Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools: An Invitation to the Wonder and Mystery of Prayer

by Tyler Staton

Jesus once wisely said that we’ll know a tree by its fruit.6 So what’s the fruit of that story of self-sufficiency in the life of the modern person? We’re overwhelmed. Everyone I meet is drowning in “their thing.” It doesn’t matter if “your thing” is an artistic endeavor, profit margins, wining and dining clients, or raising children. We can’t see past “our thing” because “our thing” (whatever it happens to be) is all-consuming.

Without trust, we suppress the disappointment that God’s silence leaves with us. We build a wall to protect ourselves from the very God we pray to. We carefully nuance our prayers, guarding ourselves against allowing God to disappoint us like that a second time

Jesus hasn’t revealed a God we can perfectly understand, but he has revealed a God we can perfectly trust.

Trusting the God revealed in Jesus means silence is real, but it’s not forever.

When it comes to prayer, God isn’t grading essays; he’s talking to children.

The way your motives change isn’t by working them out in silence; it’s through such brutal honesty with God that he, by prayer, can refine your motives. Complaints are welcome.

Nancy Mairs profoundly observed, “Who one believes God to be is most accurately revealed not in any credo but in the way one speaks to God when no one else is listening.”18

If you’ve never uttered a word of prayer, you should know that one humble request was enough for a career thief crucified next to Jesus to discover the Father’s love.

Prayer is about presence before it’s about anything else.

Holy One, there is something I wanted to tell you, but there have been errands to run, bills to pay, arrangements to make, meetings to attend, friends to entertain, washing to do . . . and I forget what it is I wanted to say to you, and mostly I forget what I’m about or why. O God, don’t forget me, please, for the sake of Jesus Christ. Eternal One, there is something I wanted to tell you, but my mind races with worrying and watching, with weighing and planning, with rutted slights and pothole grievances, with leaky dreams and leaky plumbing and leaky relationships I keep trying to plug up; and my attention is preoccupied with loneliness, with doubt, and with things I covet; and I forget what it is I want to say to you, and how to say it honestly or how to do much of anything. O God, don’t forget me, please, for the sake of Jesus Christ. Almighty One, there is something I wanted to ask you, but I stumble along the edge of a nameless rage, haunted by a hundred floating fears of terrorists of all kinds, of losing my job, of failing, of getting sick and old, having loved ones die, of dying . . . I forget what the real question is that I wanted to ask, and I forget to listen anyway because you seem unreal and far away, and I forget what it is I have forgotten. O God, don’t forget me, please, for the sake of Jesus Christ . . . O Father . . . in Heaven, perhaps you’ve already heard what I wanted to tell you. What I wanted to ask is forgive me, heal me, increase my courage, please...

“Sin is a refused relationship with God that spills over into a wrong relationship with others.”

Adam and Eve left the garden walking east, but they don’t go alone; God goes with them. He’s not lowering the standard of holiness, but he is coming after us. The biblical story isn’t one of a compromising God; it’s one of a pursuing God.

God didn’t lower the standard of holiness. He found a way to make us holy that isn’t dependent on our performance. Grace wins.

A maturing community is a confessing community—not a church without sin, but a church without secrets.

Jesus is very plainly telling his disciples, “Until now, you’ve never really prayed, not like I designed it. But when I go to the Father, you’ll discover prayer in my name.” The ancient phrase “in my name” means “under my authority.” To pray in Jesus’ name means to pray with recovered authority.

When we engage in intercessory prayer, we are loving others on the basis of heaven’s resources.

But what if, according to Jesus, you’ve never really prayed? “Until now you have not asked for anything in my name.”22 What if you’ve never come before the Father, wearing the robes of the heir, carrying the standing and status of Jesus? What if you’ve never plundered the riches stored away in the heavenly vault? What if you’ve never pushed back the curse alongside God? It’s already been defeated. He’s just looking for intercessors to implement the already-secured victory.

Here’s the best part of the whole story, the bit that really blows my mind. God doesn’t need intercessors managing his creation. He’s not overwhelmed by all the responsibility of overseeing the world. He’s all-knowing, all-powerful, and completely outside of time. He’s got this. God doesn’t need intercessors; God chooses intercessors.

The only reason I ask is that you are a ruler, a co-heir with Christ, a manager of heavenly resources. What are you doing with all that authority?

Pete Greig writes, “Intercession is impossible until we allow the things that break God’s heart to break our hearts as well.

Intercession is nothing more than ordinary love combined with sober humility.

Heaven is the engine room, but earth is where our prayers are answered, are made visible. Earth is the atmosphere that heaven invades in response to our requests.

Jesus did not merely come to redeem the world but to invite the likes of us, fallen men and women, to participate in that redemption. There is perhaps no greater means of empowerment than petition.

God is sovereign, but his is a participatory sovereignty.

Birthing prayer is slow.

I know the power of God and the silence of God, and sometimes I think I’d handle the silence better if power was never on the table at all. A God with a personality and a will is so unpredictable. Maybe it would be easier if we had a God who worked like an operating system designed to deliver predictable results based on the buttons I push. But that’s not the God revealed on the pages of Scripture. It’s not the God revealed in Jesus.

Will the pain, suffering, and needs that intrude on our own stories harden our hearts, or will they soften our souls? How does the very pain that is eating us alive become an agent of deep transformation? We have to invite God—the very One who broke our trust—into the muck with us. We invite the One we are labeling “perpetrator” to be our healer. It’s the most courageous of all choices.

Parker Palmer: “The deeper our faith, the more doubt we must endure; the deeper our hope, the more prone we are to despair; the deeper our love, the more pain its loss will bring: these are a few of the paradoxes we must hold as human beings. If we refuse to hold them in the hopes of living without doubt, despair, and pain, we also find ourselves living without hope, faith, and love.”