Thoughts On Prayer (Part II)…

This is the 16th blog post that I have written on prayer over the years. Why so many?

• Because prayer is so foundational to being a Christian.
• Because so few of us are learning to really pray (for it to be a lifestyle/entree instead of an event/side dish).
• Because so many of us, therefore, are building our Christian lives on a shaky foundation; that is, a foundation that doesn’t have prayer as a cornerstone.
• Because so many of us are hurting, really hurting, as Christians, from our own sinful decisions, from others’ sinful decisions, and from the devil’s sinful decisions.
• Because so many of us, therefore, are missing out on the healing, the comfort, the encouragement, and the strength that God wants to give us through prayer.
• If you are getting annoyed—a little bit or a lot!—at us continuing to learn about prayer, please bear with me, if for no other reason than I need to learn how to really pray, and teaching you what God is teaching me is one of the best ways for me to really learn…

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Examples of ways to pray: Breath prayers. These are fantastic. 5-10 second prayers as you are going about your daily life.

 

1. When you think of someone, especially someone you haven’t thought of in a long time, say a quick prayer for them. I believe God sometimes brings people to our attention as a reminder to pray for them that moment because they are going through something at that moment that requires prayer!
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2. When you drive by the building of your local church, say a quick prayer for God to help the congregation grow closer to Him and to each other and to shine for Him in the community (just don’t close your eyes when you say that prayer as you are driving)! 🙂
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3. When you are stopped at a red light and see someone driving who looks exhausted, frustrated, sad, etc., say a breath prayer for them–God knows what they need!
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4. When you eat at a restaurant or walk into a store, say a breath prayer for everyone in the store to accept Jesus as their Savior and to follow Him as their King–to lay hold of, by faith, the real life that He offers them (John 10:10)!
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5. When you think of someone who has hurt you in the past, say a breath prayer for them–for God to bless them!–instead of stewing in anger or resentment!
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6. Now these should not replace longer times of slowing down and quietly praying (Luke 5:16–please click HERE)—Jesus didn’t do a 10 second breath prayer in the Garden of Gethsemene; he prayed for hours (Matthew 26:36-44–please click HERE)! Jesus didn’t do a breath prayer before He chose the 12 disciples; He prayed all night long without sleep (Luke 6:12-16–please click HERE)! But breath prayers are a great supplement to our prayer life, like doing a few crunches/push-ups during a commercial of a t.v. program is a great way to supplement your exercise routine.

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Dare for Faithfulness (in prayer in particular and in following Jesus in general): Daniel 6:10-11:

“Now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published [to kill anyone who prayed to anyone other than the king of Babylon], he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before. 11 Then these men went as a group and found Daniel praying and asking God for help.”

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Daniel was faithful/consistent in his prayers—three distinct times every day he prayed to God, giving thanks and asking for help. God wants to teach us to be faithful and consistent as well! But here’s the problem: Many of us are scared by faithfulness and consistency, whether in prayer or some other aspect of following Jesus. Why?
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1. Faithfulness and consistency often seem like legalism, often seem like being a Pharisee, and we don’t want that! While Jesus had very harsh words for the Pharisees, He also had harsh words for those who settled for mediocrity, for those who out of fear (maybe fear of becoming Pharisees!) buried in the ground the talents/gifts/faith/mission that was entrusted to them by God, those who “played it safe” by risking nothing (Matthew 25:24-30–please click HERE).
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• Many will get to heaven and proudly show off how clean our uniforms are while our Coach, Jesus, will remind us that our uniforms are only clean because we refused to come off the bench, get in the game, and learn from Him how to be faithful/consistent. This is NOT something to be proud of.

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2. It’s usually “safer” to stay immature (to not learn how to be faithful and consistent in following Jesus)—less will be asked of us! Many want as little responsibility as possible with as much reward as possible. Where those two lines intersect is where many Christians are content to stay in their growth/maturity. Deep down, we realize that if we get more faithful/mature/consistent in our walk with Jesus, He is going to put us in even more difficult situations to help us grow even more! It’s safer to stay in junior high for the rest of our lives rather than risk the difficulties of high school, college, and beyond. This happens more often than we realize, and it is absolutely scandalous for Christians—we were made to grow, closer to Jesus and more like Him! We aren’t loved BECAUSE we grow, but we were made to grow, to shine, and this is exactly why Jesus said that no one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. But many of us want the basket so we don’t draw the attention of the moths, so we don’t offend the darkness with our light, and so our flame’s particular flicker doesn’t draw the critique of other candles.
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• But think about our own children: if they were to stay stuck in 5^th grade, failing it over and over again because they didn’t want to try/apply themselves, would we still love them! Yes–of course! But being stuck in 5^th grade is certainly not what we want for them, it certainly would cause us pain to see them underachieving and being content with less than their full potential. I believe the same is true with God. He still loves us when we shy away from learning faithfulness and consistency from Him, but His desire is for us to grow, to mature, to move out of the shallow waters of life and into the deep waters where yes, there are more sharks, but where there are also more FISH for us to introduce to Jesus…

