Pray simply and often

Joyce Meyer has a good rule for praying - pray simply and often.

She says in her book The Power of Simple Prayer that prayer should be like breathing, natural and continual.  Always, we should depend on the Holy Spirit as we pray.

The more we involve the Holy Spirit in our prayers, the better we get to know God and the more likely we will know what God wants us to ask.  And when we ask, we are more likely to see God's answers.

"We can pray things like, 'Thank you, Lord, for everything you're doing,' or, 'Praise God, I need you to help me,' or, 'Oh, Jesus, help that lady over there who looks so sad.'"

Too often, she says, we tend to put off needs to later when we tell ourselves that we will spend a long time in prayer.  But that is Satan's work - getting us to delay praying.

"God will strengthen us and enable us to handle life peacefully and wisely if we start praying about things instead of merely trying to get through the day," Meyer writes.

These prayers could involve a young mother taking a few moments to pray for strength as she cares for her small children, or a garage mechanic worshiping God and praying for help to be a good father as he works under a car.

"I believe God wants all of us to pray that way - to just offer up little acknowledgments of him, make brief requests, and offer short thanksgivings," Meyer says.

As for the Spirit, she urges us to wait quietly in God's presence for his promptings as to what to ask.

The author suggests that "if we will pray about our inner lives - about our thoughts and motives and about our relationship with God - he will take care of the externals."  She noticed a change in her prayer life when she began to pray as she thought Jesus would pray.

She says that we should trust God to take care of our needs while we spend the majority of our time on talking to him about the needs of others, the growth of God's kingdom, and our spiritual needs.

"I need to abound in love and show kindness to people at all times much more than I need a larger house."

She illustrates what she means by talking about a parent frustrated with teenaged children.  The parent might thank God for the gift of the children, but ask for wisdom in dealing with them.  The parent might ask for understanding and help in aiding them.

The parent might also ask for God's peace to reign in the home.

"Pray continually," says the apostle Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:17-18. "In everything give thanks, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."

Advice that can change my life - and perhaps your life, as well.

Praying for change

It's tempting to give up on people and circumstances that seem too hard to handle.

But things are possible with God which seem impossible to us.

If we run up against a brick wall, we can do no better than pray.  And God may surprise us.

I think of the apostle Peter in jail in Jerusalem, chained between two soldiers.  He was to go on trial the next day. 

In Acts 12, we read that an angel appeared before Peter as he was sleeping and poked him to wake him up.  The chains fell off and Peter, still half-asleep, followed the angel out of the cell and past guard posts.  The iron gate leading to the city opened by itself and Peter walked with the angel until the angel suddenly disappeared. Peter was free.

And what was going on among the believers while Peter was in jail?  They were praying together fervently for their leader and friend.

I need to remind myself of this before throwing up my hands when a person or a situation seems impossible to deal with.  God works as we pray.

Paul Miller, author of A Praying Life, hammers the point home that we must always ask.  Jesus made the same point in Luke 18 that we must "always pray and never give up".

Miller suggests we pray for change in others, change in ourselves, and change in things we don't like.  We can pray that God will:

• Bring his grace to bear on people we find difficult, softening them and making them more like Christ;
• Change us - a scary prayer - so that we become more like Christ; and
• Change our surrounding culture, rolling back evil.

The Bible is filled with stories of how God invaded hopeless situations and brought change.

God wants us to ask - and keep on asking.

The value of super-slow reading

I am a slow reader by nature - but for years I have been reading the Bible even slower than normal.

This is meditative reading - British author Joyce Huggett calls it "super-slow reading" in her book Listening to God.  Christians through the ages have practiced this method and have developed different ways of doing it.

They find - and I find - it draws you closer to God.  God speaks to you as you reflect on what you are reading.

Huggett's book on listening prayer charts her search for more of God.  Her very personal story describes how she discovered different ways of hearing God.

