Monday, March 2nd

This week’s Faith Essential is prayer. Which may sound obvious and a bit delayed in talking about. But I think if we are honest, many of us can struggle with prayer. There can be a variety of reasons why we do struggle with prayer.

Is it just sitting with a cosmic Christmas list, asking the “santa” in the sky for our wish list? Do I just sit and be quiet? My thoughts ramble on, is it my voice that I’m hearing back or is it God’s voice? Do my prayers even make a difference? God’s going to do his own thing anyway? Besides, look at all the unanswered prayers from people who are more holy than me. I’ll leave prayer to the paid professional Christians, the pastors, besides they’re closer to God. Even our picture of who God is can be a struggle with prayer. If we see God as far off, distant, angry with us, why would we want to approach him or spend time with him.
For a moment, can you pause and summarize any struggles that you have with prayer and write them down. We’ll get to those in a moment. If you struggle with prayer, what gets in the way or why do you struggle?

Because if we are to be with Jesus, be like Jesus, and do the things Jesus did, what did we see with Jesus and prayer?

Take a look at these few passages and what do you notice about Jesus and prayer.
Luke 5:16- But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.

Luke 6:12-13a- 12 One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. 13 When morning came…

Luke 9:18- Once when Jesus was praying in private and his disciples were with him…
Luke 9:28- About eight days after Jesus said this, he took Peter, John and James with him and went up onto a mountain to pray.

Luke 11:1- One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray…”

Have you ever noticed that this is the only thing the disciples ask Jesus directly to teach them? They didn’t ask Jesus to teach them how to give a better sermon. They didn’t ask him to teach them to cast out demons, even though one day they did struggle. They didn’t ask him to teach them to do miracles. Of all the things, they asked Jesus to teach them. It was to pray.

Why?

I would argue, because they saw the way Jesus prayed and it was different than what they had grown up seeing in the synagogue and they saw what happened when Jesus did spend time with God in prayer. They wanted to experience more of the presence of God because amazing things happened when Jesus spent time in prayer.

Simply put, prayer is presence with God and partnership in His Kingdom. Prayer is communing, being with, spending time in the presence of God. Prayer is communicating with God, by the way, it is both talking and listening. Prayer is about His Kingdom, which is a really broad way of saying prayer is about God, his character and his promises, it is about you, as his son or daughter, it is about others and the activity of God in day to day life. I think Tim Keller summarizes it well in his book, Prayer, “Prayer is both awe and intimacy, struggle and reality.”

This week I want to give you an opportunity to grow in prayer and practice prayer. And that’s the mindset that I want you to have. How can I grow in prayer and in order to grow in prayer, I have to practice prayer. Prayer will not be an essential part of your faith journey if you don’t take time to practice it.

First things first, as we saw Jesus, he took time to go and pray. The first step in growing in prayer is commit to a time and a place. Maybe it is setting your alarm 5 minutes earlier, maybe it is taking 5 minutes at lunch or before you go to bed. That time can grow into more, but like running a marathon. You don’t just go out and run 26.2 miles if you haven’t been running. You start with running short distance and as time goes, you can string more miles along and before you know you are running a marathon, your praying for 30 minutes, an hour, growing in having prayer conversations throughout the day.

Pick a time and pick a place. I know that may sound odd. Can’t I pray wherever. Yes, you can. Even Paul says, “pray continually” which means he was on the move and praying. But what I’m talking about is growing in the practice of prayer. Which choosing a place helps you do that. For us, it is our over-sized chair in our living room. Both Theresa and I will take time in that chair for reading, journaling, and prayer.

Maybe it is a different place in your house, maybe it is outside, maybe it is a place at work. Try and find a place that you can spend a few minutes each day where the focus and attention is his presence and partnership through prayer.

I like how pastor and author Pete Greig shares it. “He (God) understands that we sometimes get tongue-tied, distracted, overwhelmed, and confused. He doesn’t get insecure if we occasionally doubt his existence. He sees our bruised and broken hearts and accepts that prayer hasn’t always seemed to help. He isn’t the least bit annoyed that we occasionally find talking to him a bit boring …. But the thing is, He likes us A LOT. And wants to spend time with us even more than we want to spend time with Him.”

Sit with that for a moment.

Today I want you to meet share with God what your struggles with prayer are. I also want you to pick a time and a place that you want to grow and practice prayer. To hold yourself accountable, tell someone your time and your place.