Alpha Talk on Prayer, Part Two

I am reminded of the story about the atheist on a long hike up a mountainside who slips on gravel and falls off a steep cliff.  About thirty feet down he is able to grab a branch hanging off the face of the cliffside and he’s dangling there by this thin branch.  He looks down and its another 300 feet to the bottom.  So the atheist screams out “Is anybody up there?”  No answer.  He screams again, “Please if anyone is up there, help me.”  In a moment comes this reply, “This is God, let go of the branch.”

After a few moments of silence the man yells out, “Is anyone else up there?”

If communication with God happens only in our darkest moments, it might be kind of hard to trust the answers, if you think He’s giving you one.  Harder yet to recognize His voice.

Prayer actually can be a frequent, daily, even a continuous conversation with God, if you will let it be so.  And if you do, you’ll be pleased and happy with what He’ll do in your life.

Prayer allows us to have access to God through Jesus, His Son.  Prayer is the most important activity in our lives.  Believe me at the end of your life you want that communication line wide open for you.  You don’t want to be that stranger He doesn’t know.  And you do want to be able to trust Him if He says, “Let go of the branch.”

So what is Christian prayer?  It is a conversation with God the Father, through His Son, Jesus, by the Holy Spirit.  Let me give you some Bible verses that help explain what that means:

Matthew 6: v 6 – “… when you pray go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father who is unseen.  Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”

And Ephesians 2: 18 – “though Him (speaking now of Jesus) we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.”

Finally, Romans 8: 26 – “The Spirit helps us in our weakness.  We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us … ”

You might say at this point, “Well if God is all powerful and all knowing, He knows what I need and what I want.  I shouldn’t have to pray.”  You are right, He does know what we need.  So then why should we be spending time in prayer?

So Why Pray?

Another quick story:  A few years ago I read the book “The Prayer of Jabez” and in that book the author, Bruce Wilkenson, goes into some depth about a little known man, Jabez, from 1 Chronicles in the Old Testament who prays to God this way:

The prayer is a simple one: "And Jabez called on the God of Israel saying, 'Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain.' So God granted him what he requested."

The point Dr. Wilkenson develops is that we should pray to help God expand HIS kingdom here on earth and that if that is your true motive, then God will indeed grant your prayers.  That’s what Jabez did.  So off I go saying the prayer of Jabez and my own versions of it.  In earnest and with such passion that I decide that is the only thing I am ever going to pray for.  Nothing about me, just for God to do His will through me for whatever that was worth to Him.  Well, I sure did get lots of stuff to do around church … a lot of stuff to do.  Good stuff usually.

I continued to pray this way almost exclusively with the exception of worship and requests for others, but never, ever, about me.  Years went by.  No requests to God for something only for me and what I needed.  Just what God might find pleasing and for other people to be healed, or to get a job, or for other people’s safety or whatever.  But not for Ned.

One of my brothers who I had told about this practice told me I was being disrespectful and disobedient to God.  After some thought I realized he was right.  God wants us to ask him for the things we need.  Of course He knows what we need … and He wants us to have them (well sometimes He does).  He also wants us to honor and submit to that power and actually ask.  It’s a form of obedience to His will and His power over our lives.

So one reason we should pray is for the things we need and want.  And if those things line-up with His will for us, then it will happen.

Another reason for prayer is that it develops that relationship I talked about earlier with God.

Another is to acknowledge that sovereignty He has over not only our lives, but the world itself.  He did create it, its His to do with, ultimately, as He pleases.  We were made to please and be pleasing to this sovereign God and having communication with Him is part of what He wants from us and with us.  Imagine.  You get to have a conversation with the Creator of the universe any time, any place you want … as often as you’d like.  You can’t talk to the mayor of Prospect that much, even if you were married to him.

So then what would be the rewards, so to speak, of this conversation with God?   Two things: Joy and peace.