Prayer Workshop |
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December 9, 2006
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Prayer Workshop Notes
With simplicity of heart we are gathered up into the arms of the Father. With prayer, our heavenly Father "welcomes us home, home to serenity and peace and joy, home to friendship, fellowship and openness, home to intimacy and acceptance and affirmation."
We approach the throne of God just as we are. With our warts, our blemishes our idiosyncrasies, our selfishness, pride, conceit, hate, and indifference. God does not expect us to come to him after we have "cleaned up" but he calls us with the words, "Come to me, all you who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." David called on God in many of his Psalms when he was wracked with pain and guilt (e.g. Psalms 41 & 42). Job, Moses, Jeremiah and Isaiah called on God extensively. God will not break a bruised reed or quench a smoldering wick (Matthew 12:20). Although sin cuts us off from the fullness of God's presence, by grace we have the opportunity to come to Him in prayer. God accepts our prayers without requiring them to have been run through a thesaurus, without flowing tributes or words or payment. With simplicity of heart we are gathered up into the arms of the Father. Simple prayer involves all of us, common people bringing ordinary concerns to a loving God and Father. Some may not like this form of prayer but it is the backbone, the nucleus, the essential part of prayer that cannot be forgotten. Our prayers go upward to a sovereign God; they go inward through his Son and teacher; and they go outward through the working of the Holy Spirit. We are all familiar with prayer. We pray at meals, at meetings, at church, anywhere. Why does prayer embarrass us sometimes? There are no restrictions. There are times when we should "go into your room, close the door" (Mt. 6: 6). Christ found private time to pray (e.g. Mark 1:35). The discovery of God in prayer lies in the daily and the ordinary, not just in the spectacular or heroic. We find God in the routines of home and work. When we pray we enter into communication, communion with God. He invites us to come home to where we belong and into a rest for which his children were created. We enter into a living, quality-filled, out-of-this-world experience in prayer and receive hope, joy, love, understanding, compassion and more. Our lives seemingly do not give us the time to pray as we may like. With the economic climate that we have, everything seems to be dependent on performance. Our adrenaline runs at an all time high. It may seem to those of us who are married that we are just cohabiting. In the morning we get up. kiss our wives, go to work, come home, eat, watch some TV, maybe bounce our kids on our lap, go to sleep and start all over again. Is there time for new, vital uplifting relationships? Do we have time to pray?
Let's look a little closer as to what that simple prayer consists of. We will look at the "ACTS" pattern for prayer that Bill Hybels uses in his book Too Busy Not to Pray:
Adoration is the spontaneous yearning of the heart to worship, honor and magnify. We learn adoration through His word and what we experience in His creation. We ask for nothing but to cherish him. As we begin in our fellowship with God through prayer we must recognize first of all who we are speaking with. Although God wants us to be his friend, he is first and foremost God. Yahweh. The Alpha and the Omega. As we bring him the praise and glory that is his due we begin to understand more clearly who he is. He is also our Father (Mt. 6: 9) and we are his children. "How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God" (I Jn. 3: 1). We can praise God for "being faithful, righteous, just, merciful, gracious, willing to provide, attentive, unchanging." He is an awesome God, a tremendous Father. The Psalms are full of praise (e.g. Psalms 8, 9, 23, 46, 95, 100, 148). Look at the Mary's song and Zechariah's song, both in Luke 1. Confession of our wrongdoing is probably the most difficult thing for us to do. Who here wants to admit that he is a cheater, an adulterer, thief, liar, covetous person? We like to take all our sins and group them. "Forgive all our sins." It's more convenient, less painful and we don't have to face who we really are. So who do we fool? God wants us to be specific. To express our shortcomings in, if necessary, graphic detail is a cleansing experience. Thanksgiving. (I would rather have this after adoration.) I Thessalonians 5:18 says, "Be joyful always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." We must thank God for all of the blessings that we have received and receive on a daily basis. Nothing should be taken for granted. Food, clothing, shelter, health, strength, love, parents, freedom, church, children, friends, technology, the list goes on and on. It is all given and received by grace alone from the hand of our Father. Supplication and petition is simply asking for help. Philippians 4:6 says, "In everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." How do we ask - humbly, with a view to the furtherance of God's kingdom? or selfishly, because we just want? Do we ask in true humility, in real need? Again, be specific. We commonly pray, "Please be with us." But we know he is always with us. What are we really asking for? Second Exercise:
Unanswered prayer
Some say that God answers prayer in three ways: Yes, No, and Wait. Others say there are four ways: No, Slow, Grow, and Go. Either way it is obvious that there are times when God does not answer our prayers the way we would like for them to be answered. Matthew 7:7 says, "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." What Matthew is emphasizing in this text is persistence in prayer. Our ways are not always God's ways and we need to trust and believe that he has our greater good in mind. Perhaps he says no because we need to learn and grow. Even the disciples made requests that were not granted (see Matthew17: 1-8, Mark 9: 2-8). James and John asked Jesus to reserve for them the best seats in his Kingdom! They did not know or understand God's full purpose. God will say no to prayers that are "totally self-serving, patently materialistic, shortsighted, or immature". Sometimes the reason for our request does not seem to be wrong but God still says no. We think for example of disease, death of a loved one, and Christians killed without cause. Paul asked God to remove his "thorn in the flesh" and God said no. We must believe and have the assurance that God is in control and although we do not understand it becomes a matter of accepting his will. At times prayers are not answered because there are problems in the life of the praying person. These could be considered or called prayer busters.
Conclusion
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