In his hands

 Sometimes we are too troubled even to pray.  What do we do then?

I believe we simply need to remember that we are in God's hands.  It may be all we need to do is - nothing.  Just imagine resting in Christ's arms, saying nothing and letting his love bring comfort to us.

One of the great examples in the Bible of spiritual depression or exhaustion is the story of the prophet Elijah running away from Queen Jezebel of Israel.

This comes just after Elijah has won a great victory - through the power of God - over the prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel.  God showed the people of Israel that he was God - not Baal - by bringing fire supernaturally on animal sacrifices.

In 1 Kings 19, we see Elijah running away to Mount Sinai in fear for his life even though God had displayed his power, a power far greater than Jezebel's.

He settled under a broom tree and asked God to take his life.

That is the pit of despair.

But God steps in and puts Elijah back on his feet - physically, spiritually and emotionally.  He tells him to listen for God's voice and God speaks to him in a whisper.

God tells Elijah to buck up and get on with the tasks that he has given the prophet.  And he promises a successor to carry on his work.

Sometimes a tragedy or an illness or a family dispute or a job loss can submerge us and we feel like Elijah, abandoned and hopeless.  But God made his presence felt in Elijah's case and he will do so with us too.

We may be able to say nothing more than "Help!" as we look to God.  But we can rest in God, wordless.

In the great passage in Matthew 11:28, Jesus says: "Come to me, all you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest."

Ultimately, we must get beyond being preoccupied with self and start laying out our concerns to God.

In Philippians 4:6, the apostle Paul says: "Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything.  Tell God what you need and thank him for all that he has done."

That is excellent advice.  Take everything to God and thank him for what he has already done in the past.  A thankful heart starts to lift the veil of depression.

Yet when we can't even do that, we need to remember Jesus' words: "I am with you always, even to the end of the age." (Matthew 28:20)

Then, we need to lean upon him without words, confident he loves us.

Getting past sin

I find it hard to pray when I whip myself over my sins.

Satan, our accuser, loves to drop into our minds that we are worthless.  He wants us to wallow in our worthlessness.

But that is not how God wants us to see ourselves.  He wants us to come before him, knowing that we are much-loved children.

C.S. Lewis touched on this in his book The Screwtape Letters, a fictional account of letters between a senior devil and a junior devil.  Screwtape, the senior devil, tries to instruct his newphew Wormwood how to pull a young Christian away from "The Enemy" (God).

In this book, Screwtape writes: "Whenever they (Christians) are attending to the Enemy we are defeated, but there are ways of preventing them from doing so.  The simplest is turn their gaze from him towards themselves."

People naturally run away from God when they sin. That is what Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden. Why?  Because they feel God won't want anything to do with them.

So should we forget sin entirely and assume God doesn't care?

The apostle Paul makes a grand declaration about the victory of God's grace over sin in Romans 5.  And then he follows this up with these words in Romans 6:1:

"Well then should we continue on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace?  Of course not!  Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it?"

So, I am to acknowledge my sins and put them behind me.  The apostle John says in 1 John 1:9 that I am to confess my sins and God will forgive me and cleanse me from unrighteousness.

I need to remind myself of this because a great danger arises when I become preoccupied with my sin.  Then, I turn away from God the way Adam did because in my heart I think he is deeply unhappy with me. And I stop talking to the Lord in prayer.

I am finding that the key is my relationship with God.  Do I realize how much he loves me in spite of my weaknesses?

He knows what I am like and yet he takes "great delight" in me and he rejoices over me with singing (Zephaniah 3:17).  He wants me to come to him for his embrace - acknowledging my sin and knowing that I am forgiven.

The writer of Hebrews says it best.  In Hebrews 12, he tells me to strip off the things that hold me back - including sin - and run the race before me.

"We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith."

That's the idea.  I am to put behind what I have done and look forward to what God has before me.

I am to fix my eyes on Jesus - not on myself.

When I look to Jesus, prayer flows.  We talk.







 

Faith and prayer

Jesus placed a lot of emphasis on faith.  Faith in who or what?

I like Andy Stanley's definition of faith: "Faith is believing that God is who he says he is and that he will do what he says he will do."

That tells me that my faith is to be in God, not in myself or in someone else.

Faith is key to prayer.  We don't pray to God unless we believe he can answer our prayers.

But what about the times we don't get the answer we were looking for?

Over the years, some Christians have argued that people are not healed because they haven't enough faith.  The implication is that they don't have enough faith in God - or, they don't believe they can be healed.

Charles S. Price offers his own views in his book The Real Faith for Healing.

Price had a powerful healing ministry in Canada and the U.S. in the first half of the last century.

The outset of his book, he asks:

"Why have our prayers so often gone unanswered?  Why are our churches filled with the sick and dying who listen to sermons on divine healing that are true to the Word and promises of God, and yet are not healed when they're prayed for?"


In Price's view, we try to crank up our faith mentally when we should be seeking God's grace of faith.

Faith is a gift of God, he says.  He points to the apostle Paul's statement in Romans 12:3 that God has given each of us a "measure of faith". 

Price gives numerous examples of people who came to him for prayer, but he felt no faith for healing for them.  Then, when they went to Jesus in prayer - seeking him - they would return with calm assurance that they would be healed.  And they were.

In one case, a woman had been unable to walk and her legs had shriveled up.  She had to be carried around by her husband.

When Price looked at her, he realized he needed God's faith - not his faith, but God's - for her healing and she needed that faith, too.  He urged her to spend time before the Lord.  Over several nights, she arrived at personal surrender to God and Jesus "gave her a vision of himself".

That night, she was healed - able to walk again.

In summing up this story, Price says "our mission was to draw close to Jesus."  After that, it is God's work as he gives us faith.

I am sure that Price's views are controversial in evangelical circles.  There will always be a lot of arguments about faith for healing.

But Price's thoughts make sense to me.

God gives us the initial faith to believe in him and to give our lives to him.  Isn't it reasonable to expect he gives us faith for healing?

It is God we believe in - not our own merit.

Not alone

Two weeks ago, my wife and I sent out an urgent appeal for prayer to our family and friends.

My wife was in a Milan, Italy hospital in excruciating pain after falling head first into a stationary taxi while running.  She had suffered what we later learned was a spinal cord contusion, sending shooting pains into her arms and hands - causing her to cry out.  At that moment, her hands were useless.

This was not the first time - nor will it be the last - that we found out the value of praying together.

In the next few days, we got little sleep as we navigated our way through the hospital system and arranged our flight home to family.  There were numerous problems - partly linguistic, partly bureaucratic.

We believe it was God, working through praying family and friends, who got us through.

We Western Christians tend to take our hardy individualism into our prayer lives.  I believe that is a mistake.

In his book And The Place Was Shaken, author John Franklin says that the majority of Jesus' references to prayer in the New Testament are to praying together.

It is true that Jesus often prayed alone.  We all need to cultivate strong personal prayer lives.  I am aware of my own shortcomings in this area.

But Jesus' model prayer - popularly known as the Lord's Prayer - uses the plural "our" and "us".  It was obviously intended as a guide to group prayer.

And Jesus himself asked several of his closest friends to join him in support as he prayed to his Father in the Garden of Gethsemane - the night he was betrayed.

In Acts 4, the church in Jerusalem prays as a group, seeking courage to preach the gospel in the midst of persecution.

The apostle Paul constantly asked his friends and acquaintances for prayer in his letter to young churches.

Jesus said there was something special about praying together.  In Matthew 18:19-20, he says:

"If two of you here on earth agree on anything you ask, my Father in heaven will do it for you.  For where two or three gather together as my followers, I am there among them."

Praying in agreement with each other - and with Jesus who is with us - works wonders.

My wife and I know this to be true.

We need to be helpless

Praying shows dependence - dependence on God.

We Western Christians find it hard to pray because we are used to running our lives efficiently on our own.  We have the answers to life's problems - we don't need God.

And yet, when we look back at how we manage our lives, we realize our problem-solving skills aren't that good.  Our relationships with others are sometimes broken or strained, despite what we think was the wise way to deal with issues.

Paul Miller, author of A Praying Life, says helplessness fuels prayer.  Sometimes we don't realize we are ignoring God and the counsel and supernatural direction he offers - until things break down.

The apostle Paul tells us in Philippians 4:6 that we should not worry about anything but pray about everything.

"Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done," Paul says.

Notice that Paul says to pray about everything - not some things.  That includes the areas you and I are quite capable of managing ourselves.  We may think we are capable, but God is more capable.

In effect, Paul is saying we must give everything into God's hands and stop tossing and turning at night over real or imaginary problems.  Thanking God for what he is doing in our circumstances helps build our trust in him - and our peace of mind.