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3. Faithfulness and consistency are difficult. Many of us get excited about something (a relationship, a religion, a recreation hobby, etc.) and start out “all-in,” but then we lose momentum/steam and get distracted and we stop. So then we look for something else to get excited about—find your “passion”!—and when we find it we start out “all-in”, lost momentum/steam and get distracted and we stop, looking again for something that will sustain our attention. Rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat.

• For example, maybe we’ve been fired up about prayer in the past, and we’ve committed to God to begin praying every morning. The first few days it went well, but then it got difficult, we miss a few times, we feel conviction from God that we aren’t following through (remember, He only disciplines those who are His children!), and then we stop, focusing on the fact that God loves us anyways, that we don’t have to pray every morning in order to get to heaven, and then we justify our lack of prayer by thinking that such a push/focus on praying every morning is legalistic and will probably turn us into a Pharisee if we keep trying. Thus, we stop trying to pray every morning and feel great about it, as if we have faced the “temptation” of faithfulness/consistency and have defeated it through mediocrity/complacency!
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• To be sure, there is a sinful tendency to think that, as we mature as Christians, that God loves us BECAUSE of our maturity, that we are going to heaven BECAUSE we are growing. NEVER! But that should not stop us from maturing and growing! Part of maturing and growing is realizing, over time, that we aren’t loved because we mature and grow. But we should never stop maturing and growing!
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• The better alternative when we fall short on a promise/commitment to God (e.g. in praying every morning) is to remind ourselves that His grace covers us completely—thus, we have freedom, not to give up, but freedom to try again the next morning (because His love isn’t tied to our success but to His sacrifice)!!! We can ask God to give us the strength to keep trying again, we can get to sleep a little earlier the night before, we can ask another Christian to pray for us to get back on track, and we can look to the Bible for examples of others who were taught by God to be faithful and consistent (see Hebrews 11–please click HERE). Growth is GREAT! Let’s not forget that!

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Perhaps part of the reason that Daniel had the strength to keep praying to God in spite of Darius’ unjust law was because Daniel had learned to be faithful/consistent in his prayers! Perhaps Daniel learning faithfulness/consistency in his prayer life also allowed him to have a strong faith in God in the lions’ den, thus enabling God to shut the lions’ mouth! Sometimes the miracles of God in our lives are directly tied to our faith in Him (Matthew 13:58–please click HERE).
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• Please click HERE for a lengthy but powerful quote from John Piper about perseverance/endurance–after you click, please read paragraphs 3 through 5 (you won’t regret it!).

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The Early Christians were DEVOTED to prayer:

Acts 2:42 NIV

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching

and to fellowship,

to the breaking of bread

and to prayer.”
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• Now we often get scared with that word “devotion”—it often feels HEAVY and OVERWHELMING, it smells like “HAVING” to do things or BEING FORCED to do things.
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• But we are good at being to devoted to things, whether keeping up with our favorite t.v. shows, exercising, training for a marathon, defeating certain video games, consistently checking/updating social media, eating healthy, advancing in our careers, finishing school, excelling in sports, etc.
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• The question isn’t IF we are able to be devoted, it’s WHAT we will be devoted to.
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• God’s invitation is to learn to be devoted to Him through prayer. 🙂

 

Closing Challenge: Quotes On Prayer:

 

“Prayer is warfare.

Just getting there is half the battle.

Staying there is the other half” (author unknown).

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“Trouble and perplexity drive us to prayer,

and prayer drives away trouble and perplexity” (Philip Melancthon, 1600s).

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“We sometimes fear to bring our troubles to God,

because they must seem so small to Him who sits on the circle of the earth.

But if they are large enough to vex and endanger our welfare,

they are large enough to touch His heart of love” (R.A. Torrey, early 1900s).

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If interested, please click HERE for part 1 of Thoughts On Prayer.

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