Prayer

by Philip Yancey

Prayer offers an opportunity for God to remodel us, to chisel marble like a sculptor, touch up colors like an artist, edit words like a writer. The work continues until death, never perfected in this life.

The English word meditate derives from a Latin word which means “to rehearse.” Virgil speaks of a shepherd boy “meditating” on his flute. Often my prayers seem like a kind of rehearsal. I go over basic notes (the Lord’s Prayer), practice familiar pieces (the Psalms), and try out a few new tunes. Mainly, I show up.

Lewis opposed revising the Prayer Book: “the more ‘up to date’ the Book is, the sooner it will be dated.”) He also felt uncomfortable with the casual, extemporaneous prayers common in evangelical churches. How can we mentally join in a prayer until we’ve heard it? he asked. The prayer may contain actual heresy. He preferred fixed prayers, the theology of which had been honed by the church.

As I have mentioned, for a year I relied on prayers from a Liturgy of the Hours. I have also used The Book of Common Prayer; both of these collections are readily available in inexpensive editions. Because they are designed for group worship, under the guidance of a leader, they may not seem user-friendly at first. Yet they have the advantage of being compiled by people sensitive to both spiritual and literary concerns, and they have stood the test of time.

Many popular guides recommend a formula based on the acronym ACTS, for Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. Rosalind Rinker made the formula even simpler, attaching a New Testament reference to each stage:

For me, the words of prayer are less important than the act of remembering. I look for the spaces, the interstices, in my life.

services, I find, offer prime opportunities for prayer.

Me too!

I am convinced the main requirement in prayer is honesty, approaching God “just as we are.”

Jesus commended the prayer of an unworthy tax collector above that of an upright Pharisee. A sense of unworthiness hardly disqualifies me from prayer; rather, it serves as a necessary starting point. Apart from feeling unworthy, why call on God in the first place? Unworthiness establishes the ground rules, setting the proper alignment between broken human beings and a perfect God. I now consider it a motivation for prayer, not a hindrance.

In one project, researchers studied the individual prayer preferences of people who had been tested for their personality profile using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test (MBTI).

Interesting! May be worth a read.

The project’s directors drew the reasonable conclusion that we should choose the prayer form that seems natural, that fits our personality type.

Prayer is a way of relating to God, not a skill set like double-entry bookkeeping.

God-incidence that he chose this particular skill!

four forms of prayer and meditation. Each form is designed to accommodate one of four temperaments (based on the MyersBriggs Type Indicator).

I often find that during a season of dryness in prayer the rest of my life comes alive. I listen more attentively to friends; ideas leap out to me from books; nature speaks to me more deeply. Keeping company with God includes far more than the time I devote to prayer each day. God is alive all day, living both around me and inside me, speaking in a still, small voice and in other ways I may not even recognize. God is not really silent, we are deaf, says Teresa of Avila. My job is to remain vigilant like a sentry on duty, straining to hear the sounds of the night as well as the first signs of dawn.

In the same vein, I ask God to use the time of spiritual dryness to prepare me for future growth.

Seasons of dryness make the roots run deep, strengthening the vine for whatever the future holds.

once heard a theologian remark that in the Gospels people approached Jesus with a question 183 times whereas he replied with a direct answer only three times.

In the process of becoming an adult, I have learned to conduct human relationships in a way that at first blush may seem inauthentic.

In other words, all relationships involve an act of will, and I likewise persevere through difficult times in prayer despite my feelings at the moment.

When I am tempted to complain about God’s lack of presence, I remind myself that God has much more reason to complain about my lack of presence.

Prayer invites us to rest in the fact that God is in control, and the world’s problems are ultimately God’s, not ours.

I would very much like to believe this but don't we share some responsibility?

theist believes in a God in heaven whereas a Christian believes in a God in heaven who is also physically present on this earth inside of human beings…. God is still present, as physical and as real today as God was in the historical Jesus. God still has skin, human skin, and physically walks on this earth just as Jesus did.” To pray “God, please help my neighbor cope with her financial problems,” or “God, do something about the homeless downtown” is the approach of a theist, not a Christian. God has chosen to express love and grace in the world through those of us who embody Christ.

A similar advance in knowledge exposed the danger of tobacco-related illnesses. The Dutch once considered smoking healthy, a sign of a spiritual Christian, and only the rebellious refused to smoke. Now we know that smoking harms the body. Pious Dutch Calvinists who accepted their lung cancer and emphysema as God’s will could, in fact, have prevented it by dousing their pipes.

Really? I should look this up.

The greatest tragedy in life is not unanswered prayer, but unoffered prayer. F. B. MEYER

I had been letting anxiety keep me from prayer. Instead I need to see prayer as a place to deposit my anxiety, by naming my concerns as specifically as possible and asking for God’s help in relieving me of the burdens.

Life is not a meaningless sequence of actions but an arena in which to live out the will of another world, the kingdom of heaven.

Today's sermon!

When I sense that my activity means something and has worth, and so move faster and faster trying to accomplish more and more, at that moment I give in to pride and a feeling that all depends on me.

If someone asks me for help in prayer, I tell them to find what they most enjoy and do that, only do it for the glory of God.

“And that’s why he has time for persons; for all time is in the hands of his Father.

E. M. Bounds wrote eight (rather repetitive) books on prayer in the nineteenth century, now published in one volume.

I read about 5 of them. Yancey is correct. One volume is exceptional; the rest - not so much.

Www.24–7prayer.com, a website based in the U.K., offers a global perspective on prayer.

The website www.wordamongus.org has information on the “Praying with” series that features prayers by such notables as C. S. Lewis, Ignatius of Loyola, and Dorothy Day.