"The very thing we are allergic to - our helplessness - is what makes prayer work," says Miller.  "It works because we are helpless.  We can't do life on our own."

He goes on to say that mature Christians pray a lot because they are aware of their weakness.  They need God.

Miller recalls feeling desperate about parenting six children between the ages of two and 16.  Things were not going well.  He asked God for the grace to pray for them, knowing his instinctive "can-do" approach wasn't working.

The atmosphere in the home began to change.  In one case, he had been praying for his son to recognize he had a problem with humility.  Some months later, his son came to him and told him: "Dad, I have been thinking a lot about humility lately and my lack of it."

"It didn't take me long to recognize that I did my best parenting by prayer.  I began to speak less to the kids and more to God. It was actually quite relaxing."

May the Lord give me the grace to see my need of him.

Pray while you work

Jan Johnson says you can pray while you work.

Sounds impossible, doesn't it?  But what she says makes sense.

I must say that I have been letting other things draw me away from prayer the last little while.  Some are laudable reasons, others basically time-wasting.

Johnson, author of Enjoying the Presence of God, says that she realized years ago that she would end a frantic business day without spending time with God.

"Sure I bellowed out a breath prayer now and then, but I missed God's abiding presence, something I'd learned to enjoy."

Yet she knew other Christians over the ages made time to pray while they worked.  One such person was Brother Lawrence, a 17th century French monk who conversed with God while he was working in the monastery kitchen.

Johnson tried various techniques to bring her mind back to God, including a candle in her workplace.  She would look at the candle and it would prompt her to pray.

Not everyone is able - or would wish - to try the candle idea.  But we can use other visual reminders.

When Johnson looked at the candle, she would murmur "thank you" as she remembered she had an income.

As you are reminded to talk with God, you can bring before him the project you are working on.  Or, you can simply praise him for who he is and what he has done in your life.  These are life-giving prayers.

"Busywork - formatting computer disks, mowing the lawn, cleaning the carpet - invites another level of thinking in which we contemplate the words, wisdom and challenges of others."

As we think about God, we may find that a "comment on the telephone five minutes ago provides an answer that [we] asked God earlier in the day".

"By respecting the rhythm of prayer and work," Johnson says, "we create moments for the still, small voice of God to become clear."

She refers to comments by hospital chaplain Ernest Boyer, Jr., who recommends we stop for a couple of minutes before starting any task and remind ourselves that we "delight God in a thousand and one ways".

"Try to feel this great love toward you so that when you begin your work you make it a response to that love."

Johnson also suggests repeating short prayers such as "God loves me", "I delight in you, God", or "this task is for you, God".  When you finish the task, take a moment to enjoy completing the work and offer it to the Lord.

She adds that we should invite God into the "chatter" in our heads and turn the complaints, worries, memories and questions into prayers.

Just thinking about Johnson's ideas helps me see that my work would go much more smoothly and with less strain if I talked with God while I was doing it.

"Nothing that we do is too ordinary or too boring for God," writes Johnson. "He delights in us not because we are entertaining, but because we are his." 

A prayer checklist of questions

Dick Eastman has a useful checklist of questions for anyone praying for family, friends and others who have yet to give their lives to Jesus.

After returning from his first trip to mainland China, Eastman began praying daily for the Chinese to come to know Christ.  But he did not know how to pray for them - he did not know China and the Chinese well.

In his book Love on its Knees, Eastman says he remembered Paul writing in Romans 2:15 that the law of God is written in the hearts of "Gentiles" - non-Jews - even though they did not formally know it.  Their own consciences told them what was right and wrong.

This very basic feeling for right and wrong can be a good starting point for bringing people to Jesus.

Eastman, a global missionary and prayer leader, decided to use a series of questions to spur his prayers for these people he did not know.  I feel his checklist is good for us, even if we know the people we are praying for.

Here is a sample:

• Whom can I trust?   He prayed that these people would be prompted by God to ask whom they could trust to tell the truth.  This question is central to the journey many people have taken to faith.
• What is my reason for being? He asked God to plant this question in the hearts of unbelievers.  It is a question that helps turn people's minds toward eternity.
• When will I really be free? This question can apply to a variety of issues - freedom from oppression of various kinds, freedom from loneliness, freedom from an inner emptiness.  Many people feel empty and hopeless.  Such a question can help drive them to the only one who satisfies - God.
• Why do people reject God? Eastman saw this as a question that is particularly important in atheistic countries where God is rejected out of hand.  But it applies just as well in our society.  The prevailing intellectual climate in Canada is anti-God.  We can ask the Lord to stir this question in the minds of seekers.  Some people have started out trying to prove God doesn't exist and have wound up believers.
• How can I cope with my problems? This is a big question that applies to everyone - Christian and non-Christian.  When someone feels at the end of his rope, he starts looking for help.  Many people have come to the Lord in this way.
• Where will I go when I die?  It's a cliche that death can concentrate the mind.  But it is also true.  It is the ultimate question.  We need to pray that our unbelieving friends will ask that question and find the answer in Jesus.

Of course, these questions only lay the groundwork for people to find Christ.  We need to go beyond them to pray that the Spirit will arrange things so that our friends and loved ones will find their answers in the Lord - perhaps through us.

Eastman's list has got me thinking.  I am going to use it as I pray for friends and family.

Pulling prayers from your heart

Lynne Hammond talks about pulling out the prayers God has put inside her.

Hammond, author of The Master is Calling, uses this striking idea to describe how she prays in faith, led by the Holy Spirit.

She notes that the Holy Spirit lives within every believer and "his very nature is to pray".  The apostle Paul says in Romans 8:26 that the "Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed".

This picture of the Spirit continually praying within us and for us is a real delight for me.  Obviously, the Spirit is praying God's will for he is God.

In her book, Hammond outlines her early attempts at prayer after becoming a believer.  Gradually, as she meditated on God's word, she grew more in tune with the Spirit.

She says that "as I continued to meditate on the promises of God and increase in my faith to be led by the Spirit, my ability to pray increased".

"God wants the church to bring forth great things in prayer, and it requires faith for us to do this," she writes. "You see in prayer we always travel by faith.  . . . And the size of our faith determines whether we travel by Concorde or by pony express."

She builds her faith by constantly returning to chapters 14-16 in the gospel of John - chapters that describe the work of the Holy Spirit.  She soaks herself in Jesus' promises about the Spirit.

In John 14:17, Jesus tells his disciples that he is leaving with them the Holy Spirit and they will know him and recognize him because he lives within them.

"Of course, getting to know the Holy Spirit is just like getting to know anyone else - it takes time.  But the moment you release your faith and believe you have the capacity to know him, the process will begin."

Hammond goes on to say: "If by faith you expect the Holy Spirit to reveal Jesus to you and make him clear to you, then he'll be able to do that.  If you sit around in unbelief and say, 'I can't hear God's voice like other people do,' you'll cut short the Holy Spirit's work within you."

The Bible indicates that the Spirit declares, teaches, reveals and transmits things to us - sometimes dramatically but more often quietly and gently through thoughts and impressions.

To tap into the Spirit, we must be in constant communion with him through prayer.

Hammond says that when believers are in close communion with the Spirit, "he begins to put God's desires in their hearts so that, when they pray, they're not making silly, superficial requests based on their own selfish whims, but they're lifting up God's own desires".


That's how to pull God's prayers from our hearts.

That kind of praying can't fail.

Marys and Marthas

Martha often gets a bad rap in the story of her sister Mary listening to Jesus instead of helping with cooking and serving.

But James Banks says in his book The Lost Art of Praying Together that both Marys and Marthas are needed in any prayer group.

"Prayer is work," he says, "and no one knew that better than Jesus."

In Luke 10:38-42, Martha complains: "Lord, doesn't it seem unfair to you, that my sister just sits here while I do all the work?  Tell her to come and help me."

Then, Jesus replies with words that exasperate many believers: "My dear Martha, you are worried and upset about all these details.  There is only one thing worth being concerned about.  Mary has discovered it, and it will not be taken away from her."

Clearly, the point Jesus was making was that Mary was listening to the Messiah who would not be around much longer.  What Jesus had to say was of eternal significance.

But many Christians take this to mean that Martha was somehow less a believer than Mary.

Not so, says James Banks.  We need both kinds of people in prayer gatherings - people who want to get things done and those who want to adore the Lord in prayer.

"Prayer and work are never meant to be separated," says Banks.

Rather than dismiss Marthas, prayer leaders need to help them see that "praying together is one of the most effective things we can do because it sets God's power in motion against the obstacles we face."

