Worth pondering .....

[Guest guest]

Why Prayer Is Easy

 

In May 1990 my wife lay in the recovery room as we waited for the

doctor's report. Elizabeth had undergone a range of tests from our

regular doctor, who had referred us to one of America's leading

surgical consultants. Now, following the removal of a small lump,

we were about to hear the results of the biopsy.

 

The specialist did not soften the blow. " It's cancer, " he told us.

 

The next two weeks taught me more about prayer than I had ever known,

and the first thing I learned was this: prayer is easy. Do you

sometimes think praying is an onerous burden? I assure you, it's not.

 

When cancer invades your life, you discover just how simple prayer

is. No longer do you drag yourself to your morning devotions. No

longer do you secretly crave the distraction of a phone call. No

longer do you fall asleep halfway through your prayer time. Suddenly

you want to pray. You want to pray so badly you can't stop yourself

from praying.

 

And you want God to answer.

 

Being a pastor gave me no advantage in getting my prayers answered.

In fact, it added a second layer of difficulty, because I knew I was

in the spotlight. Others look to me as an example. If the pastor

cannot pray effectively, what hope is there for everyone else?

 

Very quickly, then, I got down to the task of " spiritual lobbying. "

I knew God was in charge. I knew He had the power to deliver

instantaneous healing. My job was to persuade Him to use it, or so

I thought. I employed the usual methods. I made sure I spent lots of

time on my knees, taking every opportunity to remind God of my

situation. I got others to pray, on the principle that the louder

the clamor we made, the sooner God would hear us. My case felt pretty

watertight. After all, God could not ignore this satanic attack on my

wife. Surely He could not stand by while my innocent children

suffered. And wouldn't a healing be a tremendous testimony?

 

" If the cancer has disappeared when we go back to the doctor, " I

assured the Lord, " You will get all the glory and Your name will be

uplifted. "

 

It seemed inconceivable to me that God should turn down an offer like

that. Within a few days, I was already working out how I would break

the stupendous news to the congregation. I was ready for a miracle.

But things turned out very differently.

 

Deliverance in the Lions' Den

 

Our follow-up visit to the hospital brought bad tidings. We watched

the surgeon slide the X-ray films out of their covers. For a moment

I still expected to see his jaw drop in disbelief, expected to hear

him say the cancer was gone. But it didn't happen. Instead he frowned

and said, " I'm afraid we need to operate as soon as possible. "

 

Far from being able to thank God for a miraculous healing, Elizabeth

now had to reconcile herself to the prospect of major surgery and a

draining course of chemotherapy. This was not the outcome I had

prayed for.

 

And worse was to come.

 

One week before Elizabeth was admitted for surgery, our eldest

daughter fell seriously ill. Within twenty-four hours her body

swelled up so much that we could barely see her eyes. We called in a

pediatrician, who diagnosed an allergic reaction to sulfa drugs and

decided to check her into the hospital for observation. Elizabeth

went to be with her the first night. I stayed home with our other

three children and called some friends in the congregation. Within

hours the whole church had begun to cry to God on our behalf.

 

At four the next morning the phone startled me awake. It was

Elizabeth. " You've got to come right away, " she said. " Her blood

pressure has dropped so low that she's gone into shock. She's losing

consciousness. "

 

As I put the phone down, I realized three children were asleep

upstairs. I was the only adult in the house. I couldn't just run out.

After wasting a couple of minutes desperately trying to think who I

could disturb in the middle of the night, I picked up the phone again

and rang our dear family friend Polly Peacock. She was over in

minutes.

 

The drive to the hospital that night is etched permanently in my

memory. I prayed the kind of prayer you can only pray in the shadow

of disaster-a prayer in which you forget all the normal courtesies

and hammer on the doors of heaven as loudly as you can. I'm not proud

of the way I addressed my heavenly Father on that occasion. I

wrestled with Him as Jacob wrestled with the angel at the brook of

Kidron. And yet I know that God understood the depths of despair from

which that prayer came, for He understands me better than I

understand myself.

 

I think it was during that short journey to the hospital that the

prophet Daniel's experience crystallized in my mind: Daniel was not

saved from the den of lions; he was saved in the den of lions. For

every moment of that long, dark night, Daniel had to trust that God

would keep those lions' mouths closed.

