Prayer: Session #2

Prayer: Our Native Tongue? Our First Language?

"Beginners at prayer --children, new converts -- find it easy. The capacity and impulse to pray both are embedded deep within us. We are made, after all, by God, for God. why wouldn't we pray? It is our native tongue, our first language. We find ourselves in terrible trouble and cry out for help to God. We discover ourselves immensely blessed and cry out our thanks to God. But prayer doesn't stay simple. We spend years slogging through a wilderness of testing and begin to question the childlike simplicities with which we started out. We find ourselves immersed in a cynical generation that corrodes our early innocence with scorn and doubt. Along the way we pick up notions of prayer magic and begin working on slight of hand rituals and verbal incantations that will make life easier. It isn't long before those early simplicities are all tangled up in knots of questions, doubt and superstitions. It happens to all of us. Everyone who prays ends up in some difficulty or other. We need help." Eugene Peterson in Forward of The Soul of Prayer

"The worst sin is prayerlessness." P T Forsyth, The Soul of Prayer


"Prayer is irksome. An excuse to omit it is never unwelcome. When it is over, this casts a feeling of relief and holiday over the rest of the day. We are reluctant to begin. We are delighted to finish. While we are at prayer, but not while we are reading a novel or solving a cross-word puzzle, any trifle is enough to distract us. And we know we are not alone in this. Now the disquieting thing is not simply that we skimp and begrudge the duty of prayer. The really disquieting thing is it should have to be numbered among duties at all. For we believe that we were created "to glorify God and enjoy Him forever." And if the few, the very few, minutes we now spend in conversation with God are a burden to us rather than a delight, what then?" C S Lewis, Letters to Malcolm

Scripture Study
Isaiah 30:19; 55:6; 58:9; 65:24
Matthew 6:6,7; 7:7; 18:19; 21:22
Ephesians 3:14-21
Colossians 1:9-14

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence and do not take your holy spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and sustain in me a willing spirit. Psalm 51:10-12

Some Thoughts of Mine

Richard Foster is indicating that we should be "at home" with an intimate relationship with our Lord. I think St. Augustine was referring to intimacy when he said "weep for more joy." How frequently do we allow God to give us "the gift of kindness?" Can not the realization that God has been acting throughout church history and is continually acting even in today's generation, increase our faith and obedience in prayer?

Did you notice the likeness in the prayer of David in 1 Chronicles 29:10-19 and in Jesus' prayer of John 17? I noticed these: 1) God's greatness was acknowledged at the beginning of the prayers; 2) then intercession for others, including future generations; 3) intimate relationship with the Father God was evident; 4) purpose in life or a "calling" being brought to completion. Do you see others?

John 17:23,24 grabs me every time I read this prayer. "I in them and You in Me, in order that they may become one and perfectly united, that the world may know and (definitely) recognize that You sent Me and that You have loved them (even) as You have loved Me. Father, I desire that they also whom You have entrusted to Me (as Your gift to Me) may be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory, which You have given Me (Your love gift to Me); for You loved Me before the foundation of the world." AMP May we follow Jesus and be part of this oneness!

Comment from Myrtle

If Jesus can so fervently pray for us, we should also do so for our brothers and sisters in Christ. Our Sunday school lesson was about Hagar; she gave God a name -- El-roi, the God who sees. My name for Him right now is God who enables. What are your names for Him at this particular time in your life?