He illustrates his point by the story of Bruce, an elder in his church who had not prayed aloud.  Eventually, Bruce prayed aloud in a meeting of elders and "it took my breath away".

"His prayer was brief, but so obviously from the heart, I immediately sensed God's spirit at work."

In Banks' mind, that's the key to praying together.  "Prayer that matters to God is honest and from the heart."

Banks recommends "conversational prayer" - short prayers spoken directly to Jesus as if he were sitting right beside us.

His point reminds me, once again, that the body of Christ is made up of all kinds of people - each with different abilities and gifts and personalities.

It's vital to get everyone involved in the business of prayer because prayer changes things.

Praying God's dreams

Do you know what God's dreams are for you?  Pray and find out.

Like many Christians, I tend to focus on the everyday nuts-and-bolts of life.  They're important, but they can obscure the real reason I am here - to carry out God's assignment for me.

In her book Enjoying the Presence of God, Jan Johnson urges us to ask these questions of God:

"What next? What are Your dreams for me? What is it You're doing in this world that I need to align myself with?"

The big answers to what God wants me to do are obviously in the scriptures.  We are all called to go into the world to make disciples.  We are all called to love God and love others.

But there are particular reasons I am here as well.  What task has God in store for me to reach out to others?  How does he want me to deepen my relationship with him?

To discover what God is asking me to do, Jan Johnson says I must ask him.  That involves prayer - regular prayer, patient prayer.  I say "patient" because this may mean waiting for an answer.

"If you spend enough time with a person, you begin to sense that person's dreams.  In daily conversations with God, we begin to understand God's dreams for us."

"As our love for God grows," she writes, "His interests become our interests - evangelization of the world, peacemaking in relationships, ministering to the poor and oppressed."

We begin to filter our activities according to this godly grid - the great task or tasks he has given us.  Do these activities contribute to - or take away from - the dreams the Lord has for us?

One way I have found that helps me in determining whether I am on God's track is to write out my questions in a journal and asking the Lord questions.  It is something I picked up after reading Mark Virkler's book How to Hear God's Voice.

As I write, I imagine God responding to me.  His answers are always in line - and never contrary - to the scriptures.  Frequently, I am uncomfortable with his responses - although, I am never uncomfortable with the Lord.  I know he loves me - that is clear in the Bible. 

I often leave these exchanges with my mind changed.  I have come to understand better what Jesus would say to me if he were before me in flesh and blood.

For major decisions, of course, we need to test what we believe God is telling us not only against the Bible, but also with godly believers we trust.  As well, we must look at circumstances.  We should never take a decision without considering the needs and wishes of those we love and who depend on us.

But it is genuinely exciting to pray with God's dreams in mind.  What God wants will always be to our eternal benefit.

Pray first! Then, act!

James Banks and his wife Cari were desperate - their teenaged daughter had run away from home.

Their daughter Katie began rebelling years before, influenced by people without faith.  Finally, she left home to be with her friends.

Banks and his wife searched for their daughter everywhere in their city, believing she was on the street in their crime-ridden town.  For weeks, they followed up tips which led nowhere, notified the police who sent out descriptions of their daughter, and were just a step behind when there were a couple of legitimate sightings.

"Exhausted, we finally began to realize that we needed to quiet ourselves and check in with God first," writes Banks in his book The Lost Art of Praying Together.

"As we took more time just to pray and wait on God, our leads began to get better," says Banks.

On Father's Day, they decided to take a day away from the search, visit their son and pray with him for Katie, and spend the evening relaxing together.  They received a call from a waitress at a diner where the family had often eaten.  She had seen Katie and a few minutes later they were reunited.

"With a lot of love and hard work, Katie was soon on the road to recovery at home.  And Cari and I discovered the difference praying together can make for those we love most of all."

"Our time in the crucible taught us a life lesson," Banks says.  "Prayer must precede action."

He says we must "learn how to walk at God's pace if we desire to truly hear God and discern his best for our lives".  This means acting on what God gives us and going no further - sometimes very tough to do.

He refers to Nehemiah, the exiled Jew who led a group of exiles back to Jerusalem to rebuild the city destroyed decades before by the Babylonians.  He found hostile Arabs and others in the area, threatening the work which had been approved by the Persian king Artaxerxes.

Nehemiah's first action was to organize a prayer gathering.  And it was what he did after every threat until the city walls were rebuilt.

For Nehemiah, the road to rebuilding Jerusalem involved praying, waiting on God, and acting, Banks says.

For me, this is a timely reminder that I must slow down and pray before rushing into action.  What God tells me is more important than my own plans.

 

Bitter or blessed?

Are you bitter or blessed?

How you see yourself shapes your life.  It also moulds your prayer life.

Alan D. Wright, author and pastor of Reynolda Presbyterian Church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, gave a telling example of the different ways of looking at life in a sermon he gave on God's grace a year ago.

He recalled that, as a young pastor, he counseled two people - a man and a woman - with an almost opposite outlook on life on the same day.  The two people came from much the same social and economic background.

Cindy, the woman, lived with a depressed husband and had two children who were not believers.  She had come to talk to him about a church matter, but when Wright asked her how she was herself she amazed him with her response.

She said her husband could be a handful but he was a good man.  As for her children, she was believing God for them.

Then, she gave him a big smile as she often did and added: "The bottom line is that I'm so blessed."  When she thought about what God had done in her life, she couldn't help but be grateful.

Wright had known her for seven years and he knew she wasn't denying her troubles.  She was simply looking at God's grace in her life.

Later the same day, he listened to a man named Butch who had a lovely wife and three cute kids.  Butch poured out his problems until Wright thought: "The more he talks about negative things, the worse he is getting."

So, he said to Butch: "It might be hard but maybe we could shift and start thinking about a little bit  about what you could thank God for.  Sometimes it helps your heart."

Butch was silent and then said he could not think of one thing.  And then he erupted in curses and told Wright he did not know what it was like living his life.

"Maybe some day something horrible will happen to you and then you'll know how lousy life can be," he said.

Bitterness can choke prayer as well as poison life.  Many people stop praying when they go through difficulties and God is seemingly silent.  They dwell on their disappointments and lose the joy of the Lord.

The antidote is simple: Praise God for who he is and what he has done in our lives. This is a lesson I am constantly re-learning.

And there is always the need to pray for those we are angry with.  Jesus called on God to forgive those who were crucifying him.

When I think of praying for people I am upset with, I find an internal resistance within me.  I want to nurse my righteous anger.

But, then I remember what many have pointed out before - God forgave me.  So, how can I not forgive others?

I feel that God is constantly telling me in various ways: "Be thankful.  Enjoy what I have given you.  Know that I am working everything out for your good."


 

"You become like what you worship"

Every day you see people worshiping someone else - a pop singing star, a great athlete, perhaps even a politician.

We Christians say we worship God.  But do we really?

Stormie Omartian, author of The Prayer that Changes Everything, said in a YouTube clip: "You become like what you worship."

That can be an encouraging - and a convicting - statement.  I say convicting because  I confess I sometimes worship football and other things more fervently than I do the Lord.

But it is also encouraging.  Omartian said that as we praise and worship God as a way of life, we become like him.

Her point is that praising God changes us inside and makes us more like Jesus.  And there is nothing more important in this life and in eternity than God.

She noted that one translation of Psalm 22:3 is that God is enthroned on our praises.  That is, he makes his presence felt as we praise him.

"Every time you praise God, something changes within you or your circumstances," she said.  "It is impossible to touch the presence of God and not be changed."

Her statement reminded me of a story I read years ago in Created to Praise, by Derek Prime.  He told the story of missionary Archibald Glover, his wife, their two small children, and another missionary woman fleeing Chinese rebels in 1900 as they targeted foreigners.

After several narrow escapes, Mrs. Glover was so worn out she collapsed and said she couldn't go on.  Her husband felt she was dying.

The other missionary woman knelt beside Mrs. Glover and poured out praise to God and many passages of scripture about God's promises and his faithfulness.

"From an apparently dying condition, she suddenly revived and sat up with a restored vigour which amazed me," Glover wrote.  God had made his presence felt as they praised him.

Omartian says that we are to praise God in hard times - perhaps particularly in hard times.  It takes our eyes off ourselves and fixes them on Jesus.

"God is all about changing us because he wants us to become more like him," Omartian said.  "We become more like him every time we worship him."

Many people do not praise God because they do not know what he is like.  So Omartian urges us to praise him for his goodness and power and other qualities as outlined in scripture.  The more we praise him for these things, the more we see his goodness and power "manifested" in our lives, she says.

She used the picture of a funnel to describe how God pours his love into us.  The top part of the funnel is large, containing a lot of liquid - the lower part is narrow.  When we praise him, God pours out his love into us until we are unable to contain any more.

