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Welcome to the John Markomer Teachings

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Podcast by Practicing the Way. This

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teaching was originally given at Vintage Church

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in Santa Monica, California as a part of

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a series on prayer. Thanks,

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Gare. Good

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morning. Peace

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to you. Really good to be

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with you. Please

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turn in your Bibles to Luke chapter 11.

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And once you're there, and again, I would

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encourage you to bring a Bible along

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with you. And by

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that I mean like the Codex, not the app. Nothing

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against that. If you are ever in the mood

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just to focus, we're

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embodied people, just to focus all that we

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are. Once you're there in Luke chapter 11, stand

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with me for the reading of Scripture.

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Luke

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chapter 11, verse 1. One

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day Jesus was praying in a

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certain place. When he finished,

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one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach

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us to pray,

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just as John taught his disciples.

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He said to them, when you pray, say,

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Father, hallowed be your name, your

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kingdom come.

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Give us each day our daily

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bread. Forgive us our sins, for

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we also forgive everyone who sins

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against us.

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And lead us not into temptation. Then

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Jesus said to them, suppose you have a friend, and

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you go to him at midnight and say friend, lend

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me three loaves of bread. A friend

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of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no

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food to offer him. And suppose

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the one inside answers, don't bother me,

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the door is already locked and my children and I

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are in bed. I can't get up and give you anything.

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I tell you, even though he will

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not get up and give you the bread because

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of friendship, yet because of your

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shamelessness.

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audacity. He

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will surely get up and give you as much as

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you need. Get out of my house. So

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I say to you, ask and it will

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be given to you. Seek and you will find.

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Knock and the door will be open to you. For

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everyone who asks receives the one who

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seeks finds and to the one who knocks

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the door will be opened. Which

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of you fathers if your son asked for

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a fish will give him a snake instead? Or if

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he asked for an egg will give him a scorpion?

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If you then though you are evil know

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how to give good gifts to your

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children? How much more

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will your father in heaven give

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the Holy Spirit to those who

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ask him? Take a seat.

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My younger sister just gave birth

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to her firstborn child and

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he's the youngest cousin, baby Ellis.

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He's the youngest out of a whole tribe of cousins.

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My oldest is 17 which means he is

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the center of attention and

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they live right downtown. We see them all the time.

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Our family's a bit obsessed with baby Ellis.

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This kid I'm not honestly this is terrible.

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I'm not really a baby person. Everybody's like they're so cute.

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I'm like sorry no but

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this one is and yours too mom.

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I promise yours too. Cute

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kid and right

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now baby Ellis cannot say

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a word but God

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willing over the next few years of his

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life we will get to watch

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him journey through this God-designed

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process of development of learning

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to speak to his father

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and his mother and to his community. First

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he will start to repeat words that

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his mom says or his dad says.

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If you ever watch a young parent say mommy.

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No say daddy. Say mother back and forth.

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Say please. Say thank you. Say hello.

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Say goodbye and then once

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he begins to kind of learn the ins and

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outs of the English vocabulary and rudimentary

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grammar, he will begin to speak in full sentences

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and just say whatever is

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on his heart or mind. And then

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in theory, at one point, he will begin

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to ask questions and listen around

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the age of 37 or so. In

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a similar way, we are working through four stages

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in the life of prayer. Talking

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to God, talking with

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God, listening to

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God, and being with God.

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Of course, as I said last week, when we kick

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this off, stages is more than a little

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misleading because the spiritual journey is

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not linear. So you may find

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it more helpful to think of these four as

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kind of aspects or dimensions

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of your life of prayer. But

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if you're new to following Jesus, most of us learn

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to pray in a way not dissimilar

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from how we learn to speak. First,

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we learn the vocabulary and grammar

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of life with God. Say

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mommy, say daddy, say our

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father who is in heaven, hallowed

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be your name. But there comes

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a time, and most of you are likely well

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there by now, where we desire

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a far more personalized life

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of prayer. We wanna pray our

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particular life to God within

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our heart and our life

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to talk with God. Meaning

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just to offer up to God whatever

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is stirring in our inner woman or

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man. We see this progression

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here in Luke chapter 11 from talking

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to God to talking with God.

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Again, Luke 11 is kind of ground zero

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for Jesus' theology of prayer. We

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left off last week in verse four. Let's

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just continue to work through the passage

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line by line, verse five. "'Then

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Jesus said to them," so this is coming on the heels

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of the Lord's prayer. Suppose you have

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a friend, this is like a hypothetical scenario, and

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you go to him at midnight because you

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are a lousy friend, all right? And this is

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not a very great friend either, but let's just put this

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in context. You're at his door at midnight.

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Friend, you say, lend me three loaves

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of bread. A friend of mine on a journey

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has come to me, and I have no food to offer him. This

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is ancient Near Eastern culture. Hospitality

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is paramount, right? No food. It's a disaster.

