In last week’s blog we touched on ways we can use the Bible as a means to grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. This week we discuss how prayer helps us grow in our faith in Jesus and love for Him and His people.
Can I start with an easy, simple and straightforward step to healthier prayer? Purchase the book, A Praying Life by Paul Miller. Read it carefully and thoughtfully. If you want to go deeper, go to Miller’s website and purchase the DVD of the Praying Life seminary. There are countless books on prayer- this has been helpful to many of us here at Grace.
If you are struggling with prayer, you’re probably not alone. We all have more things on our daily to-do list than we can get done. We are stressed out! We aren’t getting enough sleep. The idea of waking up even earlier to have quiet prayer with God is a real struggle. By the end of the day we are ready to put our brains in neutral for a bit, and prayer seems as attractive as your least favorite vegetable. We pastors talk about prayer as an essential of Christian living, which only heaps guilt on you because you aren’t praying much now.
I can’t think of anything more contrary to the spirit of our day than quiet moments of any kind, much less for prayer. I think you will find that calming your heart and mind before God and making space to think of Him, praise Him, thank Him, and ask for His help may be more helpful and refreshing than you expected. But, like so many other helpful and refreshing things in life, you have to make some changes to your schedule, you have to get started, and you have to find something that you will actually do. If you comment to pray for 30 minutes every day, and you are struggling to find 5 minutes now, you will fail. If you started praying 5-10 minutes in personal prayer three times a week, in a discipline that helped you, you’d find time to make it five times a week, and in time you’d be praying longer.
Two practices I want to mention that have helped me:
The ancient practice of meditative prayer has been helpful to me these last few years. This article has a helpful methodology to link prayer and reading the Scriptures. Another book that could help you learn more about this kind of prayer is Foster’s Sanctuary of the Soul.
I find this type of prayer challenging and refreshing. In this method, I might come across a verse like “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35) and dwell on it and mull over it. I pray the verse back to God, letting my mind be filled with the truth of God. I am not emptying my mind of all conscious thought, but filling my mind with God’s truth and allowing my heart to experience God through His Word. In this verse, I’m told that through receiving and believing Christ feeds my soul. I might think a lot about the individual words a lot in the beginning, and by the end of my think I’m simply trusting in Christ to feed me, quiet and peaceful before the Lord in prayer.
This prayer seeks to align us with the reality of God the Holy Spirit in our lives. He lives within us. He can fill and refresh us. By filling our minds with the words the Holy Spirit inspired, we can enjoy God and align ourselves with him for the day ahead (whether it is morning or evening).
A second practice that I do is discussed during Foundations back in January. Prayer is for the feeding of our soul, but Jesus teaches us a prayer which covers other important topics, and has us praying for the expansion of Christ’s rule on earth. It teaches us selfless praying. It moves us away from “Give me! Give me! Give me!” praying toward praying for God’s priorities first, with our needs also receiving attention. I have a card box with index cards under each category of the Lord’s Prayer. I go through one or two cards from each category each time I pray in this manner - several times a week for me. Thus I am petitioning for the advance of God’s kingdom through missionaries, and confessing my sin, and seeking to forgive others all in the same few minutes of prayer. This method helps me to truthfully say to people, “I’m praying for you”.
There are giant questions that we could spend much more time on. Does prayer change things? Does God really answer prayer? If God is sovereign over all things, how does prayer work? Many say prayer changes us, and I believe that is true, especially of meditative prayer where we are enjoying God and delighting in Him. God is sovereign, and the promises of God are profound. God answers prayer. God uses prayer in His sovereign plan for all things to accomplish His will. He commands me to pray and encourages me to pray in His Word through various key passages. We pray to our Abba Father (Romans 8:15-17). We are to view prayer boldly going into the King’s throne room with our requests (Hebrews 4:14-16), expecting to receive a merciful welcome. I can’t understand how it all fits. He tells me it does fit, and when I pray I find remarkable things happen to me, and for me, and the people for whom I pray.
I hope that helps and gets you moving a good direction with prayer!
In Him,
Don