Growing your own life of prayer

Learning how to communicate with God

ver.: 18 March 2008

(Please, use this link for personal prayer requests.)

WHEN PRAYER FALLS FLAT

Fixing breakdowns in communication

Prayer isn't always exciting. In fact, it usually isn't. It's usually ordinary. That's okay; ordinary is good. But sometimes, prayer is worse than that : something's missing.

(Please note that there's a lot of 'sometimes', 'maybe', and 'often' in this section. It's a spiritual matter, and those aren't well-suited to tight rules. You'll have to learn how to discern the Spirit's voice in your situation.)

Usually, such minor adjustments are enough to curb your drifting. But, let's say, you've made the adjustments, they work briefly, and then SLAM! It hits you. God's not there. Sometimes one must taste the absence in order to keep savoring the presence. And sometimes God steps aside so you can learn to persevere in prayer, to keep working at it on trust.

But then, as you keep plugging away at it, it becomes clear that something else is at work. It's not really that God has stepped away, after all. It's that there's a communication breakdown. God's apparent silence is due to a problem at your end. Something's rocking the relationship. When you reach this point (and sooner or later you will), it's time for you to find out what's up. What could it be?

Many people wonder how someone can have a 'relationship' with an invisible, transcendent God. But these ways of blocking out God are, for the most part, the same ways we block out other people, and they were discovered by the faithful thousands of years before there was such a thing as 'psychology'. These blockages, and many others, undermine the trust and truthfulness that's needed for building any relationship, including that with the Creator of All, the Lover of My Soul. Awaken to these possibilities, and keep praying for guidance on these matters, even if you find your faith to be weak. You'll be led further into a mature faith in Christ. Then prayer can once again be spending time alone with Someone who loves you. Even when you're stuck, prayer is still working if you keep at it. It's working because the Spirit is at work; prayer's working on you.

Another suggestion is to get one person to be your prayer partner - not your pastor (though your pastor needs one, he/she needs to choose his/her own). Seek out someone of the same sex whom you can trust, who is spiritually mature, and who is willing to commit the time and effort to it.
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Probing Deeper Into Prayer

One key way of getting deeper into your relationship with your Creator is to get deeper into prayer. But sometimes, we're afraid to ask questions about prayer, especially to ask ourselves about how we pray so we can at least find out where we're at right now. Thinking about prayer can carry us further into the mystery of what it's like to have an actual relationship with someone we can't contact with our senses. God wants us to know well, and places relational treasures at many spots along the way.

Ask yourself some of these questions, and try some of the dares. There are many of them, but they are of the kind that puzzle people their whole life long. Go through them prayerfully, one by one, preferably with a pad and pencil or a notebook computer. The questions range from simple to very, very hard. I know that when I first asked myself questions like these, I was surprised by my answers. I was surprised by the emotions that came out (and sometimes, by the lack of them). I found out how much I didn't know, or thought I knew, or had simply evaded by pasting up a churchly clichè. I hope that you, too, can discover a lot about yourself, the community of faith around you, and the One who wants to talk with you.

Bob Longman.

If you pray :

• How do you pray?
• In what settings do you pray?
• What do you pray for?
• Do you receive it? Do you receive something else? What do you feel when you do not receive it?
• What do you expect from prayer?
  Did the Divine response surprise you?
• When you pray, what thoughts most often break in?
• Do they spring from the prayer, or do they take you away from the prayer?
• What is the one thing which most puzzles you about prayer?
  What do you find hardest to accept about prayer?
• When you pray for someone, do you picture their healing, or being helped in some other way?
• If not, is it that you don't see the healing as possible?
  
• Can you picture yourself with them as they heal?
• What do you most remember from your childhood about prayer or people praying?
• Have you ever been so concerned about someone that you felt driven to pray for them?

Ask yourself !

Check out at least two of the early Psalms; for instance, Psalm 5 (the main Jewish sunrise prayer), 12 (against treachery), 8 (a praise of God as Creator), or 10 (re the prosperity of the wicked).

• What do you notice about what they are praying about, and how they are praying about it?
• Do you find any of it disturbing? Why?
• Which of these Psalms do you most connect with? Why?

When have you most felt that you had lost touch with God? Why?
When have you felt most intimate with God?
How have these moments affected your prayers?
What lessons did you learned, if any?

