| Prayer Partners continued...
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GETTING TO KNOW YOUR FATHER
Come near to God and he will come
near to you.
James 4:8
One night in 1968, the pilot of an airliner
bound for New York realized that the landing gear of
his jet would not engage. Traveling ever closer to his
destination, he continued to work the controls, trying
to get the wheels to lock into place, but he had no
success. Circling over the airport, he asked the control
tower for instructions. The ground crew, responding
to the impending crisis, sprayed the runway with foam,
and emergency vehicles moved into position. The pilot
was instructed to land the plane as best he could.
The passengers were asked to prepare themselves for
the worst and to put themselves into crash position.
Moments before landing, the pilot announced over the
intercom: "We are beginning our final descent. In accordance
with International Aviation Codes established at Geneva,
it is my obligation to inform you that if you believe
in God, you should commence praying." The plane then
performed a belly landing, and miraculously, came to
a stop with no injury to the passengers.
If that pilot hadn't found himself in a crisis that
day, his passengers would never have known about the
airline's hidden provision for prayer. But isn't that
the way it is for most people? As long as everything's
going smoothly, they rarely think about talking to God.
But as soon as a situation becomes life or death, they
turn to Him for help.
That kind of thinking is almost to be expected among
nonbelievers. Many of them have a "flat-tire mentality."
As long as they're cruising down the highway of life
and the car is handling the road well, then everything's
great. But when there's a blowout, they turn to God.
WHY BELIEVERS DON'T PRAY
The remarkable thing is that many Christians
spend as little time communicating with God as nonbelievers.
Why is that? Have many lost their belief in the power
of prayer? William A. Ward said, "God is never more
than a prayer away from you...We address and stamp a
letter and send it on its way, confident that it will
reach its destination, but we doubtfully wonder if our
prayer will be heard by an ever-present God."
I think the main reason people don't spend much time
praying is that they have the wrong attitude toward
prayer. Some people think of prayer as something only
their grandmother does. Or they think of the simple
prayers of their childhood: "God is great. God is good.
Let us thank Him for our food. Amen," or "Now I lay
me down to sleep...."
But even people who have a genuine desire to pray and
have tried to develop a prayer life sometimes have the
wrong idea about it. They think that in order to pray
they have to go off by themselves, get on their knees,
close their eyes, fold their hands, etc. They take with
them a list of things to pray about, and then they go
through the list methodically. None of those things
is bad or wrong, but that kind of mechanical prayer
life can become very tedious. For most people, after
about five minutes they run out of things to say, become
frustrated, and then feel guilty for not having a better
prayer life. No wonder so many Christians are reluctant
to pray. They've made prayer a formal, stiff, lifeless
thing that it was never meant to be. Any time the mechanics
of prayer get in the way of loving God, they're a hindrance,
not a help.
TALKING TO A FRIEND
Prayer should be the most natural thing in
the world, like speaking your mind with a friend you
trust. C. Neil Strait said, "Prayer is...talking with
God and telling him you love Him...conversing with God
about all the things that are important in life, both
large and small, and being assured that He is listening."
First and foremost, prayer is talking to your Father
in heaven and getting to know Him. It's the process
of developing a relationship. How do you develop and
grow in your relationship with God? The same way you
do with anyone else. You spend time together. Armand
Nicholi of Harvard University Medical School said, "Time
is like oxygen; there's the minimum amount that's necessary
for survival. And it takes quantity, as well as quality,
to develop warm and caring relationships."
IT'S A LITTLE LIKE A MARRIAGE
Think of your relationship with God as being
similar to a marriage. The main difference is that God,
unlike your spouse, is perfect. He loves you unconditionally,
is absolutely trustworthy, and forgives you for anything
and everything you do wrong--past, present, and
future--if only you ask. The good news is that God has
already done the hard work in the relationship. All
we have to do is be willing to communicate with Him,
and we can learn to do that.
Look at some of the married couples you know. You
can see that in a good marriage the partners talk about
everything. Their conversation is spontaneous,
transparent, and open. They don't hold anything back,
and they don't try to manipulate each other. But
when communication becomes stiff, formal, or nonexistent,
marriages deteriorate. Studies indicate that half of
all divorces result from bad communication. [If you
find yourself in this boat order pastor David T. Moore's
"Love For A Lifetime", available online at: http://www.mooreonlife.com
. It is $38.95, an 8 cassette series on marriage. If
applied soon enough, this study can save your marriage.]
