CoD V.1.4.5- Prayer.
Over the last few weeks I have been deeply impressed by the importance of prayer in life and ministry. This may come as a shock to some (Oh!), but I think this is a widespread deficiency in my generation- it may be that this is a discipline naturally instilled at a later age, but that's no excuse- very, very few of my peers (and I include myself here) are really committed to prayer.
Now, for better or worse, I have come to believe that a blog- or anything else one reads, or any kind of argument from an external third party for that matter- goes a very limited way towards changing a person's mind in important matters (ha- prayer's useful here!). I could convince most of my friends to eat a hamburger instead of a hotdog, or if I'm particularly persuasive that day, I might even convince some friends to try a veggie-burger instead of a hamburger for one meal; but I dont think I'm going to be able to convince anyone to commit one, or two, or three hours to prayer daily, no matter how well I argue. Change that's that deep would have to come from within, with conviction from the Holy Spirit. So I won't build a defense here, I'll just blog about what I've been convinced of...
People pray for many things, but I'll go closer to home than that: in the history of my life, I have prayed for many things- for sunshine, for rain, for a puppy, for good friends, for good grades. I have prayed for the peace of Jerusalem (although when I first prayed this, I had no idea what it meant- I used to picture Jerusalem as a place where people with big beards like Tevye sang in deep voices and danced by clapping their hands and stamping their feet. So I figured I was praying for peace from all the noise). I have prayed for relief from stressful situations. I have prayed for a job, a car, etc, when I have needed them. I have prayed for a left-handed wife (yeah, I gave up on that). I have prayed for people who're sick, etc, etc.
When I was around 15, or 16, I met a man from Cameroon in Africa, who spent a lot of time praying. He once asked me whether I prayed, to which I answered, of course, that I most certainly do pray. He then asked me whether God answered my prayers. Now, that was a bit more iffy- He seemed to, sometimes, and then not so much at other times. Why then, the man from Cameroon asked me, did I bother praying? (I dont remember how this conversation ended, I was sleepy at the time... I think he prayed for me...)
In the context of life as war (see post titled 'War', dated Aug.24th), John Piper has some very interesting things to say about prayer. According to Piper, the number one reason prayer malfunctions in the hands of believers is that we try to turn a wartime walkie-talkie into a domestic intercom. In light of John 15:16 (look it up! I dont have the space to write it down), Piper argues that the reason God has given Christians the instrument of prayer is because God has given them a mission- they have been sent to bear fruit. Prayer then, is designed to extend the kingdom into fruitless enemy territory. To that end, we have been given personal access to our commander, but we are responsible for staying true to His mission, and to seek His victory first.
But most Christians, Piper continues, have stopped believing that they are at war, and have instead tried to rig our wartime walkie-talkie into an intercom for our houses, cabins, boats and cars- not to call in firepower for conflict with a mortal enemy, but to ask for more comforts in the den. When we try to turn prayer into a civilian intercom to increase our conveniences, it stops working, and our faith begins to falter. We have so domesticated prayer that for many of us it is no longer what it was designed to be (James seems to agree with this view- James 4:3-4).
Without a wartime mentality, the Biblical teaching about the urgency of prayer and the vigilance of prayer and the watching in prayer and the perseverance of prayer and the danger of abandoning prayer will make no sense and find no resonance in our hearts.
Now, I hadn't really begun to seriously consider the urgency of the spiritual battle of this world until I began to read Piper, so I didn't see life as war, but I did wonder about prayer. It always struck me as odd, reading and then studying about the Lord's prayer, that in the entire prayer, half a line- "give us this day our daily bread", was all that covered every physical need, problem and issue we might have (which is what I spent most of my prayer time on). The first half of the prayer was concerned with God's glory and His kingdom and His will, and the rest of the second half with our spiritual condition, before going back to God's glory.
No wonder then that in Matthew 6, Christ could tell people to not worry about what they would eat, or drink, or wear, but to seek God's kingdom- it would seem that in prayer, as in life- the things that matter to God are not necessarily the things that we have been trained to care about. However, if this is true, then prayer becomes vital to a life spent in the pursuit of God's glory- for me to seek to glorify God in my own strenght- as sinful, weak and prone to failure as I am- would be asinine as well as futile (as I can clearly see from past experience). It is through prayer that God's power can work through me to glorify Him (more about this in the very next post).
