Daily Devotions - Entries tagged "Prayer"

Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. (Philippians 2:1-4)

"Lord, Help us to be one, as you and the Father are one. Help us to be like-minded, of one spirit and one mind. We are painfully aware of how self-centered and selfish we can be, and yet you call us to live without selfish ambition or vain conceit. We can’t do that without your help. Please guide us today, so that we would not look to our own interests but honestly and truly value others above ourselves. Amen."

Which does God prefer--long prayers or short prayers? Prayers in Latin, or prayers in English? Eloquent prayers that have been carefully crafted, or sloppy prayers that come out all wrong?

18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. 19 Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should. (Ephesians 6:18-20)

Certainly, Jesus gave us a model to follow when we pray (the “Lord’s Prayer”) and we would do well to follow that template more often than we do. Certainly we are to approach God with reverence for who He is and respect for what we are doing by engaging in prayer. There’s no room for glibness in prayer. That said, we are also called to pray “on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.”

On some occasions our prayers may be short and to the point. In times of extreme distress it may be that all we can say is, “Help!” At other times a long and beautiful prayer may come flowing out of us almost quite unexpectedly. In both cases God is glorified, our prayer lives enriched, and we shouldn’t be worried about the length or style of what we said.

Jesus told his disciples not go on babbling like the pagans do (Matthew 6:7). Meaning, not that God is displeased when we pray with hesitant awkwardness, but that we shouldn’t approach prayer as if God is an idol we have to manipulate by saying certain words or phrases, or repeating things over and over.

Just pray. Pray as the Spirit leads you. Pray as God made you to pray. Pray using your words, your images, your language. Prayer is not about impressing others or even impressing God. Prayer is the primary way we connect with our Father, and we do that by being as absolutely genuine as possible. He knows us better than we know ourselves, so it’s ridiculous to try and dress up our prayers for God.

What Paul doesn’t allow room for is a lack of prayer. God covers our failures, and His grace makes up for our shortcomings, but a willful resistance to prayer, or a heart that no longer sees the point or purpose of prayer is outside the realm of Paul’s vision for what a follower of Christ looks like. “Dry seasons” are understandable, and God walks with us even when we don’t know what to say, but let us never confuse genuine spiritual struggle with spiritual apathy or just downright laziness.

Devote yourself to prayer, in whatever format that looks like for you. Just do it.

Every year, we make a big hullabaloo about giving thanks on Thanksgiving Day (as we busily make plans to buy lots of stuff the very next day). It’s a good and important thing to do, but the Bible calls us to live our lives in a state of continual thankfulness. In fact, thankfulness is a key component of prayer. It is often the case that if we have stalled out in our prayer lives it is because we have stopped being thankful.

In his letter to the Colossians, Paul expands a little on what it means to “devote” oneself to prayer by explaining that believers should be “watchful and thankful.” This calls to mind Paul’s words to the Philippians concerning prayer:

4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:4-7)

The groundwork for a life of prayer begins with a sense of joy. In fact, it’s such a crucial piece of the puzzle that Paul says it twice. “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” When things are going well in our lives, this seems obvious. Of course I can rejoice when my health is restored, I get a pay raise, and live in a huge house. But what about when I lose my job, the lab tests come back indicating cancer, or I’m facing foreclosure?

Leaning again on the author Paul Miller and his excellent book, A Praying Life, we have two choices when we face disappointment, pain or suffering. We can either thank God for the many “touches of grace” in our lives, or give in to bitterness and cynicism. This kind of rejoicing does not mean putting on a fake, shiny happy face. What it does mean is seeing the world and our lives as they really are--completely dependent on God, both in times of plenty and in times of want (Paul Miller, A Praying Life, p. 89).

One of my personal goals for this New Year is to be far more faithful and consistent in prayer. It’s one of those simple things that shouldn’t be hard, and yet causes so much struggle. Prayer is, at least in theory, one of the easiest things we can be doing. After all, there’s nothing to buy, no translations to sort through, nothing to write, and we don’t even have to open our eyes or mouths if we don’t want to. However, how many of us start every New Year with the same resolution, only to find ourselves slowly slipping back into old habits of silence and self-reliance?

