Spontaneous Prayer Series

George Buttrick in his large book simply called Prayer tells of why

the Acoma Indians in Colorado chose to live on the mesa. The rock

gave them safety. The Apaches on the South and the Navajos on the

North made them sitting ducks down on the plains, and so they headed

for the rocks. A narrow path up the steep rock-staircase made it

impossible for an enemy to get to them. A few men could defend

against an army, and so they felt secure on the rocks.

The rocks provided natural cisterns to store water, and soil

carried up to the rocks was kept cool, and so the flowers bloomed in

splendor. They had security and beauty. They could watch the

drifting clouds above ever changing, and the shifting sands of the

desert below were being blown by the wind into new eddies. Earth

and sky in ceaseless change, but they stood on the solid rock that did

not change.

Buttrick says this is the longing of all men to have a solid place on

which to stand and live. They long for permanence in a world of

change, and that is what prayer is all about. Prayer is about

connection with the Rock, and with the God who is permanent and

changeless. Prayer is about security and stability in a world where

there is so little solid ground. Prayer is our link to the Permanent. He

quotes Henry Francis Lytes famous hymn Abide With Me.

Abide with me: fast falls the eventide;

The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide!

When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,

Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

Swift to its close ebbs out of life's little day;

Earth's joys grow dim, its glories pass away;

Change and decay in all around I see;

O Thou who changes not, abide with me!

This prayer for the permanent presence of the Rock in our lives

is based on the conviction that there is no solid ground in this world on

which to live and stand. Prayer is saying that I must reach out to a

world beyond this one or be forever trapped in the shifting sands of

time. Prayer is the conviction that there is another realm above time,

which is the realm of eternity, and it is determined to get in touch with

that higher realm which is permanent. So prayer is not just the kid's

stuff of gimme, gimme, gimme. It is the stuff of deep philosophy and

theology, for it deals with the essential issues of the meaning of life and

the purpose for our existence. Prayer is so amazingly simple, and yet

so awesomely profound that both children and scholars deal with it

everyday. It is to be a perpetual part of every believer's life.

Any day that we do not pray we disobey for Jesus expects that we

will give thanks for our daily bread as we make our other petitions.

The Lord's Prayer is quite short, and so Jesus does not imply that we

must all become mystics who spend many hours in prayer. But the

fact is, he does expect that His followers will be people that maintain

daily contact with the heavenly Father. Jesus had His quiet time, and

often we are told He got up early and went off to the hills to pray

alone. But prayer for Jesus was not limited to any time or place. He

was ready at any time to pray. For Him prayer was just including

God in His daily activities.

In Luke 10:21 Jesus, just all of the sudden, stops in the context of

a busy day to acknowledge God. It says, "At that time Jesus, full of

joy through the Holy Spirit, said, I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven

and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the

learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was

your good pleasure." We think of prayer so often as being limited to

some formal setting, and we miss the joy of Jesus in just spontaneously

saying, "Thank you Lord," when we feel something positive about life.

Spontaneous prayer is much more meaningful and real than

planned prayer. Planned prayer is usually locked into formulas, and

we repeat the same requests over and over. This kind of prayer gets

dull, and it is seen as a duty rather than a joy. If you want to improve

your prayer life, do not assume you have to add more to your formal

times of prayer. Instead, add the spontaneous prayer that we see in

the life of Jesus. He had His formal times, and He said grace before

He ate, but the informal times are what most of us need to develop to

add new life to our prayer life. This kind of prayer is developed by