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A real need. And suppose

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the one inside answers, don't bother

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me. The door's already locked. My children and

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I are in bed. I can't give up and give you anything.

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So, lousy friend. I tell

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you, even though he will not get up

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and give you the bread because of friendship,

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yet because of your, and I love this translation,

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shameless audacity. Right,

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you get some chutzpah there to like knock on the door at

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midnight and not stop. He will

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surely get up and give you as much

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as you need. Now, a little backstory.

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Jesus was a first century Jewish rabbi,

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and this was a common and kind of popular

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type of rabbinic teaching that New

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Testament scholars call how much more.

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It's a way of drawing your attention

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to a very fine point. Now,

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Jesus' point is not that God

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is a lousy friend or the grumpy neighbor

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next door, but if you, you know, knock

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and you don't give up and you bang on the door,

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he will eventually just relent and give you what

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you want. His point is,

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if the grumpy cantankerous

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neighbor friend will give you what you

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ask for, how much

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more will your Father

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in heaven for whom you are

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his daughter or his son, how much more will

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he give you what you ask

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for? So I say to you, verse 9,

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in light of that, ask and it will be

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given you, seek and you will find, knock

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and the door will be open to you.

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For everyone who asks receives the

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one who seeks finds and the one who knocks,

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the door will be opened. Three verbs

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in that paragraph, ask, seek and knock.

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And in Greek, they're in a tense that's

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a bit hard to render in English, the present progressive,

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which means it can be translated, keep

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on asking, keep on seeking,

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keep on banging on the door

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because on the other side, again, is not

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a grumpy, begrudging neighbor

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but is a loving father. Hence

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Jesus' next line, verse 11, which

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of you fathers, okay, unlike our culture,

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most men who were listening to Jesus

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would have been a father at this point. If

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your son asks for a fish, we'll give

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him a snake instead. Now, this is

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so lost in translation from Aramaic

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to Greek to English from the ancient narrative. This

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is actually a joke. It's quite funny. Just

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going to tell you that. You don't need to laugh. You can laugh at

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the fact that this is a joke but not at the joke. But this

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is actually quite hilarious. Or

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if he asks for an egg, we'll give

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him a scorpion. If

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you, then, know you are evil,

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and that will bristle against

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you, in particular in a culture like L.A. We hate

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this idea. But yet we have to

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admit, there's any father in the room.

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You know that your heart is at best

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a mixed bag. But even though

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there's this bent part of us,

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if we know how to give good gifts

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to your children, most of us would never imagine

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that. How much more,

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there it is, will your Father in

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heaven give the Holy Spirit to those

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who ask him? Do

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you see the progression? Jesus

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starts by teaching his disciples to talk

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to God, meaning to pray a pre-made

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prayer. We covered that last week. When you pray,

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say this, or that can be translated,

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when you pray, recite this, our

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Father in heaven, hallowed be

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your name. But he just assumes

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that his followers will move on to talk

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with God, to come to the Father with

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all that they need and desire.

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Now, the second category of talking with

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God, underneath it there are about three

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subcategories. They

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are, number one, gratitude, talking

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with God about what is good in your

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life and world, lament

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talking with God about what is evil

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in your life and world, and

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petition and intercede. to

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God. At the center of

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the divine dance that we call the Trinity

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or the community of love in God is

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a generous, joyful, self-giving,

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others-focused outward

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flow of love. It is written

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for God so loved the world that He

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gave His one and only Son. And

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of Jesus, He gave Himself

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for our sins. In the Gospel,

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the Father gave the Son and the Son

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gave His life and the Father and the Son together gave

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the Holy Spirit. And the Trinity

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altogether forgave our sins

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and our shortcomings to give and to

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forgive our two sides of the same

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character trait at the center of

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God. Generosity is

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at the center of the Gospel and

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it is woven into the inner fabric

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of God's nature. Therefore,

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gratitude is the primary

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way that we relate to God.

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If you're new to prayer, new to God, new to the

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spiritual life, where do you start? Just start

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with two of the most beautiful words in the English

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language. Thank you. The

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Jesuit priest Timothy Gallagher said this,

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recognizing God's loving gifts

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and recognizing God's loving presence

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through them, through a meal,

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through a paycheck, through a friendship, through

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a sunset, summarized

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by the word gratitude, lies

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at the very heart of our entire

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relationship to God. Paul

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writes that we are to be overflowing

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with thankfulness. What a beautiful word picture.

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Are you overflowing? I'm certainly

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not, but I can preach it. So let's

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do that. Are you overflowing?

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It turns out it's much easier to say things than to live them,

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by the way, but overflowing,

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just spilling over. There's so

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much gratitude in your heart. You're

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gushing. You cannot stop.

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One way to measure your spiritual maturity,

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which is a goofy. The only thing worse than trying

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to measure your spiritual maturity is not

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trying to measure your spiritual maturity. But

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one way to measure it is by your level

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of genuine, unforced

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thankfulness and joy. Ronald

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Rolheiser has this insight. To be properly

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grateful is the most

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primary of all religious attitudes.

