PrayerSHARING INTIMATE SPACE WITH GOD

PrayerSHARING INTIMATE SPACE WITH GOD

EditorMike L. WonchDirector of EditorialBonnie PerryWritersDean BlevinsDoug Hardy

All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

From the New Revised Standard Version (nrsv) of the Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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Copyright © 2015 by Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City

Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City PO Box 419527 Kansas City, MO 64141 nph.com

ISBN: 978-0-8341-3434-8 Printed in U.S.A.

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CONTENTSIntroduction 4

1. Prayer Expresses Relationship 6

2. Prayer Expresses God’s Character and Mission 14

3. Prayer Expresses All of Our Life 22

4. A Model Prayer 30

5. Prayer Involves Listening 38

6. Prayer Involves Speaking 46

7. Prayer Involves Difficulties 54

Most of us have lives that are busy, stress-filled, and full of “must do” lists.

With all these pressures upon us, we often struggle to focus on investing

valuable time and energy into meaningful relationships with our family, our

friends, those within the church, and even with God.

Deep and authentic communication remains a needed priority for any

significant relationship to flourish. As with all relationships, healthy

communication always thrives when it remains open, deep, and constant.

That is what God desires for our prayers.

Prayer defines a two-way communication between God and us. It builds

the trust that works toward interweaving our lives with God. Yet, we often

miss the depth of conversation possible, particularly when our prayers consist

of mere words expressed from the position of obligation or meaningless habit.

Rather than some boring requirement we are expected to fulfill, God desires

our sincere and honest conversation filled with expressions of love.

Prayer remains one of the most important aspects of a Christian’s

life. Prayer: Sharing Intimate Space with God explores the ways in which prayer

can enrich our relationship with God.

Doug Hardy serves as Professor of Spiritual Formation and Director of Doctor of Ministry Programs at Nazarene Theological Seminary in Kansas City, MO where he helps students who are preparing for pastoral ministry to pray as they learn. He grew up in Canada; studied, pastored, and taught in the United States; and has taught in Africa and Ireland. Doug is married with three grown children. Whether speaking, writing, or in conversation, his desire is to come alongside others to help facilitate their alignment with God.

Dean G. Blevins currently serves as Professor of Christian Formation and Discipleship at Nazarene Theological Seminary. An active scholar, Dean has contributed to several books and published over 50 church related or scholarly articles. In addition, Dean co-wrote the text Discovering Discipleship: The Dynamics of Christian Education with Dr. Mark Maddix. Dean currently serves as senior editor of Didache: Faithful Teaching, an on-line academic journal. Dean currently resides in Olathe Kansas with his wife JoAnn. Their daughter, Rachel, is a student at Southern Nazarene University.

INTRODUCTION

5

Prayer Expresses Relationship

PRAYER EXPRESSES RELATIONSHIP

7

We pray.

We pray at meals, at bedtime, on special days, and often either opening

or closing events. We occasionally pray “foxhole prayers,” prayers associated

with soldiers in moments of extreme threat and crisis. To be honest, our

foxhole may occur in a doctor’s office, a hospital waiting room, a jail cell,

at the beginning of a test, at the end of a relationship, in a funeral home, or

anticipating our own departure from this world. These times mark moments

of real need, vulnerability, when we appear most human. Prayer also occurs

during major changes in our lives, and the lives of people we know--work,

school, home, community, and church. We also pray strange prayers that

might be for pet turtles, new cars, homes to sell or buy, vacation travel, or

income to pay for everything.

Why? And what good does it do us?

If we are honest with ourselves we feel invited to do something that

probably feels both natural and unnatural. I suspect each of us knows people

that pray a lot, and others who rarely pray. Does volume make a difference?

Prayer habits take many forms and fashions (postures, language, location, and

expectations).

Some of us might be able to explain to a visitor “what” we do when we

pray, but not always why. Why do you hold your hands that way? Why are

you bowing your head, or dropping on your knees? Why go to the front of

the church and lean on a bench, rail, or platform? Knowing what, when, and

how to pray really depends a lot on understanding why we pray.

We intuitively know we do not “master” prayer the way we might a sport

or hobby. Instead, we seek to know how prayer might shape us. Much like the

disciples of Jesus in Luke 11:1, at some point in our lives we ask “teach us to

PRAYER

8

pray,” if only to learn how to focus amid the distractions that draw us away

from prayer. Prayer remains both a natural and unnatural practice for many of

us. But why?

Reflect on this…When do most people pray? Name the times and places when people

might pray during their normal week? Why might they do so?

Can you name some times when you or someone close experienced a

“ foxhole” moment that drove them to prayer? What motivated them to

pray and why?

Thinking about your personal prayer life, what seems natural and

unnatural? What forms of prayer seem natural? Where might you

struggle with prayer?

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PRAYER EXPRESSES RELATIONSHIPThe World We Live In

To be frank, prayer does not easily fit in the world around us. We now live

in a world of instant communication. This world actually began with the

invention of the telegraph. Suddenly news did not travel by courier for hours

or even days. Events around the world arrived almost instantly (or at least as

quickly as telegraph operators could relay the information). Later our world

shifted when people learned how to verbally send information by telephone,

broadcast information through radio and television, and network us through

the Internet. Today our world seems to revolve around instant texts, tweets,

and posts. Prayer seems odd in our current, communication-saturated, world.

