The Battlegrounds of Prayer

In our first discussion of prayer (The Beginning of Prayer) we pointed out that humility is the starting point for prayer - that the attitudes of self-reliance, busyness and pride which spring from our lack of humility are the attitudes we must defeat if we are to grow in prayer. Remember that powerful story Jesus tells in Luke 18:10-14? The central point Jesus is trying to get us to understand is that humility is at the heart of the true disciple:

10 "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: `God, I thank you that I am not like other men--robbers, evildoers, adulterers--or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'

13 "But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, `God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'

14 "I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."

In our second discussion of prayer (How Not To Pray) we discussed the fact that prayer must not be viewed as simply a ritual or legalistic requirement we keep. Nor must it be seen as a kind of magical spell that we throw up to God when we are in need or in trouble. We also said that the right perspective on prayer is that it: (1) focuses on God; (2) has as its constant goal for us to be conformed to the image and mind of Jesus; and (3) must be accompanied by an overall lifestyle of discipleship that includes things such as Bible study, meditation on God's word, quiet time alone with God, fasting, fellowship and worship. Remember Jesus' admonition in Matthew 6? He reminds us that we must avoid praying for outward reasons. He points out that prayer is to be that private conversation between you and God - not a legalistic ritual or public spectacle or a magical incantation.

5 "And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

Having discussed the proper attitude in prayer - which in humility - and the proper perspective in prayer - which is focused on God and becoming like Jesus - we will now turn to the proper practice of prayer by looking at some practical problems we face in trying to pray.

Prayer, for most of us, is a battleground. It is a struggle. None of us have reached that point in our discipleship where we believe we prayer enough or with sufficient faith. It has been said that the fastest way to humble a Christian is to ask them how much time they spend in prayer - and I know for myself that's true. Having a deep, committed prayer life is something all true believers long to have. And, yet, it is perhaps the the greatest source of frustration and failure in our walk with God.

We are confronted on every side with obstacles that keep us from developing a deeper prayer life. Our human nature leads us from the difficulties of prayer toward the comforts of this life. Our rebellious spirit leads us from the submission of prayer to the individualism of our own abilities and talents. Our culture drives us from dependence on God towards dependence on self.

So how do we begin to pray? Striving for the right attitude of humility, keeping the perspective of focusing on God, let's now look at the practical battles you are going to face in prayer.

I have a confession to make. I stuggle in communicating and listening in my marriage. For some reason, opening up to another person - even someone I love with all my heart - is a difficult thing for me. I continue to struggle every day to train myself to listen carefully, to speak honestly and openly in my marriage. Everything in me and everything I've been trained to do tells me to put on a strong front. To keep a "stiff upper lip". To not show weakness. All these instincts and all this training works against what I know is the right way to be in a relationship with my wife.

Let's face it: this same kind of struggle is generally true of all of us. We don't want to show weakness or failure. We want to be perceived as strong, good, and right. Prayer is contrary to this and we resist it. Prayer does not come naturally for us. We like to be independent - self-reliant. We can take care of ourselves.

The greatest practical obstacle to prayer is simply that we don't do it! Now, I know that's a statement of the obvious, but it's an important point to be made. Paul Faulkner wrote a book several years ago entitled Making Things Right When Things Go Wrong. In that book he encourages us to do the thing we know we need to do - even if at first our hearts aren't in it. He uses the example of shopping with his wife. He doesn't want to go, but he knows it's important to her. So, he makes up his mind to act happy and enthusiastic about it - and he found that when he did this, he actually ended up being happy and enthusiastic!

The first battle of prayer is the battle to pray. If you don't feel like praying, pray anyway. If you don't have time to pray, pray anyway. If you don't have strong faith in prayer, pray anyway. Set time aside each day to spend in prayer. Even if at first you are going through the motions, do it anyway and give God and yourself time to grow in prayer. The old Chinese proverb says, "the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step". So does our journey in prayer. You won't become a person who truly prays until you decide to spend time in prayer. Decide to it. Dedicate time to do it. Then, just do it!

We've discussed in previous lessons that one of the strongest obstacles to prayer is our need to feel like we're doing something productive - a need that comes from our desire to be self-reliant and to take things into our own hands.

We fail at prayer because we don't really believe that prayer accomplishes as must as good old hard work. Most of us (at least me) if given the choice of spending time in prayer to accomplish something or spending time on the phone calling folks or on the road or at work to accomplish something, will choose doing something rather than praying.

This is because we are, deep inside, self-reliant - we are not humble enough to see that it is God who accomplishes anything of value, not us. Prayer is so different from what our culture tells us we should be doing. Prayer is about being still, being quiet; it's about receiving and listening more than it is about giving and speaking.

Jesus gives us a picture of what a person who has truly come to understand the power of prayer will look like in Luke 18:

LK 18:1 Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. 2 He said: "In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. 3 And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, `Grant me justice against my adversary.'

4 "For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, `Even though I don't fear God or care about men, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won't eventually wear me out with her coming!' "

6 And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8 I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?"

The second battle in prayer is to be persistent in praying. But because we are so eager to "get to work", our prayers often become brief, one-time utterances offered up before we go out to help God get things done. This is the result of our continued belief that if we don't do the work it won't get done.

A great friend of mine once said two truths that I carry with me to this day: "Jeff, God has never been short of money, talent or power to get things done and you don't have anything God needs." Once we truly believe and understand those two truths - that God doesn't need any outside help to accomplish His will, and that even if He did, we wouldn't have anything worthwhile to offer Him - we will understand why Jesus teaches us to be persistent in prayer.

Often we get confused about Jesus telling us not to use "vain repetition" in our prayer. Some have taken that to mean that we should only ask for things one time - else our prayers become vain repetition. This reminds me of the older, married couple. The wife says to her husband, "Honey, you never tell me you love me." The husband replies, "Dear, I told you thirty years ago and if I change my mind, I'll let you know!"

But being persistent in prayer is not the same thing as vain repetition. The Pharisees Jesus was scolding were performing what we called in our second prayer discussion "magic prayers" - using special phrases or words repeated over and over as if these formulations somehow could direct God to do things. But asking God repeatedly for something is not only not forbidden, it's commanded!

Once we have committed ourselves to pray, we must then commit ourselves to being persistent in prayer - we must pray as though everything depends on our prayer!

Things are not always as simple as we wish they were. We don't always understand what God is doing. We don't always agree with God. Prayer is not a magic bag that we can just pull things out of.

Perhaps the greatest struggle in prayer is when we have committed ourselves to pray, and have committed ourselves to being persistent in prayer, but we still end up with results that we don't want. We question if our prayers did anything. We question if God is listening. We question if He cares about us at all.

How many of us have prayed for someone who is ill - prayed diligently for their healing - only to see them die? Was God listening? Did we pray hard enough? Was it God's will for the person to die and our prayers ineffectual?

The third battle of prayer is the battle to accept God's answers. The heart of this battle is, like the other two battles we've discussed, humility. You see, as long as you and I refuse to acknowledge that God knows best, we will be constantly struggling with God's responses to our prayers. As long as we judge our circumstances based on our viewpoint and our limited knowledge of ourselves, our situations and our future, we will be frustrated in God's answers to our prayers.

But when we have become humble and truly understood that God knows best because only He sees into our hearts and into our future and understands what is needed, then we will be ready to accept His answers. Even when they are at odds with what we desire or believe to be right.

Sometimes you have to keep on praying even when you're not sure God is listening.