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Proper gratitude is the

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ultimate virtue. It

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defines sanctity. Saints,

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holy persons are people who are grateful,

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people who see and receive

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everything as a gift. Secondly,

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the next category

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is lament. Talking

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with God, not about what is good, but about

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what is evil in your life

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and in our world. The honest

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truth, our life and world are both

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full of things that are not good

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or beautiful but are rather ugly

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and evil. What are we to do

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with all of the pain and the grief

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and the anger and the rage and the

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confusion that all of us carry

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at some level in our body?

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What do you do with the Pepperdine students? What

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do you do with Israel and Gaza or the Ukraine

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or with racial injustice or political polarization?

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Or let's just talk about our own life, your own divorce,

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your own betrayal, your own failure,

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your own

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heartbreak. Pray

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it.

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Pete Greg, the founder of 24-7, has this beautiful line,

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Pray what you got. How

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do you have a vibrant prayer life? Just

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pray what you got. You have anger, pray

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that. You have rage, pray that. You have doubt,

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pray that. You have confusion, pray

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that. You have gratitude, pray that. Pray

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what you got. It's an open secret

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that so many people find prayer

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boring. I know we're not supposed to name

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that, but let's just be honest. So

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many people find it... boring

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and that is mostly because they're not

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actually praying. They're

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performing.

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We're so used to, and again I'm the newcomer

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in LA, but holy cow this is true everywhere

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and it's certainly true here, we are

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so used to performing

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our life in front of other people. We

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edit our thoughts, well most

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of us do, some of you don't, but

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we edit our thoughts in

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order to present a more

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polished image. We don't want people to actually

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see who we are. I certainly don't

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want you to see who I am. I'm guessing

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that's Mitchell, usual, to present

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a more polished image of ourselves to the world

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in order to be loved and not rejected

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and to succeed and not

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to fail. It's like, and what happens

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when you do that hour after hour,

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day after day, when some of your job

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is literal image management,

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like you are your brand, that

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will mess up your soul. When

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you do that, when we do this

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all day long, we can't help but then

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carry that performance management, that

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edit button over into our life with

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God. But prayer is not

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a place to be good, it is a place to be honest.

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C.S. Lewis used to say that in prayer we

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lay before God what is in

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us, not what ought to be in us. Again,

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we come to prayer like you can try to pray all

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the things that you wish were in you, or you

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can pray what's actually in you.

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Now this can be very hard, let me just pause

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here for a moment, for some of us

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who struggle to get access to our more

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vulnerable emotions due

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to the way our attachment system got wired

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up in our childhood or experience

17:50

along the way or betrayal or hurt

17:52

or wounding. Many

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of us have built a wall between

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ourselves and any feelings

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of weakness. or pain, and

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in doing so we have unintentionally

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built a wall between ourselves and intimacy

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with God and with other people. Healing

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our ability to access those

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types of emotions that put us in touch

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with our vulnerability, our

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weakness, our

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contingent nature. It's

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not a simple, there's no simple three-step

18:28

process. I can't give you a sermon with a little

18:30

alliterating thing. But any

18:32

effective treatment for that wounding

18:35

of the soul will certainly put prayer

18:37

front and center of the process. Because

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learning to pray is about learning to bring

18:43

all that we are to God under

18:47

the gaze of His loving eye. Because

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He already knows all that is inside of us.

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And this is, again, this is basic stuff, but

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it just is over a lot of our head, myself

18:57

included. I have to have the reminder,

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I think of Psalm 139, you

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have searched me, Lord, and you know

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me. You perceive my thoughts

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from afar. Before a word is on my tongue, you,

19:10

Lord, know it completely. I mean,

19:13

there were stories where Jesus would just

19:15

be sitting there or in the synagogue, and

19:17

He would just name what somebody

19:19

was thinking. That's terrifying.

19:25

Yet with compassion and not

19:27

with contempt. Now,

19:29

talking honestly with God about

19:31

our pain is a type

19:33

of prayer that we call lament. It's

19:36

very rare in modern worship. And I don't mean

19:38

that as a criticism, the worship culture in this

19:40

community is beautiful, but

19:43

it would be really weird to hear a

19:45

modern worship song with lament in

19:47

the lyrical component. But

19:50

it's very common in the global

19:52

historic church. And if you read the Psalms,

19:54

which are the prayer book of the Bible, the worship

19:57

songs of the Hebrew culture, Scholars

20:00

estimate that about two-thirds of

20:02

the Psalms

20:04

are lament.

