Copying Paul’s way of praying

March 21, 2024

Maria Desire, Ephesians 1, God's will, Prayer, Psalm 37 , , , , , 1 Comment

I love to read books on prayer, ranging from how to create the desire to pray to how to pray according to God’s will.  Paul Miller’s latest book, A Praying Church, challenges me to grow up and reorient the ways I’ve been praying.

This morning, one of my favorite verses popped up:

Delight yourself also in the LORD, And He shall give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4 NKJV

That word ‘also’ caught my attention. Some translations don’t have it, but no matter, God used it to prompt me to look for the context of verse 4. And it makes sense when reading what precedes and follows. Verses 3 and 5 are part of one exhortation. Think of ‘the delighting/desiring’ verse as the meat and the other two sets of teachings as the bread. 

Looking at the verbs, the top layer directs us to: TRUST in the Lord (believe what he says)….DO good….DWELL where God has us (stay put, in other words).  The bottom piece urges us to: ENTRUST our way to God (or hand over our life). That’s it. The verse terminates not with one more action for us to do, but an assertion that the Lord will take care of whatever we yield or surrender to him.

More than assert, this promise infuses confidence in us.  Just think, the very God of creation will act on all we purposefully place in his hands. From my perspective, these are all the things I can’t make happen. The people I want to fix, the circumstances I long to change, the suffering of friends and family and the world.  

Now that we see the structure, here’s the meat, the part all of us like to cite and hope is true (for it sounds almost TOO good to be real). 

Delight yourself in the Lord (the Hebrew says in essence,spend time being with God and enjoy his company more than anyone else’s) and he will give you the desires of your heart (again the Hebrew reads, he will answer your prayers).

The day before I pondered these three verses, I had read the first line of Charles de Foucault’s most famous prayer.  It stopped me cold in its simplicity and boldness.

Do with me what you will.

Six simple words. Total surrender. What kind of man or woman do you think would have the courage to say that to Jesus? Only someone who has spent so much time with our Savior that the Lord has become his favorite person.

I want God to grow an attitude in me like that of Charles de Foucault. Paul Miller’s book and the Apostle Paul’s writings are guiding me in that direction. I’m gradually learning to pray not just for the current circumstances of life and people to change, but for faith legs to support each person involved. I pray for our roots to grow down deep, drinking in God’s love for us. The former Pharisee Paul prayed this way, as recorded in Ephesians 1: 17-21 (NIV)

 I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.  I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people,and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strengthhe exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.

A lot of my prayers are still in elementary school mode. Dear God, please make this work out the way I want, for I am trusting you.

It’s time for me to move up to middle school and grow some more.

How Prayer and Trust relate

August 10, 2014

Maria 1 Peter, Anxiety, Belief, Doubt, Fear, Prayer, Promises, Psalm 50, Trust , , , , , 2 Comments

 

Call on me in the Day of Trouble

 

 

 

As Paul Miller says, we all think we stink at prayer!

I would imagine that this assessment is a plot of the devil and his evil pals.  If they can get us NOT to pray, then God won’t accomplish much.  At least this is what the Satan thinks, thus laboring steadily to dissuade us from spending the time and energy and getting our hopes up!

But God….(two powerful words that introduce HOPE)…is ALWAYS at work so we should keep on stumbling through prayer by faith and trust He’ll help us grow in this area.

*

I’ve been reading an encouraging book on prayer.

Link to the book

Power of Prayer - Samuel Prime

 

 

 

 

 

If you purchase this account of the New York revival of 1858, chapters 16, 17 and the final one are worth the price of the book.  They made me WANT to pray.

Here is my take-away after spending a month in these pages. Picture thick ice that covers a lake in winter. ice on a lake

 

 

 

When you trust in the efficacy of the ice to sustain your weight, you venture out.  The degree of faith in that ice has NO effect on whether the ice is sufficient to bear your weight. Whether you timidly step out onto the ice (a little bit of faith) or you stride out boldly (strong faith), the ice’s ability to hold you up is not effected one whit.

The promises of God are like the ice.  When God says in HIS WORD that He will do this or that, we can be sure that He will!   Why? – because He is a perfect God who never changes.  His character, the sum-total of His attributes, is consistently above-reproach.  If He is ever or even one time good, He is ALWAYS good. If He is faithful once, He is ALWAYS faithful.  If He does what is right one time (act with righteousness and justice), then He will ALWAYS do what is righteous and just.  Why?  because His character  is on the line at all times. His primary motivation is for the glory or reputation of His name

Closely intertwined with His character are His promises.  What He says He will do is as good as done.  It’s money in the bank, as some would say.  His character is the foundation for His Word.

So, when you step out onto the solid ice-covered lake of His Word, it’s NOT

  • the strength or quality or purity of your faith
  • nor is it even your goodness, aka faithfulness
  • nor the quality of your past few quiet times
  • nor how committed you are THIS time to do…

It’s ALL Him.  And that is good news.

To sum up, here is my analogy –

Throwing up a prayer to God and then resting in the PERFECT assurance that He will hear that prayer and use it and take care of the situation/desire/need as HE best sees fit, is akin to stepping out on the ice-covered lake and having confidence that it will hold you up so you can play to your heart’s content.

Taking that worry back for yourself is like running in off the lake before you even crossed over to the other side or played a game.

Here’s what we have to remember:

Once we pray, and when our mind STILL returns to the need/concern/situation/desire, we must remind ourselves that the ice WILL hold.  God WILL take care of “it”.  His character and His word are our guarantee.  If we have to remind ourselves twelve times in 2 hours to leave the need in His hands, that’s okay.  No shame – we can do it!  It’s part of our learning curve in trust.

So I ask – what do you have to lose besides your old friend – the worry habit?

Question: Which worry or need are you willing to risk losing, by discharging it on Him?