Pastor’s Column

Prayer
I have been reading a book off and on for several months on prayer, A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World. This may not sound like the best way to read a book. However, some books and this one included is the kind that you can walk away from for a while and come back to where you left off without much harm. The chapters do build on one another but they are also self-contained units each having valuable insights.

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The writer, Paul Miller, has a chapter on coming like a child to the Father in prayer. Paul brings a unique perspective to this chapter having an adult autistic child, Kim, which he and his wife have raised and still care for as an adult. Here is a portion of that chapter.

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Jesus wants us to be without pretense when we come to him in prayer. Instead, we often try to be something we aren’t. We begin by concentrating on God, but almost immediately our minds wander off in a dozen different directions. The problems of the day push out our well-intentioned resolve to be spiritual. We give ourselves a spiritual kick in the pants and try again, but life crowds out prayer. We know that prayer isn’t supposed to be like this, so we give up in despair. We might as well get something done.

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What’s the problem? We’re trying to be spiritual, to get it right. We know we don’t need to clean up our act in order to become a Christian, but when it comes to praying, we forget that. We, like adults, try to fix ourselves up. In contrast, Jesus wants us to come to him like little children, just as we are.

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COME MESSY The difficulty of coming just as we are is that we are messy. And prayer makes it worse. When we slow down to pray, we are immediately confronted with how unspiritual we are, with how difficult it is to concentrate on God. We don’t know how bad we are until we try to be good. Nothing exposes our selfishness and spiritual powerlessness like prayer.

In contrast, little children never get frozen by their selfishness. Like the disciples, they come just as they are,totally self-absorbed. They seldom get it right. As parents or friends, we know all that. In fact, we are delighted (most of the time!) to find out what is on their little hearts. We don’t scold them for being self-absorbed or fearful. That is just who they are.

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That’s certainly how Jill and I responded to Kim. We were uncertain whether she would ever be able to walk, so when she took her first step at three years old, we didn’t say, “Kim, that was all very well and good, but you are two years late. You have a lot of catching up to do, including long-range walking, not to mention running, skipping, and jumping.” We didn’t critique how messy or late Kim was. What did we do? We screamed; we yelled; we jumped up and down. The family came rushing in to find out what had happened. Cameras came out, and Kim repeated her triumph. It was awesome.

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This isn’t just a random observation about how parents respond to little children. This is the gospel, the welcoming heart of God. God also cheers when we come to him with our wobbling, unsteady prayers. Jesus does not say, “Come to me, all you who have learned how to concentrate in prayer, whose minds no longer wander, and I will give you rest.” No, Jesus opens his arms to his needy children and says, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28 , NASB). The criteria for coming to Jesus is weariness. Come overwhelmed with life. Come with your wandering mind. Come messy.

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What does it feel like to be weary? You have trouble concentrating. The problems of the day are like claws in your brain. You feel pummeled by life. What does heavy-laden feel like? Same thing. You have so many problems you don’t even know where to start. You can’t do life on your own anymore. Jesus wants you to come to him that way! Your weariness drives you to him.

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Don’t try to get the prayer right; just tell God where you are and what’s on your mind. That’s what little children do. They come as they are, runny noses and all. Like the disciples, they just say what is on their minds. We know that to become a Christian we shouldn’t try to fix ourselves up, but when it comes to praying we completely forget that. We’ll sing the old gospel hymn, “Just as I Am,” but when it comes to praying, we don’t come just as we are. We try, like adults, to fix ourselves up. Private, personal prayer is
one of the last great bastions of legalism. In order to pray like a child, you might need to unlearn the non personal, non-real praying that you’ve been taught.

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I have found these paragraphs especially helpful to me. I know we all think differently and we all have had different experiences. But it seems to me that many of us at some point or maybe most of at some time have felt this sense of being weary and burdened by our lives. We want to come to the Lord in prayer yet we are so distracted by our situation that we find it very hard to do so.

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Some times I think the answer is meditating or thinking deeply about a given teaching of Scripture and then praying through that teaching. But then there may be those times that we are so distracted or burdened by our situation that we need to come to the Lord in that condition and still pray. The prayer may misfire we may loose track just a few moments after we’ve begun. But thankfully if we are truly in Christ, then we know Jesus even forgives our weak prayers. Keep coming with all your distractions to the Lord in prayer
and bring these burdens to him pleading for his help. Maybe not worrying so much how you are saying these things to the Lord.

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Miller mentioned one other thing in this regard that I found really helpful and reassuring. He urge the readers to consider praying out loud. As I have been walking three miles every morning for the past several months I have found myself trying to pray and then getting easily distracted with various cares or worries in my life. But as I began to intentionally pray out loud, and even honestly admit to the Lord my struggles at praying as I was praying I found I was able to actually pray.

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The Christian life is a daily life long struggle. That is certainly true when it comes to seeking to live a godly life, struggling against sin and temptation. We wrestle with becoming more like Christ in godly character. Part of that “struggle” includes our prayer life. Maybe your prayer life is just fine, and your very content with it. Maybe like me you still struggle over prayer at least at times. You might consider Paul Miller’s book.

Pastor Chris