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Read them, pray them. They

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are full. I struggle to pray some of them. I

20:10

pray the Psalms every morning. They are the center

20:12

of my life with God. And I struggle

20:14

to pray some of them because I

20:16

feel guilty just for reading a few of

20:18

them. Because they are full

20:21

of the spectrum of human

20:23

emotion. Anger,

20:26

rage, vengeance,

20:28

jealousy, envy, revenge,

20:32

blood thirst, wounding,

20:35

grief, doubt, hostility

20:38

toward God. All of

20:40

it is in there. Why would God put

20:44

that in the Scripture? And

20:46

not just put it in there like in a book that most

20:48

of us don't read, but put it

20:51

right in the middle of your Bible

20:54

as a guidebook for your prayer.

20:57

Because all of that stuff is in us

20:59

already. All of us know what

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it is like to feel anger, to feel revenge,

21:04

to want somebody to get what's

21:06

coming to them, somebody who hurt us to get hurt

21:09

even worse. We may suppress

21:11

it. We may deny it. We may immediately

21:13

pray it. But that stuff's in

21:16

us. What are we to do

21:18

with it? We are to pray

21:20

it. One way of

21:23

thinking about lament is as an emotionally healthy way of

21:25

processing the pain of our life and our world with

21:27

God. It's learning to complain

21:30

to God. Because we all

21:32

complain. And if we don't

21:34

complain to God, then we will

21:36

likely end up complaining to our spouse,

21:39

or our roommate, or our coworkers, or

21:41

our neighbors, or our friends, or even worse,

21:44

to the internet. We'll just vent

21:46

and rage and criticize and scapegoat

21:49

and yell into the digital ether and just

21:51

leak emotional waste into

21:53

the atmosphere. But

21:56

notice, lament is not just complaining.

21:58

It's complaining to God.

21:59

to God.

22:01

There is a U-shape to lament

22:04

that's not there into just the kind of gripey

22:07

American way of life. We

22:09

go down into our pain,

22:11

but then we come back up in

22:14

faith and in hope and in love.

22:17

You see this U-shape all through

22:19

the Psalms. And Vosskamp

22:21

said it this way, lament is a cry of

22:24

belief in a good God,

22:26

even when you're venting your doubt. A

22:28

God who has his ear to our hearts,

22:31

a God who transfigures the ugly

22:33

into beauty. Which

22:35

is why another way of thinking about lament

22:38

is as theological protest.

22:42

Our generation, mine in particular, is all about

22:44

protest and speaking truth to power

22:46

and we literally perfected the social media

22:48

rant. And there's

22:50

a time and a place for that. But

22:53

what if we were to channel all of that pent

22:55

up anger into prayer? The

22:58

social activist J.T. Thomas calls this

23:00

not a protest, but a pray test

23:02

and argues this kind

23:05

of praying against evil

23:07

and injustice does something

23:10

to us and

23:12

through us. Now we're getting

23:14

into this third category. Lament will

23:16

naturally lead you to petition

23:20

and intercession, which are two sides

23:22

of the same coin. Petition is when we

23:25

ask God to do something on our behalf.

23:27

God I need a job, I need to make rent, I

23:30

need help, I need wisdom. Intercession

23:32

is when we ask God to do something

23:35

on someone else's behalf. Intercession

23:38

is priestly work where we stand before

23:40

God on behalf of people and before

23:43

people on behalf of God. And

23:45

intercession at its best is a form

23:47

of love. When you hear

23:49

about a grief or a

23:52

pain or a tragedy and you say to

23:54

somebody I will pray for you, which

23:56

for half the time or more than half the time is

23:59

no more than half. and empty platitude. But

24:02

if you mean it and you follow through and you

24:04

pray for another, that

24:06

is a form of love. It's

24:09

a way of holding another person's pain

24:12

up before God's healing light.

24:15

And both petition and intercession

24:18

are summarized by

24:21

Jesus' repeated command in the four

24:23

gospels to ask. Paul

24:26

Miller, who's written one of the best books on prayer,

24:28

it's called The Praying Life writes, all

24:30

of Jesus' teachings on prayer in

24:33

the gospels can be summarized

24:35

with one word, ask. Over

24:39

and over and over

24:41

again, Jesus says,

24:44

ask, and it will

24:47

be given to you. He regularly

24:49

says to people, what do you want me

24:51

to do for you? Can

24:53

you imagine Jesus saying that to you? I

24:56

certainly can. I have a list for

24:58

when it happens, I'm ready. Many

25:01

of us, and the weird thing about

25:03

asking, it's really weird. A

25:05

lot of us don't like it. Again, it puts us in touch

25:08

with our vulnerability. It

25:11

puts us in touch. I mean, one of my

25:13

favorite writers on prayer defines prayer

25:15

as a search for help outside the

25:17

self. Prayer brings

25:19

us to the end of our power,

25:22

our energy, our ability

25:25

to shape the world the way we want or

25:27

the way we need. It brings

25:30

us to the end of ourself and the beginning

25:33

of the infinite mystery that is God. But

25:37

asking is, ah, it is hard

25:39

for a lot of us. Many of us

25:41

have thought about a problem in our life

25:43

over and over and over again. Many

25:46

of us struggle with negative rumination, not

25:48

me, but I hear other people really struggle

25:51

to have a healthy mind to live

25:53

in. And we've just thought about this

25:56

over and over. We've stayed up late at night. We've

25:58

not been able to fall asleep, but we. have yet to

26:00

actually ask God

26:03

about it. The 19th

26:05

century preacher Charles Spurgeon once

26:07

said, whether we like it or not, asking

26:10

is the rule of the kingdom. It's

26:13

like a spiritual law of the universe,

26:15

like gravity or the law of thermodynamics.

