Post on 06-Jul-2020
PrayerSHARING INTIMATE SPACE WITH GOD
EditorMike L. WonchDirector of EditorialBonnie PerryWritersDean BlevinsDoug Hardy
All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™
From the New Revised Standard Version (nrsv) of the Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City PO Box 419527 Kansas City, MO 64141 nph.com
ISBN: 978-0-8341-3434-8 Printed in U.S.A.
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CONTENTSIntroduction 4
1. Prayer Expresses Relationship 6
2. Prayer Expresses God’s Character and Mission 14
3. Prayer Expresses All of Our Life 22
4. A Model Prayer 30
5. Prayer Involves Listening 38
6. Prayer Involves Speaking 46
7. Prayer Involves Difficulties 54
Most of us have lives that are busy, stress-filled, and full of “must do” lists.
With all these pressures upon us, we often struggle to focus on investing
valuable time and energy into meaningful relationships with our family, our
friends, those within the church, and even with God.
Deep and authentic communication remains a needed priority for any
significant relationship to flourish. As with all relationships, healthy
communication always thrives when it remains open, deep, and constant.
That is what God desires for our prayers.
Prayer defines a two-way communication between God and us. It builds
the trust that works toward interweaving our lives with God. Yet, we often
miss the depth of conversation possible, particularly when our prayers consist
of mere words expressed from the position of obligation or meaningless habit.
Rather than some boring requirement we are expected to fulfill, God desires
our sincere and honest conversation filled with expressions of love.
Prayer remains one of the most important aspects of a Christian’s
life. Prayer: Sharing Intimate Space with God explores the ways in which prayer
can enrich our relationship with God.
Doug Hardy serves as Professor of Spiritual Formation and Director of Doctor of Ministry Programs at Nazarene Theological Seminary in Kansas City, MO where he helps students who are preparing for pastoral ministry to pray as they learn. He grew up in Canada; studied, pastored, and taught in the United States; and has taught in Africa and Ireland. Doug is married with three grown children. Whether speaking, writing, or in conversation, his desire is to come alongside others to help facilitate their alignment with God.
Dean G. Blevins currently serves as Professor of Christian Formation and Discipleship at Nazarene Theological Seminary. An active scholar, Dean has contributed to several books and published over 50 church related or scholarly articles. In addition, Dean co-wrote the text Discovering Discipleship: The Dynamics of Christian Education with Dr. Mark Maddix. Dean currently serves as senior editor of Didache: Faithful Teaching, an on-line academic journal. Dean currently resides in Olathe Kansas with his wife JoAnn. Their daughter, Rachel, is a student at Southern Nazarene University.
INTRODUCTION
5
PRAYER EXPRESSES RELATIONSHIP
7
We pray.
We pray at meals, at bedtime, on special days, and often either opening
or closing events. We occasionally pray “foxhole prayers,” prayers associated
with soldiers in moments of extreme threat and crisis. To be honest, our
foxhole may occur in a doctor’s office, a hospital waiting room, a jail cell,
at the beginning of a test, at the end of a relationship, in a funeral home, or
anticipating our own departure from this world. These times mark moments
of real need, vulnerability, when we appear most human. Prayer also occurs
during major changes in our lives, and the lives of people we know--work,
school, home, community, and church. We also pray strange prayers that
might be for pet turtles, new cars, homes to sell or buy, vacation travel, or
income to pay for everything.
Why? And what good does it do us?
If we are honest with ourselves we feel invited to do something that
probably feels both natural and unnatural. I suspect each of us knows people
that pray a lot, and others who rarely pray. Does volume make a difference?
Prayer habits take many forms and fashions (postures, language, location, and
expectations).
Some of us might be able to explain to a visitor “what” we do when we
pray, but not always why. Why do you hold your hands that way? Why are
you bowing your head, or dropping on your knees? Why go to the front of
the church and lean on a bench, rail, or platform? Knowing what, when, and
how to pray really depends a lot on understanding why we pray.
We intuitively know we do not “master” prayer the way we might a sport
or hobby. Instead, we seek to know how prayer might shape us. Much like the
disciples of Jesus in Luke 11:1, at some point in our lives we ask “teach us to
PRAYER
8
pray,” if only to learn how to focus amid the distractions that draw us away
from prayer. Prayer remains both a natural and unnatural practice for many of
us. But why?
Reflect on this…When do most people pray? Name the times and places when people
might pray during their normal week? Why might they do so?
Can you name some times when you or someone close experienced a
“ foxhole” moment that drove them to prayer? What motivated them to
pray and why?
Thinking about your personal prayer life, what seems natural and
unnatural? What forms of prayer seem natural? Where might you
struggle with prayer?
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PRAYER EXPRESSES RELATIONSHIPThe World We Live In
To be frank, prayer does not easily fit in the world around us. We now live
in a world of instant communication. This world actually began with the
invention of the telegraph. Suddenly news did not travel by courier for hours
or even days. Events around the world arrived almost instantly (or at least as
quickly as telegraph operators could relay the information). Later our world
shifted when people learned how to verbally send information by telephone,
broadcast information through radio and television, and network us through
the Internet. Today our world seems to revolve around instant texts, tweets,
and posts. Prayer seems odd in our current, communication-saturated, world.