Marriage expert Gary Smalley has said that a healthy
marriage relationship requires one hour of communication
a day. This ensures the continual development and deepening
of the relationship. And I try to spend that amount
of time with my wife, Margaret, every day. How do you
think she would feel if the only time I communicated
with her was in an emergency?
The same is true with God. A deep relationship with
Him takes time and effort. It cannot be formed in just
a few fleeting mechanical moments. And it can't be built
on an emergency basis either. E.M. Bounds once wrote,
"God's acquaintance is not made hurriedly. He does not
bestow His gifts on the casual or hasty comer and goer.
To be much alone with God is the secret of knowing Him
and of influence with Him."
If we can change our attitudes toward prayer--thinking
of it as a process that builds our relationship with
God--and cultivate a daily prayer time, we can become
strong people of prayer. And the prayer life we develop
has the potential to completely transform our lives.
Before we get into some of the specifics of how to pray,
let me give you five guidelines that will help you have
the right attitude toward prayer:
1. Be Spontaneous
Try to put out of your mind once and for
all that prayer has to be tedious or repetitive. Instead
it should be spontaneous and exciting. That doesn't
mean that prayer time will always be happy and fun.
There will be times when you hurt and cry to God for
consolation, other times when you shout at Him in anger.
But you will also laugh and have a good time. The main
thing is for you to be yourself.
What does it mean to maintain a spontaneous spirit?
Let's say, for example, that you pray in the morning
when you get up. On a particular morning as you look
at your prayer list, you may feel agitated and distracted.
Rather than trying to fight with that agitation and
suppress it, talk to God about it first. And if you
can't figure out what's bothering you, ask God to reveal
it to you. Clearing the air as you begin to pray may
be just what you need to do in order to better communicate
with God. Or it may be something that God wants you
to spend all your time praying about on that particular
day.
Willingness to share yourself with God is a matter of
the heart and the attitude. We can close ourselves off,
refusing to grow in our relationship, or we can be willing
to tell God everything on our minds and hearts. [And
I might add here, that a spouse that closes himself
or herself off from their mate, refusing to grow in
the relationship, being unwilling to share everything
on their minds and hearts--it is these people that will
eventually starve and kill their marriages. I know from
personally experiencing this happening to me. It is
the same with God. That is the vital point pastor Maxwell
is making here. If you can kill a marriage relationship
by doing this, you can also do it with your relationship
with God. That's scary.]
Francois Fenelon expressed this idea well with the following
words:
Tell God all that is in your heart, as one unloads one's
heart, its pleasures and its pains, to a dear friend.
Tell Him your troubles, that He may comfort you; tell
Him your joys, that He may sober them; tell Him you
longings, that He may purify them; tell Him your dislikes,
that He may help you to conquer them; talk to Him of
your temptations, that He may shield you from them;
show Him the wounds of your heart that He may heal them...Tell
Him how self-love makes you unjust to others, how vanity
tempts you to be insincere, how pride disguises you
to yourself and others.
In other words, tell God everything--both good and bad--with
an attitude of openness and spontaneity.
Spontaneity in prayer requires a willingness to abandon
your own agenda and adopt God's. It means being flexible,
looking for good opportunities no matter what comes
your way. Some of the best times I've ever experienced
in and out of prayer have come when I was willing to
do something spontaneous in a situation that might otherwise
have been boring or negative...
Spontaneity and creativity in prayer go hand in hand.
Sometimes creativity helps in planning special prayer
times, such as a day alone with God where you travel
to a favorite place, like the outdoors or a hotel, to
spend the day in prayer and praise. Other times creativity
can help you with your day-to-day prayer arrangements.
Fred Rowe is a prayer-partner and friend with a busy
schedule. He is a psychiatrist and has a family with
three small boys. He has used his creativity to make
sure that he can have a prayer time every morning. He
generally gets up at 4:30 in the morning and goes for
a drive. His hour in the car is his quiet time. As he
drives, he praises and prays, allowing God to dictate
the agenda.
I've experienced a lot of blessings from God because
of a willingness to be spontaneous. Probably the greatest
have been my early morning prayer times. Since 1972,
rarely has a week gone by when I haven't awakened at
least once between two and three o'clock in the morning.
Each time, if I can't fall back to sleep within fifteen
minutes, I assume God wants to speak to me, and I get
out of bed and go to my office downstairs. I get out
a pen, legal pad, Bible, and I spend the remaining hours
of the night with Him. Sometimes when I sit and pray,
I hear very little. Other times He speaks to me so fast
through ideas that I can hardly get them written down
fast enough.
