Prayer

I am reading a new book by Tish Harrison Warren entitled Prayer in the Night. She wrote this book after a season of loss she experienced with a move half-way across the country, the passing of her father, and two miscarriages. She recounts how she found great solace in praying. She took up the practice of praying compline, a traditional evening prayer practiced by many Christians, especially within the Anglican communion across the world. In the Prologue she writes, "Most often, we take up prayer not out of triumphant victory or unimpeachable trust but because prayer shapes us; it works back on us to change who we are and what we believe" (9). 

In my own experiences with prayer, I have witnessed how my prayer life is less shaped by me and more about the process of being shaped by the Holy Spirit as I surrender myself to the Lord's authority in my life. Prayer opens me to the possibility of what the Lord is teaching me, sharing with me, and shaping me to become. Prayer opens my heart to those around me experiencing loss or grief. Prayer makes me sensitive to the needs of people I encounter in the coffee shop, at the store, and in my own home. When I pray, my defenses are lowered and I see others the way I see myself, a fragile human in need of God's mercy, grace, and love to make it through each day. 

This week, I have found my prayers opening to me the mystery of our journey towards the cross. It's been a challenging week in our house as we all had to quarantine, but it's been a week in which the Lord opened to me the needs of others in ways that are too often overlooked. 

Giving During Covid-19

One of the things that has been challenging for many churches and other Christian ministries is how to approach the subject of financial giving during the past several weeks. I've had discussions with leadership at our congregation about what our best options moving forward are to ensure that we can continue to facilitate ministry in the days ahead. Each church and ministry must do what they feel is best.

Allow me to offer some thoughts, not from a church standpoint but from an individual standpoint.
Many around us have had hours reduced or jobs completely lost due to Covid-19, we should seek ways to help and minister to them accordingly as the Lord leads us. Fear of the unknown can make us hoard our money during difficult days. Christian ministries and churches are still ministering to people and so we must not give in to the temptation to withhold our gifts and contributions to them. In fact, this may be a time, when we look at our family resources and see if there are ways to contribute over and above what we normally give to ministries and churches to help compensate a loss of financial gifts from others. This is also a time when people may be facing health issues or other burdens that we find ways to help minister to them and meet their needs in tangible ways. Maybe that's a meal, a gift card to a local restaurant, or simply an extra $20 cash for whatever they may need.

In a world that has seen people being greedy and selfish (toilet paper and hand sanitizer depleted in stores) this is a time for Christians to embrace generosity on a completely different level. Again, I know that there is fear of the unknown for many if not all of us, especially financially, but as Christians our faith is not in the stock market or cash reserves, it is in the Lord. We must relearn what it looks like to be dependent on God for all our provisions. Even still, living generously is something we are each called to do. If you are able, be sure to be generous to someone around you in need. If you feel led, give to a ministry around you, to help give them a boost during this difficult season. If you are in a situation in which you can't give financially, pray. Pray for your church and its leaders. Pray for ministries all around your area. Pray for those who are walking through health concerns or job concerns. Pray for our governmental leaders. Pray for healthcare providers. Pray for truck drivers. Pray for grocery store workers. Pray for your family. Just pray.

Prayer and War

A journalist once asked the great spiritual Jewish leader, Abraham Heschel, why he came to a demonstration against the Vietnam War. “I am here because I cannot pray,” Heschel answered. Confused, the journalist asked, “What do you mean, you can’t pray so you come to a demonstration against the war?” Heschel: “Whenever I open the prayerbook, I see before me images of children burning from napalm.” Heshcel meant that we forfeit our right to pray if we are silent about the cruelties surrounding us. “Prayer,” he said, must never be a citadel for selfish concerns but rather a place for deepening concern over other people’s plight.” (See Essential Writings below, 17).

Excerpted from Walter B. Shurden’s preaching Journal, October 2011 Vol. 4 No. 40

The Heart of Prayer

I recently spent some time with one of my favorite authors, Fisher Humphreys. Humphreys writes in a clear, simple yet elegant manner. He always has the ability to take the most complex thing and present it in a way that people can readily understand. In The Heart of Prayer he traces how pray works in our lives as believers in Christ.

No one prays enough, or is good enough, that he deserves to be heard by God. God always listens because he is gracious, not because we deserve it (65). 

He must refrain from trying to manipulate or impress God, because what motivates God to listen and to respond is not any virtue or activity in the one who prays, but rather God's own infinite love (75).

Prayer Part 8

Place your hand over your heart and read this scripture:
"Above all else, guard your heart for it affects everything you do. Avoid all perverse talk: stay far from corrupt speech. Look straight ahead, and fix your eyes on what lies before you. Mark out a straight path for your feet; then stick to the path and stay safe. Don't get sidetracked; keep your feet from following evil." Proverbs 4:23-27
Pray that you wouldn't get sidetracked by the temptation which attacks you every day.