Yet prayer seems odd even in connection with our intimate, interpersonal,

lives as well. We often talk with someone over coffee, in a boardroom, at the

water cooler, in the hallway, or while riding in a car. We often seek feedback,

either vocally in comments or words, or with physical responses of smiles,

shakes, slaps on the back, or laughter. We tend to expect “somebody” on the

other end of the conversation to respond, in the moment, and confirm our

thoughts, fears, and dreams.

Nor does prayer fit neatly with those internal “conversations” we have in

our head. As reflective people, we often play out conversations with others or

ourselves tacitly in our minds. We control both sides of this conversation, and

the outcome of the dialog with ourselves. Yet silent prayer seems different,

the outcome less certain, since we are not in control. How do we pay attention

to our own personal “inner world” of thoughts and desires while attending

to the God of the universe? These challenges bring us to the natural, yet

unnatural, challenges of prayer.

PRAYER

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Prayer defines something we do, almost as if the practice seems wired into

our bones. However, prayer seems like something unlike anything else we

do, calling for our attention, our faith, our obedience, and our practice. The

more we pray, the more natural prayer seems, the more our lives seem shaped

by prayer. We pray . . . yet our prayers seem to have their own life in how they

free us, transform us into a new people. In a world of instant communication,

concrete personal relationships, and multiple opportunities to explore our

“inner selves,” we find ourselves in conversations with God that have as

much, if not more, impact on our lives as our other relationships. Prayer, in

its natural and seemingly unnatural forms, places us in a relationship. Prayer

changes us in terms that we cannot always easily understand, much less

explain, the same way our closest relationships change us.

Reflect on this…Thinking about the different forms of communication, how do they

hinder people’s expectations concerning prayer?

Can you name a time when prayer changed you, almost the same way a

close relationship might have changed you?

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PRAYER EXPRESSES RELATIONSHIPPrayer as a Relationship

For well over twenty years I opened Sunday School classes with prayer.

With a personal interest in discipleship, the formation of Christians as they

follow Jesus, I remained convinced that following Jesus also meant living

“with” Jesus through prayer. I also knew that prayer served as a means of

grace as we participated within God’s life as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Often people offered up prayer requests that resembled petitions, cries

for help, for guidance. We should not be surprised. Prayer, coming from the

Latin verb to beg or entreat, includes a basic, biblical level of petitioning or

asking.1 These prayers, often described as simple prayers, begin where we

are, where our desires take us for the sake of ourselves and other people. We

cannot ignore these prayers, nor demean them, for they provide a place to

begin and a place to return when we are discouraged with our prayer life.2

However, prayer initiates change, change in us based on a growing

relationship with the God to whom we pray. Prayers do not serve as magical

incantations to merely change the circumstance of our lives or situations in

the world. Prayer involves our whole being, bringing us into relationship with

the God of the universe. That relationship alone changes us. Relationships

take various forms. Just like with people, we do not merely communicate

in simple direct requests. Depending on the relationship, we also listen

deeply, talk about private matters, wrestle with understanding each other,

and even express strong emotions of anger or love. So we cannot limit

prayer to just one expression of asking for needs alone, like a child who

begins each conversation with “I want.” Prayer includes communication,

1. Howard, Evan B. “The Life of Prayer.” In The Brazos Introduction to Christian Spirituality (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2008), 300.

2. Foster, Richard J. Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1992), 11-15.

PRAYER

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but also conversation and communion, with God, both on a personal and a

community level.3

Reflect on this…Think about some of the basic “simple prayers” you have prayed.

Describe how you maintain relationships. What happens to those

relationships if you merely asked for help all the time?

When have you prayed that seemed more like a conversation or merely

resting (communing) in God’s presence? What difference did it make?

The Many Forms of Prayer

Fortunately we possess many forms of prayer, ones that help us enter into

relationship with God. As we shall see in a later chapter, even Jesus’ prayer,

taught to His disciples, incorporated many different types of prayer. We

offer prayer as expressions of praise or adoration, thanksgiving, confession,

contemplation or meditation, recollection or reflection (particularly around

scripture), petition or intercession, and surrender or dedication. Prayer can

include many different postures or practices, from using prayer guides such

as ACTS (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication) to employing

prayer journals. Often people create specific places for prayer in their homes, or

go to retreat centers for extended prayer. People pray out loud, or reflect silently

3. Hinson, Glenn. s. v. “Prayer.” In Encyclopedia of Religious Education, edited by Iris V. Cully, Kendig Brubaker Cully (San Francisco: Harper & Row Publishers, 1990), 494-495.

13

PRAYER EXPRESSES RELATIONSHIPon their relationship with God. Some pray through Scripture while others use

aspects of God’s creation (music, art, outdoor walks, devotional writings) to

spark their prayers. The range of approaches to building a relationship with

God seems as varied as our relationships with other people. While there may

be no one approach, no one practice, no one expected outcome with prayer,

the diverse options offered must always connect both personally and with the

worshipping community we live within. Prayer appears to be both natural

and unnatural, something we do, yet also a discipline where we, through

intentional practice, sustain a real relationship. We need to explore and access

the many opportunities to practice prayer. We need to find a way to prayer that

communicates more than just needs, but establishes a true relationship with

God.

Reflect on this…Think about the different practices of prayer that you have seen and

heard. How many have you explored as a means of establishing a prayer

life?

Which examples of prayer seem most natural? Why?

Which examples of prayer seem the most difficult? Why?

64

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