While I wanted intimacy with God, I often found prayer to be an empty exercise of rushed compliance; a perfunctory action I often forgot to do. Unless of course, my life was in crisis. Then, prayer became highly important to me. Then it was easy to pray, and to be authentic.
Yes. I could pray in church. I could even pray out loud in restaurants. And sometimes, my prayers felt authentic. Sometimes not. And when I listened to prayers in church, they often seemed perfunctory, sometimes authentic. And yet, there were those very rare occasions where it felt like God was right there in the middle of our group. Listening. And speaking through others. And we got lost in prayer.
Recently, I got hooked by the title of Philip Yancey's book, Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference? So I grabbed the book and started scanning. Imagine my surprise when I learned that many Christians interviewed by Yancey felt prayer was more of a burden than a pleasure. And they felt guilty for their poor prayer experiences.
While
Christians, including pastors, ranked prayer high in importance, they also ranked it high in frustrations. In fact, Yancey's publisher conducted a website poll of its own and found that only 23 of the 678 respondents were satisfied with their time praying. That means only 4% were satisfied, and 96% were not satisfied with their prayer life. I identified with the dissatisfied majority. Yancey wrote and quoted many wonderful ideas that make this book so compelling. See what you think of this sampling.
"If prayer stands as the place where God and human beings meet, then I must learn about prayer. I have now written twenty books, and in some way or other most of them circle around the same two themes: why God doesn't act the way we want God to, and why I don't act the way God wants me to. Prayer is the precise point where those two themes converge." -- Philip Yancey
"Who one believes God to be is most accurately revealed not in any credo but in the way one speaks to God when no one else is listening." -- Nancy Mairs.
"The paradox of prayer is that it asks for a serious effort while it can only be received as a gift. We cannot plan, organize or manipulate God; but without a careful discipline, we cannot receive him either." -- Henri Nouwen
"Biblical prayer is impertinent, persistent, shameless... It is more like haggling in an outdoor bazaar than the polite monologues of the church." -- Walter Wink
"The prayer preceding all prayers is "May it be the real I who speaks. May it be the real Thou that I speak to." -- C. S. Lewis
Recognizing that I was standing in the need of prayer, I bought Yancey's book, and now, am trying to learn about prayer. And more about God.
Now, what about you?
Would you please share your prayer experiences and ideas with this virtual community? Anonymously, if you like. But we'd like to know how others interact with God, and what experiences you have with prayer. Let's talk about the elephant.
- Just how satisfied or dissatisfied are you with your prayer life?
- Does your prayer life seem transactional or relational?
- How sincere and authentic are you when you pray?
- How close to God do you feel when you pray?
- And how and where does the Holy Spirit fit in?
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3 comments:
Fortunately, one of the ways, I find, that God reaches out to us and gives us alternatives to our perceived emptiness of our prayer lives is by participating and listening to the prayers of others.
Our granddaughter's prayers at bedtime, for example, inspire me.
Far from being perfunctory, they are some of the most authentic, simple, conversational, trusting prayers I've heard. It's as if God is there, and she is talking directly to him, and she has no doubt that he is listening. Her prayers are earnestly thankful, appreciative, intimate (in her requests and concerns) and uplifting. Listening to her prayers offers me a feeling of natural closeness to God, often missing in my prayer life.
As I thought about this gift of prayer we receive through our granddaughter, I found the following relevant text from Matthew 21 (quoting Psalm 8) when Jesus had cleansed the temple and said his house will be called a house of prayer. "Yes, replied Jesus, have you never read, 'From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise'?"
I'd love to hear other views on the point of being blessed through the prayers of others, and especially, through the mouth of babes...
I really resonate with the prayers of my children. They're so much better at praising God than pleading with God. So much so that at dinner time if I'm really hungry, I just do the prayer myself because who knows how long Josh or Lydia will go before they're done!!! [Praise you for spaghetti, for making clouds, for doggie shampoo, for passing my 12's times tables...they can go on and on and on...] But recently I learned something else about the verse Jesus was quoting. The authors of Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus point out that in Matthew 21, Jesus was using a classic rabbinic technique by quoting part of a verse and leaving the rest unsaid.
The first part of Psalm 8:2 says, "From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise." And that sounds wonderful and encouraging and when we hear our grandkids or anyone's for that matter praising God it can and should bring a smile to our lips. But that's not the way Jesus was using this verse. Because the people hearing him would have known what the rest of Psalm 8:2 says: "Because of your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger."
IOW, Jesus was saying both. That the prayers of children are precious. And can teach us much about what it means to praise God. But also that failing to grasp this simple truth will eventually turn us into the enemies of God. And that anyone insincerely praising God actually is an enemy of God. The prayers of those children were a stern rebuke to the people who knew the rest of Psalm 8:2. And maybe they're a rebuke to us as well when we continue to approach God in a "coke machine" kind of way, pleading with him to answer our prayers the way we want them to be answered instead of praying like Jesus did in Gethsemane, "Let this cup pass from me, but if not, your will be done."
Awesome insights, Mike! WTG!
Thanks for providing excellent context which I never imagined was going on. Great contextual save makes my understanding of those texts so much richer, more meaningful, and most importantly, more accurate! Thank you.
Please continue to help us exegete, man, exegete.
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