Until dawn came and Nebuchadnezzar's guards pulled Daniel out, he

remained in imminent danger. He had no way of knowing the lions

wouldn't suddenly get hungry and eat him alive.

 

And so it was for us.

 

By the time I arrived, the hospital staff had pushed the emergency

button, and my daughter had been wheeled into the intensive care

unit. We waited five or six hours (it felt like years) for a team of

experts to assemble and diagnose our daughter's condition-not as an

allergic reaction but as toxic shock syndrome. To our relief, she

gradually pulled back from the brink of death.

 

Yet no sooner had I checked my daughter out of one hospital than I

was checking my wife into another. The operation to remove

Elizabeth's cancer gave way to six months of chemotherapy, with all

its painful side effects.

 

Despite my early optimistic prayer, God did not deliver us from the

lions' den. Like Daniel, we had to endure our night of darkness and

danger.

 

Praying Is the Most Important Thing You'll Ever Do

 

What did this experience teach me about prayer?

 

You might say, of course, that I got what I wanted-in the end. The

danger is now past; two people I dearly love are still alive and

well; and consequently I can quit lobbying God and go back to what I

was doing before.

 

But this is exactly the wrong conclusion. It's true that I'm thankful

to God for healing my wife and daughter. In that sense I did get what

I wanted, and my prayers were answered. But that is only part of the

outcome.

 

What I learned was the vast difference between my agenda and God's.

At the beginning all I wanted was for God to help me attain my own

goal. By the end I had realized what a wealth of far greater goals is

attainable if only I will take time to be alone with Him. You see,

prayer is not meant to be a means of getting what we want. If we

think of prayer as a kind of hotline to God, to be used in

emergencies only, we have not yet grasped the Christian faith.

The purpose of prayer is not to inform God. The purpose of prayer is

not to persuade God, or manipulate Him, or cajole Him. Prayer is

about surrender to God's purposes.

 

That is why Christian activities that are not rooted in prayer can

bear no fruit. Praying is simply the most important thing Christians

do. Jesus spoke of His relationship with God in the most radical

terms. The Gospels tell us that Jesus rose early in the morning-often

before daybreak-to commune with His Father. For Jesus, prayer and

communion with God were as essential as the air He breathed. His

food, he said, was " to do the will of him who sent me and to finish

his work " (John 4:34 niv). Here lay the innermost secret of Jesus'

power-the daily and disciplined bonding of His own will to the will

of God. That is why Satan takes prayer so seriously.

When did Satan come to tempt Jesus? When Jesus was praying.

 

And Satan does the same to us. Many people think of daily devotions

as a time when Satan will leave you alone. The opposite is true. Why?

Because Satan knows that prayer is the key to your power. He knows

that prayer is the secret of your strength and your victory over him.

If he can cut your power supply at the source, he'll do it. For then

he will succeed in weakening you spiritually.

 

So beware. There probably is no time in your day more open to enemy

attack than your prayer time. Satan is always on the move. He is

always plotting, scheming, planning, looking for opportunities to

slip under your guard, in order to deceive and defeat you.

 

Doze off in front of the television, and I guarantee Satan will leave

you alone. Get down on your knees, and like lightning he will be at

your side!

 

Don't Lose Your Nerve!

 

Let me give you an example of how Satan can kick back at us during

our prayer time-and how important it is to stick to our guns. In a

small town in Kentucky, there were two churches and one whiskey

distillery. For years the churches had lobbied and protested in an

effort to shut down the distillery. They complained bitterly that it

gave the town a bad name and encouraged all kinds of evils through

alcohol abuse. Nothing had worked.

 

The whiskey distillery-owned, as it happened, by an avowed atheist-

obstinately remained open. Finally someone said, " Why don't we pray? "

 

And so the two congregations resorted to prayer. Like most

evangelicals , they had not seen this as a first option, though of

course much praying had already been done in support of their

campaign. Now, however, both congregations dedicated themselves to

come together every Saturday night and pray specifically for God to

shut down the distillery.

 

Saturday after Saturday they prayed, " Oh God, shut down this

distillery. Oh God, this is a bad witness for you. " Until one night,

while they were praying, lightning struck the distillery, and it

burned to the ground.

 

You can imagine what happened the next morning. The preachers in both

churches were pounding and expounding the power of prayer. For days,

people in the town could talk of nothing else but this dramatic,

prayer- induced, divine intervention.

