Prayer and Love Yet Again

Devotional Classics, Jean-Nicholas Grou, Excerpts from How to Pray

"Love God and you will always be speaking to him. The seed of love is growth in prayer. If you do not understand that, you have never yet either loved or prayed." (p.140)

The phrase "Love God and you will always be speaking to him" lacks a lot of definition and specifics, but I believe it captures the heart of prayer. This idea has nourished a number of people as they seek God, especially when they find that their words fall so short of what lives within them. In one way, this seems to say loving God is speaking to him.

This is not so mysterious, nor even so incredibly mystical if I think about it. The supportive presence of a loved one in the room with me can be more than someone speaking words of comfort in dark days. When someone watches and delights deeply in something I do or say, I can often tell how deeply they are touched by little they say. Being overcome by feeling or passion seems to move me beyond words.

What is intimidating about this idea of loving God is that I cannot control my feelings directly. Yet I have found that my thoughts influence my feelings. True to what Dallas Willard writes about in Renovation of the Heart, thoughts and feelings are inextricably joined, so I can control my feelings indirectly by changing the direction of my thoughts. This is why pondering and delighting in choice phrases from the Bible is great preparation for prayer. The redirection of my mind toward the things of God inflame feelings of love, awe, joy, etc. in God.

I find that some thoughts are so powerful, they can nourish my heart with love and joy and peace for weeks on end. I do not have to constantly be trying to have new thoughts and new feelings when I am still feasting richly on one that carries me through the days. I remember on bit of advice about this, but I can't remember who said it. When reading and pondering the Bible, stop at the place where you are heavily affected or drawn to and let it do its work before moving on. This has helped me to truly delight in the word of God - scripture that truly speaks to me. Such words or phrases become a "watchword" for the day or longer.

When prayer becomes dry and empty, it is not a reason to panic, however. But if I learn to accept prayer as dry and empty, then there is reason to panic. Although everyone goes through dry "wilderness" times of prayer, those who love God ache and call out to him, while those who do not love God or understand it continue on in formality or just give up.

As prayer grows - and in my experience prayer grows deeper, affecting me more and more inwardly - it seeds a love for God that sprouts into my everyday existence. If prayer does not yield this kind of love for God, and eventually for other people, it is mere formality.

Another way to understand "Love God and you will always be speaking to him" is to say when I am loving God, then I will always be speaking to him. This is true as well, since love expresses itself. When someone is with me, even in silence, their face and hands can show love and will show love even if they are not speaking. Often, they will speak as well - maybe not a lot, but enough.

And so, I find that another way to hold the love of God before myself is to speak to him throughout the day. Often the phrases will be simple. It may be "Help" or just "Lord." It may be "Be near to me" or "Have mercy." I may talk to him about my kids or sing to him what's on my heart. Obviously this is akin to what I wrote about above, and for good reason. Those whom I love have my attention, my feelings, as well as much of my words. I share with them.

Silence can come from awe and deep feeling. It can also come from boredom, confusion, or derision. Silence that expresses love starts from the inside as calmness and serenity or at least a desire to not hurt someone. It pours out into my life. Whereas silence that is not love is imposed from the outside while my innards churn or boil with worry, anger, or lust. It seems to me that such silence comes from fear or anger. The words that eventually come from silence quickly determine its origin and purpose.

This is all to say that prayer that does not involve my heart - the very center of my being - is not really prayer at all. Words and feelings that move me toward God with love, these are prayers. I may begin by feeling "flat," but often I find I warm up to him and long to hear from him as I go on. It may be the most important attitude is hope, an anticipation of God's meeting me and the love that comes from that meeting.

Lord, today is one of those days in which I struggle to meet with you. Depression has crept in and I have sought distractions instead of your presence. I find on days like this that I resist speaking to you because I do not believe your love for me. I worry that you will be like so many people I meet, tying heavy burdens, placing them on my back, and not lifting a finger to help me. Pull me out of this mire. Let me see you for who you really are.