 So I find myself getting frustrated when I forget to pray, or don’t pray enough, or don’t seem to be praying “well enough,” whatever that means. I hear about the prayer lives of other people and I can’t help but compare myself, feeling guilty when I come up short, or don’t seem to be “pulling my weight” spiritually.

 We all know we should be praying more. The Bible is filled with admonitions to pray. The Apostle Paul told the Romans they should be “faithful in prayer,” (Romans 12:12) and he told the Colossians to “devote” themselves to prayer (Colossians 4:2). Even Jesus prayed, so shouldn’t we also?

 But perhaps the key is not in trying harder, but coming at the issue from a different perspective entirely. Author and speaker Paul Miller puts it this way,

 “You don’t need self-discipline to pray continuously; you just need to be poor in spirit.” (A Praying Life, 65).

 His point is that we will learn to develop a better prayer life when we begin to realize just how desperately needy we are. When we see how poor in spirit we are, how totally reliant we are on God for everything, then we will begin to turn more frequently to our Father for help and assistance. However, as long as we continue to live with the mistaken belief that for the most part we have things under control, then prayer does indeed become rather pointless.

 As we begin this New Year, as we consider God’s grace in our lives, and as we look for ways to extend that same grace into the lives of other people, may we be people who strip away the façade and admit to ourselves and to God just how helpless we are without His intervention in our lives. And may that admission of spiritual poverty begin to revitalize our stumbling efforts at prayer.

Before you do anything else today, stop to pray. Pray for the election to go smoothly. Pray for your candidates to win, but more importantly, pray for your candidates to be saved. Pray for the Spirit to move in their lives to reveal truth and soften their hearts to be led by God. Pray for God’s will to be done in and through their work of governing, wherever they may serve. Pray that the losers would be gracious in defeat and pray for the winners to be humble in victory. Most importantly, pray for believers to focus their hearts and minds on the mission that God has called each and every one of us to be intimately and actively involved in—the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace. May we never lose sight of that goal in the midst of political debate and argument.

If God is good, then how come He let Hurricane Sandy smash into the East Coast last week, killing so many people and causing so much destruction and despair? If He is really in control, why would He allow so much suffering? These kinds of questions come up whenever there is a major catastrophe or natural disaster, and reflect the kind of real emotional anguish we experience during such times.

Many theologians have weighed in on this issue over the years. The British author C. S. Lewis famously noted that our very outrage at evil is a sign that we believe in absolute right and wrong; that we are comparing the way things are with the way things should be. But from where do we possibly get an awareness of the way things should be? There has to be a God, because otherwise it would be hard to declare anything objectively good or bad. Without a belief in God, what basis do we have for believing that people should not suffer?

But perhaps a more concrete response to the kind of suffering that tragedies bring into our lives is found in the life of Jesus, and specifically in the final hours before His death. Here we have a record of Jesus, God incarnated in human flesh, suffering incredible pain and anguish.

Then [Jesus] said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” (Matthew 26:38-39)

The shortest verse in the Bible declares that “Jesus wept” at the tomb of his friend Lazarus. But in the moments before His own betrayal He wasn’t just a little bit sad, his soul was “overwhelmed with sorrow.” He was inundated with grief, “to the point of death.” Jesus couldn’t even stand up, but “fell with his face to the ground.” The path ahead for Him made no earthly sense. He knew that He face imminent death; a slow, painful, drawn out death. And even though He knew why this had to happen, and what God would do afterwards, death is still death; something to be avoided at all costs.

There may be an infinite array of causes for our pain, but the suffering we go through, the emotional torture and choking depression, is pretty much universal. And Jesus knows this pain, not just in a vague, abstract kind of way, but in a very real and personal manner.

I will never be able to “solve” the problem of Hurricane Sandy. I don’t know all the specific reasons for why God would allow that to happen or why He would allow so many people to go through this period of suffering. But I am comforted by the fact that God is intimately aware of our pain, and can therefore meet us in the middle of our heartache as a result.

The Bible says of the Messiah:

He was despised and rejected by men,

    a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.

