How to Pray

I was thinking a bit on “how to pray.” I thought I’d share some of the verses that have helped me frame prayer and thoughts I have on the subject.

Thanks to Jesus’ sacrifice, we all have a personal relationship with our Creator. We don’t need a priest to speak to God for us – Jesus is our priest (and that’s another topic maybe we’ll get around to someday). We don’t need a sacrifice to become right with the King – Jesus was our sacrifice. God wants to have a personal relationship with us because that is the reason He created us. Since God has opened the way for us to have a personal relationship with Him (by the sacrifice of the Son), we can talk to Him like He’s standing in the room. We know that God is all around us, all the time. We can speak out loud to Him and He listens. He may not act, or act in the way we expect, but He listens. He may not speak audibly, but He listens. For me, I aspire to have my prayer be simply conversing with God. Although I admit that most of the time, prayer is just a time I set aside to especially talk with God, usually when I need something. That’s not how I think it should be, just how it is for me right now.

What do I say when I pray? Jesus gave us the framework in “The Lord’s Prayer” Matthew 6:9-13.

"This, then, is how you should pray: 'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 
Give us today our daily bread. 
Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’

I can pray this word-for-word or I can use the themes to construct my own prayer. This is how I break it down:

… hallowed be your name… worship God. Acknowledge He is holy. Convince your heart, body and soul to love Him, to bow down to Him, … praise Him for his greatness. If you run out of ideas for this, look in Psalms. It has so many elegant expressions of worship.

… your will be done … of course God will carry out His will. But He can make two or three or more different choices and still be acting out His will. You’re acknowledging that He’s in control – and starting to set aside your own will, the will for which you might be praying. You are starting to think about whether or not your will matches His will and you are checking your intentions. When you are honest with yourself then you will already start changing your will to His will. And you seek His will, not your own.

… give us this day … He is our provider. He gives us everything we need.

… forgive us our debts … He already did it, through Christ, but we remember Christ’s sacrifice for us, and more importantly, His Love. We repeat this love by forgiving others.

… lead us not… even though we are saved, we still live in the world. Satan still tempts us. We want to be pure, to be Holy… we already are in His eyes, but we can mock Christ’s sacrifice if we continue to sin – so we ask for His help to not sin. This is hard to comprehend but for the sake of understanding prayer, we’re simply asking Him to help us in our humanness.

Using this framework, a simple prayer might be

"Lord you are Holy. You are the Master of Creation. Let your will be done in my life. Help me to have your will. Thank you for forgiving my sins. Help me to forgive others. Let me walk in your light and truth and love."

For me this prayer is an icebreaker. It helps me make sure my heart is right with God before I ask Him for stuff. God wants us to ask for things. Matthew 7:7-11

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!

Also in James 4:1-3

"What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.”

Asking for things may sound like a selfish act but that is Satan’s lie. When we ask for things in Jesus’ name – with the right motive, as the previous verse says - we have the heart of God and are asking in Love. When you ask God for your children to grow up to know Jesus, is that selfish? If you ask for God to bless your marriage, is that selfish? No, those are things that God wants to do for us, and even though He knows we need them, He wants us to ask so that we are consciously acknowledging His provision in our lives.

I have to cite my one of my favorite verses. Philippians 4:6-7:

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Finally, prayer doesn’t have to be in words. The Spirit helps us pray. Romans 8:26:

“In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.”

Car Trouble

Lately I've been having a bit of a problem with the cooling system in my car.

The first time, I noticed that the engine temperature was getting really hot, so I dove into a service station, which happened to be right there, I mean, like I was passing it when I was having the cooling problem. The service station had everything I needed for the sudden car trouble.

The second time, I pulled into my parking spot at work, shut down, and noticed steam emanating from my hood. I opened the hood and there was a geyser of coolant spraying from one of the hoses leading to the car's radiator. I thought, well, that could have happened anytime on the way to work - but it didn't; it happened as I parked.

Wow, that is amazing.

Immediately I attribute little blessings like this to God's watchful eye. He is taking care of me.

The only problem is, I don't know if He's taking care of me like James, or like Matthew.

James 1:2-4 says "My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing."

Matthew 6:25-27 says "“Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? "

So is this a trial for me to develop character or is it just God taking care of me? Maybe both...

I know that in this fallen world, things are going to break. Stuff is going to get old. Cars are going to need to be fixed. It's nice to know that despite that, I can live out my life like the birds of the air and just embrace the lovingkindness of my Father watching over me. It's nice when a trial brings a gleam to my eye rather than the weight of the world on my mind.

Parent Prayers II

I have decided that I nearly completely missed the mark with my post parent prayers. In recent months I have determined that maybe I should be less concerned about what I will pray for my children than with what I will pray for myself. Matthew 7.

Not that I would cease praying for my children. Or less.

It's just that I've realized that my sense of responsibility to care for them by praying for them, by asking God to bless them and keep them safe, to hold them in His hands, to know and love Him, has blinded me to the work that God needs to continue to do in my own heart. I feel frustrated, impatient, irritable, and only God can fix those things.

So to my laundry list of prayers, I've added requests for me. To be:

Patient
Wise
Selfless
Committed
Imaginative

In Jesus' Name

I am torn about exercising the power of Jesus' name.

Matthew 17 says that if we have faith even as small as a mustard seed, that we can move mountains!

John 14 says that we will do even greater works than Jesus!

John 16 says that the Father will give us whatever we ask for in Jesus' name!

When I was a youngster, I stood in church and listening to the worship team, I believed that if I prayed for healing in Jesus' name that God would heal my eczema. God did not heal me.