26:18

It's just written into the fabric

26:21

of the way God designed the

26:24

spiritual life to be. And

26:26

the single most important thing that Jesus

26:29

teaches his disciples about asking

26:31

is not just to ask, but to ask

26:34

in his name. At

26:36

one point, Jesus says this, I will

26:38

do whatever you ask in

26:41

my name so

26:43

that the Father may be glorified

26:45

in the Son. Now, there's a lot of confusion

26:48

around this language of in Jesus'

26:50

name. Most people put it as

26:52

a tagline at the end of their

26:54

prayer. In Jesus' name, amen. And

26:57

that's OK, but you will not

26:59

find a single example

27:02

of that anywhere in the New Testament

27:04

or the Old. If that phrase

27:07

were to go anywhere in a prayer, at a logical

27:09

level, it should go at the beginning, not the end. Because

27:12

it is not a magic incantation

27:15

that you kind of put at the end of the prayer to get what you

27:17

want, like the Alacadabra or the Open Sesame

27:20

of the kingdom of God. In fact,

27:22

in scripture, it's not a saying

27:24

at all. It's a way of praying.

27:28

There are at least two components to what it

27:30

means to ask in Jesus' name. The

27:32

first is to invoke our status

27:35

as those who are, in the language of the New Testament,

27:37

in Christ. So this is a deep

27:40

theological concept in the New Testament, that

27:42

when you are baptized, you are

27:44

baptized into Christ.

27:47

There's a beautiful line in Paul's writings, your

27:49

life is now hidden with

27:52

Christ in God. Over 70 times

27:54

Paul writes in his letters that you and I, if

27:56

you've been baptized, you are in Christ.

28:00

The late Larry Hurtado, who's a brilliant

28:02

New Testament scholar, put it this way, to

28:04

pray in Jesus' name means

28:07

that we enter into Jesus'

28:10

status in God's favor

28:13

and invoke Jesus' standing

28:16

with God. Imagine

28:19

the richest person you can possibly think

28:21

of. Imagine in this hypothetical scenario

28:24

they're a good person, and they

28:26

have a great relationship with

28:28

their son or their daughter. Imagine

28:32

coming to them, the resources

28:34

beyond what we can even fathom, and

28:37

asking with that same quote, shameless

28:40

audacity that

28:42

a child in a loving relationship

28:45

with a person of ultimate means would

28:48

ask.

28:49

This means that we have the same

28:51

theology of incorporation, that we're in

28:53

Christ, that we have the same access

28:55

to God that Jesus has. And

28:59

when we come before God, the King

29:02

of the universe, we come not as beggars

29:04

off the street, but as royal sons

29:07

and daughters. In the language of the New

29:09

Testament, co-heirs with Christ, who've

29:11

been adopted not just to any family,

29:13

but into a royal family.

29:16

So we come, again, in Jesus' language, with

29:18

shameless audacity,

29:21

the way we can imagine a prince or a

29:23

princess or a king or a queen

29:26

would ask. The second is

29:29

to pray in alignment with Jesus'

29:31

nature. So in the ancient

29:33

world, a person's name, very different from ours today,

29:36

a person's name was a synonym for their

29:38

nature or their character, for who

29:40

they were as a person. We

29:43

ask in Jesus' name when

29:45

we pray for God to do

29:48

the kinds of things that he

29:50

wants and desires to do, that are

29:52

in alignment with his nature.

29:55

When we ask not against his

29:57

nature, but in alignment. alignment

30:00

through which the miraculous

30:03

power of God flows, which is why if you

30:05

pray for God to smite your enemies, the

30:08

likelihood of that answered prayer is not

30:10

great. If you pray

30:12

for God to bless them, oh, it's

30:15

frustrating how much he will just go around

30:17

blessing all sorts of sundry characters.

