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).