Since He didn't heal me, I resolved that God was showing me how Jesus felt when He prayed in the garden. I started praying for healing if it was God's will. In fact, at 8 years old, I identified even more with Jesus, thinking I might have a mild case of stigmata as my eczema outbreaks seemed isolated to my wrists and ankles. The blood in my wrists surged more as I prayed for this little bit of healing. I was not healed.

If you read my post Good Thing God's in Control then you should know eczema was the medical issue that threw my future into doubt when I applied for the Academy.

Today I don't have any eczema. It occasionally flares up in specific circumstances.

I believe that while God hasn't completely heal me, this life isn't over yet and eczema served to reveal His power in my life, Praise God. Kind of reminds me of Paul.

Nonetheless, this issue established for me a status quo for the power of my faith in prayer. In short, I believe my prayer has no power, only that I might make requests that might already line up with God's plan.

Abraham's prayer actually changed God's mind in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. He is not the only example of someone who changed God's mind.

"... in Jesus' name, Amen," is my family's most common conclusion to spoken prayer. More recently I reflected that I cannot simply say "God please... blah blah blah... in Jesus' name, Amen," that to ensure God hears and acquiesces to my prayer, that my heart's intent must be in Jesus' name. This would, as an example, prevent me from asking God for a Lamborghini in Jesus' name, or believing that He might actually arrange for me to own a Lamborghini.

I am concerned about the future. There are things I want for myself and my family. God tells me not to worry about tomorrow. I stop, I pray that I do not worry, I find peace, and I end up... concerned. I don't think I fret, I just think, and plan. As I do this I don't believe God always gives me clarity about the future. Often I think I shall just copy Gideon and bust out the fleece.

This is why I'm torn. I want to pray; God wants me to converse with Him. I want to pray for what I want, but I want to pray for it in Jesus' name. Sometimes I must make choices and I don't know the best one. I may know what I want but I don't know if it's what God wants. If I check my heart and believe that I am praying in Jesus' name, I find my heart reveals what I want, and I don't know if that's what God wants. Then I think He must be leaving it up to me. In the silence of His voice, He is telling me it doesn't matter what I choose: He will be glorified. So I decide to pray for what I want.

The best example I can think of is praying for someone who has cancer. How do you pray for someone who has cancer? That God will heal them if it is His will in Jesus' name?

Now, the rub. If I pray in Jesus' name, it shall be granted. But the eczema thing shows me God won't answer in the way or when I expect. Between now and then I call into question the power of my faith and even worse, the power of God to answer prayer. I suppose I will have to accept Hebrews 11:13.

No Laughing Matter

Have you ever thought about the role of humor while living out our faith?

Obviously God created us with a sense of humor, but sometimes I don't feel like humor and church or faith or Jesus mix. But they should!

Case in point #1: on Easter we took pictures of Pineapple and Mango with some nice stuffed animals.

The stuffed animals were a lamb and a bunny. I find this quite amusing, but at the same time bordering on sacrilege. It was actually a near accident; I was choosing the props for the photo and I picked the softest, most adorable stuffed creatures that I liked. I really hope God finds it amusing as well and not disrespectful.

Case in point #2: Easter really is quite a serious holiday for Christians. Jesus Christ conquering death is the foundation for our faith. But does that make it serious, as in humorless? Luke 24:5b. Does anyone besides me find it amusing that a pair of angels appear in a cemetery to ask the women, "Why do you seek the living among the dead?" What if in a moment of wit and clarity and revelation of prophecy, Mary asked in response, "Why do you proclaim the living among the dead? You ask this question, but indeed, here you are, standing in a cemetery!" If nobody else gets it, at least I think that the Creator has a pretty satirical streak.

Free Will and a Chosen People

I've been reading the Old Testament. It suddently occurred to me; what role does a chosen people have within the context of free will?

Lately I've taken the concept of free will for granted because it was a theological issue that I contemplated and accepted early in my Christian life. When it comes to free will, I am certain that none of my ideas are my own, only fragments of what others have said and speculated about God's plan for humanity. While the Word doesn't specifically say we have "free will," we can generically say Love cannot exist without free will.

Anyway, a thought which I'm certain I haven't studied in a Bible Study or heard in church or read in a book is the recurring theme of God's chosen as it applies specifically to free will - or vice versa.

What I'm wondering is whether having a segment of society be God's "chosen people" is a critical or non-critical element of free will. If critical, then how is being chosen resolve against free will [ok, yes this touches on pre-destination, certainly not an original thought]. If non-critical, then why is it a continuous theme in God's framework for this world?

This is only one example, and certainly not the best example of God's wrath on His chosen should they sway from Him. Nonetheless it is recurring: God's people suffering, crying out, being saved, laws given, rebellion, God's wrath, God's people suffering... I guess I am trying to figure out how this loop fits into the concept of free will. Perhaps it is the very concept of free will that causes the loop to occur. The only way to exit the loop is to choose to accept being chosen and thus accept the plan of salvation, rather than God's wrath...

I wrote this in like, 9 minutes, but looking forward to much discussion and research. Your thoughts please...

Fight's On

I don't particularly like to argue.

I do, however, yearn to engage in meaningful, rational discussions that have opposing points of view. I don't think I am too proud to admit to myself when I need to change my point of view, so such discussions are rewarding to me because either (1) I'm right or (2) I will have the reasoning ammo to be right in the future.

So, while all who I know that follow this blog probably agree with me 99% of the time, I am exceedingly hopeful to engage a dissenter, that I might convince or become convinced of a necessary change in reason or paradigm.