30:20

It's so not,

30:22

I know, I certainly don't do that. I only bless the good

30:24

people. But

30:27

God unfortunately has a whole different

30:29

heart than mine, which is why we're all just living

30:32

under the blessing of God day under day

30:34

with all that is shadow

30:36

within us. This is

30:38

why if you pay close attention to the prayers of

30:40

Scripture all through,

30:43

be it from Moses to the Psalms

30:45

to Jesus to Paul in particular,

30:47

they don't pray problems, they pray

30:50

promises far

30:52

less than saying, God, here's what I'm dealing with, help

30:54

me out. It's God, you are this

30:56

God, you said this God, you made this

30:59

promise and I am calling on you

31:01

to be and to do who you

31:03

say you are and what you promise to

31:06

do. But to pray

31:08

this way, this level

31:10

of faith in the name

31:12

of Jesus means that we

31:14

have to believe our prayers actually

31:17

make a difference in

31:19

what does or does not happen and

31:21

most people don't believe that. The

31:24

theologian Walter Wink said this so beautifully,

31:27

this quote is a bit dense but if you can just

31:29

hang with me it's worth it. Intercessory

31:32

prayer, praying for other people, is

31:35

spiritual defiance of

31:38

what is in the way of what

31:40

God has promised. Intercession

31:43

visualizes an alternative future

31:46

to the one apparently faded by the

31:48

momentum of current forces. Prayer

31:51

infuses the air of a time

31:53

yet to be into the suffocating atmosphere

31:56

of the present. History

31:59

belongs to to the intercessors

32:01

who believe the future into

32:03

being. Even a small

32:06

number of people firmly

32:08

committed to the new inevitability

32:10

on which they have fixed their imaginations

32:13

can decisively affect the

32:16

shape the future takes. These

32:19

shapers of the future are

32:21

the intercessors.

32:24

Tragically, few modern

32:26

Christians actually believe this, that

32:30

through prayer we can decisively affect

32:32

the shape the future takes. Many

32:35

of us are more likely to poke

32:37

fun at all of our dear friends who

32:39

are manifesting their new car and

32:42

super awesome spouse or whatever than

32:45

we are to actually consider

32:47

that. What if manifesting is the parody

32:50

of which true prayer is the reality?

32:53

Then we are actually to pray. There

32:56

is a deadly undercurrent of determinism

32:59

in the modern church. Like the

33:01

ancient Greeks, many believe that we are trapped

33:03

by the fates. But again, the

33:05

Lord's Prayer, we read this last week just a minute ago,

33:08

your will be done on earth as

33:10

it is in heaven. Jesus assumes two things

33:12

in that prayer. One, that his will

33:15

is not being done on

33:17

earth as it is in heaven, at least not in full.

33:19

In part, yes, but not in full. And

33:21

two, that prayer does something

33:24

to change and

33:28

transform that reality. Dallas

33:31

Willard, the late professor of USC, said

33:33

it this way. God's response

33:35

to our prayers is not a charade.

33:38

He does not pretend that he is answering our prayer

33:41

when he's only doing what he was going to do

33:43

anyway. Our requests really

33:45

do make a difference in what God does

33:47

or does not do. The idea

33:50

that everything would happen exactly as it does regardless

33:52

of whether we pray or not is a specter

33:55

that haunts the minds of many who sincerely

33:58

profess belief in God. It

34:00

makes prayer psychologically impossible,

34:04

replacing it with dead ritual

34:06

at best. Of course, this

34:08

is not the biblical idea of prayer, nor is

34:10

it the idea of people for

34:12

whom prayer is a vital part of

34:15

life. Prayer is

34:17

more of a relational collaboration

34:20

than anything else. I think of my...this is a weird

34:22

analogy, but it's the one I was thinking

34:24

about. We just bought this old

34:26

house up in Topanga Canyon that we're in

34:28

the process of fixing up and probably will be at

34:31

for the next 10 years. My oldest

34:33

son is becoming a man, and he loves design

34:35

and architecture and that kind of stuff. And

34:37

so we like to chat about what should we do here

34:39

and what color should we paint this and should we blow

34:41

this wall out or not? And there's

34:44

just a lot of work to be done. And

34:46

sometimes I just want my son to like shut

34:48

up and do what I tell him to do. I'm

34:51

like, bro, carry these rocks down the hill

34:53

because there's a lot of them. But

34:55

I genuinely want

34:57

to know his ideas. He has good sense,

35:00

and I'm getting old and I need a little design help

35:02

from my son. You know, I

35:04

want to know what would you do here? You might inherit

35:07

this home. You might live here longer than...I don't

35:09

know, but how would you do this? What

35:11

do you imagine here? What do you think would be a good

35:14

creative solution to this problem? He

35:16

doesn't have the resources I have. I

35:19

looked in his bank account yesterday. There's $54 there. Not

35:23

going to fix up a house in L.A., right?

35:26

He does not have my resources. He

35:29

does not have my wealth of...he

35:31

does not have my power, but he has

35:33

my heart. And I genuinely

35:36

care and think that he has opinion

35:38

and ideas and creative ideation

35:40

that is important for the future of

35:42

our family. Now, all analogies break down

35:44

at some level, for there's

35:47

a part of prayer that is less go carry

35:49

the rocks down the road and more

35:52

what would you do with this room? What

35:55

do you want to do? The French

35:57

philosopher Blaise Pascal said...

36:00

God has instituted prayer

36:02

so as to confer upon his creatures

36:05

the dignity of being causes.

