Has how you pray changed over the years?

May 4, 2023

Maria John 17, Luke 11, Prayer, Spiritual Growth, Spiritual Practice, Spiritual Warfare, The Lord's Prayer , , 2 Comments

“Lord, teach us to pray….” Luke 11:1 ESV

Today, 4 May 2023, is our country’s National Day of Prayer, a time to renew our practice of prayer and perhaps adjust it.

I can sense changes in how I now talk to God, especially in how I intercede for others.

Have you ever noticed how children pray?  They blurt out exactly what they want. “Jesus, give us a good day.” And rightly so. We must enter the kingdom with that same simple but cheery, trusting and care-free approach. Our Lord wants us to hand over every material and immaterial situation to him. But our Father also expects us to grow in our understanding and practice of praying.

For a while my care for God’s honor, for his name has increased. His expansive goals and perspective are slowly replacing my limited ones, or maybe amplifying them.

Remember how God planned to liberate Israel from Pharaoh as well as cause Egypt to know experientially that HE is Yahweh, the LORD? He had dual purposes.  And so can we.

This morning, I asked Jesus that the four men in my immediate family would honor God in how they pray for their wives. That he would give them the spirit of wisdom and revelation in their work. As well as draw them deeper into intimacy with our Father. Then reading Oswald Chamber’s meditation for today, I felt resolve to pray more like this expand.

With razor-sharpness, Chambers diagnoses the limited ways we intercede for others. (May 4 meditation from My Utmost for His Highest)  “We do not identify ourselves with God’s interests and concerns for others…..we are always ready with our own ideas, and our intercession becomes only the glorification of our own natural sympathies…..Vicarious intercession means that we deliberately substitute God’s interests in others for our natural sympathy with them.”

So, where do you start if you want to mature in how you pray for others? You can’t go wrong by allowing ‘the Lord’s Prayer’ to shape and change your approach.  Think of it as a framework, a springboard for a personal and God-honoring way to intercede.

Focus first on God’s goals and purposes. If we are believers, then our primary goals, our ‘first concerns’ should be the Lord’s, such as the honoring of his name, kingdom expansion, and all his purposes to become reality.  Then we are invited to hand over what we need this day, personally as well as for others.  This is where we can mention the immediate situations and needs, such as Jim’s surgery or travel safety for Sally, or a peace-filled resolution to the war in Ukraine.

But, don’t you want to talk to practice talking with the Father like Jesus?  For inspiration and guidance, we can sink our teeth deep into John 17 and study how Jesus prayed and for what.  We can select one of his petitions for the day and model our prayers for others on that.

For sure all and any sincere conversation with the Lord is a GOOD and RIGHT thing. This is not a suggestion to leave one way behind and replace it with something new. It’s a both/and.

Who knows, maybe Jesus is calling you into a grand adventure.  Maybe this shift will cause you to look forward to praying for others with a greater sense of expectancy.

Beware, though, Satan will not be pleased. So, armor up each morning with all the spiritual defenses and the one offensive arm we are to use, God’s Word.  

Provisions for the day

January 17, 2016

Maria Luke 11, Psalm 84, Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Pill containers

And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. – Phil 4:19

Give us today our daily bread. – Luke 11:3  (Keep us alive with three square meals – The Message paraphrase)

I’m getting ready to take students to Québec for a French class ‘field trip’.  Planning ahead for the 6 day absence, I bought this pill container so I can leave Mike’s vitamins and meds for him clearly marked and safe from the cats.

Each color-coded plastic mini box will supply what he needs for a specific period of time. The clear markings and different colors broadcast sufficiency and timeliness. It would not make sense nor be healthy for my husband to take from other than the scheduled provision.

God provides the same way, by giving us enough grace (strength, wisdom, money, work, SLEEP, knowledge, whatever we need) for the moment. If I worry about ‘later’, I’m actually stealing from future stockpiled grace.  (Our cousin calls it – ‘stepping out of the circle of God’s grace.’) Just like I will set out pills for Mike before I depart, so God has furnished supplies for our future needs.  The verb to pro-vide, if you break it into component parts, means:

  • in advance
  • seeing

God sees what will sustain us, minute by minute, our entire life, that is –  in advance of NOW. And we know that our God is loving, good and personal.  So it’s not like He is going to peer into the future, observe our needs and then shrug, “Hope they can handle THAT event. Good luck to them!”

Here’s the point.  Just like Mike is going to trust me that I’ve pre-positioned the requisite pills he requires for the appropriate segment of the day, so too we Christians should trust our Father in heaven to do the same. In the 35 years of our marriage, Mike has learned to place his confidence in me, assured that I will do him good and not harm.  Can’t we at least trust God THAT much?

During the past 2 months of ‘health issues’ (2 unexceptional little words that pack a punch), we’ve seen God come through time and time again.  My daily mantra has become:  ‘Manna for the day; Grace for this moment’ and I’ve clung to Psalm 84:11 – ‘No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly.’ 

I’m ashamed to admit, that for me, it is STILL a fight, to trust God in those scary moments when I SEE no provision.  It’s then, more than at any other time, that I have to speak Words of Truth to me!  So I recite out loud as many of His promises as I can, those assurances that He IS in fact caring for me and supplying what I need. I think it was Martin Luther who taught that we must daily preach the good news, the Gospel, first and foremost to ourselves!

As Jeremiah himself learned and then turned and comforted the exiled –

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
    his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.
 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
    “therefore I will hope in him.”  Jeremiah 3:22-24

 

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