Like one from whom men hide their faces

    he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he took up our infirmities

    and carried our sorrows,

yet we considered him stricken by God,

    smitten by him, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions,

    he was crushed for our iniquities;

the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,

    and by his wounds we are healed. (Isaiah 53:3-5)

Familiar with suffering, doubled over in pain, Jesus turned to His Father for help. May we, too, learn to take our pain to God and trust Him and His perfect plans, even when they don’t seem to make sense.

Praying for others is vitally important. It’s an act of service, reflective of a humble heart that is filled with love for other followers of Jesus. However, just as we should be praying for others, we need to find others to pray for us as well. Paul’s greeting is a reminder to the Colossians that Epaphras is praying for them. Who is praying for you?

Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings. He is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured. I vouch for him that he is working hard for you and for those at Laodicea and Hierapolis. (Col. 4:12-13, NIV)

I don’t know about you, but I want to “stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured.” I have asked a couple of my closest friends to pray these kinds of prayers for me, to be interceding on my behalf on a regular basis. Just as my own acts of prayer are a healthy recognition of my neediness, asking others to pray for me as well is a further reflection of my need for Christian community. Blockbuster movies tend to celebrate the go-it-alone hero, but the Bible speaks over and over again of an alternative culture which celebrates interdependence and mutuality, all of which is undergirded by prayer.

Who are the people in your life who know you best and can be praying for you most fervently? Commit yourself to being honest and real with them, that they might be able to effectively intercede on your behalf.

Of course, one of the very specific needs that we have as followers of Jesus is for boldness and courage to proclaim the gospel. For all his apparent boldness and self-confidence, Paul still asked for prayer from his brothers and sisters in Christ in Colossae:

And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should. (Col 4:3-4, NIV)

Why would Paul need prayer? Because he recognized the phenomenal challenges his involvement in the Kingdom of God would bring. Certainly Paul played a unique and pivotal role in the expansion of the early church, but the truth is that we all have a part to play in the expansion of God’s Kingdom, and it starts with proclaiming the gospel.

Note that Paul prays first and foremost for God to open a door for the gospel. This is such a powerful and important reminder that we are merely partners with God in His work to bring people to salvation. God changes lives, not us. It is our Heavenly Father who alone has the power to turn hearts, bringing the dead back to life.

Just as prayer is a vital ingredient in the spiritual life of all believers, it is the necessary precursor to any and all evangelistic efforts. The gospel goes where God has already prepared the ground. What ground are you praying for? Who are the specific people you are praying for? How might you be able to pray more consistently for doors to open for you to proclaim the gospel?

Last week a friend and partner in ministry took his own life. The days since then have disappeared in a blur of planning and praying and crying and hugging and questioning and sometimes simply sitting. It’s a cataclysmic event that may never fully resolve itself. Like a blurry photograph this awful moment stubbornly refuses to come into focus. The questions just hang there, unanswered and unanswerable.

In the middle of it all is the big one—where is God? Why didn’t He stop this? Why did He let this happen? What is He doing? Why can’t we feel Him? Theologians through the ages have wrestled with all these questions, but academic treatises fail to speak to the heart. And so we pray. Not wishy-washy going-through-the-motions prayer, but clinging-tightly-to-God-because-I-don’t-know-what-else-to-do prayer.

How sad it is that we often approach prayer so lightly, as if it were a trivial matter to be talking with the God of the entire universe; the One who holds all things together, the one who set the stars in the sky and has determined both the beginning and end of time itself.

Paul says to the Colossians, Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. (Col 4:2) We, too, are to commit ourselves to a lifestyle of constant and consistent prayer. We have to. There is nowhere else to turn. Prayer is a very real lifeline to our only source of hope in this world. Prayer tethers us to the gospel, reminding us both of our painfully fallen nature and our absolute dependence on God’s gracious provision.

Without prayer, this last week would have been impossible to endure. All other sources of comfort are like cheap band-aids that fall right off. Only prayer can connect us with our Father in Heaven. Only prayer shows us the way out of this awful darkness. We are too busy not to pray, too hard-pressed not to pray, too needy not to pray. May the Holy Spirit equip and encourage us all as we turn to the Father in prayer today.