36:08

That's philosophical language, of being

36:11

causes. The writer Sky

36:13

Jitani interprets Pascal's line like

36:16

this, we are not merely passive

36:18

set pieces in a pre-arranged cosmic

36:20

drama, but we are active

36:23

participants with God in

36:25

the writing, directing, design, and

36:28

action that unfolds. Prayer

36:30

therefore is much more than asking God

36:32

for this or that outcome. It is drawing

36:35

into communion with him and

36:38

they're taking up our privileged

36:40

role as his people. In

36:43

prayer we are invited to join

36:45

him in directing the course

36:49

of his world. Now,

36:52

before we wrap up, just

36:54

a few words about this coming for the week's practice, it's

36:56

all available for you in the guide, again there's a free

36:58

version online if you want it or like

37:01

Care said, we can all ruin the world with Amazon

37:03

and have it in 30 minutes. But

37:06

just to repeat from last week, the best

37:08

way to learn how to pray is not

37:10

by listening to me for four weeks talk at

37:13

you, it's by praying.

37:15

With all of Christian spirituality and prayer

37:17

in particular, information alone is

37:20

not enough. You have a bunch of new ideas

37:22

now in your head and those ideas have

37:24

power and are very helpful. Only

37:27

to the extent at which those

37:29

ideas get into the muscle memory

37:32

of your neurobiology. It's gotta

37:34

get into you. Because prayer,

37:37

life with Jesus is, yes it's

37:39

not just an idea, it's not even just a habit

37:41

or a way of life or a set of practices,

37:44

it is ultimately a relational way of being.

37:47

And so you can hear, you can read a book about marriage

37:49

but in, or about conflict resolution,

37:52

but until you actually go like have hard conversations

37:55

with people, it's just theory. So

37:57

that's what's before us now, is that's all right. Take

38:00

these ideas and let's put them

38:02

into practice in a relational

38:05

drawing into relationship with God.

38:07

So just a few practices that we have, there's more

38:09

details in your guide. The first is

38:11

just to continue to fine tune your daily

38:13

prayer rhythm. It can really, if you're new to

38:15

prayer, if you're new to a daily prayer, this

38:18

can take a while to kind of figure it out

38:20

and figure out what's best for you and your

38:22

personality and your living situation, your

38:24

apartment or attic or wherever

38:26

you live in. We have a few

38:29

extra things that you may want to consider adding

38:31

to what you started last week. First

38:33

is to find an aid or a ritual or

38:35

some kind of a habit cue in the language

38:37

of neuroscience to help you transition

38:40

in and out of prayer. This is just incredibly

38:43

helpful. I have a few quirky things

38:45

I do every morning to kind of get

38:47

me into the right frame

38:50

of mind to make contact with God.

38:53

I pray to the East. It's a thing that ancient Christians

38:55

used to do every single day where I will stand

38:58

in my front porch and I will look

39:00

East to the rising of the sun and I will

39:02

let that with my body remember that

39:05

Jesus in the prophetic tradition will return

39:07

from the East. That my destiny

39:10

is not what I read in the LA times.

39:13

It's not what I'm facing and thinking about right now.

39:15

My destiny is the return of Jesus

39:17

and that is where my life is

39:19

going and what matters. And I frame that and

39:22

I do a couple other quirky things that are just my

39:24

things. You find your things.

39:27

But what's a little aid or ritual to

39:29

transition into prayer? Secondly, think

39:31

about how you use your body in prayer. We

39:34

have an embodied faith and

39:36

a wandering mind. And

39:39

so what you do with your body and particularly

39:41

your posture matters a lot

39:43

in prayer. Biblically, the most common way to pray

39:45

is actually standing up with your eyes open,

39:48

your hands in the air. I wish

39:50

I know how all of you pray every single morning. And

39:53

you can also pray kneeling or lying face

39:55

down or walking or as Jesus did by

39:57

mountain climbing or backpacking. and

40:00

more conducive to different types of prayer. I

40:03

find that with petition and intercession, I wanna

40:05

pray standing up, eyes

40:07

open, out loud, ideally with other people.

40:10

That is by far, or walking, the two

40:12

most helpful ways that

40:14

I kind of ask God. But

40:16

for morning prayer, I find that actually sitting

40:19

on the couch is really not helpful, like a diaphragm

40:21

is all, it's comfortable, it's lovely.