That's why Omartian calls praise "the prayer that changes everything".  We are transformed as we worship the Lord.

The strength of two

On the surface, it's obvious: When two pull together, they can do more than they can alone.

But, too often, we neglect the great value of sharing our problems with others and asking them to pray about these issues with us.

As many of you know, Jesus speaks of the power of two or three people praying together in Matthew 18:19-20.  He says where two or three people gather together and agree in Jesus' name, God will act.  Jesus is with us in a special way when we get together with others to pray.

My wife and I have periodically had prayer partners over the years and found them to be spiritually deepening times.

My first experience was with a church friend more than 20 years ago.  We were quite different in our careers but we had one similarity - we were both introverts.  As well, we both had a desire to grow in our relationship with God.

We met once a month for two years until my wife and I moved to the opposite end of the city.  During that time we got to know one another much better and we talked openly about our family and career needs.  And we prayed about them.

I have periodically had other prayer partners since and so has my wife.

There are several benefits from praying together with another person. Here are some that come to my mind:

•  Pulling together in prayer lightens the load on my shoulders of a particular prayer burden.  It is encouraging to share something and know that the other person understands you and is joining his or her voice to your prayers;
• Jesus is always the third person in any prayer partnership.  Jesus is my advocate and is presenting my prayer needs to the Father;
• I can rejoice with my prayer partner about answers to prayer.  It is good to be able to celebrate with someone else God's goodness.  It is faith strengthening; and
• My partner can gently hold me to account for any commitment - spiritual, social, or emotional - that I make.  A good prayer partner can ask me about the things I have promised to do without being aggravating or offensive.

I confess this last one is one where I have felt less easy, not wanting to provoke a friend or be held to account.  And yet it is important.

There are many ways to conduct your prayer partnership.  You can meet once a week, once a month or whatever time period suits you both.  Or, you can talk on the phone briefly once a week, praying together over the phone.

I believe it is always good to mix in praise to God and thanks for his goodness in any prayer session.  The more he is front and centre, the more we see his hand in our lives.

If you've never tried it, I urge you to seek someone and suggest you meet once to pray together.  As someone has said, you can discover whether you want to go forward after this first "date".  I'll bet you will.

The blessings of praying together

Don't miss the blessing of praying with others!

In essence, that's the message of James Banks, author of The Lost Art of Praying Together.

I can say from personal experience that I often leave a prayer gathering with others feeling uplifted.

As I have noted before, Jesus said that where two or three of us are gathered together in his name, he is there.  Even more, he says that if we agree on a matter in prayer, God will carry it out (Matthew 18:19-20).


There is something about praying together with one mind that seems to draw us  close to God.  I know that God is always with us - but I feel as if Jesus is with us praying as we pray.


In his book, Banks lists some of the blessings of praying together.

He tells the story of Jeremiah Lanphier, a layman, who started a mid-day prayer gathering for Manhattan businessmen in New York in 1857.  Only six men turned out for the first prayer meeting.

Then, the prayer gathering grew and had to find a larger hall.  Other churches began praying together as they noticed the blessings flowing from Lanphier's meeting.

Within six months, 10,000 businessmen were gathering daily for prayer in New York. From New York, the prayer movement spread across the United States and within two years, a million converts were added to American churches.

God's power is released as we pray together.

Another blessing is unity.  When we pray for others with an open heart, we can't hold grudges.  As we pray, God moves within us to bring us to one mind.

"Our unity in prayer demonstrates the glory of God at work in our lives in a beautiful way," writes Banks.

He goes on to say that "prayer is nothing less than love on its knees".  He notes how the apostle Paul repeatedly told his readers how much he prayed for them in love.  When we pray together, we are loving each other and pouring out God's love for those in need.

"Even when churches are having difficulty getting along with each other," he says, "humble, heartfelt prayer can accomplish miracles and draw us together in love."

Another blessing is growing faith as we unite in prayer.  We learn from others as we pray.  Mature believers give us great examples to follow.  Banks mentions one person who poured out praise and thanks to God in such a way that it left a permanent impression on his life.

John Franklin, author of And The Place Was Shaken, says that most of Jesus' comments on prayer in the New Testament are in the plural in the original Greek, meaning that he was talking about people praying together.

The case for praying together is compelling.  When we pray together with humble hearts, God blesses us.

Irritated? Pray!

What do you do when you're irritated?  Do you pray?

If you're like me, your first reaction is to stew over the problem.  And then, you may strike out at the person who annoyed you.  The result is usually bad.

But Jan Johnson, author of Enjoying the Presence of God, urges us to pray.  That's what she has learned to do.

In her book, she tells of driving with a car-pool companion who constantly complained.  She says: "I thought I would explode."

She was rocking her daughter's child-sized rocking chair one day when her co-worker popped into her mind.  She offered a breath prayer for this worker.

After that, she put the rocking chair in her kitchen and, every time she passed by, she rocked the chair and offered a quick prayer for this person.  Her resentment evaporated.

She advises us to turn an irritating moment or situation into prayer.  For example, a neighbour's messy yard can lead to a prayer like, "Turn this person's heart toward you" or "what is it you want to show me through this person?"

Johnson acknowledges that we need to be open to God with our frustrations, just as the psalmist David was.  She suggests that "the way to move from anger to peacemaking is to go through the anger, not to deny it".  We confess to God our feelings and seek his forgiveness.

Then, we release the problem into God's hands and pray for the person we were complaining about a moment before.

Of course, the apostle Paul asks us to go even further - to bless the person who hurt us (Romans 12:14). The very act of blessing can change our hearts and our attitudes.  Admittedly, it is hard to do.

But even a small step - like Jan Johnson praying when she noticed the rocking chair - can be a good start.

Turn your thoughts into prayer!

My mind normally bounces around like a rubber ball - from one thing to another.

What if I settled on one thing and prayed about it before moving on?  It would take some discipline, but I'm sure it would change me.

Suppose I'm anxious about a presentation I'm about to make.  Instead of telling myself that I'm worried, I could thank God for the opportunity.  I could pray for the people attending, asking that the Holy Spirit will prepare them.

I could go on to ask for God's peace of mind.  I could pray the prayer that author Jan Johnson often uses: "Into your hands, O Lord."  In effect, I would surrender the presentation into God's hands - and that would bring me peace.

Or, maybe there are several things I have to do in a hurry.  I could ask God to help me see these tasks through his eyes.  What is most important to him? I can ask him to give me patience as I carry them out.  I can ask for his peace and rest even in the midst of the hurry and bustle.

Or, I might be wrestling with a family heartache.  I can thank God that he is present and cares about the family member even more than I do.  I can plead my case to the Lord and then give it to him to sort out.

It sounds easy and I know it isn't in practice.  It means I have to slow down and put on the brakes to my worried mind.

But I really feel it is worthwhile.

I keep coming back to Psalm 139 where David tells us that God knows everything about us and is with us everywhere and in every moment.

In verse 17, he says:  "How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!"

How can I know God's thoughts without asking him?  Prayer gives me that opportunity, even when I'm on the run.

Never give up

This week, I was reminded once again to never give up praying for loved ones.

I was sitting with our grandchildren watching a video about Augustine, the great early Christian writer and leader.  A key figure in his story was his mother Monica who prayed for him for years even though his case seemed hopeless.

Augustine was a brilliant young man from North Africa who seemed destined for a great career in Rome as a speaker and philosopher.  He loved his mother but rejected Christianity.

But his questing mind was dissatisfied with the other philosophies popular in imperial Rome.  And he found himself giving his life to Jesus while sitting on a bench and hearing a boy's voice call out: "Take up and read."  He had the scriptures in his lap and read a verse from Romans which opened his heart to the Lord.

Yesterday, I was assisting in a junior youth class and watching as several boys in a small group showed no interest in the Bible and one, in particular, was distracting.  They were typical boys - full of energy and high spirits.

I recalled a similar group of teenaged boys I taught years ago at a previous church.  One of the more disruptive boys is now a dedicated minister - he is the fruit of many prayers by his parents.

In his book Don't Just Stand There: Pray Something, Ronald Dunn asks how often have we fallen short of God's blessing because we have stopped praying.  That applies to anything that is close to our heart.

He mentions the story of Jacob who wrestled with an angel (Genesis 32:24-32).  Jacob was desperately afraid of his brother Esau whom he was about to meet again after years apart.

The wrestling continued all night until the angel asked Jacob to let him go.  But Jacob says: "I will not let you go unless you bless me."  And the angel blessed him.

