Spirituality and Prayer

This was our conversation from last Sunday evening, led by Darryl Lang:

True Confessions About Prayer
Or Things I’ve Heard, Thought about, Observed about Prayer

Most people I’ve talked to confess that they don’t pray enough, or they’re generally dissatisfied with their prayer life (such as it is). They may feel guilty about it, but don’t know what to do about it.

Dissatisfaction may look like not having enough time to pray, may be listening to our own prayers that sound like shopping lists, or may look like praying about individual things only and neglecting the community and the world.

Prayer meetings at churches and retreats are often frustrating and discouraging.

I wish I recorded more answers to prayer;
it would remind me that God hears and prayer matters.

I don’t think that there are any magic answers or formulas for a meaningful prayer life, but there are many helpful tools that Christians are rediscovering.

There are prayer warriors who talk to God as their best friend, but they are rare. That may be changing…

Prayer seems to be a “discipline,” and yet it can be spontaneous.

Not getting answers to your prayers is confusing, angering, and mysterious; sometime you feel all of this at once.

Maybe God wants relationship with us and that becomes our motivation to pray
and keep praying.

“When I pray, coincidences happen; when I stop praying,
the coincidences stop happening.”
~ Archbishop William Temple

One day Jesus told his disciples a story to show that they should always pray and never give up. “There was a judge in a certain city,” he said, “who neither feared God nor cared about people. A widow of that city came to him repeatedly, saying, ‘Give me justice in this dispute with my enemy.’ The judge ignored her for a while, but finally he said to himself, ‘I don’t fear God or care about people, but this woman is driving me crazy. I’m going to see that she gets justice, because she is wearing me out with her constant requests!’”

Then the Lord said, “Learn a lesson from this unjust judge. Even he rendered a just decision in the end. So don’t you think God will surely give justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will grant justice to them quickly! But when the Son of Man returns, how many will he find on the earth who have faith?” One day Jesus told his disciples a story to show that they should always pray and never give up. “There was a judge in a certain city,” he said, “who neither feared God nor cared about people. A widow of that city came to him repeatedly, saying, ‘Give me justice in this dispute with my enemy.’ The judge ignored her for a while, but finally he said to himself, ‘I don’t fear God or care about people, but this woman is driving me crazy. I’m going to see that she gets justice, because she is wearing me out with her constant requests!’”

Then the Lord said, “Learn a lesson from this unjust judge. Even he rendered a just decision in the end. So don’t you think God will surely give justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will grant justice to them quickly! But when the Son of Man returns, how many will he find on the earth who have faith?”
~Luke 18:1-8 [NLT]

“Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.

“You parents—if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead? Or if they ask for a fish, do you give them a snake? Of course not! So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him. “Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.

“You parents—if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead? Or if they ask for a fish, do you give them a snake? Of course not! So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him.
~ Matthew 7:7-11 [NLT]

Then Jesus left Galilee and went north to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Gentile woman who lived there came to him, pleading, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! For my daughter is possessed by a demon that torments her severely.”

But Jesus gave her no reply, not even a word. Then his disciples urged him to send her away. “Tell her to go away,” they said. “She is bothering us with all her begging.”

Then Jesus said to the woman, “I was sent only to help God’s lost sheep—the people of Israel.”
But she came and worshiped him, pleading again, “Lord, help me!”

Jesus responded, “It isn’t right to take food from the children and throw it to the dogs.”
She replied, “That’s true, Lord, but even dogs are allowed to eat the scraps that fall beneath their masters’ table.”

“Dear woman,” Jesus said to her, “your faith is great. Your request is granted.” And her daughter was instantly healed.
~ Matthew: 15:21-28 [NLT]

Prayer makes us insiders...

"I have learned that prayer is not asking for what you think you want,
but asking to be changed in ways that you can’t imagine."
~ Kathleen Norris

“Personal communion in conversation does not depend on exchanging information; it does not even depend on hearing a response. Personal communion is a matter of being together and talking about the things that matter most. The deepest and oldest friends commune in this way…. We do not pray to tell God what He does not know, nor to remind Him of things He has forgotten. He already cares for the things we pray about; His attention to them has never flagged from the beginning, and His understanding is unfathomable. He has simply been waiting for us to care about them with Him.”
~ Tim Stafford

I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me.
~John 15:15

"Prayer is one of the main agencies through which we are brought to understand the mind of Christ toward our particular mission and the work of the Kingdom in general.
The establishment of the Kingdom of God is an elusive task; we cannot even see what it involves without specific prayer, and we certainly will have little urgency to carry it out unless we are praying."
~ Richard Lovelace

What might this mean for the Living Room Community?
You are invited to post your thoughts…