Where does God fit?

Who should come first, God or me?

The believer in me says, "God, of course!"  But the human being in me says, "Well, . . . "

This unspoken conflict reaches into prayer.  To be honest, most of my life, I have focused on my own needs and desires when I pray.  When I broaden my horizons, I include family and friends.  And, in recent years, I have thrown in ministries and churches that I am involved in.

Of course, God is pleased to hear my concerns, whatever they are.  He is as interested in my needs as any father is in his child's desires - in fact, infinitely more so.

But what about God? What about his plans?  What about his thoughts on what would be best for me?

Increasingly, I have become aware that God should be sought for his own sake, not just for what he can do for me.

Daniel Henderson, author of Fresh Encounters and Transforming Prayer, says that we should first seek God's face, not his hand.  By that he means we should pursue a deeper relationship with God in worshiping him above all.

In Transforming Prayer, Henderson writes: "It is not about rehearsing a quick list of needs with God, but seeking him because of who he is, with a passion for a deeper intimacy and experience of his presence."

What he says is firmly based in scripture.  The Psalmist David is a great example of someone who yearned for an ever-closer relationship with God.  Moses is another - he wouldn't go forward without God's presence in his life.

That didn't mean that they didn't pray about their needs.  They did.  But, they wanted above all to do what God wanted because they knew God intimately.  And God spoke to them.

So, is there a real conflict between the believer in me and the human being in me?  I don't think so.  As I worship God and listen to him, he guides me in my thoughts and prayers.

David put it best in these great words in Psalm 37:5:  "Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart."

Be still

I find it hard to stop and listen to God.  But I'm working on it and I find it rewarding.

The Psalmist wrote in Psalm 46:10:  "Be still and know that I am God.  I will be exalted among the nations; I will be exalted in the earth."

Here God is demanding that we stop our frantic activities and "know" that God is God.  For a moment at least, we are to forget ourselves and step into the presence of God.

What does "knowing God" mean?  Much the same as knowing anyone else.  You can't know your friend unless you spend time with him or her.  You have to dive below the surface and understand how your friend feels and thinks about the deep things of life.

Of course, there is much to tell us about how God thinks and feels.  It is all there in scripture if we take the time to read and reflect on it. Meditate on it.  Turn it over in our minds.  Allow God's words to sink into our hearts.

Every night, for the last year and a half, I  have memorized a verse of scripture and, just before going to sleep, I have turned it over in my mind and allowed God to take these words and speak to me.

And, a few days ago, I read something in Frank C. Laubach's book Letters by a Modern Mystic which I put into practice during a walk through our neighbourhood.  In a June 22, 1930 letter, he wrote about taking a walk near his mission post in the Philippines. While walking, he spoke with God and imagined God speaking back to him.

He wrote: "It was as simple as opening and closing a swinging door.  And without any of the old strain, the whole day passed beautifully with God saying wonderful things to me."

When our minds are on God, we are exalting him.  And we are raised up, too.

Why we must pray together

Praying together is vital.

Jesus tells us that where two or three believers agree together about anything in his name, God will grant their requests (Matthew 18:19-20). Indeed, he is there with them as they pray.  That is powerful.

We Canadian Christians say we believe in prayer. But, most of the time, what we mean is that we believe in praying alone.

Praying alone is important, but author John Franklin says in his book And the Place was Shaken that most of Jesus' comments about prayer in the original Greek are about praying together - not individually.  The early church also emphasized praying together (see, for example, Acts 1:41, 2:42, 4:23-31, 13:1-3).

The history of great moves of God testifies to the power of united prayer.  Sometimes, as in the case of the revival in the Isle of Lewis in Scotland in the 1940s, God can bring about massive spiritual and social transformation with only a few people praying together over many years.

Indian evangelist K.P. Yohanan wrote in a Christianity Today article some years ago about how surprised he was to visit major American churches and find how few people participated in group prayer.  In India, he said, most Christians turned out for prayer meetings.  And the result is that the church is growing rapidly there and elsewhere where people pray in Asia.

After describing a revival he saw in the Kenyan city of Mombasa, John Franklin wrote:

"The greatest works of God come by corporate prayer, and we will not see the power of God in sufficient measure to transform the world around us until we pray together."

God with you

One of my favourite books on prayer is The Practice of the Presence of God, by Brother Lawrence, a French Carmelite monk who lived in the 1600s.

I first read this little book in the 1960s after finding it in the library of my great-aunt who had died just before then.  I have come back to it many times since.

It is a book filled with the joy of talking with God.  The first part is a series of interviews by a friend and the latter half includes several letters he wrote to some friends who asked the secret of his prayer life.