Being awakened in the wee hours of the morning is not
very convenient. And the setting isn't always the greatest.
But some of the best things I've experienced in life
and the greatest ideas I've ever had come out of those
spontaneous times alone with God in the middle of the
night.
Be Specific
The second attitude to adopt toward prayer is the desire
to be direct and specific with God. Jesus warns us in
Matthew 6:7, "And when you pray, do not keep on babbling
like pagans, for they think they will be heard because
of their many words." It's not the number of words you
say or how eloquent you are that counts with God. As
we speak, it is the sincerity of our words that matters
with God. What is in our hearts gives our voices
credibility...
The most effective forms of communication are brief
and to the point. For example, just look at some of
the great works from our history as a nation. The Gettysburg
Address, for example, is only 297 words long, and it's
considered one of the greatest speeches ever delivered
in the English language. The Declaration of Independence,
the document the newly born United States used to sever
its ties with powerful Great Britain, is only 300 words.
Contrast this with one government order setting the
price of cabbage, which reportedly contained 26,911
words!
Besides being direct with God, we should also be as
specific as we can. How many times have you prayed something
like, "God bless America, bless our church, bless our
missionaries..." or simply "God be with us"?
Specific prayer has power. Remember, Jesus says that
you will be given whatever you ask Him for in His name
(John 16:23-24). So take a look at some examples of
how you can pray more effectively:
Instead of praying... Pray this...
God, save this country. Save my neighbor, Bobby, by
bringing him to Christ. God, help me to do well in school.
Help me study well and make an A on this test. God,
bless my pastor. Anoint my pastor to preach salvation
this Sunday. God, teach people to love each other. Help
me to love my wife and make her feel loved. God, be
with us. Teach me Your will in this area and help me
obey You.
Being specific in prayer has another benefit. When God
gives us an answer, we know it. [And this helps build
experiencing answers to our prayers into our personal
faith.] We can know it when our neighbor gets saved.
We can see people come to Christ during the Sunday sermon.
We can ask our spouses if our actions make them feel
loved. And not only that--when we ask God to be involved
in our lives in specific ways, it gives Him the chance
to tell us how we need to change ourselves. The more
specific we are in our requests, the more alert we will
be to answers when they come--and the more specific
we can be with our thanks and praises to God later on.
[And this is so true!!!]
ASK the Right Way
Part of any good relationship is a sensitivity to the
other person and their needs. In our relationship with
God, it's obvious that He already knows our needs. As
Jesus said in Matthew 6:8, "Your Father knows what you
need before you ask him." But how well do we know what
God wants for us? Ironically, we know ourselves less
well than God does. Ford Philpot said, "Too many of
us want what we don't need and need what we don't want."
We have to learn to put ourselves at the disposal of
God's agenda. Too often we plug away at ours, blind
to what God has for us. Many times God mercifully withholds
His answers to our prayers until we come to Him with
the right request. Ruth Graham, wife of evangelist Billy
Graham, once said, "God has not always answered my prayers.
If He had, I would have married the wrong man--several
times."
God has many incredible, wonderful things for us, if
only we ask for them. But if we don't ask for them,
how can God give them to us (James 4:2)? Someone once
said, "Heaven is filled with a room that will surprise
all of us when we see it. It has within it large boxes,
neatly packed with lovely ribbons and our name on top.
They are things never delivered to earth because they
were never requested."
How do we learn to ask right questions? Jesus said,
"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; he who seeks finds; and
to him who knocks, the door will be opened" (Matthew
7:7-8).
I've found that the acronym "ASK" (ask, seek, and knock)
helps to remind me how to make requests of God in a
way that pleases Him. I believe it may help you too:
ASK: When we approach God and ask Him for something,
it implies that we have a need that we want met. So
if we want to ask Him the right questions, we should
first examine our needs. If they are genuine and in
accordance with God's will, then we can ask with pure
motives, and that's crucial to having our prayers answered
(James 4:3).
As you prepare to approach God to ask Him for something,
answer the following questions. They will help you examine
your needs and better direct your requests:
- Is my request fair and helpful to everyone concerned?
- Is my request in harmony with the Word of God?
- Will it blend with my gifts?
- Will it draw me closer to God?
- What is my part in answering this prayer?