 

Only later did a problem come to light. The insurance adjuster

refused to pay the distillery owner. The lightning bolt, he said, was

an act of God, and this was not covered in the owner's insurance

policy. Whereupon the distillery owner promptly sued the two

congregations, claiming they had conspired with God to destroy his

business. Now just how long do you think the Bible-believing

Christians in that town went on preaching the power of answered

prayer? Well, you could measure it with a stopwatch. By the next day

they had hired a eavyweight lawyer who vehemently denied his clients

had anything to do with the burning of the distillery.

 

The trial judge said, " This is the most perplexing case I have ever

presided over. The plaintiff, who is an atheist, professes to believe

in the power of prayer. And the defendants, who are church members,

emphatically deny it. "

 

Take note: when you start praying, Satan gets busy. He wants you to

back down, so he kicks back. But this is not the time to lose your

nerve! How, then, do you get a handle on prayer?

 

The Prayer That God Will Answer

 

Fortunately, God has not left us to muddle through on our own. In a

teaching recorded by both Matthew and Luke, Jesus Himself gave us

clear directions.

 

Luke set the scene. We can imagine Jesus up on the hillside with His

Father. Down in the valley the disciples were tidying up the camp and

watching from a distance. They were probably thinking, What does He

do all that time? They were mystified and intrigued. So when Jesus

came down for breakfast, they said to Him, " Lord, teach us to pray,

just as John taught his disciples " (Luke 11:1 niv).

 

The first thing Jesus advised them was not to make the same mistake

as the Pharisees. You don't win brownie points, He said, by praying

ostentatiously in a public place. You're better off seeking out a

quiet corner and praying where no one can see you. Also, there's no

virtue in using fifty words when ten will do the job. God knows what

you need before you ask Him. What matters is to pray-not to frame

your requests in pretty speech.

 

So far, so good. But then Jesus came out with one of the most

familiar -and one of the most difficult and abused-statements in the

Bible:

This is how you should pray: " Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your

name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in

heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we

also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but

deliver us from the evil one. " (Matt. 6:9-13 niv)

 

The New King James Version adds this phrase to verse 13: For Yours is

the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. I believe

these few short verses contain a gold mine of wisdom about prayer-

more than enough to fill this book. But to learn these lessons, we

must first avoid some elementary mistakes. And the first mistake we

make is thinking we know the Lord's Prayer just because we have it

memorized.

 

Some years ago, Harry Cohen was the head of Columbia Studios. His

brother once came from New York to visit the movie mogul, and began

criticizing the way Harry did things.

 

They got into a heated argument, and finally Harry said to his

brother, " I bet you don't even know the Lord's Prayer. " " What does

that have to do with anything? " his brother asked. Harry said, " I

just bet you don't know it. "

 

" Of course I do, " replied his brother. " Now I lay me down to sleep, I

pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray

the Lord my soul to take. "

 

To which Harry said, " Oh well, I apologize, then-I really didn't

think you knew it. "

 

The mistake is not as dumb as it sounds. What we commonly call the

Lord's Prayer really isn't the Lord's prayer at all. Jesus never

prayed using these words. If anything deserves the title " Lord's

Prayer, " it is the prayer uttered by Jesus at the Last Supper in John

17. A better name for Matthew 6:9-13 would be the Disciples' Prayer.

 

Also, although Harry Cohen's brother seemed able to rattle off his

prayers like a machine gun, Jesus never meant for us to repeat these

verses mechanically. Still less should we treat them as a magic

charm. The words themselves have no power. And in saying " This is how

you should pray, " Jesus certainly did not mean for us to recite the

Lord's Prayer as we would recite a Shakespearean sonnet.

 

This is clear from the context. First, Jesus had just taken the

Pharisees to task for using meaningless and repetitious prayers, so

He would hardly have told His disciples to follow the same practice.

And second, nowhere in the New Testament do we find an instance of

the Lord's Prayer being reproduced verbatim by the apostles. Had

Jesus told them to, His closest followers would surely have taken

heed. But no. The early church had no place for this kind of

superstitious ritual-nor should we.

 

Now, if the Lord's Prayer was never intended to be a rote prayer,

then what is its purpose?