For as high as the heavens are above the earth,

so great is his love for those who fear him;

as far as the east is from the west,

so far has he removed our transgressions from us;

as a father has compassion on his children,

so does the Lord have compassion on those who fear him. (Ps. 103:11-13) Amen.

The mechanics of prayer are not so difficult as the spirit of prayer. I do not find that actually praying is so hard as actually wanting to pray. Fear and anger are deeply embedded in my life from years of being both the giver and receiver of them. Love does not come naturally, but flows from a continual diet of learning and remembering God's goodness and his loving deeds. Today I need to remember that God is not a burden, but a redeemer, come to set me free.

Prayer and Exercising Faith

Devotional Classics, Martin Luther, Excerpts from Table Talk, etc.

"We should pray by fixing our mind upon some pressing need, desiring it with all earnestness, and then exercise faith and confidence toward God in the matter, never doubting that we have been heard." (p.133)

This matter of faith in prayer seems difficult. Is it merely positive thinking? Mind over matter? Perhaps much can be learned from this popular idea, if it is really taken seriously. What I mean is that mind is over matter because the Mind preceded Matter. God's intent and word preceded Creation of all kinds of matter - earthly and heavenly.

From a series of talks given by Dallas Willard (The Kingdom of God), I see that if I am to understand prayer in faith, I first must understand that everything exists because God made it and he made it be his words. "By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible." (Heb. 11:3)

This existence I have was not only created by God through his words, but is sustained and ordered by his word. "He is before all things, and in him all things hold together." (Col. 1:17) "Your word, O Lord, is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens. Your faithfulness continues through all generations; you established the earth, and it endures." (Ps. 119:89-90) So words make things happen in this universe. Certainly God's words, but also words with faith in God.

Faith or believing begins with understanding, but goes far beyond it. Believing accepts and adopts an understanding and makes it one's own. Faith is not a distant thought, but an urgent reality that presses in on me. I cannot try to believe something; I simply do or don't. My life illustrates my faith. People of faith in the Bible are often desperate people, willing to do anything to touch Jesus or beg from him.

I guess prayer, as I have often defined it, seems to remove this element of desperation often because "God is always there." Somehow this assurance can remove faith from my prayer. How? While there are no special rituals or feelings or words to make God do what I want him to, for my faith in God to be active may take more than just assuming that "God's there," it takes some form of longing and communication.

If prayer is more like a conversation and less like a slot machine, there has to be some way of finding that I have truly connected with God when I am speaking. No doubt he is "there," but are we really talking and sharing? When I ask my kids to do something, I need to be assured there is connection, or I might as well be "talking into the air."

So this faith transcends the "mind over matter" principle because it has to do with a relationship far more than with the internal state of my thoughts and feelings. Certainly, my thoughts and feelings will be fully involved, but their object will not be only be what I desire and how to get it, but who I am asking. His love is the most important part, but also I need to have a better sense of who I am asking and what he can really do.

How does one "exercise faith. . . toward God" as Luther says? Partly by just doing it. But there may be some other kinds of exercises that may increase faith, like weight lifting can enable better ability in a sport. One thing can be listening to God regularly. He tells me things that will increase my faith. Another is studying and remembering the Bible, not by "naming it and claiming it," but by reading each account as what could happen to anyone - even me! Another is to ask for faith from God. Reading any Gospel can bring many ideas of how to increase faith, since that is what Jesus came to do and what the Gospels are for. "These are written that you may believe. . . ." (Jn. 20:31)

Lord, would that I had the faith as big as a mustard seed! I see that faith is given more than developed, but I also see that you long to give faith to me and I need to learn how to receive it. I am slow to understand and do not see you rightly. May I work and act in faith and see your love and power revealed. May I stop trying to believe and begin to exercise my faith both directly and indirectly. Amen.

Really, life provides a perfect place for faith to grow. There are moments that call (or scream) for faith, for me to speak or act on the assumption that God really does care and that he really can do anything. There are moments in which I can work on faith indirectly by waiting on God, delighting in the scriptures, or repenting of my unbelief. God grant me the focus to seek such faith!