If you are able to examine yourself and your
requests honestly, this frees God to work in you when
your requests aren't pure and to answer them when they
are.
SEEK: When people seek, as Jesus directs us to
do, they are asking with effort. This implies that He
expects us to do our part, even as we ask Him to do
His. So when Jesus teaches us to pray, "Give us our
daily bread," He doesn't mean that we are to sit back
and expect God to rain down manna from heaven on us.
After all, Scripture says that a person who will not
work shall not eat (2 Thess. 3:10). What Jesus means
is, "Give us the opportunity to earn our bread." God
does not give added resources to those who are lazy.
Prayer without action is presumption. When we pray,
we are to invest ourselves, just as Jesus taught us
in the parable of the talents. As a result, there is
a return on our investment, and God agrees to give us
even more. As it says in Matthew 25:29, "Everyone who
has will be given more, and he will have abundance.
Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken
from him."
There is a saying that you've probably heard: "He who
prays and prays, but acts not on what he knows, is like
the man who plans and plans but never sows." I've found
that to be true. God will not do what only He can
do, until we do all that we can do. So when we pray,
we need to be ready to do our part.
KNOCK: When Jesus directs us to knock, He's asking
us to be persistent. The Amplified version of the Matthew
7:7-8 passage makes this very clear: "Keep on asking
and it will be given you; keep on seeking and you will
find; keep on knocking [reverently] and the door will
be opened to you. For everyone who keeps on asking receives,
and he who keeps on seeking finds, and to him who keeps
on knocking, the door will be opened."
I was once visited by a lady in my congregation. She
had been asking God to bring her unsaved brother to
Christ for a couple of months, and she was getting impatient
because he still hadn't made a commitment to follow
Jesus.
"Pastor," she asked, "how long must I keep on praying?"
"Until the answer comes," I answered.
That is what God wants from us. Whenever our
prayers are unanswered, God wants us to continue praying
until the answer comes or He changes our request.
And that is what always happens. An answer comes or
God changes our heart and prayer. For example, look
at the case of Abraham and Sarah in the Old Testament.
They prayed for a child, and God answered it. And in
the case of Paul, do you remember how he prayed over
and over for God to remove his "thorn in the flesh?"
After Paul prayed the third time, God said, "My grace
is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect
in weakness" (2 Cor. 12:9). It was then that Paul realized
that the thorn was there for a reason, and he changed
his prayer. He aligned his own will with that of God,
and he learned to be content.
One of the most frustrating things for many people is
having to wait for an answer from God. I know that because
I have a choleric temperament. I evaluate situations
very quickly and make decisions even faster, so I especially
dislike waiting. But God doesn't ask us to be persistent
to tease us or to withhold things from us. He does it
because He wants us to grow in our relationship with
Him. He wants us to be completely yielded to Him.
In the first few years I was a senior pastor at Skyline
Wesleyan Church in San Diego, California, the church
began to grow substantially. It quickly became obvious
to me that it wouldn't be long before we would need
a larger facility. And since enlarging on the current
property wasn't an option, that meant we would need
to relocate.
When I was a pastor in Indiana and we had a similar
problem, I got together with my board, developed a strategy,
and we were off. Within a couple of days we got someone
to donate the land, another person to contribute materials,
and we were ready to build. But it's a whole different
ball game in southern California. Land is very expensive,
and it isn't easy to find. So I got together with my
board, we formed a relocation committee, and they began
searching for some land.
After many months of searching, they found a parcel
of land that looked perfect for us: thirty acres for
$2 million--a pretty good price for San Diego (we could
have bought half the county back in Indiana for that
price). And we were happy with the location, too. But
before we were able to make a decision about it, I took
my prayer partners there on a Saturday to walk and pray
over the land. It didn't take long in prayer before
we had a unanimous sense that this was not the land
God wanted for our church. So we let the opportunity
to purchase it go by, and we continued to pray, knowing
that there must be some reason why God said no.
A few months later, God opened the doors for another
plot of land. It was eighty acres right on the freeway
near a new subdivision with hundreds of young, unchurched
families. We ended up purchasing that land for $1.8
million--less than we would have paid for the thirty-acre
parcel. And on top of that, through a series of miracles,
Skyline ended up with 120 acres of land instead of eighty
for that price.
God honored our persistence and greatly blessed our
obedience. And He will do the same for you. When you
pray, don't give up. Maintain a positive attitude and
continue to ask, seek, and knock.
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