Believe #12 prayer Rumc January 15, 2017

Believe #12 prayer

Rumc January 15, 2017

 How many of you have a facebook page? I have one. I don’t post much on my personal page but if you have not connected to the church page yet, it is time to do that.

I am not facebook’s biggest fan, I find it a little spooky, and many of the posts that aren’t offensive, are just plain silly,

•           In the last few months, however, I have been ”found” and connected with two childhood friends whom I hadn’t seen for 40 years.

•           I can see the facebook pages of some of the youth I had, and see them married and with children now.

•           I learn about how other pastors and churches are dealing with certain issues on closed clergy pages.

•           I never thought I would do it, but I sometimes check your pages just to see if there is anything happening in your lives that your pastor should know about. Occasionally I have learned something important

Facebook: Scary? Yes. Silly? Yes. But I have to admit facebook can be a pretty incredible way to connect with people.

•           If only we had a way to facebook God.

•           If only we could connect with God like that!

•           If only there was a way to “like” God.

•           If only there was a way to share what is happening in our lives with God.

•           If only there was a way for us to see what God is up to.

Oh wait, there is…it is called prayer.

24 hours a day, 7 days a week

•           from anywhere in the world…

•           No internet connection required…

•           No computer or mobile device required…

•           No email address required…

•           no spooky pop up ads …

•           nobody trolling your page…

•           and no silly games to play.

Just simply PRAYER.

 Maybe we should start calling prayer “godbook.” You know as in…

•           You’ll never believe what I heard on godbook ?…

•           Oh, man I can’t wait to post that on godbook.

•           Or I saw it on godbook, it must be true.

If the one billion people who belong to facebook spent half of that time on godbook we could increase the amount of prayer in the world by 100-fold.

In our spiritual practices inventory last week, not surprisingly, worship and then prayer rank as the number one and two spiritual practices in which we are engaged. That would fit with surveys that say 86% of Americans pray and 50% report praying every day. When you look a little closer, however, it seems that in reality the amount of time people spend in prayer is reported to be between 1 and 8 minutes per day depending on the study.

Even if we go with a generous 8 minutes of prayer each day, that is 1/50th of what they call our “disposable” time. (Not working, not sleeping, and not caring for our bodies) It is 1/20th of the time the average person spends watching TV and less than half as much time as we spend on those dreaded exercises.

Now, I am not going judge you for how much time you spend in prayer. The Lord knows that my spiritual practices have had so many ups and downs I am not in any position to judge. Nor am I going to tell you how much prayer time is enough. I said last week, each of our spiritual lives are made up of a unique combination of spiritual practices. Your menu of practices is completely different from mine, and that’s OK.

Going back to the spiritual practices inventory, however, even though Prayer was number two on the list of current practices… it was also the practice you most often identified for improvement. If you are among those who are unhappy with your prayer life, you are in good company. I am not always happy with mine either.

•           In fact only 16% of pastors are very satisfied with their personal prayer lives,

•           47% are only somewhat satisfied,

•           30% somewhat dissatisfied and

•           7% very dissatisfied.

The median amount of prayer time per day for pastors is 30 minutes.

I’ll admit there have been seasons when 30 minutes would have been a great improvement for me. Right now, most days I get about twice that much time in concentrated prayer, and then lots of bullet prayers, and a few professional prayers like at the end of a visit or the beginning of a meeting. I am in a pretty good season right now. What I want you to hear, though, is that we all have ups and downs and struggle with prayer. Pastors and lay people alike… every one of us… struggles with prayer. So there is no judgment in what I say today.

Therefore, with that in mind there are a few things I want to share with you about prayer today.

 First God wants more than anything to meet you in prayer. If you are one of those folks who once liked God’s Godbook page (so to speak) but you have never returned to post or read anything, you are missing out on one of the best parts.

After 9 ½ years I feel like I have a pretty strong relationship with most of you. But it didn’t happen in the blink of an eye. It took time. Lots of time.

The same is true for God. God loves you automatically, but it takes time to build that trusting relationship. If we never spend any time with God, or only speak to God once a week, our relationship will remain stuck in its infancy. God wants to spend time with you. God wants to meet you in prayer.

 Furthermore, the God wants more than anything to meet you in prayer wants to answer your prayers.

A group of physicians did a double-blind “drug-type” study of the efficacy of Christian prayer on healing. Patients from the San Francisco General Medical Center were randomly divided into placebo and test groups. Patients in the test group were to be prayed for by Christians; the placebo group received no prayer. The results demonstrated that patients who were prayed for suffered

•           “less congestive heart failure,

•           required less diuretic

•           and antibiotic therapy,

•           had fewer episodes of pneumonia, had

•           fewer cardiac arrests, and were

•           less frequently intubated

•           and ventilated.” 

