Praying in bad times,
praying in good times
Psalm 63: 1-8
1 O God, You are my God;
Early will I seek You;
My soul thirsts for You;
My flesh longs for You
In a dry and thirsty land
Where there is no water.
2 So I have looked for You in the sanctuary,
To see Your power and Your glory.
3 Because Your loving kindness is better than life,
My lips shall praise You.
4 Thus I will bless You while I live;
I will lift up my hands in Your name.
5 My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness,
And my mouth shall praise You with joyful lips.
6 When I remember You on my bed,
I meditate on You in the night watches.
7 Because You have been my help,
Therefore in the shadow of Your wings I will rejoice.
8 My soul follows close behind You;
Your right hand upholds me.
This sounds very nice,
but what do we do when prayer is not that easy?
When it’s more like this…
Psalm 102: 1-9
1 Hear my prayer, O Lord;
let my cry for help come to you.
2 Do not hide your face from me
when I am in distress.
Turn your ear to me;
when I call, answer me quickly.
3 For my days vanish like smoke;
my bones burn like glowing embers.
4 My heart is blighted and withered like grass;
I forget to eat my food.
5 Because of my loud groaning
I am reduced to skin and bones.
6 I am like a desert owl,
like an owl among the ruins
7 I lie awake; I have become
like a bird alone on a roof.
8 All day long my enemies taunt me;
those who rail against me use my name as a curse.
9 For I eat ashes as my food
and mingle my drink with tears
How do we pray,
when our experience is more like this second psalm?
Praying
in
hard times
Use structured prayers
• the Psalms
• a book of prayers
A Prayer in Darkness
God, where are you?
I beg, I plead … and you do not answer.
I shout, I yell … and get nothing.
Break your silence,
O God.
Speak to me!
Teach me!
Rebuke me!
Strike me down!
But do not remain silent.
The God who is mute. Is that who you are?
You have revealed yourself as the speaking God – our communicating Cosmos.
You pointed Abraham to a city whose builder and maker was God.
You revealed your divine name to Moses.
You spoke with clarity
to David,
to Ruth,
to Esther,
to Isaiah,
to Ezekiel,
to Daniel,
to Mary,
to Paul,
and a host of others.
Why are the heavens made of iron for me?
Job, I know, experienced you as the hidden God. And Elijah held a lonely vigil over earthquake, wind and fire. Me, too.
O God of wonder and of mystery, teach me by means of your wondrous, terrible, loving, all-embracing silence.
Amen.
Richard Foster
Pray for others
Problems make us self-centered
“During hard times my vision narrows so that I think only of myself and my problems. Then, more than ever, I need to widen that vision, to expand the circle of God’s love.”
Read Christian books
Keep some favourite Christian books on your shelves and read them when the going gets tough
”Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” Philippians 4:8
Play Christian music
Playing Christian music has a
big
effect
on how you feel
and makes it easy to worship
Find God in the pain
THE BAD NEWS:
God is on the other side of our pain.
We have to go through the pain to find God again.
If we avoid the pain, we can’t find God.
Because we have to come to God with our whole being (mind and heart).
Prayer is a holistic activity.
Prayer is a holistic activity.
We can only encounter God with our whole selves.
The Psalmists knew this:
“I am poor and needy,
and my heart is wounded within me.”
HELP!
When you can’t do any of these,
just call out:
“Jesus, help!”
This actually works…
although
you may have to pray again
in an hour,
on a bad day
☹
Focus on Gratitude
Even when you feel dreadful,
if you can sit down for 5 minutes
early each morning,
and thank God for all that you can,
it will make a huge difference to your day.
There are always some things you can be grateful for, even if its just the sunshine.
Seven ways to pray…
• Use structured prayers
• Pray for others
• Read Christian books
• Listen to Christian music
• Find God in the pain
• Call for help!
• Practice gratefulness
Which ones
can
you do?
The effectiveness of our prayer in hard times, does depend to a large extent on our overall relationship to God.
“For this cause everyone who is godly shall pray to You
In a time when You may be found;
Surely in a flood of great waters
They shall not come near him.” Psalm 32:6
A relationship
where all we do
is ask for things,
is not a relationship.
That brings us to the question…
Why
pray
?
….because
it’s
a tradition
Psalm 1: 1-3
1 Blessed is the man
who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners
or sit in the seat of mockers.
2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers.
Psalm 1 recommends immersion in God.
People have been immersing themselves in God for the 3-4,000 years of the Psalms.
This is not a new, untried idea!
We don’t have to try to decide for ourselves is it a good idea.
Just join the flow of thousands of years of people who knew this was the best way to live.
…to have
a relationship
with God
A relationship
where all we do is ask,
is not a relationship.
When asked to identify the most important rule in life, Jesus replied,
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”
Jesus marks love for God as the single most important goal in life.
How can I do this?
Teresa of Avila, who wrote a lot about prayer, said
“The important thing is not to think much but to love much.”
Only in prayer can we learn to love God with heart, soul and mind.
…to
be
encouraged
We are living
surrounded by God
suspended in God
Experiencing God’s presence in prayer reminds us of this,
and helps us to stay aware of the spiritual reality of life all through the day.
Praying
in
good times
The effectiveness of our prayer
in hard times,
does depend to a large extent
on our overall relationship to God.
What
is
prayer?
Prayer
is lifting
the mind
and heart
to God
How
do
I
pray?
It depends on your personality
• who you most deeply are
• your passions
• how strongly physical / emotional / intellectual you are
KNOW YOURSELF
“There never was and never will be anyone exactly like me.
If I fail to experience God in my own unique way,
that experience will forever remain in the shadow land of possibility.”
David Steindl-Rast
Often we are praying when we don’t realize it
What helps you connect to the presence of God?
What makes you feel fully alert, attentive and full of wonder and gratefulness?
Let’s start where we are,
with what comes easiest…
What is it you do with your whole heart?
• Maybe it’s drinking the first cup of coffee or tea in the morning
• going for a walk or a run
• drawing or painting
whenever we spontaneously come alive.
Then practice extending that wholehearted living to more of the day, so you are praying often through the day, keeping company with God who is already present.
BUT
we do need a short prayer time as well
as this prayerful living.
A set prayer time in the morning
is like a warm-up exercise:
it increases our awareness of God at all other times.
“This is the day the Lord has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it.” Psalm 118
We need a time to
• Praise God, whatever we’re feeling
• Give thanks to God, recognizing that everything is a gift from God
• Listen to God (a relationship where only one person talks, is not a relationship)
Make your day holey
Make little holes in your day for God to get through!
Stop what you’re doing,
and spend 1 minute with God.
Gradually increase to 2, 3, 5 minutes.
C.S. Lewis said
“Hurry isn’t of the devil, it is the devil.”
Praying in bad times
• Use structured prayers
• Pray for others
• Read Christian books
• Listen to Christian music
• Find God in the pain
• Call for help!
• Practice gratefulness
Praying in the good times
Use the good times to create a prayer habit, so that when the bad times come, you have built your prayer life on a firm foundation.
"Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.”
Matthew 7:24-25
Build on the moments when you are most fully alive, living in the present moment, feeling wonder and gratitude.
Extend these by making your day holey.
And spend a few minutes each day praising, thanking and listening to God.
Why pray?
Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”
God made us in the hope that we would choose to love God back.
God gives to us in the hope that we will say thank you.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
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