There are few rigors more demanding than the spiritual discipline of listening for God’s voice, but for me, the practice of speaking to God can be even more challenging. I have a prayer bench I brought back from Europe. I found it at an antique store my wife and I used to visit in Katwijk. It was back in a corner, under a number of other aged pieces. I like to imagine it came from an old Dutch Reformed church, frequented by some saint with camel like knees. It is now in my study, but all too often, it again sits alone in a corner.
Early in the morning yesterday, before this formidable task of preaching, I used it to pray. I pleaded with God to make the Word fresh, anoint me with His Spirit, and awaken the hearts of our people. But this bench does not get the use it should, it must. Too often, I spend far more time crafting just the right word in a sermon, when it would be better to just stop and talk to God. Maybe it is because there are times I feel I am talking to the air—talking to myself. There are the daily distractions. As Yancey notes, interruptions seem to increase during prayer times—“against all mathematical odds!”
Prayer is this discipline that requires careful listening, for prayer by nature is responsive speech. Eugene Peterson taught me this. God always has the first word. And because of this, my prayers have become much more meaningful. This morning, I was reading Hezekiah’s desperate prayer in Isaiah 37, and in response I made his prayer my prayer for today (for I too am desperate). “O Lord, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth” (37:16). I don’t usually address God this way, but I did today. Hezekiah was placing God in context, life in context. Suddenly, formidable enemies were not so threatening. My challenges were suddenly not so daunting.
It’s clear Jesus intended prayer to be a practice, one with a certain discipline. Why else would He say, “When you pray”? He seems to be saying that every time you come before God, here is how I want you to approach Me. In contrast to the mindless, perfunctory, ongoing babbling, this is the prayer I long to hear (Matt 6:9-13).
This is so contrary to most prayers I hear, that are pretty random. So much of my former prayers were like those of Matthew 6--a running off of the mouth, thinned out pious clichés, senseless drool. There was no discipline to them. What Jesus gave was an outline of sorts, a spiritual practice for outliers, in which everything we need to bring to God finds its place. It was never intended to become a formality, a ritual on Sunday morning. It is the skeleton that serves to guide our approach. This is the prayer God listens to—
-“Our Father”—starts prayer off in the right direction. God is not a faceless abstraction. Right away, I am reminded prayer is a high personal act.
-“Make Your name sacred”—compels me to set everything in context by first pleading for His reputation to be enhanced in the world that tends to cheapen, trivialize, and abuse the name of God. The imperatival language here and in the following words declare that prayer is to be made with passion.
-“Advance Your kingdom”—sets the agenda for everything else I am concerned about. God, bring something of Your future reign into the present. Though Your kingdom is not here in all of its fullness, grow this tiny seed into an overpowering plant. Use me to expand the realities of Your reign where I live right now!
-“Accomplish Your will”—sets everything, beginning with my will, in perspective.
-“Give us our daily bread”—reminds me I am dependent upon God for everything. It is in this statement I feel the freedom to bring all of my petitions. There is nothing too small to pray over—for nothing is too big. True prayer acknowledges our nakedness, our need at life’s most basic level—daily bread.
-“Cancel our sins”—helps me to keep short accounts with God. I’m usually in some trouble—some mistaken judgment, some careless word, some foolish expenditure, some relapse to old ways. But it is the other part, “as we forgive others” that draws me up short, forces me to consider who I may be frustrated with, holding back from. I am forced to reconsider my ways.
-“Lead us not into temptation”—brings me back to this important reminder we all are in a war. The greater my spiritual maturity—the more deceptive the adversary becomes. I need God’s leading.
I am still on this journey of prayer. What gives me hope is God’s grace. What gives me determination to stay at it is this undeniable fact—that apart from this discipline, life just doesn’t work. Ministry loses its power, impulse begins to take over, bad decisions generally follow, and a heart begins to harden.
You've hit a home run, as you usually do, this post and the previous post hit squarely at the heart of foundational spiritual disciplines, so clear, yet so hard to fit into some of life's most hectic days. You should make a book out of this. Your words are always on target and encouraging.
Posted by: Patty Wisner | September 25, 2009 at 08:11 PM