2. Spiritual Disciplines Series
April 19th, 2009
Prayer
On March 4th, 2009 in Fort Pierce Florida a tragedy occurred. A woman was experiencing as emergency situation at a local McDonalds. It seems as if the police did not take her seriously when she called 911. This poor woman suffered in a time threatening panic for minutes waiting for officers to show up. The story will certainly surprise you. This woman was desperate. She had a serious problem and in her hour of need the police were just no where to be found. Our hearts should go out to this woman for the suffering she experienced. Here is the story: our victim had gone into McDonalds and ordered a ten piece chicken nugget. Now I know what you are thinking, that doesn’t sound like an emergency to me. Well you are wrong. This is an emergency. Our victim gave the cashier her money and waited for her order only to have the cashier return to tell her, here it comes: they are out of chicken nuggets. McDonalds had no McNuggets! This is a crime against hunger. So our victim asked for her money back only to be told they couldn’t do that and that she would have to order something else. So our victim called 911 not once, not twice, but three times asking for officers to be sent to McDonalds to deal with her emergency. According to the report, after police told this woman that the incident was not an emergency, she replied, "This is an emergency. If I would have known they didn’t have McNuggets, I wouldn’t have given my money, and now she wants to give me a McDouble, but I don’t want one. This is an emergency." Here is the unbelievable part: she was issued a notice to appear in court for misuse of the 911 emergency communication system. Really? What I find amusing about all of this is that McDonald’s not only responded by issuing this woman a refund but by offering her a free order of chicken nuggets on her return. They don’t want to disappoint their McFans.
Our culture affects our lives. Living in a consumer based economy we are conditioned to believe that life is all about us, the customer is always right, and if you don’t like the service you are getting one place just go somewhere else. This mindset has affected not only how we live our lives but also the way we attend churches and even how we pray. Have you noticed what our prayer lives often look like these days? Remember when you were a little kid and around Christmas time your family would take you to see Santa at the mall? You wait in line and when it’s your turn you sit on Santa’s lap and tell some total stranger with a cheap white beard everything you want. The truth is that is exactly how many people treat prayer. We view it as the time for sharing our wish lists with God to see if He truly is great enough to make them happen. It is not that it is wrong to spend some time praying for travel, health, jobs, and asking God for things you would like in life but if that is all our prayers are, they are missing something very important.
One of my professors at Ozark poses this question to some of his classes: If God answered all your prayers with ‘yes’ how would the kingdom be furthered? The question strikes a chord because it forces us to stop and think. What effect do my prayers have on the kingdom of God? How much time do I spend praying about Spiritual things? What true good would come from God giving me all the things I am praying for? When you look at the things you pray for ask yourself: if God answered all of these prayers with a yes, how would the kingdom be changed? We need to learn how to pray kingdom minded prayers.
Before we can have kingdom minded prayers however we need to better understand prayer. Prayer is communication the deeper the communication the more intimate the prayer. One of the things I noticed was the parallel between the levels of communication and our intimacy with God. Here is the progression of communication: Small talk: we can make small talk with anyone. We get bored standing in line we will sometimes engage in cliché conversation with total strangers because we are not really sharing anything. Then sharing what we know. We may not do this with everyone but being that it has very little intimacy or risk we will share what we know with most people. Your opinion however is a little more personal when you start sharing what you think. This is where we start getting out of the acquaintance zone and start moving into friendship. Opinions bear some connection with who you are and are thus personal making them somewhat intimate. Then there is sharing your feelings. Most people will only reach this level of intimacy with a few people. Finally there is transparency which is sharing who you are. This is the most intimate and personal form of communication and this is the level that God desires to reach with us. God doesn’t just want to sit around and have small talk with you. God wants to know you. He wants to share this life with you. Sometimes the problem with our prayers is that we are unwilling to open ourselves up to God and truly be vulnerable before Him so that can have intimacy with Him.
Prayer is a conversation with God that stems from a personal relationship in which communication naturally occurs. Intimacy with God can only be achieved through a well maintained prayer life just as intimacy in a marriage can only be obtained when both parties communicate with each other on a regular basis. Too many Christians think prayer means to think spiritual thoughts. That’s not true. Prayer is when you enter into the presence of God bringing all that you are. You can and should be honest. You can say, "God, I hate that guy, or she really upsets me" Most people have a hard time praying because they spend too much time trying to censor themselves. You don’t need to change yourself to pray, you need to pray and you will find yourself changed. Too often we try to control what we tell God. We don’t want Him to know certain things about us and so we keep them to ourselves. Problem is we can’t keep things from God so the only thing we accomplish by not talking about them with Him is a loss of intimacy.