Have you ever been angry at God?
If so, when did you tell that to God?
Did there seem to be a response, then or later?

What do you think God really thinks of you?

How do you think you'd feel if God woke you up out of a sound sleep?
If you've experienced this yourself, what did you do next?

Tougher questions :

• When you find yourself really angry over something, have you ever stopped yourself, and taken at least a moment to ask the Lord, "What is happening here?"
• When you ask God to forgive you, do you accept that forgiveness?
• Have you ever felt afraid to pray?
• Is there something you're afraid of, or afraid to ask? Why?
• Does anyone else you know seem to fear something about prayer?
• Is there a catch-phrase about prayer that especially gets on your nerves? Why?
• When you were ill or in serious trouble, did you ever feel the prayers of others?
• What was that like? What were you getting from those prayers?
• What other effects did the prayers have?
• Was there ever anything that you felt was personally demeaning or insulting to put before God in prayer? Why?
• What have you prayed for which, when you look back on it, you're glad you didn't get? Or prayed that it would not happen, but you're glad it did?
• How would your life be different if God had granted those prayers?
• What is the strangest prayer you ever heard someone pray?

We double-dare you!

(Actions you might think of trying for yourself)

Some dares that anyone can try :

• If someone comes to mind right now : Take the time right now to pray for that person.
• Take the opportunity to pray with a group of praying people you don't know.
• Maybe you're one of those who finds all this talk about prayer so boring it puts you to sleep. Hmmm..... when you're having trouble going to sleep, pray! (Not about going to sleep, but about other things that matter to you.) Don't worry. God doesn't get insulted if, while you're doing this, you fall asleep.
• Do your prayers and/or meditations with a notepad and pencil (or notebook computer), for writing what comes to mind.
• When you're listening to a song that presents a situation that happens in real life (rare as it is nowadays), pray about those in that situation.

If you are not attending a church : let's take up a challenge. Attend a worship service at a church. Any church you choose, chosen for your own reasons.

1. Within the service, when do the worshippers pray? When does the priest or leader pray?
2. What do they pray for?
3. Why do you think they pray for that within a worship service?
4. In what ways are the prayers a part of what binds the worshippers together?
5. If it's a liturgical church (the kind with the robes, candles, and chants), take note of the Prayers Of the Church, which usually happen somewhere between the Sermon and Holy Communion. It is intercessory prayer, praying to God on behalf of others.
6. What is it that they are praying for in it?
7. What do you think such prayer does for those praying it?
8. For those being prayed about?

If you're a church-goer, dare these :

1. When some news item really grabs your attention, made you angry, sad, determined : Pray about it -- not just once or twice, but at least once a day for four days, and from then on as long as you feel led to keep praying on it.
2. Try asking someone if you could pray with them --- but only when they're openly struggling with something in their lives, or at some other appropriate moment. (Odds are they'll accept.)
3. Try praying a section of the Bible (say, a psalm, a prophecy, the Lord's prayer, or a section from Paul's letters), phrase by phrase, with time in between. Take the time to savor it, and pay attention for the Spirit's leadings.
4. When you drive by a church, pray for that church -- when you next stop the car, of course -- that they may grow in faith and as people. Also, perhaps for their financial situation, or perhaps that they be lit up anew by the Spirit.
5. Your church bulletin and newsletter have many activities listed in them. As you read them, pray for each activity, holding them up before God for guidance and for the power to do what they set out to do.
6. Who are the "gifted intercessors" (people whose special gift is praying for others) in your worship community?
7. What do you think makes it so special when they pray intensely for someone or something?
• Pray for them.
• Pray with them.

If you are in a church or cell group: dare these :

• How and why does your church/cell pray? How often do they meet for it?
• Does your church have any goals for their prayer life? How can these goals be gauged or measured?
• How embarrassed do you get when praying aloud in the presence of others? Do you pray for different things when praying with them than in private?
• Some groups take on a special burden or concern in prayer, like, say, a nation, a missionary, a neighborhood, those struck with a certain disease, etc.. What similar concern most touches the heart of you or those praying with you?
• How can the group's/church's prayers best support its purposes?
• What was the most intense prayer that your group ever prayed?
  What do you think caused that level of intensity?

(Please, use this link for personal prayer requests.)