Yet prayer seems odd even in connection with our intimate, interpersonal,
lives as well. We often talk with someone over coffee, in a boardroom, at the
water cooler, in the hallway, or while riding in a car. We often seek feedback,
either vocally in comments or words, or with physical responses of smiles,
shakes, slaps on the back, or laughter. We tend to expect “somebody” on the
other end of the conversation to respond, in the moment, and confirm our
thoughts, fears, and dreams.
Nor does prayer fit neatly with those internal “conversations” we have in
our head. As reflective people, we often play out conversations with others or
ourselves tacitly in our minds. We control both sides of this conversation, and
the outcome of the dialog with ourselves. Yet silent prayer seems different,
the outcome less certain, since we are not in control. How do we pay attention
to our own personal “inner world” of thoughts and desires while attending
to the God of the universe? These challenges bring us to the natural, yet
unnatural, challenges of prayer.
PRAYER
10
Prayer defines something we do, almost as if the practice seems wired into
our bones. However, prayer seems like something unlike anything else we
do, calling for our attention, our faith, our obedience, and our practice. The
more we pray, the more natural prayer seems, the more our lives seem shaped
by prayer. We pray . . . yet our prayers seem to have their own life in how they
free us, transform us into a new people. In a world of instant communication,
concrete personal relationships, and multiple opportunities to explore our
“inner selves,” we find ourselves in conversations with God that have as
much, if not more, impact on our lives as our other relationships. Prayer, in
its natural and seemingly unnatural forms, places us in a relationship. Prayer
changes us in terms that we cannot always easily understand, much less
explain, the same way our closest relationships change us.
Reflect on this…Thinking about the different forms of communication, how do they
hinder people’s expectations concerning prayer?
Can you name a time when prayer changed you, almost the same way a
close relationship might have changed you?
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PRAYER EXPRESSES RELATIONSHIPPrayer as a Relationship
For well over twenty years I opened Sunday School classes with prayer.
With a personal interest in discipleship, the formation of Christians as they
follow Jesus, I remained convinced that following Jesus also meant living
“with” Jesus through prayer. I also knew that prayer served as a means of
grace as we participated within God’s life as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Often people offered up prayer requests that resembled petitions, cries
for help, for guidance. We should not be surprised. Prayer, coming from the
Latin verb to beg or entreat, includes a basic, biblical level of petitioning or
asking.1 These prayers, often described as simple prayers, begin where we
are, where our desires take us for the sake of ourselves and other people. We
cannot ignore these prayers, nor demean them, for they provide a place to
begin and a place to return when we are discouraged with our prayer life.2
However, prayer initiates change, change in us based on a growing
relationship with the God to whom we pray. Prayers do not serve as magical
incantations to merely change the circumstance of our lives or situations in
the world. Prayer involves our whole being, bringing us into relationship with
the God of the universe. That relationship alone changes us. Relationships
take various forms. Just like with people, we do not merely communicate
in simple direct requests. Depending on the relationship, we also listen
deeply, talk about private matters, wrestle with understanding each other,
and even express strong emotions of anger or love. So we cannot limit
prayer to just one expression of asking for needs alone, like a child who
begins each conversation with “I want.” Prayer includes communication,
1. Howard, Evan B. “The Life of Prayer.” In The Brazos Introduction to Christian Spirituality (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2008), 300.
2. Foster, Richard J. Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1992), 11-15.
PRAYER
12
but also conversation and communion, with God, both on a personal and a
community level.3
Reflect on this…Think about some of the basic “simple prayers” you have prayed.
Describe how you maintain relationships. What happens to those
relationships if you merely asked for help all the time?
When have you prayed that seemed more like a conversation or merely
resting (communing) in God’s presence? What difference did it make?
The Many Forms of Prayer
Fortunately we possess many forms of prayer, ones that help us enter into
relationship with God. As we shall see in a later chapter, even Jesus’ prayer,
taught to His disciples, incorporated many different types of prayer. We
offer prayer as expressions of praise or adoration, thanksgiving, confession,
contemplation or meditation, recollection or reflection (particularly around
scripture), petition or intercession, and surrender or dedication. Prayer can
include many different postures or practices, from using prayer guides such
as ACTS (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication) to employing
prayer journals. Often people create specific places for prayer in their homes, or
go to retreat centers for extended prayer. People pray out loud, or reflect silently
3. Hinson, Glenn. s. v. “Prayer.” In Encyclopedia of Religious Education, edited by Iris V. Cully, Kendig Brubaker Cully (San Francisco: Harper & Row Publishers, 1990), 494-495.
13
PRAYER EXPRESSES RELATIONSHIPon their relationship with God. Some pray through Scripture while others use
aspects of God’s creation (music, art, outdoor walks, devotional writings) to
spark their prayers. The range of approaches to building a relationship with
God seems as varied as our relationships with other people. While there may
be no one approach, no one practice, no one expected outcome with prayer,
the diverse options offered must always connect both personally and with the
worshipping community we live within. Prayer appears to be both natural
and unnatural, something we do, yet also a discipline where we, through
intentional practice, sustain a real relationship. We need to explore and access
the many opportunities to practice prayer. We need to find a way to prayer that
communicates more than just needs, but establishes a true relationship with
God.
Reflect on this…Think about the different practices of prayer that you have seen and
heard. How many have you explored as a means of establishing a prayer
life?
Which examples of prayer seem most natural? Why?
Which examples of prayer seem the most difficult? Why?
64
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