The Everyday Prayer

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

It is the first fact we need for friendship.  Some mental “file folder” for all of our subsequent observations and experiences.  What is your name?  In Exodus 3, when God speaks from the burning bush, it is the question that Moses asks.  He needed some way to tell others,  some description or summary of God’s character, some beginning point for his own understanding.  God’s answer?  I AM (YHWH–Jehovah).  No beginning.  No end.  The one permanent existence in the universe.   When Jesus taught us to pray “Hallowed be thy NAME”, He was pointing to this beginning.  None of us knows everything about God.  He is a vast mystery.  All of us know something about God.  He has given us His NAME (made even clearer in Christ).  If God exists, do you think that we should be grateful for every communication of Himself ?  If He told us His name, would we treasure, guard, and reflect on it?  Would we hallow it?

I hope you will take your time this morning (if not this morning, today or tonight before you sleep). I hope you will say the first two words of the Lord’s prayer and linger long enough for them to stretch your heart. Say “FATHER” and realize that you are talking with someone so large and beautiful that His concerns and wisdom are necessarily different than yours. Don’t hide from Him!  For a moment, worship Him, lay yourself before Him in glad surrender.  Shape your prayer around Him and His will.  Then say “OUR Father”.  Even when we are alone with God, we are not alone.  Our children, friends, church, nation, the whole “prodigal world” should be in our thoughts.  Don’t just think of your needs today.  Include others!  The first two words are a quick start, but they cannot be done quickly.  Runners are told to stretch before they run.  Stretching your heart is part of the preparation for prayer, too, but it takes some time.