Prayers Part 7

Place one hand on your lips and meditate on this scripture:
"Don't use foul or abusive language. Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them." Ephesians 4:29

Prayers Part 6

"Your eye is a lamp for your body. A pure eye lets sunshine into your soul. But an evil eye shuts out the light and plunges you into darkness. If the light you think you have is really darkness, how deep that darkness will be." Matthew 6:22-23
Place your hands over your eyes and pray that you would have the strength to only look at things which are good and pure.

Prayers Part 5

The Bible also says that "if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong." We know that God throws our sin "as far as the east is from the west." Now that you've confessed, stand with your arms stretched in front of you and your palms up. Picture yourself letting go of a heavy load and thank God for forgiving you.

Prayers Part 4

The Bible says that "all have sinned; all fall short of God's glorious standard." In other words we all mess up. think through the last week and find the moment where you messed up the worst. Think through your conversations, the things you've done with friends, the things you've done while alone, your thoughts, and your actions. When you've found the moment you're most ashamed of, kneel and spend 45 seconds apologizing to God.

Prayers Part 3

In the Old Testament God is often known as the great "I AM." He is the one who always was, who always is, and who is to come. He is Lord of the past, present, and future. Stand up and face the back of the room. Let this symbolize you facing your past. Think through moments where you have seen God work in the past. Pray to God with sentences which start with "God, I saw you working when..." After you have remembered the times when you have known him to be faithful in the past, ask him to continue to be faithful in the future.

Prayers Part 2

Close your right hand into a fist. Then think of five things you are thankful for. As you think of each, raise a finger until your entire hand is open. Then spend 30 seconds saying thank you to God.

Prayers part 1

Tonight we are doing something called "Prayer Experience" with our students so I thought over the next few days or week I would share some of those prayers here.

Dear Jesus, send your Spirit on us so that we will be taught to pray. Prayer is hard, requiring great effort, but when done, effortless. I confess I  have never liked to pray. Prayer is too much like begging. So I have to pray that your generous Spirit will teach me to beg. I beg you to help all of us discover that our lives are constituted by prayer, so that we may be in your world one mighty, joyous prayer. Make us so rested by such prayer, so content to be your people, that we kill no more. Amen (Stanley Hauerwas)

May You Be Filled With Joy

Colossians 1:9-14 (New Living Translation)

So we have not stopped praying for you since we first heard about you. We ask God to give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding. Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit. All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better.
We also pray that you will be strengthened with all his glorious power so you will have all the endurance and patience you need. May you be filled with joy, always thanking the Father. He has enabled you to share in the inheritance that belongs to his people, who live in the light. For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins.

I read this passage about a week ago and was reminded of a couple of things:

• I need God's strength and power so that I can have patience and endurance
• I long for my life to always be filled with joy, which it usually is
• I was once a slave to sin and the powers of darkness but now I am set free by the power of the cross
• I always want to grow and push others around me to grow
• No matter what we go through or experience God is always with us and at work in our lives as Christians

The interesting thing is that I have had literally countless conversations and/or encounters this week with people and this passage would pop into my mind. It's almost as if God has made this my prayer for people this week...I can't seem to move past the thoughts that Paul has in mind here. I can't believe how God breaks through the ordinary and mundane of our lives to give us a glimpse of his goodness and glory!

Thoughts on Prayer from Yancey

This quote was at the heading of chapter 7 in Philip Yancey's book on Prayer: Biblical Prayer is impertinent, persistent, shameless, indecorous. It is more like haggling in an outdoor bazaar than the polite monologues of the church. Walter Wink

Yancey also shared this story that I found convicting as a minister but more importantly as a believer.

The church I attend reserves a brief time in which people in the pews can voice aloud their prayers. Over the years I have heard hundreds of these prayers, and with very few exceptions the word polite indeed applies. One, however, stands out in my memory because of its raw emotion.

In a clear but wavering voice a young woman began with the words, "God, I hated you after the rape! How could you let this happen to me?" The congregation abruptly fell silent. No more rustling of papers or shifting in the seats. "And I hated the people in this church who tried to comfort me. I didn't want comfort. I wanted revenge. I wanted to hurt back. I thank you, God, that you didn't give up on me, and neither did some of these people. You kept after me, and I come back to you now and ask that you heal the scars in my soul."

Of all the prayers I have heard in church, that one most resembles the style of prayers I find replete in the Bible, especially those from God's favorites such as Abraham and Moses.

What a powerful picture of redemption! What a powerful picture of the true nature of prayer, a soul sliced open before God...needing his touch and presence more than anything else.