Man of Few Words

This has never been said of me.  I have always been told that I talk too much.  My teachers in school would always put an "NI" next to the conduct box for talkative.  My parents would tell me that I just like to hear my own voice.  I love to talk.  But when it comes to prayer, we need, especially me, to take a different approach.

"Here's what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won't be tempted to role-play before God.  Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage.  The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace.  The world is full of so-called prayer warriors who are prayer-ignorant.  They're full of formulas and programs and advice, peddling techniques for getting what you want from God.  Don't fall for that nonsense.  This is your Father you are dealing with, and he knows better that you what you need.  With a God like this loving you, you can pray very simply." Matthew 6.6-13 (MSG)

Keep it secret and simple.  I've been in churches when some has gotten up to pray and they put on this prayer voice and start using words that I don't hear in everyday speech like Thee, Thou, bountiful, beseech, etc.  What the heck is that?  Do they talk like that normally?  I seriously doubt that.  Many times they put on their special voice because other people are listening.  They do it for those who are within ear shot.

This is what Jesus is talking about in this passage.  To be effective in your prayers we need to be praying in secret and simply.  We don't need to repeat the same words or speak certain phrases over and over again expecting that through repetition that God will answer our prayers.

We need to practice the KISS principle when it comes to prayer: Keep It Secret and Simple.  This will help our heart to focus on our God.  It will help to move our heart away from ourselves and put our desires where they need to be.  The focus of our prayers should be God and His Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.

Let's close this week and study on prayer with an excerpt from St. Patrick's Breastplate Prayer.  This will help us to remember who prayer is about.

Christ be with me, Chris in the front, Christ in the rear, Christ within me, Christ below me, Christ above me, Christ at my right hand, Christ at my left, Christ in the fort, Christ in the chariot seat, Christ at the helm, Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me, Christ in every eye that sees me, Christ in every ear that hears me.

Just come clean

In high school, I was hanging out in our house with my sister and some friends when we decided it would be a good idea to play with the super bouncy balls in the house.  We were dropping, maybe throwing, them off of the second floor balcony, when the one that I threw knocked a picture of my mom's with a ceramic duck on it.  Unfortunately, the duck fell off the picture.  I got some glue, of course it was craft glue, to glue the duck back on the picture.  Just FYI, craft glue take 10 years to dry completely and isn't made to glue ceramic ducks to tile pictures.

I left it on the counter to dry and when my parents came home I rushed it onto the nail in the hall way.  About 5 minutes later we heard a thud.  You guessed it, the duck hit the floor.  My dad then began the inquisition.  I was wrong for deceiving my parents and enlisting my sister into this charade.  I should have just come clean and let my mom glue it on properly.  Fun thing is, she still has this picture today hanging in her house.

Coming clean is an important part of prayer.  In James 4.1-3 it tells us:

When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives... (NIV)

The Message puts rather approriately:

Because you know you'd be asking for what you have no right to.  You're spoiled children, each wanting your own way.

 That is so true.  I know that many times I want my own way and my motives are pure at all.  A key component to effective prayer is to possess a pure heart.  Jesus tells us in Matthew 5.8:

"You're blessed when you get your inside world -- your mind and heart -- put right.  Then you can see God in the outside world." (MSG)

We need to not only go to God and ask, but we need to confess our helplessness ("I am helpless.  How can I, your servant, talk with you, my lord?  My strength is gone and I can hardly breath." Daniel 10.16b-17 NIV) and our wickedness ("If I regard wickedness in my heart, the Lord will not hear." Psalm 66.18 NIV).  We need to understand our total necessity and total depravity.  We are people of unclean lips (even the best Christian that you know) living among people of unclean lips.  Our confession in the presence of God, our Father, shouldn't be any different than Isaiah found in Isaiah 6:

"Doom!  It's Doomsday!  I'm as good as dead!  Every word I've ever spoken is tainted--blasphemous even!  And the people I live with talk the same way, using words that corrupt and desecrate.  And here I've looked God in the face!  The King! God-of-the-Angel-Armies!"

At that point an angel flew to him with a live coal from the altar of God and touched his lips.  At point Isaiah could hear the voice of God calling, "Whom shall I send and who will go for us?"

The point is that we need to come clean with God.  Whatever we are holding on to is separating us from God.  He won't be able to hear us and we won't be able to hear Him.  It is time to come clean and quit trying to put things together with craft glue and hide our flaws.  Fall on your face in reverence and worship for you have looked God in the face!  The King!  God-of-the-Angel-Armies!  Come clean and hear His voice.