 

God's Curriculum for Prayer

 

The Lord's Prayer lays out the curriculum for biblical teaching on

prayer. It lists the study course and pulls together the major

themes. It tells us what we will have to learn if we wish to master

the art of praying. In drafting this curriculum, Jesus set out to

keep things simple. We are not expected to have a previous degree or

to have done a stack of background reading. Nor do we have to worry

about being clever enough to learn, for the Holy Spirit, the third

person of the Trinity, will always be on hand for personal

instruction. As Paul told us in Romans 8:26 nasb, " We do not know

how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us

with groanings too deep for words. " As to the content of this course

for prayer, at this point I will say only one thing, and it may

surprise you.

 

Most modern teaching deals with the " how " of prayer. We want to know

how to pray, just as we want to know how to access the Internet or

use a cellular phone. Internalizing that information, we think, is

the secret of lobbying God successfully and getting our prayers

answered.

 

But Jesus' perspective was radically different. In the Lord's Prayer,

He focused not on how we pray, but on what we pray. Jesus' curriculum

gave little room to technique. So, first we must learn to pray for

the right thing-because that is God's central purpose in having us

pray. If you look at the Old Testament, it is evident that in crisis

situations God's saints usually knew what to pray for. Abraham, for

example, charged his servant with the duty of finding a wife for his

son Isaac. This was no small task.

 

Not given a list of candidates, the servant took ten camels laden

with gifts and simply turned up unannounced in the land of his

master's birth. Arriving at the well in Nahor, however, the servant

prayed boldly. " May it be that when I say to a girl, 'Please let down

your jar that I may have a drink,' and she says, 'Drink, and I'll

water your camels too'-let her be the one you have chosen for . . .

Isaac " (Gen. 24:14 niv). God answered the prayer by bringing Rebekah

to the well.

 

Centuries later the childless Hannah poured out her heart to God at

the temple in Shiloh. Like Abraham's servant, she prayed boldly. " O

Lord Almighty, if you will only look upon your servant's misery and

remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I

will give him to the Lord for all the days of his life " (1 Sam. 1:11

niv). Again, God answered the prayer, by causing Hannah to give birth

to the prophet Samuel.

 

Throughout biblical history, God's people have known not just how to

pray, but what to pray. They were inspired to see the outcomes that

would give God the greatest glory-because the " purpose of all

purposes " in prayer is for God to be glorified. The act of praying

may bless us out of our socks, but that is not why God asks us to

pray. Prayer is God's opportunity to reveal His goodness and power,

and to be glorified and magnified. Why else did Jesus say to the

disciples, " And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the

Father may be glorified " (John 14:13 nkjv)?

 

Unless we understand what to pray to achieve the glory of God, our

prayers will be ineffectual. The prayer that God will answer is one

that we pray in a deepening awareness of God's agenda, not our own.

It is one that we pray not from the urgency of our need (urgent as

that may be!), but in surrender to His will and purpose. I understand

now that my first, desperate prayers for Elizabeth were not fully

aligned with the will of God. They came from the heart; they were

born of love. But I made a convenient and simplistic assumption that

the most dramatic miracle would automatically win God the greatest

glory. God knew better.

 

The Basics of Prayer

 

Before we begin God's course of prayer, we must, at the very least,

take prayer seriously. And to that end, let me give you a few simple

directions on the " how " of praying.

 

1. Give prayer adequate time. Can you imagine two people in love with

each other, who talk only if they need something? Isn't that absurd?

No relationship will grow if you get on the phone, give the person a

list of requests, then hang up. If a husband and wife speak to each

other only five minutes every day, the marriage will go downhill

fast. And yet five minutes is-on average-how long most evangelical

Christians spend in daily prayer. Five minutes!

 

Be warned, however: you reap exactly what you sow.

 

2. Give prayer adequate space. Jesus did not tell us where to pray,

only that we are to pray consistently and give prayer our full

attention. Not many of us today will climb a mountain in order to

spend time with God. But we can seek solitude of a lesser kind. To

pray properly, we need to go into a place where we can concentrate

without being disturbed. You may be the kind of person who can pray

at the ironing board, with the television and stereo going, and with

a telephone jammed against one ear-but I doubt it. When Jesus advised

us to go into an " inner room, " He meant for us to find a place where

we can focus on God and not be distracted.

 

3. Give prayer adequate attention. You can pray standing up or

sitting down or lying in the bath. But to pray effectively, you will

have to prioritize your prayer time. I know that is not welcome news

to people with demanding jobs and small children, but there is no way

around it. Prayer should be marked on your calendar.

