15 February 2010
Prayer
Prayer is not one of my strengths in the Christian life. I have a hard time spending any significant amount of time in focused prayer. I have also struggled with some of the teaching about prayer that is generally heard in the church - especially how to think about certain passages in Scripture. The Bible teaches that the key to effective prayer is to believe, to have faith (e.g. Matthew 21:21-22, Mark 11:22-25, James 1:5-8). How does that happen? How does one muster up enough faith to believe like that? That faith must come from God. If the faith in Christ as Savior that I start my Christian life with comes from God, then the faith to believe that a particular prayer will come to pass must also be His gift. It seems to me that when God has purposed to do some action, He provides the faith also to His people to pray, believing that the action will occur. From our perspective, we just need to pray in accordance with God's revelation of Himself and believe that God will provide the faith necessary to pray without doubt when He so chooses. Usually we ask for things in the spirit of "not my will but yours be done". When God has purposed to do something He will often give the faith to His people to pray for that thing, knowing it is His will.
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ReplyDeletePhilip Yancey’s “Prayer” is one of my favorite books on the subject. I think I like this book so much because it is so unexpected! I thought it was going to be more of the same formulaic ideas on prayer (e.g., A.C.T.S, which I do use and have found beneficial, but don’t firmly adhere to on a regular basis). Yancey simply interviewed many people on the subject of prayer in specific situations and recorded their stories.
ReplyDeleteI really appreciated your statement, “Usually we ask for things in the spirit of ‘not my will but yours be done’. When God has purposed to do something He will often give the faith to His people to pray for that thing, knowing it is His will.” How I wish to be walking so closely with the Lord that would always be the case! I’m bothered by people who pray ardently for the Lord to move in some miraculous way, then fatalistically close their prayer with a resigned sigh, “not my will, but yours be done”. That being said, to expand on your statement, I think there needs to be more education on this phrase. I do use this phrase with almost (if not all) prayers of supplication and intercession, since I cannot wholly trust myself not to be praying my own selfish ambitions, admitting that God’s perfect and pleasing will is what is best in every situation! Even when the answers are confusing and personally painful, I trust Him to complete the good work in all believers (Philippians 1:6) and to make all things work together for good (Romans 8:28).
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments, Goody2shoes. I think you also make a good point that when we ask for things for ourselves or in an intercessory way without any prior assurance that we definitely should close, in spirit if not in words, that not our will but God's be done. However, we should be at the place where we can joyfully add these words because we know God's goodness and His power will produce far better than what we could ever ask for. A common area that we can ask in faith, knowing it is God's will is when we pray His promises back to Him, as Daniel did when he recognized the 70 years prophesied by Jeremiah were completed.
ReplyDeleteRight now I am in the middle of a book on prayer that I am finding very helpful. It is "A Praying Life" by Paul Miller. I highly recommend it from what I have seen so far. Maybe I'll get around to blogging a review of it sometime.
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