"In all our listening," writes Huggett, "the most penetrating word we shall ever hear is God's written Word, the Bible, that sword which slips into the inner recesses of our being, challenging us, changing us, and renewing our minds."

She says she remembers reading the account of Jesus' crucifixion in Mark 15:33-34 and being overwhelmed as she pictured him on the cross, crying out: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

"When you see Jesus writhing on the cross before your very eyes in the way I did that day, you have to make a personal response of humble, grateful surrender to such depths of loving."

She also learned the method used by the Jesuit St. Ignatius Loyola which involves entering with your imagination a scene in the Bible such as the woman seeking healing by touching the hem of Jesus' garment.

Huggett imagined herself as the woman reaching out for Jesus, risking touching him.  She tried to use her senses of hearing, sight, smell, taste and touch to gain a deeper impression of this and other scenes in the gospel - and a more intimate understanding of Christ.

She also moved into another kind of meditative reading of the scriptures called "lectio divina".  Many Christians have enjoyed and practiced this kind of reading for hundreds of years.

In essence, this is inviting the Holy Spirit to guide you as you read.  Jeanne Guyon, the 17th century author of Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ, says you read until a particular passage or verse touches your heart and spirit.  And then you move beyond yourself into God's presence.

For example, you can take the first words of the beloved psalm 23 - "the Lord is my shepherd" - and spend a long time in reflection.  You can dwell on each word.

The word "Lord" causes you to think about who God is - all his qualities - his might, his passionate love for us, his holiness.  The word "is" tells you that he is your Lord right now - you belong to him.  The word "my" underlines this truth.

And the word "shepherd" speaks of someone who guides, protects, rescues and leads us where we can find nourishment.

This kind of reflective reading leads easily to prayer and praise.

You're helpless? Good!

God loves it when you realize you're helpless.

Then, you have no where to go but him.  And that's when you find yourself giving up and letting him take over.  At least, you're wise if you do.

Catherine Marshall, author of Adventures in Prayer, calls this "the prayer of helplessness".

She points to times in her life when she felt helpless, her plans going nowhere.  I have gone through times like that, too.  And I'm sure everyone has.

"My most spectacular answers to prayers have come when I was so helpless, so out of control as to be able to do nothing at all for myself," writes Marshall.

As a young widow, she wrote a book about her husband - Peter Marshall - who had been pastor of a major church in Washington and chaplain to the U.S. Senate.  Someone who knew Catherine and her husband was highly critical of her manuscript and said she missed the real Peter Marshall entirely.

She was devastated and wept.  She knew he was right. 

"In my helplessness, there was no alternative but to put the project in God's hands.  I prayed that A Man Called Peter be His book, and that the results be all His, too."

That book touched my life as a young believer and the lives of millions more.  Many told her that the book about the humble young Scot influenced them to enter the Christian ministry.  It was eventually made into a film.

As Marshall notes, Jesus told us long ago why it is so important for us to recognize that we are helpless without God.  In John 15:5, Jesus says: "Apart from me you can do nothing."

We may think we are doing great things, but our work is worthless in God's eyes if we are doing it without him.

But when we do give up trying to get our own way, says Marshall, we are ready to rely on a power that is far greater, far wiser than we are.  As Jesus said: "With God, all things are possible." (Matthew 19:26) 

Marshall recommends three steps to the "prayer of helplessness":

• Be honest with God and admit that you are helpless.  Ask him to make you feel that truth at an emotional level if that's what he wishes.  Your emotions need to be touched if your surrender is to be real;
• Take your heart's desire to God.  Believe that he can do what you cannot do.  Thank him for what he is doing; and
• Watch for doors opening.  When the right door opens, you will have quiet assurance that it is God's work.

As I think about this, I realize how much time I waste trying to do things my way and fretting about it when things don't go as I believe they should.

I can almost hear the Lord say: "I have good things for you.  Just let me take over."

It's good when I know I'm helpless.