Spending time with God is not a chore that you must work to upkeep or you are in danger of condemnation. Consider this: God is life. He is everything. All that you do in every moment of the day you do with God by your side. Prayer is not a chore that keeps you from living your life, life is a distraction from your communication with God which is the true life.
Prayer is an important part of our Christian lives. It is also something we are told a number of times in Scripture to do. One such instance comes from Paul in Colossians 4
Col 4:2 Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. Col 4:3 And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. Col 4:4 Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should.
We are to devote ourselves to prayer. Prayer should be a key pillar in our lives, a regular part of our everyday life. In our culture we tend to struggle with prayer. Yet what we need is not just more prayer. What we need is to develop a kingdom minded prayer life. Now that we better know what prayer is we need to look at how we ought to pray so that we can develop a prayer life that promotes the kingdom of God. Paul sets an example for us of a kingdom minded prayer life.
For Paul the whole of Christian ministry was grounded in and developed from prayer. His entire Christian experience was essentially an unceasing act of prayer. When Paul writes that we should take every thought captive to Christ he is instructing us to do something he is already doing. Prayer is not just something you do prayer is a lifestyle. Paul’s conversion, commission, baptism, and missionary work are all based on and rooted in prayer. Paul lived his life moment by moment under the authority of God. He did what God said, spoke what God told him to, went where God said go. Paul lived being led by God from one moment to the next. It was therefore not possible for Paul to conceive of any human activity apart from God. We see that Paul not only invested himself in prayer but he asked others to do the same. He frequently asks for prayer and it is often very specific. If you look at his requests though, they are all for the kingdom. Paul asks for prayer that they may speak boldly, that the word would be received, that the word would spread rapidly, pray that I may declare the word fearlessly, that God might be honored, and the people would receive the message they gave. Paul encourages kingdom focused prayers. Occasionally you will see Paul ask for a personal prayer but because he is so invested in the kingdom even his prayers for himself end up being prayers for the improvement of the kingdom of God.
Jesus shows us how a kingdom minded prayer affects how we live. We often observe Jesus slipping away from the disciples and the crowds of people who came to hear Him speak so that He could be alone with God. He would seek solitude so that He could pray without distraction or hindrance. Jesus knew that His mission must be centered around the will of God and so He made it a special point to stay connected at all times with His Father. So as He went through His ministry He constantly spent time in prayer to stay in tune with the will of His Father. Jesus prayed at special times and in times of need but prayer was also a part of His daily life. He has connection with God which enabled Him to do all the things He did. Jesus shows us the heart behind a kingdom minded prayer. In Matthew 9 He gives us the Lord’s prayer which starts our “Our Father in heaven Holy is your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is heaven.” These words are echoed in the garden of Gethsemane when Jesus is facing His death. He prays asking God to take this cup from Him if there is any other way but in His request He says this: “but your will be done” You see Jesus knew something about God that we should learn. God is not a map quest giving us every step of direction for our lives before we start. God is a tour guide leading us every step of the way. This requires staying in tune with Him. We can have a relationship with Jesus just as the disciples did if we can grow in intimacy with Him through prayer.
You want to know how to have a kingdom minded prayer life? It starts with intimacy. When you pray seeking the will of God you will find that something inside you changes. Pray is a powerful force that can change the mind of God. More importantly prayer is a powerful force that can change the attitude of our hearts. When you first start to pray it will be more selfish than selfless but as you invest yourself in prayer seeking the will of God and submitting yourself to His authority your prayer will change you and it will change your heart. In order to have kingdom minded prayers we must first learn to be kingdom minded. When you start to reach deeper levels of intimacy with God by opening yourself up to Him you will find yourself being changed to be more like Him. As He changes you your mind will be less worldly and more heavenly, like Paul’s and like Jesus. As your mind begins to focus more on the things of God your prayers will begin to focus more on His kingdom. This starts with taking every thought captive to Christ.
So perhaps rather than complaining about that co-worker that drives you nuts, rather than wasting your breath trying to vindicate yourself by venting your frustrations to others, try to just sit back and pray for them. Instead of yelling at the car in front of you that cut you off in traffic and is driving like a complete jerk, try just taking a deep breath and praying for them. Rather than getting mad when your husband forgets to take out the trash or getting upset when you feel like your wife disrespected you take a moment and pray together. The Bible tells us that we should take every thought captive to Christ. The first step to doing this is learning to tame our own thoughts and reactions. If we can slowly replace ourselves, our thoughts, our frustrations, our temper with little connections to God we might just find ourselves becoming more like Him and characterizing His traits in our own lives.