Dead Prayers

Devotional Classics, Martin Luther, Excerpts from Table Talk, etc.

"'Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks find, and to him who knocks the door will be opened. Which of you, if his son asks for a loaf of bread will give him a stone? Or is he asks for a fish will give him a snake? If you, then, who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him?' (Mt. 7:6-10)

"Are we so hard of heart that these words of Jesus do not move us to pray with confidence, joyfully and gladly? So many of our prayers must be reformed if we are to pray according to these words. To be sure, all of the churches across the land are filled with people praying and singing, but why is it that there is so little improvement, so few results from so many prayers? The reason is none other than the one Jesus speaks of when he says, 'You ask and you do not receive because you ask amiss' (Ja. 4:3) For where this faith and confidence is not in the prayer, the prayer is dead. (p.134)

The very last sentence is what grabs me. The possibility of a prayer being dead fills me with alarm. And yet, how else could Luther or I explain what we see around us? God promises lavish provision and, even in churches, there is great need and misery.

Not that I would expect a life without difficulty or suffering in this present evil age, but I would expect a people joyful and glad with confidence in their prayers and in their worship, as Luther writes. It is not the lack of "answered prayers" that makes me think prayer is dead, but that for all the answers received there is so little improvement and so few results in churches. (These are not my words only, but most people and many sociological studies reflect the same sort of thing.)

My most remarkable dead prayers have been ones where God answers, but I am looking the other way entirely. My prayer is not dead because God is unwilling to answer because I have not gritted my teeth and held my breath in "faith" in just the right way. My prayer is dead because it slips away into forgetfulness because I did not really care much about it and have moved on to some favored distraction or because I am looking for a particular kind of answer and God has something else, something better in mind.

This can be seen plainly in the prayers of the Jewish people in the first century. They were oppressed by the Roman government and prayed earnestly for deliverance. God sent them deliverance from Rome and so much more in Jesus, but because it was not in the way or time they expected, they refused his provision. Could this be the same problem for the churches that Luther talks about? Perhaps this lack of confidence and faith creates a blind rush towards our desires and away from God's intended provision. It's probably why James continues in 4:3 with how we ask amiss: "that you may spend what you get on your pleasures."

How many times have I been the same way? Do I pray for bodily pains to leave me without looking for sins that may be causing them? Do I look for fellowship with other people without practicing the gifts he's given me to build up such a fellowship? Do I pray for other people to be kinder and easier to live with when I am unwilling to become the very thing I pray for? Perhaps many prayers lie on the floor if my life, dead from misuse and resistance to God's loving provision more than remaining unanswered.

Perhaps many of God's answers to my prayers do not simply scratch an itch I have, but cure the disease of which I am only concerned with a symptom. Perhaps God's answers always go a bit deeper than I would like into the needs of my life. Yes, there will be praise and "Amens" for God's great deeds and kindness. Perhaps I also need a bit of reflection and action related to God's answer to benefit fully.

Lord, I see that many of the things you want to give me, I have refused for a long time. My prayers were dead because my trust in you was lacking. I have become like the ungrateful servant who buried his talent because he did not trust his Master. How have I buried my prayers and your answers like this, out of mistrust? Too often I am unwilling to trust and obey, so your answers pass me by or at least lie unused. Forgive me. Lead me aright. Amen.

This reminds me that it is dangerous to pray and not live out the prayer. I find it easy to pray and forget rather than let my prayers move out into my life. As I remarked from Douglas Steere a while back, "If we ignore these leadings, they poison future prayer." I do not think God leads me into unceasing frantic activity (that I get from myself and other people), but I find prayer changes me and encourages me to change, sometimes in small ways, sometimes in large ways. To leave such changes unimplemented inoculates me against hearing God later.

Faith moves me to implement answered prayer like a man who sells everything to get a field with buried treasure in it. Following my own desires moves me to dread and resist God's direction given in prayer and so improvement and results in my life with God become scarce. When the answers are not what I hoped for or seem absent, I need to reflect on God's goodness and love and set aside my fears of losing things I don't really want anyway.