"Do you believe Jacob was so strong he could pin down an angel?" asks Dunn. "That fight was fixed. I believe that while the angel was saying, 'Let me go,' he was whispering under his breath, 'but I hope you don't.  Hang on a little longer and you will get the blessing.'"

He quotes famed evangelist Vance Havner as saying: "The problem is that the situation is desperate but we're not."

The lesson for me is that I must pray stubbornly and urgently for others.  God wants people with a caring heart like his. 

Love on its knees

Author James Banks calls prayer "love on its knees".  This love is multiplied as we pray together.

In his book The Lost Art of Praying Together, Banks quotes the great 19th century American evangelist Charles Finney:

"Nothing tends more to cement the hearts of Christians together than praying together.  Never do they love one another so well as when they witness the outpouring of each other's hearts in prayer."

This is true in my own experience.  Sometimes, I have been overcome with emotion when I have prayed for someone who is suffering in our group.  And I have seen the same with others.

I believe the Holy Spirit stirs our hearts as we pray for each other.

It is true that this deep love sometimes wells up in our hearts when we pray alone.  But, as Finney says, our hearts go out to others in our group as we hear their prayers - sometimes desperate prayers.

Jesus called us to love one another and to be united.  There is no better way than prayer to love others in our group of believers.

"It is hard to be mad at someone when you are praying in the right spirit, mindful that the same Lord who has forgiven your sins is listening," writes Banks.

"Praying together is one of the ways the unity that Jesus prayed for naturally occurs as the Spirit convicts us, changes our hearts, and draws us together."

Banks says that he belongs to a multi-racial group of ministers that meets in his home city of Durham, North Carolina every week to plead with God to bring revival to their city.  As they pray together, the deep racial prejudices that have plagued the city melt away.

"We've learned that when we seek God honestly together in prayer, it's impossible to remain at odds for long."

Part of the reason for this is that Jesus promised to be with us in a special way when two or three of us are gathered together in prayer (Matthew 18:19,20).

How can we fight when Jesus is with us?

Infected by the Spirit of prayer

I dream of Christian families and churches all across Canada being infected by the Spirit of prayer.

I need this wonderful disease as much as anyone.

James Banks, who wrote The Lost Art of Praying Together, said in an Internet seminar sponsored by RBC Ministries this week that "every church prays but there are few praying churches."

His point was that almost every church provides for some opportunities to pray - organized gatherings of some kind.  Perhaps it is only a few minutes after a small-group Bible study.

But a praying church is more than that.

"Where there is a culture of prayer, it drives everything else," he said.  "It is very natural or organic.  Often a person will say, 'Let's pray together.'  In a culture of prayer, there is a real sense of dependence on God."

In his own church, church board members spend part of their meetings in the church sanctuary on their knees before the Lord.

"We are interceding for the congregation.  We are praying about the decisions we have made."

In his North Carolina church, there is a prayer wall where people post their prayer needs.  There is a prayer walk through the eight-acre property with prayer stations carrying different phrases from the Lord's prayer.  People wander through, praying at each station.

There is prayer during church services, too.

Even better in my eyes is the fact that people will stop what they are discussing and pray.  In my mind's eye, I see two friends talking about a problem one of them is facing and they pray.

That is the Spirit of prayer in action.

In his book Prayer, O. Hallesby writes that prayer should be guided by the Spirit.  We, who are struggling with prayer, should begin by asking for the Spirit of prayer - and give him free rein.

As Banks says, prayer should flow naturally. We should be spontaneous, not programmed.

While true of church prayer, this is also true of prayer in families.

Often, my wife and I will stop what we are doing or discussing and pray for someone who has popped into our minds or conversation. We don't do it enough.

In effect, God drops these thoughts into our minds.  We must not ignore them.

There is an old adage: "The family that prays together, stays together."  This holds for any group of people, from families to churches.

May all believers seek the divine infection of the Spirit of prayer.

Keeping company with God

I like results.  Results feed my feeling of self-worth.

But, is that what following God is all about?

Today's results will quickly fade away.  And then what will be left?

For years, I have been wrestling with conflicting arguments for "being" and "doing".

As I have said before in this blog, I have been entranced with Brother Lawrence's little book The Practice of the Presence of God for many decades.  The 17th century French monk practiced continual conversation with God throughout his day.  For him, the most important thing in life was his relationship with his beloved Lord - not accomplishments.

But, can you be so wrapped up in your relationship with God that nothing gets done?

Somehow, I think that is the wrong way to look at things.  King David's psalms make clear that his relationship with God was paramount.  The psalms are prayers to the Father.

Yet no one could deny that David got things done.

He - and many others - stand out in the Bible story because they sought God first and foremost.

I am now reading a book that underscores this point.

Jan Johnson, author of Enjoying the Presence of God, tells how she was compulsive in her prayer time for many years - keeping long lists and insisting on doing everything she could to touch all the bases in prayer and worship.

In effect, she fell into a performance trap - trying to gain God's attention and favour through doing things.

I see myself in that mirror.  I believe prayer lists are good.  But sometimes I allow proper prayer procedure to govern my prayer time.

Johnson says she came to see that conversing with God in the ordinary events of the day was a great pleasure.  She realized that "I didn't need a great quiet time, I needed a God-centred lifetime."

"I saw that my responsibility as a Christian was to seek God's company, not to seek spiritual maturity."

In the end, I am convinced that "doing" flows from "being".

Jesus said in John 8:28-29 that he only did what the Father taught him.  He did what pleased his Father.

How can we know what pleases the Father if we don't have a close relationship with him?

Worry and prayer

A friend asked a very good question the other day: What do you do when praying seems to increase anxiety?

I think most believers have gone through periods when they were overwhelmed with worry about a loved one or a critical situation threatening their livelihood.  Sometimes, we just want to forget about the problem for a few hours or days.

Occasionally, prayer does not bring relief.  Instead, we may feel it increases anxiety because a solution seems as far away as ever.  Prayer just underlines our helplessness.

The apostle Paul deals with this issue head-on in Philippians 4:6-7:

"Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus."

Of course, Paul's advice not to worry about anything may seem glib when we're deeply preoccupied with our problems.  But it isn't when we explore it further.

For Paul, it was a matter of trust.  He believed God had his best interests at heart (Romans 8:28).  He had a plan for Paul's life and it was a plan for good.  Paul also had experience of being rescued by God in past scrapes.

As we're going through heartbreak, it's hard to imagine things working out well at some point in the future.  But God sees the big picture - we don't.

Paul's words show that he found release in prayer.  He was giving over his troubles to someone who could do more than he could imagine.  He was giving it over to God.

Paul found it helpful to give thanks to God for what he had already done.  Perhaps he recalled past events when God took him through stonings and imprisonment.  Perhaps he recalled his own dramatic conversion on the road to Damascus.  He had ample proof that God loved him and was pleased with him.

As we thank God, we think of God, not our problems.  It helps to strengthen our faith.

The key to getting over the worry barrier is to persist in prayer until we find peace - the peace that Paul talks about.

Terry Laws, author of The Power of Praise and Worship, was bitter about his wife's tragic death in a car accident and questioned God.  His mentor Oral Roberts, whose own son had been killed in an accident, told him to praise God.

That seemed ludicrous.  But Laws decided to give it a try.  He spent hours praising God until he found release in a flood of tears.  God poured healing into his spirit and his life and ministry were changed.

Prayer, praise and thanksgiving are God's road to peace of mind.

Alarm bells in hell!

Prayer sets off alarm bells in hell - at least, some prayers do.

A good example is the story of Daniel in Daniel 10.

The chapter begins with the prophet Daniel receiving a vision.  He sees "events certain to happen in the future - times of war and great hardship".

When he received the vision he had already been in mourning for his people, Jews exiled in Babylon.   He had even given up rich food in a kind of fast.

But he did not understand the vision and sought God for an explanation.

Then one day, while walking by the Tigris River, he looked up and saw an amazing sight - a man in linen clothing with a gold belt, his body glistening "like a precious gem".

"His face flashed like lightning, and his eyes flamed like torches.  His arms and feet shone like polished bronze, and his voice roared like a vast multitude of people."

The people with Daniel fled - terrified - leaving him alone.  He fainted.

Then, the angel - for that is who he was - touched Daniel and lifted him to his hands and knees.  He told Daniel to stand up and hear his message because Daniel was "very precious to God" and the Lord had sent him with an answer to his prayers.

The angel said God had sent the angel in answer to Daniel's prayer as soon as he received it.  But - and here is the really interesting part - the angel had been delayed for 21 days.

Why?  Because the "Prince of Persia" had blocked him.  The Prince of Persia was a servant of Satan's.

The angel called on Michael, the archangel, for help and they engaged in an epic battle, allowing the angel to complete his mission to Daniel.

