The Everyday Prayer

Re:Verse passage – Luke 11:5-13 (day four)

At first glance, this passage can be puzzling. Are we waking a sleeping deity when we pray persistently? Do we simply annoy God into answering our prayers? Of course not. Jesus is saying that if a reluctant neighbor is willing to honor your persistence, how much more will the Father who loves you?

It seems to me that the Lord honors his children who stay leaned in, who are willing to wrestle in prayer. I’m reminded of Genesis 32 when Jacob wrestles with God. Jacob is persistent, he stays engaged and he receives a blessing. Our persistence doesn’t badger God, it honors him. Every time we ask, seek, and knock, we’re proclaiming that we believe God is who he says he is – a good Father who is mighty enough to meet our every need.

So go ahead – ask with persistence, keep knocking, wake the neighbors, seek the Lord shamelessly in prayer. The Lord is faithful to open the door.

Re:Verse passage – Luke 11:5-13 (day three)

“…yet because of his persistence he will get up and give him as much as he needs.”

One of the recurring assurances Jesus makes is that you are not at the mercy of the universe, but rather at the mercy of God. The created order – gravity, space, time, light, quantum particles, chemical reactions – is impersonal. God, on the other hand, is a person, and good. This is why when you ask, seek, knock, you will receive, you will find, the door will open. God responds and the universe yields. Asking, seeking, knocking – these actions are forms of persistence, and this impersonal cosmos will open up to beings created in God’s image. You’re not shouting into the void; you’re shouting into God’s ear.

Re:Verse passage – Luke 11:5-13 (day two) If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?” vs. 13

Do you ever reach a point with your friends or family where you stop asking for help? You don’t want to be ‘that guy’ where everyone runs for cover when they see you coming. Maybe you have things going on in your life that are just not quite right, but you you think you have gone to the well one too many times. When we think this way about the Lord we have sorely misjudged his capacity to listen. This kind of thinking leads to a skewed relationship with the Lord. If this passage says anything, it speaks to the demand that we be persistent. God understands our situation, but he also requires us to be honest and completely trusting in his ability to hear and act according to his great will.

As an aside, let me add my request before my church family. Today, the Youth Worship team begins day three of ministry in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. We will be serving all week long in missions, food banks, and other ministries that serve the underprivileged. Yesterday, they led worship for a church in Calgary and sang for a retirement community. We will sing in several other places along the way. I am asking you to pray for their strength, rest, endurance, and boldness.

Re:Verse passage – Romans 8:26-27 (day seven)

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good. Romans 8:28a

Have you realized how closely connected these passages are? I have typically separated these verses in my mind as two separate acts, but that is not the case. The Holy Spirit is interceding in your prayer life to help get your prayers into God’s good plan.

Has God ever answered your prayer in a completely different way than you originally prayed for? In those moments the Holy Spirit shows you how God’s good plan working in and through your prayers. Could it be that the “we do not know how to pray as we should” statement could also be in reference to when our prayers are not in line with the will of God? Even then, the Holy Spirit intercedes and molds those prayers so that all things work for our good within His plan.

Re:Verse passage – Romans 8:26-27(day six)

For he knows how weak we are; he remembers we are only dust. Psalm 103:14

We tend to suffer disappointment on our worst days. We wish we could be more hopeful. We think if only I had more faith, I wouldn’t be so anxious or discouraged. Most often, we don’t stop there but project that disappointment onto others and even God. We can’t imagine him being anything but disappointed in our lack of faith.

BUT instead of disappointment from God, we receive help from him on those worst days.

Now all glory to God, who is able to keep you from falling away and will bring you with great joy into his glorious presence without a single fault. Jude 24

 

Re:Verse passage – Romans 8:26-27(day five) “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness.”
The human heart can be so prideful. We don’t like to admit or even recognize our own weakness. Ever have a hard time saying any of the following: “I was wrong”, “I don’t know”, “I am scared”, “I don’t understand”?  The effects of living in a broken creation cause all kinds of circumstances (physical, emotional, social) that bring fear, anxiety, doubt, and disappointment to name a few. Make no mistake, suffering can bring a feeling of weakness to us. And with all these feelings and emotions, sometimes words can’t or don’t come. I like the ESV translation. “Spirit helps us IN our weakness”. In the very midst of the sufferings and struggles (weakness) the Spirit helps us by directing and connecting  the deepest places of our troubled hearts to the Lord through prayer. Isn’t that remarkable? Praise God for His perfect love and care for us, especially in our weakness!!

Re:Verse passage – Romans 8:26-27 (day four)

There are moments in life that are simply too big to fit into language. Sometimes our circumstances are so heavy, so agonizing that all we can do is fall at the Lord’s feet and groan. Other times, our joy is so great and overwhelming that the only sensical thing to do is shout and dance. Then there are times where we simply can’t find where to start. Language is amazing, but it is still limited. We know that there is no word uttered on this earth that can adequately describe God – because he is bigger than language too.

So if the God to whom we pray is bigger than language, and we experience moments in life bigger than language, then it must be so that prayer can happen without uttering a word. Sometimes our most meaningful moments of prayer are when we simply hold up our hearts before the Lord with shaking hands. We can do this because the Spirit that dwells in us and intercedes for us is the very Spirit of God himself. He is both that intimate and that cosmic. I am so glad that words can’t contain our God.

Re:Verse passage – Romans 8:26-27 (day three)

“He intercedes for the saints…”

Paul’s words are a straight line from Jesus’s promise to send a comforter, his promise never to leave or forsake. Paul is not restating Jesus’s promise here. He’s not saying, “Remember what Jesus said.” Rather, he’s telling you in this passage that he has experienced what Jesus promised. He couldn’t have written these words with such clarity and such a sense of actuality unless he had witnessed such intervention from heaven firsthand. And in the way he phrases his words, you can hear that Paul isn’t claiming that his experience is an outlier. Paul often takes pains to communicate that he faces life’s drudgeries and pains just as you do. If somebody like him has known the Spirit’s presence when he hadn’t a clue how to proceed, you will too.

Re:Verse passage – Romans 8:26-27 (day two) 

for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; vs. 26b

Places where we are weak are often areas where we simply don’t know how to advance, grow, or get better. Where we lack a vision to move beyond weakness, we become stuck. If we are faithful to pray, even in our lack of clarity and understanding, the Spirit begins to provide to traction to move. We begin, because we were faithful, to grow out of complacency or despondency. Our words begin to grasp our situation and we understand our dependency on the power of the Spirit. What begins with confusion will produce spiritual fruit if we will commit to pray…even when we don’t know the words.