It's all in the asking

When I was in high school, my family had a plan to get a pool.  We (my mom, sister and I) devised a plan to talk to my dad about getting a pool put into our back yard.  Now you have to understand that we lived on top of a hill on 1.29 acres in Fayetteville, GA (out in the middle of no where).  The plan that we had was to take "Daddy's Girl" and have her ask for the pool.  My dad couldn't say no to her.  All she had to do was bat her eyes and ask with her sweet little voice, and Dad was puddy in her hands.  The plan didn't go as expected.  He was on it from the beginning.  After she asked he called us into the living room.  Needless to say, we never did get our pool.  But the point has stuck with me.

When it comes to our relationship with God, it is much like that.  It is all in the asking.  We don't have because we don't ask.  This isn't some weak version of the prosperity gospel, pray for a Porsche and get one kind of thing.  Get a load of these scriptures:

"And when you pray..." (NIV) or "And when you come before God..." (MSG) Matthew 6.5

Jesus expects us to pray.  Prayers is what connects us to God the Father, our Father.  It is what aligns us to Him.  It is like carrying-on a conversation with God where we talk and He listens, and then He talks and we listen.  So when you pray...how do you pray with effectiveness?

Where do you think all these appalling wars and quarrels come from?  Do you think they just happen?  Think again.  They come about because you want your own way, and fight for it deep inside yourselves.  You lust for what you don't have and are willing to kill to get it.  You want what isn't yours and will risk violence to get your hands on it.  You wouldn't think of just asking God for it, would you?  And why now?  Because you know you'd be asking for what you have no right to.  You're spoiled children, each wanting your own way. James 4.1-3 (MSG)

Life is full of wars, fights and quarrels.  It is full of desires and passions that wage war in us.  We see killings all around us (spiritual, emotional, mental and physical) every day.  Life is full of these givens.  So how do we talk with God about this and let Him know our hearts with effectiveness?

We must first ask God.  We need to start talking with God.  Notice the with.  We don't need to treat Him like Santa Claus where we deliver our wish list and get off of his lap grab our candy cane and hope to get what we ask.  We don't need to be hiding in the kitchen while we send Daddy's Girl into to talk with him.  We need to approach the throne of God, our Father, with boldness and confidence.  We are children of God.  So we need to ask.

We need to get over our feelings of insecurity or over confidence.  We need to move past our pride of thinking that we can handle the things of life on our own.  We need to begin to understand that God loves us infinitely and completely.  He cares about our needs.

"Your Father knows what you need before you ask Him."  Matthew 6.8

" Prayer doesn't change God, it changes me." C.S. Lewis ("Shadowlands" the movie)

We are the answer

Growing up my parents would take me to my great, great aunt and uncle's house in Georgia. They lived on 20 acres outside of Atlanta. This was a huge thing for a city boy like myself to head to the country. It was definitely interesting. I remember eating big southern country breakfasts (toast, eggs, grits, molasses, honey, fig preserves, etc.). Then we would head out into the field to pick corn, okra, beans, watermelon, squash, snap peas - you get the idea. It was fun for this city boy to head to the field and harvest the food that would be cooked for supper.

The fields are where I still am - and where you are as well. Check out this passage from Matthew 9.35-38:

Then Jesus made a circuit of all the towns and villages. He taught in their meeting places, reported kingdom news, and healed their diseased bodies, healed their bruised and hurt lives. When he looked out over the crowds, his heart broke. So confused and aimless they were, like sheep with no shepherd. "What a huge harvest!" he said to his disciples. "How few workers! On your knees and pray for the harvest hands!"

That is usually where we stop reading that story. It is convenient because that is where Chapter 9 stops. But we have to continue to Chapter 10, verse 1. It is a critical component in this story.

The prayer was no sooner prayed than it was answered. Jesus called twelve of his followers and sent them into the ripe fields. He gave them power to kick out the evil spirits and to tenderly care for the bruised and hurt lives.

What a great verse. The prayer was no sooner prayed and it was answered with the followers of Christ being sent out into the fields to kick out evil spirit and tenderly care for the bruised and hurt lives. So, this leads me to a question for myself and you,

"How are you doing in the fields? How are you doing at tenderly - yes tenderly - caring for the bruised and hurt lives of those around you?"

Many times I just walk through the mall, my neighborhood, my church, even my own home, and miss the bruised and hurt lives of those around me. Some times I add to the bruises and hurts. I am definitely not tender in my care of people. I definitely don't have a broken heart when I people watch at the mall, restaurant, or ball park. I have to admit that many times I'm so wrapped with my own bruises that I don't care to see others.

This is a huge problem. Because the call of the harvest is still going out today. Check out what Christ said as some of his final words on this earth:

Jesus, undeterred, when right ahead and gave his charge: "God authorized and commanded me to commission you: Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you. I'll be with you as you do this, day after day after day, right up to the end of the age."

You and I have all been commissioned to go into the fields. We have all been given the authority of the Father to drive out the evil spirits of this world and mend the bruised and hurting lives of those around us.

Think about this as you walk through the mall, halls of your work, or the living room of your home.