For me, this is a vivid picture of the importance of prayer.  Daniel's prayer was so important that God sent an angel to deliver an answer personally and the Devil did his utmost to stop him.

As the apostle Paul said in Ephesians 6, our battle is "not against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places".

Prayer that seeks to advance God's kingdom on earth shakes hell.  We don't see it with our human eyes but Daniel 10 makes clear that is what is happening.

We have a fearsome weapon in our hands - prayer.

The benefits of waiting

I'm impatient - I want answers to my prayers NOW!

And often, when the answers don't come, I drop my requests.

I'm sure I miss out on good things when I do that.

Waiting is often good for me - and for you.  Waiting helps me sort out what is good - and what is not so good - in my prayer requests.  Waiting helps me grow as a believer.

The Bible is full of requests to wait for the Lord.

In Psalm 37:7, David writes: "Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes."

I bet David had plenty of reasons to act against evil men.  But he had learned to wait for what God would do.

Perhaps he remembered the example of his predecessor Saul who was told by the prophet Samuel to wait at Gilgal for seven days before offering sacrifices to God (1 Samuel 10:8).   When Samuel did not arrive in seven days, Saul went ahead and carried out the sacrifices instead - and for that act, he eventually lost his kingdom.

I sympathize with Saul, but he was not authorized to make the sacrifices.  He acted on his own without God's permission.

Acting on our own usually isn't as costly.  But it can lead to wrong decisions where we do not receive the benefits God wishes to give us.

I am sure most of us are glad that some of the things we wanted years ago did not come our way.

But what about the good things we ask for - the things the Bible tells us God wants to give us?  How can we explain having to wait?

The best explanation is that God knows best when to answer our prayers.

In Daniel 9, the prophet Daniel grieved for his conquered home of Judah, praying and fasting.  The angel Gabriel came to him and predicted what would happen in the end times.

So Daniel did not receive the immediate answer he was hoping for.  Yet he was promised something far greater - the coming of Jesus and the unfolding of God's plan for mankind.

The angel told Daniel he was precious to God.  Why?  Because Daniel worshiped God and put him first in his life.  And he had a heart that was constantly crying out for his people.

Waiting and persisting in prayer deepens our spiritual lives.  We learn to trust even though we don't understand why our prayers aren't answered immediately the way we wish.

When the answer is "Yes", there is joy.  In his book No Easy Road,  Dick Eastman tells of a woman who prayed 32 years for her husband until he became a believer.  It's a story that has been repeated many times through history.

As we wait, trust, and continue praying, Christ is shaping us so that we become more like him.

Worship and prayer

Dick Eastman says that when we worship God we are enthroning God in our midst - and great things can happen.

In his book Intercessory Worship, he suggests that worship married to prayer can help transform families, neighbourhoods and nations.  He has concrete stories in nations around the world to back up his claims.

Eastman writes approvingly of John Piper's words: "Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church.  Worship is."

Piper went on to say that the ultimate goal of the church is to worship God.  Missions is a temporary necessity because of the fallen nature of man. But worshiping will go on forever.

Eastman's endorsement of Piper's words is significant.  He is head of Every Home for Christ which has a world-wide evangelistic outreach, distributing Christian material to homes  and launching local Bible studies.

But Eastman has always believed fervently in the power of prayer - writing many books on the subject.  His organization's headquarters has a prayer centre where staff members and others pray around the clock for God's work in all nations.  He himself has been praying daily for all nations for decades.

He notes that God is always present with us.  But there are occasions when he makes his presence felt in a particularly powerful way - something referred to as his "manifest presence".  Great revivals are examples of this as the Holy Spirit sweeps through throngs and gathers them into the kingdom of God.

Eastman defines worship as "any act, thought or expression of willful adoration that exalts and enthrones God, thereby defeating and dethroning Satan."

He points out the words in Psalm 22:3: "Yet you (God) are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel."  And Revelation 5:8-10 speaks of worshipers equipped with harps and bowls of prayers, praising Jesus for drawing in a global harvest of believers. 

For Eastman, this suggests worship and prayer working together to prepare the way for God to bring people into his kingdom.

Much of Eastman's book is taken up with exploring the principles of worship and prayer, illustrated with many examples of how this has worked out in reaching people through his own mission and others - from Argentina to Bhutan.  Barriers to the gospel have fallen and people have flocked to Christ.

In 2000, Every Home for Christ formed four fellowships of believers - house churches - every day around the world.  Following concentrated prayer, that total rose to 58 fellowships of believers a day 10 years later.

The great thing is that Eastman's group is working cooperatively with other mission organizations on coordinated prayer and outreach.

Their aim is to see more people worship God.

Your eyes can help you pray

Your eyes can help you pray.

This hit me once again while I was prayer walking with a friend near our church this last week.

It was so easy.  We saw a nearby business and prayed for prosperity for the owners and a good work atmosphere for the employees.  We prayed for their spiritual welfare, that someone would share the good news of Jesus Christ with them.

Passing a house for sale, we prayed that the owners would be able to sell it and for good family relations.  We saw a basketball net outside another house and prayed for the teenagers there - that God would protect them from evil.

Of course, it's even easier when you know the people in the houses you pass by.  You can pray for them specifically.  That same evening, another couple of prayer walkers walked their own neighbourhood nearby and stopped to pray for troubled families they knew.

When we finished our church prayer walk, our group leader urged us to keep on doing this in our own neighbourhoods.  I have taken her words to heart.

Of course, we can let our eyes help us pray wherever we are - at home, in the office, at school.  Yet there is something mutually encouraging in prayer walking with someone else.

Jesus promised that wherever two or three are gathered together in his name, he is there among them.  He goes further to say that if they agree in prayer, "my Father in heaven will do it for you" (Matthew 18:19).  Powerful stuff!

We also know that if we pray according to God's will, he will answer "yes" to our prayers (1 John 5:14-15).  That tells me that our prayers for our neighbours and our communities have a heavenly influence.  They can change things.

 Naturally, we can prayer walk on our own, too.  Our pastor prayer walked for a year around the community where he was starting our church.

Similarly, Mark Batterson, author of The Circle Maker, described how he prayer walked around Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., where he was launching a new church.  The church wasn't going well until he read God's promise to Joshua that "I am giving you every square inch of the land that you set your foot on - just as I promised Moses".

After that first prayer walk, Batterson said, "My feet were sore, but my spirit soared . . . I couldn't wait to see the way God would honour that prayer."

He added that "God has been answering that three-hour prayer for the past fifteen years".  His church  has grown into one church with seven locations in metropolitan Washington.

We are not always able to see such visible results from our prayers.  But our prayers are never wasted - they are with God who will act on them at the right time (Revelation 5:8).

 

Thanking God in tough times

C. H. Spurgeon recommends mixing a dash of thanks to God with our prayers - even in tough times.

In his book The Power in Praising God, Spurgeon, a great British preacher in the 1800s, writes: "We are to pray about everything and every prayer should be blended with thanks."

He was talking about the apostle Paul's statement in Philippians 4:6: "In everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God."

Spurgeon notes that Paul frequently mingles prayers with thanks for the people he is writing to.  It was natural for him to thank God for the people he is praying about.

How might I pray and praise at the same time about a problem that is troubling me? 

Here's a hypothetical example.  Suppose I have a serious disagreement with a friend.  How do I bring this before God?

I can call upon the Lord to bring peace between us and to resolve this difference.  At the same time, I can thank God for nurturing this friendship over years.  I can thank the Lord for the good times we have had in the past.  I can offer thanks for the many good qualities my friend has.

Among other things, Spurgeon suggests such steps as:

• Praising God for working things out for my good in the end even though I do not see it at the moment;
• Thanking the Lord for past blessings including giving me life everlasting in Jesus Christ;
• Offering thanks that God loves me and is using this present problem in love;
• Thanking him for the answer that is to come; and
• Praising God for past answers to prayer.

Such praying displays trust in God and his goodness, no matter what may happen.

Spurgeon says it brings benefits to us as we pray.  It gives us peace of mind and heart.  It stimulates prayer.  And it prepares us for blessing.

God looks at our hearts, Spurgeon says, and when he sees our trusting reliance on him, he blesses us.

What could be better than that?







 

Wanting God

Author and pastor David Platt said something that caught my attention: "Desire for God is the heart of prayer."

I turned that around in my mind wondering if that is true.  Isn't the heart of prayer voicing my needs?

Yes, needs are a prime reason I pray.  But when I'm facing a major problem, who do I want to solve my problem?  Who do I turn to?  If it's God, then clearly I am seeking him.

