We are all different and amazingly, God will use us right where we are. We all have a story, and my story is a part of His story, because He wants it that way.
So I want to talk about my first prayer. Three days and seven years ago, I was a little like Robinson Crusoe
. That is a story with part of its focus being about how Robinson, a man shipwrecked for 28 years, becomes closer to God, not through listening to sermons in a church but through spending time alone amongst nature, with only a Bible to read. He gets close to God through Communion with God and through prayer.
There I was, castaway on my island, alone in an apartment in Hoover with no one but God for three days after the incident where He introduced Himself to me. The alcohol was gone, the wrestling with who He was, was over, the long phone conversation with Tammy that afternoon was finished. I was finally sure of who He was. And at some time I simply fell to my knees in that apartment, on that hard carpet covered concrete floor.
I did not quietly ask Jesus into my heart and seek His forgiveness. Instead, I slammed my head into the floor a number of times, crying and railing out at God for doing this all now, at this time, when I was alone and was done with life. Why wait for so long to come and reveal Himself to me. Everything I worked for was gone. The one relationship I had cared about was over. Why now? I can’t even remember all of the words that I yelled, or all the questions I asked, but I did start to cry at some point. Tears soaked my face and covered my shirt. I had never cried like this and had actually not cried very much at all for most of my life. It was like all of my tears had been dammed up and now the dam was busted wide open.
At some point, I knew that He was there with me. God had shown up and I realized He was not really giving me answers but He was there to wipe away the tears and get an answer. I gave Him one, I said yes.
Those early days were filled with prayers. They were answered prayers. It was like when a newborn baby cries out and the parents respond as if life depends on it and it does actually. Newborns are helpless. Even a little thing like getting too chilled can have life threatening impact on their small fragile persons. We are that way also when we first enter the Kingdom. Born again as new spiritual beings we are newborns ourselves. So fragile, but our Father is nothing else if He is not the proud, protective Father that is there to make sure nothing comes against us.
As I aged a little and started to learn things prayer became a little less rewarding or fulfilling. It was because I lost some of the childlike simplicity in which I viewed prayer. I started to feel that it was time I learned to do prayer right.
Then, as we all grow up, or start to, we become like teenagers. We know it all and don’t feel the need to learn from our Father. We stop praying as much as we used to and when we do, it is usually just to get something. All teens rebel to some degree. Even the best of children defy their parents in some small way with most going much farther. We do it with our heavenly Father also. We come to a point where we only look to Him for what He can provide.
But then we hopefully come to the place where we once again see him for who He is and appreciate Him for the simple fact that He loves us and we love Him. This is where we all should be today.
Some of you may be struggling to pray. Some of you may not even see the need to pray, except maybe at church. Some of you may feel that you have what you need, so why pray? All of these things come from a misunderstanding about what prayer is and how necessary it is, for us personally and for the story of creation and the Kingdom to advance.
What is personal prayer?
As we look across the landscape of scripture, we find many examples or personal prayer and we find many ways of praying. Who are some of the major pray-ers in the bible? Remember that prayer happens in a number of ways. Adam had conversations with God in the garden, Abraham bargained with God, Moses argued, Job railed, Jacob wrestled, Samuel listened in the quiet of the night, the disciples talked to Christ face to face. We can look in the bible and what we find mostly is personal prayer. The records of group prayer or church prayer just don’t come close to the amount of people we see on their faces before God individually. Look at Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel or any of the prophets. Look at Jesus and the Apostles. Especially look at Paul. All of his writings show us a man who prayed. Sometimes in the middle of his discourse he would break out in prayer. All of these examples show us something about this relationship with God. They show us that it is real and it is dynamic. Not only does he want children, friends, servants and soldiers, he wants partners.
History and the bible show us a God who gives away or shares his power. Even in the Old Testament we see a God who waits, intervenes, then waits some more for his people to do or make the right choices. Even today Gods Spirit whispers instead of shouts, trying to align us with the program.
God has partnered with us and has ordained prayer as the means to discuss His will and achieve His will on earth. That is why ultimately we should pass from a childlike prayer life, utterly depending on Him, to that of requests and petition as teens do, then to a relational type prayer where we want fellowship with the creator, and finally to a place where His will is what we ultimately want above all else. We achieve this level when we get to the place where we truly realize who He is and become the partners in creation He want us to be.
Ever since God created and placed Adam in charge of the garden, He actually seems to do very little in creation without the likes of you and me. When I used to ask, “What is God doing?” I should have asked, “What are Gods people doing?” Do you realize that according to scripture, those we pray for, Christ prays for?
Although the reformed people would have us believe that God does not change, or ever change his mind, the bible actually shows us that He does and is always willing to if we ask. Look at Abraham and Sodom and Gomorrah, look at Moses and numerous times while leading the Israelites, look at Jonah and Nineveh, look at Hezekiah and his request for additional years of life. God even told Jeremiah three times to stop praying because He did not want to change his mind about the rebellious nation of Israel.
Prayer works and prayer is important if any of Gods will is going to be achieved on this planet. We should be praying like our life depends on it. We should be persistent and relentless in asking God to bring about His will and His purposes on this planet. This is how we become those partners, those workers in the fields that God not only so desperately wants, but that He actually needs. Our persistence shows God we are serious about a thing and that we are willing to do our part. When you really want something, what do you do? Are you that persistent in prayer?
It is easy to be a child of God. Are you ready to become a partner in His-story?
Love you all
Tags: alcohol, Conversation, Creation, Father, Fellowship, jesus, Kingdom, knees, Personal, Prayer, relationship, robinson crusoe, Self, Servant, Work
Very often prayer seems like a struggle. That is because sometimes, it is. Jesus bled from wounds that were given to him by the Romans before the crucifixion but even before that, He broke out in bloody sweat from the action of prayer. Prayer is sometimes warfare, and the enemy does not want you doing it. When we finally get to that mature level of prayer where we are in the process of aligning our will with Gods, the battle will rage as it did for Jesus at Gethsemane.
As followers of Christ and workers in His kingdom we all have a job to do. A lot of us are more behind the scenes but what we do is as vital to the Kingdom as those in the forefront of ministries. There are so many “superstars” in the body of Christ in this country that everyone knows of at least one.
In God’s creation project, He built in this component that we call free will so that we could share in the maintenance and direction of the project. He knew we could, and I think He knew we probably would; fail in our area of authority. But He wanted free, loving relationships with us above all else. And no matter how happy a five point Calvinist gets at the thought of God’s Omni-control, that just does not show us a loving God. It shows us a puppet master instead. God really wants relationships with real people not puppets.
Sometimes we want to use prayer as just a method of establishing Gods presence, but instead we should use it as a way of responding to His presence. He is there, whether you feel him or not. We cannot have awesome mighty experiences of His presence every time we pray, but if we are of the mind that we are to just spend enough time with God to get what we want, not only will we probably not get what we want, but we will never have that awesome experience in His presence.