40:24

But I mostly just end up drinking my coffee and worrying

40:26

about the coming day. Not

40:28

praying. So I find that for morning

40:30

prayer, I sit on the floor. I sit cross-legged

40:33

on the floor where I can just breathe deep

40:36

and keep my chest back and put

40:38

a little pain on my butt, because I'm 43, I have

40:40

about 30 minutes. And that's like a good contemplative

40:43

prayer. At some point, it

40:45

starts to hurt a lot and I have to get up. That's

40:48

really helpful to keep my mind there, sharp

40:51

and attuned. Secondly, it's just to begin

40:53

or end your day with gratitude, especially if you're

40:56

new to prayer. Just start here, start

40:58

with gratitude. Get creative, you wanna write

41:01

something out. For years, I used

41:03

to have a little piece of paper and every morning I would

41:05

write three gratitudes to begin

41:07

my day, or whatever you want. You wanna paint,

41:09

you wanna post on Instagram, whatever you

41:12

do, you. But begin and

41:14

end your day with a pause,

41:17

with a moment of gratitude. And

41:19

then finally, we have to spend some time

41:21

this week asking to step

41:24

into petition and intercession.

41:26

We have two recommended exercises in the guide.

41:28

The first is called prayer cards, where you just kind

41:30

of write out and bullet point some

41:33

of the core needs of your life

41:35

in this season. And you just kind of hover

41:38

over that card. You can do it once a week, once a day, 10

41:40

times a day, it's up to you. And you just

41:42

offer those prayers to God. The second is

41:45

an exercise called praying the

41:47

room, which I find really

41:49

helpful. Again, if you can use your imagination

41:52

and get it working for you, not against you

41:54

in prayer, God built your brain

41:56

to use imagination to access

41:59

reality, that's how. God built you. And

42:02

so this very simple exercise where

42:04

you just imagine yourself before Jesus

42:06

or the Father in a room, and

42:08

you ask them to bring into the room anybody

42:11

that they want you to intercede

42:14

for. And you just see, and

42:16

you might have nothing. You might have crickets or somebody

42:18

might come into the room. You

42:20

might want to even ask, okay, is there a specific

42:23

thing that you want me to pray for? And

42:26

again, might feel crickets, or you might feel

42:28

something in your heart. I need to pray this

42:30

for that person. And again,

42:32

what you're tapping into there, that's praying in Jesus

42:35

name. That's like you're trying to get in

42:37

touch. What does God want to do

42:39

in this person, in this situation? How

42:42

do I add my yes to that? How do I

42:44

pray in alignment with that and release the

42:46

power of God? We also have reached

42:48

exercises, recommended readings, stuff

42:50

on unanswered prayer, all of that's

42:53

in there. Again, everything is invitational.

42:56

But as we pray, whether

42:58

it is gratitude or lament or

43:00

petition or intercession, as we now

43:03

move into the coming week, please

43:05

never forget that when

43:07

we talk with God, God is forming

43:10

us into the answer to our own prayers.

43:14

This is one of the things that will sneak up on you. Often

43:16

the way your prayers will get answered is God

43:18

will do something in you. Prayer

43:22

is a way that we ask God to act and

43:24

do things that only He can do in the world.

43:27

And it is a way of giving God the time

43:29

and the space to do what only

43:31

He can do in us. And

43:34

again, I think I said this last week, but this

43:37

is the center. If there is a fulcrum

43:40

lever in the spiritual life, it

43:42

is how do I open up deeper

43:45

and deeper layers of my inner

43:47

woman or man

43:49

and surrender them to God to make

43:53

space for His grace to

43:55

come in, heal, transform.

44:00

liberate and shape

44:02

me to be more like Jesus.

44:05

In a world, in a city, in a

44:07

culture that is all about control, you

44:10

will exit these doors and you will hear a thousand, not

44:12

a thousand times, you'll hear six times this

44:14

coming week, we preach here as we exaggerate. You'll hear

44:16

a lot, take control of your life,

44:19

ah, it's a great way to sell books, take

44:21

control of your life. I read

44:23

the other day that the average American has 15% of the control

44:26

over their life they think they do. That 85%

44:30

is why I hope you have a good therapist

44:32

right there. So the cultural

44:35

messaging is take control of your

44:37

life and the invitation

44:40

of Jesus is surrender your

44:42

life. And

44:44

the world promises you peace and instead

44:46

that just gives you nothing but anxiety.

44:50

And surrender sounds like slavery until

44:52

you experience it and then you realize,

44:54

oh, this is true freedom.

44:57

So at some point in your prayer today

45:00

or this week,

45:02

may you find yourself praying with Jesus,

45:04

here's my desires, here's what I want,

45:06

here's what I think is best,

45:09

but not my will, yours be done.

45:12

Let's stand together and pray.

45:19

Thanks for listening. This podcast

45:20

is a production of Practicing the Way, a

45:23

simple, beautiful way to integrate formation

45:25

into your church or group. All

45:28

of our resources are completely free thanks

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church at large.

45:40

Special thanks for today's episode

45:42

goes to Emily from Bakersfield, California,

45:45

Evan from Woodland Park, Colorado, Lana

45:47

from Kernersville, North Carolina, Callie

45:50

Jane from Colorado Springs, Colorado,

45:51

and AJ from Newburgh,

45:53

Indiana. Thank you all so much. To

45:58

join the circle or to learn more about running...

45:59

a practice in your church or community, visit

46:02

practicingtheway.org.