Now, for better or worse, I have come to believe that a blog- or anything else one reads, or any kind of argument from an external third party for that matter- goes a very limited way towards changing a person's mind in important matters (ha- prayer's useful here!). I could convince most of my friends to eat a hamburger instead of a hotdog, or if I'm particularly persuasive that day, I might even convince some friends to try a veggie-burger instead of a hamburger for one meal; but I dont think I'm going to be able to convince anyone to commit one, or two, or three hours to prayer daily, no matter how well I argue. Change that's that deep would have to come from within, with conviction from the Holy Spirit. So I won't build a defense here, I'll just blog about what I've been convinced of...
People pray for many things, but I'll go closer to home than that: in the history of my life, I have prayed for many things- for sunshine, for rain, for a puppy, for good friends, for good grades. I have prayed for the peace of Jerusalem (although when I first prayed this, I had no idea what it meant- I used to picture Jerusalem as a place where people with big beards like Tevye sang in deep voices and danced by clapping their hands and stamping their feet. So I figured I was praying for peace from all the noise). I have prayed for relief from stressful situations. I have prayed for a job, a car, etc, when I have needed them. I have prayed for a left-handed wife (yeah, I gave up on that). I have prayed for people who're sick, etc, etc.
When I was around 15, or 16, I met a man from Cameroon in Africa, who spent a lot of time praying. He once asked me whether I prayed, to which I answered, of course, that I most certainly do pray. He then asked me whether God answered my prayers. Now, that was a bit more iffy- He seemed to, sometimes, and then not so much at other times. Why then, the man from Cameroon asked me, did I bother praying? (I dont remember how this conversation ended, I was sleepy at the time... I think he prayed for me...)
In the context of life as war (see post titled 'War', dated Aug.24th), John Piper has some very interesting things to say about prayer. According to Piper, the number one reason prayer malfunctions in the hands of believers is that we try to turn a wartime walkie-talkie into a domestic intercom. In light of John 15:16 (look it up! I dont have the space to write it down), Piper argues that the reason God has given Christians the instrument of prayer is because God has given them a mission- they have been sent to bear fruit. Prayer then, is designed to extend the kingdom into fruitless enemy territory. To that end, we have been given personal access to our commander, but we are responsible for staying true to His mission, and to seek His victory first.
But most Christians, Piper continues, have stopped believing that they are at war, and have instead tried to rig our wartime walkie-talkie into an intercom for our houses, cabins, boats and cars- not to call in firepower for conflict with a mortal enemy, but to ask for more comforts in the den. When we try to turn prayer into a civilian intercom to increase our conveniences, it stops working, and our faith begins to falter. We have so domesticated prayer that for many of us it is no longer what it was designed to be (James seems to agree with this view- James 4:3-4).
Without a wartime mentality, the Biblical teaching about the urgency of prayer and the vigilance of prayer and the watching in prayer and the perseverance of prayer and the danger of abandoning prayer will make no sense and find no resonance in our hearts.
Now, I hadn't really begun to seriously consider the urgency of the spiritual battle of this world until I began to read Piper, so I didn't see life as war, but I did wonder about prayer. It always struck me as odd, reading and then studying about the Lord's prayer, that in the entire prayer, half a line- "give us this day our daily bread", was all that covered every physical need, problem and issue we might have (which is what I spent most of my prayer time on). The first half of the prayer was concerned with God's glory and His kingdom and His will, and the rest of the second half with our spiritual condition, before going back to God's glory.
No wonder then that in Matthew 6, Christ could tell people to not worry about what they would eat, or drink, or wear, but to seek God's kingdom- it would seem that in prayer, as in life- the things that matter to God are not necessarily the things that we have been trained to care about. However, if this is true, then prayer becomes vital to a life spent in the pursuit of God's glory- for me to seek to glorify God in my own strenght- as sinful, weak and prone to failure as I am- would be asinine as well as futile (as I can clearly see from past experience). It is through prayer that God's power can work through me to glorify Him (more about this in the very next post).
posted by dan at 8/31/2006 08:59:00 a.m.
1 Comments:
I was just talking with someone about prayer this week... it was in the context of our view of God. We're reading through Tozer's Knowledge of the Holy together and that's where the discussion began... that the content as well as our approach in prayer (and frequency, I would add) will change as we see God as he is, not as we make him. I would imagine fervent prayer would be just one of the consequences of being confronted with the awesomeness of God.
It never fails, mention the subject of prayer and a majority of the Faithful don't know where to look. Me included.
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