The Everyday Prayer

Prayer requires effort.  It is often the hardest job of the day. It is engagement with God.  It requires determination and honesty.  Read Genesis 32.  In verse 11 Jacob prays, “deliver me from Esau, for I fear him”.  Later in the same night (vs 24), he begins to wrestle with an unknown assailant  (identified as God in vs 30).  In some ways,  Jacob was doing what he had always done, fighting for his life.  But this time he was fighting in a new way, he was struggling with God, holding on to God, determined to have his answer from God.  It was hard work, and God could have ended the match at any time.  Instead, the Father  seems to welcome and honor his persistence.  In a few hours we will gather for worship. ( John 20–doubting Thomas).  Would Thomas have been closer to God for not expressing his doubts?  Do we gain anything by not being honest, by not wrestling?  I am praying for you this morning.  See you in a few hours.

If prayer is an expression of helplessness (see yesterday’s blog), it is also an act of assertiveness. If it requires us to admit our weakness, it also, and at the same moment, insists that we recognize our strength, our standing with God,our opportunity to “use” our relationship with God for His purposes.  Read Genesis 18.  Notice how Abraham bargains with God for the salvation of the righteous. ” Will you spare the city for 50 righteous?”  40? 30? 20? 10?  On and on he pushes the argument and each time God grants his request.  It leads us to conclude that God, all along, was looking for an advocate, a human being bold enough to express God’s  deepest intention (mercy).  Prayer is service to others.  Prayer is service to God.  Will you pray today with all your strength?  Will you believe God that He has made you His child and that you have influence before Him that should be used in His service?

“Only he who is helpless can truly pray.”–Ole Hallesby   From birth we aspire to self-reliance.  Adults celebrate it as a triumph when children learn to do something on their own: go to the bathroom, get dressed, brush teeth, tie shoe laces.  We continue this pattern as adults.  We like to pay our own way, live in our own houses, make our own decisions.  Until we meet Christ who challenges the very idea of self-reliance.  “Apart from Me you can do nothing”.  Asking for help lies at the very root of the Lord’s prayer.  The prayer itself is a string of requests.  Admitting that we need help and that we are not spineless whiners to ask for it can be a huge breakthrough for those who want to know God.  “Prayer is our declaration of dependence” says Philip Yancey.  Needing God is not a bad thing.  Jesus knew this better than anyone.

“Forgive us our trespasses.” Real prayer can be painful.  Like an argument with your spouse that moves gradually toward the conclusion that you owe him/her an apology,  one of the ingredients of a quality relationship with God is the confession of sin.  We need to admit wrong, for our own good.   Prayer, after all, is the currency of relationship.  Repressed issues don’t go away.  They get worse.  So even when I am unaware of my selfishness or stubbornness (I often am),  the bible teaches me to to pray, “Search me, O God. . .see if there is any offensive way in me”  (Psalm 139)  “Jesus warned his disciples not to pray like hypocrites. . .instead, they should go into a closet. . .(a place) that fosters complete honesty with God” (Yancey)  Get alone!  Get honest!  These are the Lord’s instructions to those of us who want a quality relationship with Him.

“Be still and know that I am God” (Psalms 46:10) is a real challenge in a modern age that conspires against it.  Mystery, awareness of a spiritual world, even a few moments of quiet do not come naturally in our hectic, buzzing world.  Before prayer becomes “something I say”, it must first be many “things I don’t say”.   Fear.  Resentment.  Ambition.  As I grow quiet before the Lord, I realize that none of them are the things I really want to say to the Lord.  As I wait before Him, better words come.  Praise.  Peace.  Gratitude.  Requests for His help–coupled with the faith to believe that He will answer.   Maybe I am unique in this, but when I am still, my words change.  I am praying for you today.  I am asking God to give you a few moments to be still.

Even with the words of Christ, we must be reminded that prayer is always more than words.   Philip Yancey points to the fact that the important thing is not what I say, but what I see.  “Prayer has become for me much more than a shopping list of requests to present to God.  It has become a realignment of everything. . .In prayer I shift the view away from my own selfishness. . .I gaze at the stars and recall what role (small) I play in a universe beyond my comprehension.  Prayer is the act of seeing reality from God’s point of view.” (Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference?)  Today as you pray, will you focus on the Lord and learn a new perspective on yourself and your needs?  Like Job, will you embrace a big God and your own smallness?  Look up, dear friend!  Let what you see shape what you say!

It is a statement I hear often.  Last week, Brad Livingston reported the experience of being “prayed for by so many” before, during and after Julie’s surgery.  They felt, (his words) a supernatural peace.  A hospital worker noticed it.  She told them she could feel the peace in Julie’s hospital room.  Every faith has some form of prayer.  Remote tribes, Muslims, Hindus, Christians, Jews.  It is a deep intuition of the human heart that God desires and deserves to be spoken to.  He is ” a very present help in time of trouble”.  Thank you, dear friend, for your commitment to this year long prayer experience.  Please do not let the daily discipline become a mere repetition of words.  “Those who CALL on the name of the Lord will be saved.”  There is power here–for us and for others.

“Now on the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread”  (Acts 20:7)  The scripture does not command  Christians to set aside one day a year to celebrate the Resurrection (Easter).  The biblical model is to gather on the first day of every week for this purpose.  What a subtle and powerful shift of thinking this is!  Rather than meet on the 7th day in commemoration of creation, we meet on the 1st day in celebration of the new creation!  Rather than resting from our labors we find our “rest” in Christ and look foward to the adventures ahead with Christ as our risen leader!  In a few hours, the people and pastors of FBC will gather with just such enthusiasm.  Our prayers and our songs will be lifted to the Lord with the confidence that He will revive us and send us back into the world in victorious service.  Today is the first day of a new week.  It can be the first day of a new life.

“When they got out on the land, they saw a charcoal fire already laid and fish placed on it, and bread.”  (John 21:9)  One of the resurrections stories tells of Christ fixing breakfast for the disciples!  What a beautiful thought.  Cosmic power and concern for practical things.  The fourth petition of the Lord’s prayer (give us this day our daily bread) teaches us to speak to the Lord re. our practical needs, because He cares.  It is a prayer of trust. “Every good gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17).  It also assumes responsible effort.  “Bring some of the fish which you have now caught” (John 21:10), says the Lord as a reminder that one of the ways He will answer our prayer for bread is by blessing our efforts.  Take courage, dear friend.  The Lord is near.  He cares about our needs.  Ask!  Obey!  Trust!

“Be doers of the word, not merely hearers.”  (James 1:22)  The great design of God in His word is to make us doers of His will.  What we DO is our witness to others.  “They will see your good works and glorify your Father”  (Matthew 5:16)  What we DO is proof to God of our genuine love.  “He who has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me.”  (John 14:21)  The third petition of the Lord’s prayer asks “Thy will be DONE”.  Nothing will ever bless your life more than the doing of God’s will.  Nothing will make you more like Christ. One act of obedience is better than a thousand pledges of our love for God.   Friend, today as you pray, will you ask God to help you discern and DO His will?