to wait for an after-curfew teenager, love given freely, love given even when it is not appreciated.  When we pray “Father” we surrender to the life-altering fact that we are loved by God in this same way!  We are not defined by our hurts.  Our lives are love stories.   “May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, long, high and deep His love really is.” (Ephesians 3:17-18)  Dear friend, today as you pray, will you sink your roots deeper and deeper into the soil of God’s love?  Will you open your heart to the concern and help of a perfect Father?

What would happen if we could focus our attention on today?  Whether it is a diet or a desire to share our faith, what if we asked God to help us, just for the next 24 hours?  Isn’t a lifetime of discipline just a collection of successful days?  Isn’t it the focus on outcomes that usually become so overwhelming that we give up?  I do not think that Jesus was thinking about diet or discipline when He taught us to pray “Give us this day our daily bread”.  I do think that He knew the human heart and what it takes to move successfully through life.  Maybe He was teaching us to start with small victories and then to string them together like pearls.   What would happen if we asked God to give us what we needed for life . . .just for today?

One of the unspoken values of daily prayer is that it “reconnects” us with ourselves.  As you probably know, it is possible to believe one thing and feel another, sometimes without even being aware of it.  (We can believe that God loves us and at the same time feel very anxious or nothing at all).  While faith is not ruled by feelings, neither is it God’s will for our minds and hearts to be permanently disconnected.  Part of prayer’s purpose, I’m convinced, is to facilitate a daily renewal of hope and trust and courage (the feelings that God intends for us).  As you pray today will you take note of the places where you are saying one thing but feeling another?  Will you hold this “disconnect” up to the One who can fix it?  “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience. . .”  All of these are choices, true, but aren’t they also feelings?

“A radical readjustment to my perspective on this life and the next” is what Nancy Guthrie says she needed when two of her children died in infancy from a rare genetic disorder. ( The One Year Book of Hope, Tyndale Press) It was not a luxury for her.  It was a survival necessity.  Perhaps, this is why Jesus teaches us to pray.  He knows that we live in a “pain-saturated, sin-soaked, darkness-loving world” and that only a vision of a “pain-free, perfect place ablaze with the glory of Christ” will sustain us.  Today when I pray “Thy kingdom come” I will ask God for this radical readjustment in my own life.  I will ask Him to change my perspective on where I am heading and what ultimately matters.  Friend, will you join me in saying these words, not with your lips, but with your heart.? Do you need a radical readjustment to your perspective?

“Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me” (Luke 7:23).  It was a hard moment for John the Baptist.  In prison.  Confused.  Life had taken an unexpected turn.  He sent his questions to Jesus.  Jesus sent back this encouragement, “do not fall away because what I do is not what you expected”.  Hard times often take us by suprise.  In them, we either turn away from God or turn toward Him.  Part of the equation for prayer is a deep trust in God’s goodness and wisdom.  This morning in worship, I will teach that Jesus is the light of the world (John 8).  A guiding light.  When we pray, “Thy will be done”, we are surrendering our dreams and clinging to Him with faith-born confidence that God knows the right path for us.  Even when it is painful or difficult.  “Blessed is the man/woman who does not fall away.”

“Call unto Me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things that you do not know” (Jeremiah 33:3).  This morning, I will meet with members of our church for the second day of strategic planning.  One of the humbling, exciting dynamics of “planning” is that we do not know the future or God’s deeper purposes.  We do not know which hard path is intended for His glory and our good.  We do not know which easy path will actually be a dead end.  Only He can show us and He does so in answer to prayer.  When we say “lead us not into temptation” we are opening your hearts to the direction of God, even when it is different than we were expecting.  “Your Father (and ONLY your Father) knows what you need” (Matthew 6:8).

The danger of an emphasis like theeverydayprayer is that it may, unintentionally, communicate that prayer always involves us “saying something”.  It doesn’t. This week, I went away for a time of prayer and seeking the Lord.  The very idea sounds “monkish” to some, but it follows, I think, the wisdom of Christ to take the time that is necessary to be still before God.(Mark 1:5)  I learned this week (again) how difficult this can be.  I’m programmed for action!  I have NOT been trained to wait, but to solve problems and move forward!  Today, I invite you to name the subjects of the Lord’s prayer, (His kingdom, His will, daily bread etc) and rather than talk, just rest with the subject “on the table” between yourself and God.  Listen re. this subject.  Let Him teach you a new way to think and, as a result, a new way to pray.  “In repentance and rest you shall be saved, in quietness and trust is your strength” Isaiah 30:15