Prayer and Wisdom

As Christians we are to reflect God's Spirit so that others will see and know God!

"Prayer is the business of conquering territory within us -- territory we think is ours but that God claims for Himself. Prayer is the intentional act of vulnerability to God's claim on our lives. Prayer is not only God responding to our self-expression and needs; it is also our response to God and God's Word. God invites us to come freely, but we should expect to be changed." (The Possibility of Prayer, John Starke)

Philippians 4:6-7 is a favorite of mine regarding prayer. "Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God that passes all understanding will keep your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus."

From Dayspring publishing: "The giver of hope is always with you. I am praying that God's joy, peace, and hope overflow into all parts of your life. "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." (Romans 15:13) We've been designed as a resting place for the Spirit of God, changing every environment we walk into. (Bill Johnson)"

Here is Frederick Buechner on prayer:

WE ALL PRAY whether we think of it as praying or not. The odd silence we fall into when something very beautiful is happening, or something very good or very bad. The "Ah-h-h-h!" that sometimes floats up out of us as out of a Fourth of July crowd when the skyrocket bursts over the water. The stammer of pain at somebody else's pain. The stammer of joy at somebody else's joy. Whatever words or sounds we use for sighing with over our own lives. These are all prayers in their way. These are all spoken not just to ourselves, but to something even more familiar than ourselves and even more strange than the world.

 

According to Jesus, by far the most important thing about praying is to keep at it. The images he uses to explain this are all rather comic, as though he thought it was rather comic to have to explain it at all. He says God is like a friend you go to borrow bread from at midnight. The friend tells you in effect to drop dead, but you go on knocking anyway until finally he gives you what you want so he can go back to bed again (Luke 11:5-8). Or God is like a crooked judge who refuses to hear the case of a certain poor widow, presumably because he knows there's nothing much in it for him. But she keeps on hounding him until finally he hears her case just to get her out of his hair (Luke 18:1-8). Even a stinker, Jesus says, won't give his own child a black eye when the child asks for peanut butter and jelly, so how all the more will God when his children... (Matthew 7:9-11)?

 

Be importunate, Jesus says—not, one assumes, because you have to beat a path to God's door before God will open it, but because until you beat the path maybe there's no way of getting to your door. "Ravish my heart," John Donne wrote. But God will not usually ravish. He will only court.

 

Whatever else it may or may not be, prayer is at least talking to yourself, and that's in itself not always a bad idea.

 

Talk to yourself about your own life, about what you've done and what you've failed to do, and about who you are and who you wish you were and who the people you love are and the people you don't love too. Talk to yourself about what matters most to you, because if you don't, you may forget what matters most to you.

 

Even if you don't believe anybody's listening, at least you'll be listening.

 

Believe Somebody is listening. Believe in miracles. That's what Jesus told the father who asked him to heal his epileptic son. Jesus said, "All things are possible to him who believes." And the father spoke for all of us when he answered, "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!" (Mark 9:14-29).

 

What about when the boy is not healed? When, listened to or not listened to, the prayer goes unanswered? Who knows? Just keep praying, Jesus says. Remember the sleepy friend, the crooked judge. Even if the boy dies, keep on beating the path to God's door, because the one thing you can be sure of is that, down the path you beat with even your most half-cocked and halting prayer, the God you call upon will finally come.

Here is my word from the lectionary lessons for the week:

Exodus 16: 2-15            complaining

Psalm 105: 1-6, 37-45    continually

Jonah 3:10-4:11              angry

Psalm 145:1-8                 forever

Philippians 1: 21-30        live

Matthew 20: 1-16           allowed

Jeremiah 18                     potter

I need this prayer for the day for September 14: "My Father, grant me the power to be patient. Deliver me from irritability. Spare me from sharp, unkind words and self-centeredness and lovelessness. Help me to serve my brothers and sisters without thinking about myself. Amen."

Here is Fredrick Beuchner on politics:

YOU CAN'T HELP WONDERING what would happen if a person running for the presidency decided to set politics in the flag-waving, tub-thumping, ax-grinding sense aside and to speak, instead, candidly, thoughtfully, truthfully out of his or her own heart.   Suppose a candidate were to stand up before the reporters and the TV cameras and the usual bank of microphones and say something like this:   "The responsibilities of this office are so staggering that anybody who doesn't approach them with knees knocking is either a fool or a lunatic. The literal survival of civilization may depend on the decisions that either I or one of the other candidates make during the next four years. The general welfare and peace of mind of millions of people will certainly depend on them. I am only a human being. If I have my strengths, I also have my weaknesses. I can't promise that I'll always do the right thing for this country. I can only promise that it will always be this country rather than my own political fortunes that I'll try to do the right thing for. I believe in this country at its best, but I also believe that we have made many tragic mistakes. I am willing to entertain the possibility that our assumptions about Arabs, for example, may be as wrong as their assumptions about us, and my major objective, if elected, will be to explore that possibility with them at the highest levels of government and in the most radical, searching, and unrelenting ways I can devise. I believe that the survival and well-being of the human race as a whole is more important than the partisan interests of any group, including both theirs and our own."   There are many who would undoubtedly say that such a statement is naive, dangerous, unrealistic, and un-American, and that anybody making it couldn't get elected dogcatcher. I can't help believing, however, that there are others who would find it such a note of sanity, honesty, and hope in the political quagmire that they would follow the person who made it to the ends of the earth. A paraphrase of the prayer of Jabez (I Chronicles 4: 9-10): "I pray dear Lord that you would bless my life and make it effective for Your kingdom and honor, that You would be with me by my side and that You would keep me from evil, harm, danger, sin, and wrong, that I may not cause pain but be a blessing and help or benefit to others. Amen."