In spite of the somewhat stilted English of the translation, the book glows with hope and the pleasures of conversing continually with God.  His prayer life clearly changed Brother Lawrence and attracted people to him.

The key point in the book is that you can talk with God continually - even in your daily activities - just as the apostle Paul calls on us to do in 1Thessalonians 5:17.

"The time of business," said he, "does not with me differ from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament."

It took time for him to "practice" the presence of God.  Brother Lawrence knew that Jesus' promise that he would always be with us was true.  He pictured Jesus being with him and fixed his mind and heart on him as he spoke to him and listened to him in his spirit.

When his mind wandered away from God, Brother Lawrence didn't get frustrated, but simply turned back to worshiping him and enjoying him.  Over time, this way of praying became second nature.

There is spiritual wisdom on almost every page of this short book. It has inspired many generations of people including evangelicals such as John Wesley and A.W. Tozer.

If you're interested in reading it yourself, you can go to this link for a PDF version:

http://www.tochrist.org/Doc/Books/Lawrence/The%20Practice%20of%20the%20Presence%20of%20God.pdf

Praying for your family

My wife Ruth and I still pray for our children and their families even though they no longer live under our roof. We know that God works in their lives as we pray.

That doesn't mean that our children and their families have always had an easy road to travel.  Nor have we.  We continue praying for each other and our children because God has dropped little tokens along the way to mark his answers.

Sometimes the answers are big and immediate, but more often they are gradual or only appear long after we first prayed for the problem or the issue.

I mention this because I am aware that some parents in our church and in other churches are heartbroken because their children seem to have wandered away from their faith in Jesus. These are good parents, people who have a strong faith in God.  They wonder if their children will ever come back to the Lord.

I believe God wants people at any age - young or old - to return to his embrace just as in the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15:11-31.  He yearns to welcome them home.

I also believe that prayer is the key to unlocking the power of God in these situations.  I really like the way the New Living Translation translates 1 John 5:14-15:

"And we are confident that he hears us whenever we ask for anything that pleases him. And since we know he hears us when we make our requests, we also know that he will give us what we ask for."

There is no doubt that asking God to bring wandering children home pleases the Lord.

The power of persistent prayer for children was brought home to me in the following video by Sammy Tippit:

Choosing God's way

Have you ever been at the end of your tether, wondering why God isn't answering your crying need?

Catherine Marshall was in that state in 1943, bed-bound for six months with a serious lung infection that doctors were unable to solve.  She had been praying persistently for a long time with no change.

In her book Adventures in Prayer, she tells how she turned to God and said: "I'm tired of asking . . . I'm beaten, finished.  God, You decide what You want for me."

And she goes on: "It was if I had touched a button that opened windows in heaven; as if some heavenly dynamo of power began flowing, flowing.  Within a few hours I had experienced the presence of the Living Christ in a way that wiped away all doubt and revolutionized my life. From that moment, my recovery began."

She calls this the "Prayer of Relinquishment" because she gave up her own will for God's.  Like Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, she said, in effect: "Not my will, but yours, be done."

Catherine Marshall warns us not to expect that we will get what we want simply by saying that we will do what God wants.  We have to be ready to obey, whatever the cost.  But the benefits of God's peace and joy are worth the sacrifice.

As she says: "The Prayer of Relinquishment is the child dropping his rebellion against being a child, placing his hand in the big, protective hand of the Father, and trusting Him to lead us even in the dark."

Prayer and love

Prayer is often an act of love.

Jesus said that, above all, we are to love God and we are to love our neighbours as ourselves (Luke 10: 27).

When we are praising God, we are expressing our love and adoration.  When we pray for others, we are demonstrating our love for them.

When Daniel and Nehemiah wept and prayed for Jerusalem and the people of Israel, their hearts were full of love (Nehemiah 1 and Daniel 9).  Indeed, they confessed their own responsibility for the dire state of the exiled Jews while pleading for God's people.

Jesus spoke out of love and mercy while dying on the cross, asking the Father to forgive those who were crucifying him (Luke 23:34).

In his letters, Paul often says how he yearns for his fellow believers and prays for them constantly.  It was his way to show how much he loved them.

Of course, not all prayer is an expression of love.  Sometimes, we must put on our spiritual armour to battle Satan.  Or, we must come to God with contrite hearts when we sin.

The hardest kind of prayer is praying for those who have hurt us.   But that is what Jesus did on the cross.  And it is the kind of prayer that God loves to hear.

In effect, we are making a sacrifice of love when we pray for our enemies.  It is the ultimate in loving prayer.