Still, there's a deeper meaning to Platt's comment.  There are clearly people in the Bible who sought God for the wonder and pleasure of simply being in God's presence.

In her book The Master is Calling, Lynne Hammond points out that in Exodus 33:11, Moses' aide Joshua would remain in the Tent of Meeting after his revered mentor had left.  God met Moses in these prayer sessions in the tent and Joshua obviously wanted this same personal relationship with God.

As I have mentioned before, Moses is a great example of prayer.  When God said he would not go with the Israelites any further, Moses objected saying that God's presence was vital for his people (Exodus 34:16).  And he asked for - and was granted - permission to see something of God's glory.

In a sermon on prayer, David Platt describes visiting a house church in an Asian country where it is illegal to worship God.  He says believers shared testimonies and then began praying, prostrating themselves on the ground and weeping.  For an hour, they called out things like: "Thank you God for knowing my name."  They were weeping for joy because God knew them personally.

The apostle Paul was constantly in prayer for people in the churches he visited.  He urged them to pray and give thanks.

As Hammond notes, we can see the source of his prayer power in Philippians 3:7-11.  He says everything is worthless for him "when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord".  His focus was on Jesus first.

For me, that may mean appearing to waste time in God's presence, not talking about my needs but only worshiping and listening to him as Moses and Joshua did.  The time for presenting my needs will follow later.

Gradually, I am beginning to experience what the psalmist wrote in Psalm 42:1: "As the deer longs for streams of water, so I long for you, O God."




 

Engineer - or poet - of prayer?

I will make a bold claim: We tend to be engineers or poets of prayer.

Engineers take a disciplined, structured approach to their jobs.  Poets prefer creativity, letting the imagination fly.

Transferring this picture to prayer, some authors insist that we must set aside the same time every day for prayer and sit down with a prayer list.  They are the engineers of prayer.

Others say they have tried the list approach and have rejected it.  Instead, they pray as they feel moved - at any time of the day and on any subject.  They are the poets of prayer.

I have read good books on both sides of the fence.

Over my lifetime, I have leaned more towards the poetic approach.  But I have grown to appreciate the engineer style more and more.  Now, I try to incorporate both in my times of prayer.

Let me outline the advantages of both.

Engineers

I have come to see that having a prayer list is important if you want to see how God is working. 

It is easy to forget a prayer issue unless you write it down.  It builds faith to see that God is answering those prayer requests.  I always date my initial request and God's answer.

Years ago, I used to set aside a time in the early morning to read the Bible and pray.  Then, the busyness of life interfered and I wound up reading the Bible in the bus to work and praying silently in my seat.

Now that I am retired, it is easier to have a regular time for prayer and Bible study and I schedule it in.  I admit that I sometimes still miss it.

I agree with those who say that if Bible study and prayer is important, we should make room for it - pushing aside some of the leisure activities we allow to fill our time.

Sticking to a regular time of prayer prevents me from gradually letting life sweep me away from my time with God.

Poets

I have been attracted to the poetic style of prayer ever since reading Brother Lawrence's The Practice of the Presence of God in my 20s.  I have written about this little book elsewhere in this blog.

Brother Lawrence, a French Catholic monk in the 1600s, spent his life washing dishes and being chief wine-buyer for his monastery.  He prayed continually during the day - talking with God as he washed the dishes and listening to his responses.  He obeyed the strict prayer times of the monastery, but felt more at home in this easy, spontaneous way of praying.

I have talked more about Brother Lawrence here: http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3617534320094379788#editor/target=post;postID=3782699526223019291;onPublishedMenu=overviewstats;onClosedMenu=overviewstats;postNum=3;src=postname

This kind of continual conversation with God helps strengthen our love for the Lord and our awareness of his presence.  We develop a deeper understanding of Jesus.

A great advantage of this kind of listening prayer is that you pray as God prompts you.  It may be vital that you pray for someone precisely at that moment.  There are many stories of people whose lives have been saved through prayers prayed at exactly the right time.

So, now I am trying to grow as both an engineer and a poet of prayer.


 

God's partners

God is calling us to be his partners in his great work - his plans to bring history to a dramatic, triumphant climax to his glory.

He has given us prayer as the means to carry out his plans.  Will we be silent?  Or, will we throw ourselves into the mission he has given us?

It has taken me decades to realize that the most important thing about prayer is that we seek what God wants, not what we want.  I am still dipping my toes - very tentatively - into this wonderful truth.

Watchman Nee, a great Chinese Christian who died in a Communist prison camp, wrote in his little book Let Us Pray that the one who prays "must allow his will to enter into God's will, his thought must be allowed to enter into God's thought". 

"Since he habitually lives in the Lord's presence, such a person is given to know His will and thoughts.  And these divine wills and thoughts quite naturally become his own desires, which he then expresses in prayer."

This is important for God chooses to work through us and the world around us as we pray. 

"How many things the Lord indeed desires to do, yet he does not perform them because his people do not pray," says Nee. "He will wait until men agree with Him, and then He will work."

In Matthew 6, Jesus gives a model prayer which includes the line: "Your (God's) will be done on earth as it is in heaven."  We are to pray that what God wants accomplished on earth will be carried out - just as his command is obeyed in heaven.

The great prayers of the Bible reflect this truth.  Nehemiah and Daniel pleaded with God on behalf of his chosen people, prayers that God graciously answered.

And when the early church was under attack in Acts 4, the believers called on God to help them speak boldly about Jesus - not for their own protection.  God responded by bringing many new believers into the fold.

Nee refers to a great passage in Isaiah 62 which is a call to me and to you today:

"O Jerusalem, I have posted watchmen on your walls; they will pray day and night, continually.  Take no rest, you who pray to the Lord."



 

The power of praying parents

My wife and two other women spoke of the power of prayer in family life in a video shown at our church this morning.

My wife mentioned how we prayed for our children - and still pray for them.  And now we pray for our grandchildren, too.  We rejoice with what God is doing with them and through them.

Another woman said her mother used to arrange pictures of her family on a table and pray for them daily - for an hour.  Now she does the same with her family.

Still another woman talked about her mother and father's faithful praying for her over the years, even when she was wandering away from the faith for a while.  Now, she is praying for her children in the same way.

Throughout history, we read of the importance of praying for our families.

Augustine, one of the greatest Christians in the early centuries of the church, was prayed into the kingdom of God by his mother, even though he rejected Christ for years.  John Wesley, one of the greatest Christian leaders in more recent times, had a faithful, praying mother.

We are children of God and he loves it when we pray for our children.

Jesus had a special place in his heart for children.  In Matthew 19, the disciples tried to shoo away parents who were bringing children to Jesus.  And he said: "Let the children come to me.  Don't stop them!  For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children."

Young children have a trusting faith that is the envy of many older people.  It is nurtured by faithful praying parents.

Joyce Huggett, author of Listening to God,  says that her introduction to prayer came early on as she watched her father sitting by the fireside, reading his Bible and then closing his eyes to pray.

"Children are great imitators of people they love," she writes.  "Perhaps it is not surprising, then, that I cannot remember a time when prayer did not feature in my life."

I remember reading somewhere that one woman learned the importance of praying from her mother who had a large brood of children.  The mother had hardly a moment to herself.  So she would sit in a chair and throw her apron over her face, a signal to her children that she was praying and was not to be disturbed.

God works with us as we pray.  He wants to meet our deep needs and our children's needs.

Some day, we will learn how important our prayers were when we stand before God and he shows us the fruit of our prayers.

When God seems silent

Pete Greig, a world leader in the 24/7 prayer movement, has written a compelling book called God on Mute about his struggles with God as his wife Samie was ravaged by a life-threatening illness.

Grieg was shocked to the core of his being when his 29-year-old wife, mother of two small boys, was suddenly struck with seizures.  Doctors discovered the cause - an orange-sized tumour in her brain.

The tumour was removed but Samie was unable to shake the seizures which were often frightening.  Over time, the illness hovered over the Greigs, ready to strike at any moment.

Very honestly, Greig writes about how his prayer life suffered as he watched his wife suffer.  He began a long process of trying to understand why God did not heal his wife the way others had been healed.

I appreciate this deeply personal book because it voices the questions we "prayer warriors" are reluctant to raise.  We prefer to talk about the many times God says "Yes" to our prayers.  Yet we are all aware that often our prayers are not answered the way we wish they were.

Over the centuries, people have offered various reasons for God not giving us the answers we want.  Among these suggestions:

• We don't have enough faith;
• A "yes" answer would be bad for us; and
• God cannot give us what we want because there is sin in our lives.

But suppose none of these reasons explains the situation?  For example, Job was a fine, upright man with no discernible flaws.  God was pleased with him.  Yet he lost all his children and his wealth and was stricken with disease.  Through it all, he remained loyal to God, although he eventually asked questions of the Lord.

