Prayer has
never been an area of strength for me. How does one pray? It’s funny to hear
some evangelicals accuse those from liturgical churches of “rote” praying from
prayer books. If you listen to the average evangelical pray for any length of time
you will certainly hear a lot of “rote” repetition, and an inferior type. “Keep
us safe as we travel. Be with Martha during her Chemo treatments. Bless my
wife. Bless my children. And bless this food to our body’s use.”
One thing that helped me learn to
pray was discovering that we have a prayer book in the Bible. Eugene Peterson was
the one who pointed this out to me. In his introduction to the Psalms in the Message translation of the Bible, he
writes:
Most
Christians for most of the Christian centuries have learned to pray by praying
the Psalms…. Only as we develop raw honest and detailed thoroughness in our
praying do we become whole, truly human in Jesus Christ, who also prayed the
Psalms.
I’ve been using the Psalms in this way from some time
now. In fact, shortly after I started at Bethany
I decided to pray through all the Psalms by writing them out in my own
words. To allow others to join me in this I started a prayer blog in which I
post one Psalm a week that I’ve prayed in my own words. The blog states
the purpose of what we are doing by saying, “This is meant to be for prayer and
not theological debate. These reflective prayers on the Psalms are not a
translation or paraphrase, but simply prayers that come out of mediating on the
words of the Psalm.” People are
encouraged to write their own prayers based on the Psalm and post them
alongside of mine. I thought this would be a creative way for the community of Bethany to pray together. Unfortunately,
few people have participated. I hope that people at least benefit from reading
my prayers. Ultimately I’m not doing it for them, but to spend time with God, and
so I continue on. As an example, here is my prayer from Psalm 96.
How often do I read about creating new songs to praise you with?
And yet we get so comfortable with our
old songs – which were new at one point!
You have made us creative people and
you are a God who is always doing something new.
Help us not to get stuck with what you
have done, but to be a part of what
you are doing.
The whole earth is singing your
praises.
Your salvation has gone global.
People are found by you every day.
May we tell the stories.
Write
them.
Blog
them.
Tweet
them.
Paint
them.
Draw
them.
Mold
them.
You are great.
Worthy of praise.
Feared above all others.
Every god is a fake, invented by
people’s wishful thinking.
You alone are the real God.
You are our creator.
May we conform to your image and not
make you into ours.
You are beautiful and full of honor and
majesty.
May those who don’t know you come to
see your strength and power.
May they bow before you in worship and
offer you their life.
Let the whole world praise you.
May every country fear the Lord.
May every nation know that the Lord
reigns.
No matter what their leaders may say,
the Lord reigns!
God will not allow injustice to destroy
his creation.
He will hold it together, restore and
renew it.
He will judge everyone fairly.
May everything in heaven sing.
May everything on earth praise.
May everything in the ocean exalt.
Let the fields and their crops dance
and celebrate.
Let the trees pull up their roots and
jump for joy.
The very stones will cry out in
ecstasy.
All creatures of our God and King are
in prayer.
Creation eagerly awaits your second
coming.
When you judge the earth with holiness,
justice and truth the wicked and the righteous will get what they deserve.
For several years I’ve dedicated the first hour and a
half of each weekday to devotion (8:30am-10:00am). This time consists of Bible
reading, writing prayers in a journal from a dollar store and reading a work of
theology. I’ve noticed that I’m more disciplined, wrestle with fewer demons and
hear from God a lot better when I’ve had a good night’s sleep, showing how
intertwined our spiritual and physical health are. I crave these times and usually
wake up anticipating them. What a privilege to have a hot cup of tea, my Bible,
a journal, a heady book of theology and an hour and-a-half to just be with God
each morning. I don’t know if I could pastor a church without these times. In
fact, I would find it difficult to stay grounded in life. I recognize that this
is a privilege and something many people in many places in the world don’t have
the luxury of engaging in. It is certainly something I’m grateful for, and a
spiritual discipline I hope to maintain until the day I die.
Question: What are some of ways you have found it helpful to
pray?
Talking is not one of my favorite things to do (although my husband would disagree) I could never understand “small talk” I think is the most wasted breath; say what you have to say and get on with your day!
ReplyDeleteSince I never was that good at talking with people, talking with God wasn’t easy for me either. However I learned to dialogue with God not following a particular method but by realizing that he is with me all the time and recognizing him as the ever-present companion that he is.
There are a lot of non structured prayers times in my life and yet is the time set apart, (for me is in the evening) that builds the foundation for all my other conversations with God and guess what, there is not small talk with God!
When Pastor Stefano opened his- praying through the Psalms blog- to the church I was thrilled! I have done that in Spanish years ago, but doing it in English and in a different season of my life, proved to be challenging and rewarding.
I use the prayer blog as part of my evening time with God. The psalms are not only this beautiful part of the scriptures filled with poetry, but it is a true, say it like it is, leave your heart on the page, type of writing. The honesty and transparency of the Psalms can only inspire honesty and transparency as we pray through them. So thank you Pastor Stefano for having the prayer blog open to the church!
I am from a Wednesday night prayer meeting generation; I rarely missed a prayer meeting , until it begun to be a chore, another thing to do. What it brought it to this point for me ,was the long list of requests each with and even longer preamble .It seemed like the life of the person we were to pray for, needed to be exposed so that we could pray.
I know our needs are never ending, I know that bringing them to God in prayer is exactly what we should do. I also know that corporate prayer is powerful and that perhaps churches today are lacking a bit of that, but prayer is more than a list of requests, prayer is talking with the awesome Creator of the universe, with the loving father in heaven, with the only holy God if recognizing that doesn’t take us beyond the “Please be with the missionaries” and the “please bless this food” I don’t know what will!
Praying the Word of God back to him and having a prayer journal are wonderful ways of keeping the conversation going.
There are times when I struggle to keep the dialogue with God vibrant and rich, times when I sit there with my bible open and I keep silent, even then, I think God is waiting for my return, patiently waiting …