The bottom line is prayer is powerful… I like to say that prayer is the most powerful force in the universe. (And letting people pray is sometimes like letting a toddler play with C-4 explosives.) Prayer is the most powerful force in the universe precisely because, as Jesus teaches us over and over, the God of the universe wants to answer your prayers.

But let me quickly add that Prayer is NOT first and foremost about requests. When people believe that prayer is just asking for things, they treat God like a divine super-duper wal-mart. I think that might be why after 1 to 8 minutes they run out of things to ask for so they are done praying. Yes, prayer includes asking for stuff, both for ourselves or for others. But that is not the heart of prayer. I refer you back to my first point… and remind you that

•           the heart of prayer is not asking for stuff. It is being with God.

•           The heart of prayer is not praying for help, but communing with God.

•           The heart of prayer is not seeking, but connecting our true selves to the one true God.

•           The heart of prayer is not so much an activity, as it is communion.

  Prayer is a state of being … being aware, being honest, being vulnerable, and being open to God’s presence, which is always with us.

That is why we read the story of Jacob wrestling because prayer is about wrestling and struggling and really engaging God. That is why we read the story of Elijah praying in the cave today, because prayer does not always go the way we think it should. We find out in that story that

•           God is not necessarily in the earthquake that rocks our world,

•           or in the fire that burns in our souls,

•           or the lightening that knocks us off our horse,

but sometimes God is the still small voice that speaks almost inaudibly in the background of our lives. Sometimes we wrestle, sometimes we sit very quietly and listen. That is the nature of prayer.

So, the question becomes how do you do that? What do you do when you run out of requests? What do you do when, after 1 minute or 8 minutes, boredom sets in? If you want to improve your spiritual practice of prayer and really connect with God, I have three suggestions.

•           SEEK SILENCE. Don’t be afraid of silence. Our culture has a pathological fear of silence. We almost never shut our mouths long enough to hear the voice of God. Remember, sometimes God is the still small voice.

•           If silence makes you uncomfortable, get a bubbling fountain. We have one from Menards in our living room that works very nicely.

•           Or play low instrumental music in the background, not the kind you want to sing to, just something to buffer the silence. So if you want to improve your prayer practice, first seek silence.

•           Second, seek simplicity. Jesus condemns those who heap up all kinds of fancy words in order to impress others. When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray Jesus didn’t offer a doctoral dissertation. He said

i.          “Pray like this:

ii.         Heavenly daddy.

iii.        You are great.

iv.        Do it your way.

v.         Help us and forgive us.

vi.        AMEN “That is really the spirit of the lord’s prayer. Prayer is simple, don’t make it hard.

One of the most powerful prayers I know is the simplest prayer I know. It is called the Jesus prayer. A 6th century Egyptian Monk, named Philimon, is credited with praying the powerful prayer that I use every day to begin my prayer time.

•           Breathing in I say “Jesus Christ Son of God” and

•           breathing out I pray, “Have mercy on me a sinner.”

I repeat it until my mind is clear, and I return to it if my mind starts to wonder while I am praying,

•           “Jesus Christ Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.”

Simple is best. Nothing fancy. Seek simplicity in prayer.

 Finally be still. This is different from seeking silence. Silence is outside of you. Stillness is inside.

•           Have you ever tried to talk to someone who is trying to do something else?

•           Someone who keeps moving.

•           Someone who drums his or her fingers on the desk the whole time.

•           Or repeatedly checks their watch?

You can’t really talk with people like that.

The problem in prayer is that all of our brains are like that. They are

•           constantly moving,

•           constantly thinking,

•           constantly planning…

unless we discipline them. It might be quiet on the outside but if you are

•           having an argument with yourself, or

•           being angry, or

•           worrying on the inside,

you will never hear the still small voice of God.

Ps 46:10 says, “Be still and know that I am God.” This has been one of my greatest learning’s in the last year is how to still myself inside so I can hear that still small voice of God.

Before refrigerators, in the days of icehouses, one man lost a valuable watch while working in an icehouse. He searched diligently for it, carefully raking through the sawdust, but didn’t find it. His fellow workers also looked, but their efforts, too, proved futile.

A small boy who heard about the fruitless search slipped into the icehouse during the noon hour and soon emerged with the watch.

Amazed, the men asked him how he found it. "I closed the door," the boy replied, "lay down in the sawdust, and kept very still. Soon I heard the watch ticking."

Let us be still and listen for the ticking.

 Let’s take a few minute to listen to God ticking in our lives… to visit “godbook” if you will. Let’s take a few minutes to be really prayerfully present to God in this place in this moment. Let’s practice

•           silence,

•           simplicity, and

•           stillness.

If you aren’t sure how to start, I suggest the Jesus prayer on the screen. That’s how I will start.