In Job's case, God essentially told him that he - God - knows what is right and good and man cannot put himself in the Lord's shoes.

Grieg talked to a lot of people about prayer and Samie's illness and he shares their answers and their experiences in his book.

He navigated this trial with his faith intact.

Towards the end of the book, he says: "The greatest miracle in the world - greater than any healing or any revelation - is the grace unleashed by a life refined through suffering."

As he notes, it is the grace unleashed by Jesus on the cross so that others might live.

Dare to be a Daniel

One of our grandsons loves superheroes like Superman who is powered by a fictional substance called kryptonite.

One of my superheroes is the prophet Daniel who saw God work wonders in his life.  He connected with God through prayer and obedience - a greater power than kryptonite.

I have been re-reading Daniel in the Old Testament again recently and marvelling at the kind of man he was.  He was not a strong warrior like David, but he faced just as threatening situations as the great Hebrew king.

He was taken captive in Judah and marched to Babylon as a slave.  But God had blessed him with great intelligence and a humble spirit - a rare combination.

What stands out for me is Daniel's wonderful prayer life.  He determined from the outset to remain true to God, no matter what.  He sought God in prayer in all circumstances and God gave him insights through visions, dreams and revelations.

Amazingly, he became a noted wise man and high official in the courts of several Babylonian and Persian kings even though he was an alien from a conquered nation.

The book of Daniel is filled with great stories of God's hand upon Daniel from the moment he was recruited to serve King Nebuchadnezzar.

But the one that sticks in my mind is Daniel being thrown into the lion's den.  He was the victim of a plot by jealous rivals high in King Darius' court who resented the king's trust in him.

They succeeded in getting Darius to issue a decree that people were to pray only to Darius for the next 30 days and anyone found to have broken this law would be thrown to the lions.

Daniel could tell this was a trap and he went immediately to his room, opened the windows facing Jerusalem and continued praying to God for wisdom three times daily as he always did.  The conspiring officials found him praying and succeeded in getting the king to throw him to the lions.

The king was clearly impressed with Daniel's faith and Daniel's god and did not want to have him killed.  But he had already signed the decree and the Jewish exile was cast into the lion's den.

After a night of tossing and turning, the king ran out the next morning to see if Daniel had survived - and he had.  He said that "my God sent his angel to shut the lions' mouths so that they would not hurt me."

Darius responded by having the conspirators thrown to the lions.  And he sent out a statement to his people declaring that Daniel's God "is the living God and he will endure forever."

Daniel lived his life so close to God that an angel told him "you are very precious to God" when the prophet sought an explanation of a vision he had received.

In my view, Daniel's power came partly from his habit of praying three times a day to the Lord.  He sought God himself and the wisdom that only God can give.

But the second element of his power was obedience.  When he determined what God wanted, he carried out God's wishes.  And he always turned the spotlight on God, not himself.

Obedience to the Hebrew God in ancient Babylon and Persia was tricky to say the least.

The result was an immense influence on an alien society and great glory to God.

The same path of prayer and obedience is open to me.






A new post on my prayer blog - "Dare to be a Daniel"

Pray-reading God's words

How can you have a good conversation with God?

One of the best ways is to start with what he wants to say to you.  That's the way you speak to good friends - you touch on the topics that are close to their hearts.

You can find out quickly what God wants to talk about by going to the Bible.  Let the Holy Spirit bring light to what you are reading - let him take the words and move your heart.

I talked about this before in an earlier blog post.  You can find it at: http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3617534320094379788#editor/target=post;postID=3608998795564093691;onPublishedMenu=overviewstats;onClosedMenu=overviewstats;postNum=50;src=postname

This week I came across added insights into this way of praying in a teaching segment by Mike Bickle, head of the International House of Prayer in Kansas City.  Bickle founded the House of Prayer years ago to pray 24 hours a day, seven days a week for God's work around the world.

A couple of years ago, he talked about his own journey in prayer from the time he became a young believer as a teenager.  It's filled with practical advice but the thing that struck me most was his insights into praying the Word of God.

Bickle urges us to "[engage] in active conversation with God as we read His Word".

He points to Jesus' comments to the Pharisees in John 5:39-40 who read and memorized the scriptures and yet refused to believe in the Messiah even though these same scriptures were pointing to him.  They refused to come to him for life.

So, we must come to God for his enlightenment as we read.

Here are some of his suggestions on meditating on and praying back God's words:

• We thank God for a particular truth that he is impressing on our hearts;
• We ask God to reveal more to us of a particular truth that the Spirit highlights in our reading;
• If God is calling us to obey something, we commit ourselves to obedience in that area; and
• We ask him to give us the power to obey.

He also suggests jotting down in short phrases in a journal our love for God and our requests.

As we read, we ask the Spirit to let us see how he sees and feels about our lives.

Simple steps.  And enriching.

Here is a link to Mike Bickle's talk on prayer: http://mikebickle.org/resources/resource/2969?return_url=http%3A%2F%2Fmikebickle.org%2Fresources%2Fcategory%2Fprayer-fasting%2Fprayer-lists%2F

Friends with God

God spoke to Moses as he would to a friend.

That's what the Bible says in Exodus 33:11.  So, what kind of relationship did Moses have with God?  And, can I have that relationship, too?

It certainly wasn't a surface relationship.  God knew Moses intimately - all his weaknesses as well as his strengths.  He could be tough on Moses.

It was a friendship built on trust.  Moses never gave up on God despite defeats and disappointments in his life leading the Israelites.  And God never gave up on Moses.

It survived major tests.  At one point, God threatened to exterminate Moses' people because they had turned away from him even though he had given them so much.  But Moses intervened on behalf of the people.  I believe God wanted to hear that from Moses - it showed him Moses' heart.

What God saw in Moses was a man who wanted to know the Lord more than anything else.  He was brave enough to ask to see God even though it was a life-threatening request.  I believe God loved that request.  He granted Moses' wish in part, showing part of himself but not his face because Moses would have died from the power of his countenance.

The relationship grew and developed through conversation - through prayer.  Moses spent many hours before God in the Tent of Meeting.

It was a partnership where one partner was all-powerful and the other was a loyal follower.  God spoke to Moses and Moses obeyed.  God exercised his supernatural power through his friend Moses.

It was a friendship where both benefitted.  God's plan for mankind unfolded as Moses listened and acted.  And Moses came to know God intimately, so intimately he didn't want anything else in the world.

Can I have that?  Yes.  Many believers over the years have had a relationship with God like Moses' - although they are not as well known.

Moses' friendship with God began in the desert at a burning bush.  He was afraid and he didn't want to do what God asked him to do.  But he did.

Time spent with God in prayer, obedience,  trust, and a growing thirst for more of God - these were hallmarks of Moses' life.

They can mark the life of any believer.  We can speak to God like a friend, too.

Silence is golden

God speaks in silence.

It's hard to hear God when we're talking or our minds are drowning in a flood of thoughts about everyday life.

As I have mentioned in other posts, I have long had an interest in listening prayer or contemplative prayer.  It makes sense that the best way to know what God wants is to spend time listening to him.

This week, I had the pleasure of hearing Pastor Jim Cymbala of Brooklyn Tabernacle Church in Brooklyn, N.Y., speak about the importance of listening prayer in his own ministry.  His church is a model of a praying church with thousands attending the weekly prayer gathering.

Listening prayer has become so important in Jim Cymbala's ministry that it guides his preaching and counselling.

He says that he no longer preaches with notes, preferring to immerse himself in the scriptures and to listen to what God wants him to say.  He will open his mind to what the Holy Spirit is telling him as he preaches.

It is the same with his approach to counselling.  He says the Holy Spirit indicates to him when he should be quiet and when he should speak.

I am growing in listening prayer.  I am not at Jim Cymbala's level.  But, as I have said before in this blog, I have for some years been using a journal to ask questions of God and receive what I believe are his answers - always in line with scripture.

But there are other ways, too.

In her book Listening to God, Joyce Huggett writes about an old man in her church in Nottingham, England who described his own experience to her.  He and his wife would get up at 6 a.m., read the Bible together, pray and then spend time listening to God in silence.  They would jot down the God-thoughts that popped into their minds - instructions, challenges and directions.

"They determined to obey to the best of their ability," she writes.  "Because of this rekindling of spiritual awareness, life opened up for them in a new way."

Spiritual creativity flourished in their lives and words came for deep conversations with friends who did not know God.

For many of us, silence seems threatening.  We feel we should be doing or saying something.

But, for Christ's followers, it can be golden if we have listening ears.