 

Personally, I follow Jesus' example of rising early in the morning

for prayer. There is no scriptural command to do that. It's just best

for me because it lets me offer the firstfruits of the day to God.

And I have to be honest: if I don't give that early part of my day to

God, my whole day is miserable. I accomplish nothing. Of course,

early morning prayer does not allow us to switch off afterward. We

should pray in every situation - before meals, before meetings,

playing softball, getting into the car-because prayer is both a

discipline and a lifestyle.

 

Making the Commitment

 

Finally, let's not beat around the bush. When it comes to prayer,

most of us oversell and underperform. We like the idea of prayer.

We're just not so good at putting it into practice.

 

Most evangelical Christians today pray about like sailors use their

pumps- only when their ship is leaking. When that happens, they work

at prayer furiously. The rest of the time they don't want to know

about the discipline of prayer.

 

That is the defining characteristic of need-driven prayer. The ten

lepers in the Gospels exemplify it perfectly. In their sickness they

all clamored desperately for healing. But when Jesus healed them, how

many turned back to say thanks? Just one-and he was a Gentile. When

everything is going well, we tend to put prayer on the back burner.

It is not our priority.

 

We limit our commitment. We turn up at prayer meetings and say, in

effect, " Oh God, please use me. Oh God, use me . . . but only in an

advisory capacity. "

 

We love to pray-if it's convenient. We love to pray-if it doesn't

interfere with our busy lifestyle. We love to pray-if it doesn't get

in the way of our Christian ministry. For, make no mistake, one of

the principle blights on evangelical Christianity is our activism. We

prefer doing to being; we value action over prayer. Yet prayer is

what makes our actions-our ministry-effective for God's purposes.

 

God is not impressed by our activism as much as He's impressed by our

spending time with Him. God does not desire our success or

achievements as much as He desires our dependence on Him in prayer.

After all, God is the one who gives us the breath to go out and

achieve and succeed. Without Him, we're dead. If we are not connected

to God in prayer, all our feverish activity for the kingdom will

ultimately come to nothing. Activism is dead without the power of

prayer.

 

When you and I are in close fellowship with God, when we are intimate

with God and at peace with Him, walking daily in the Spirit, then we

will know how to pray and what to pray. When we understand what Jesus

is saying to us through the Lord's Prayer, we will experience power

in prayer as we have never experienced it before.

 

But it requires making a commitment.

 

I doubt there is a single person reading this book who doesn't feel a

little guilty about prayer, who doesn't think, Well, I know my prayer

life could really improve. If that resonates with you, then I beg you

not to read this as just another edifying Christian book. If you do

that, I guarantee that next month you won't recall a single thing God

has said to you through these words.

 

Instead, make a commitment. Begin God's course of prayer. Resolve to

look deeply into Jesus' teaching so that you can pray effectively.

Because if Christians fail to learn both the " how " and the " what " of

prayer, they will be in for a rough time.

 

I know, because I've been there.*I've prayed the wrong way, and God

has started to put me right.

 

So please make an absolute decision that you will change your

lifestyle and your habits. Whatever it takes for you to get up and

spend time with God, do it. The Holy Spirit will help you, but only

you can make that initial decision to change.

 

Your Prayer Workbook

 

Once I made that commitment to change, God began showing me how to

use the Lord's Prayer-not as a rote formula, but as my pattern. The

purpose of this book is to share those lessons with you. Each of the

following chapters will examine one phrase of the Lord's Prayer in

depth. To help you incorporate what you learn into your regular

prayer time, I have included a Prayer Workbook section at the end of

each chapter. In the blank space provided, record your reflections on

how each passage of the Lord's Prayer applies to your life; my

reflections are given as an example. Then, after you meditate on the

Scripture passages included in the workbook, use the space provided

to record a prayer in your own words, following the model I've given.

 

If you make the commitment to pray, and if you follow the pattern you

will learn from the Lord's Prayer, then God will do great and mighty

things in your life. You will begin to see your most urgent needs

met. And you will not just pray-you will pray the prayer that God

will answer.

 

Are you ready? Good. Let's start at the beginning: " Our Father. "

*While it is not primarily about prayer, my book If God Is in

Control, Why Is My Life Such a Mess? recounts some of my early

experiences and how God worked miracles in my life when I began to

pray.