SURPRISING COMMUNICATION WITH GOD

Prayer Introduction

Prayer is a simple thing.  A person talks to God.  It may be official and religious or sudden and emotional.  Do you remember your introduction to prayer?  It may have been with your parents tucking you into bed as a child or your family turning to God in prayer due to a tragedy.  Maybe it came later when you started to drive and avoided a wreck or while serving in the military you found it helpful in stress filled situations.   

I remember as a kid talking to God the Father or sometimes to Jesus. It didn’t seem strange, but sort of a flow.  As a family we weren’t in church much so I didn’t pick up the details of prayer I just talked.  At Christmas time there is often the wish among kids for a white Christmas.  Back in the 60s I was looking for one and asked God about it.  I told family it was coming.  Uncle Calvin found it weird that I would hold on to such an idea, and when it arrived he was freaked out.  Prayer just sort of showed up though I didn’t have much of a theology or understanding of it. 

Prayer Connection

Wrestling in my soul disturbed me, and kept increasing my senior year in high school.  I had a King James Bible and read it, but I didn’t get it.  So in search of what human life was about and what God had to do with it I read all kinds of books from a wide variety of sources.  

 Circling back around I read the New Testament and primarily the four Gospels in the Phillips translation.  I was captivated by Jesus.  I was moved by His relationship with God the Father.  I was overwhelmed by John 3:16. 

God loved us so much He sent His Son.  I could believe in Him.  I could have life…eternal.  I had seen Billy Graham Crusades on TV, so the idea of a prayer and commitment to God was vaguely there for me.  I tried to carry on life as usual, but this had me in knots.  In the dark on a rainy night on a gravel road outside Chouteau I got out of my car and in the headlights prayed.  I told God I wanted Him.  Whatever that meant.  I wanted to go His way.  It kept raining.  No angels came (as far as I knew).  But the connection was made.  God heard me.  I knew it.  A settled sense of getting it right came over me.  I knew I needed to know more about God and about this new life. 

Prayer Instruction

Four years passed as I had a year of college and two years of active duty in the Army during which time I found out more about God and how to pray.  I attended seminars.  I read books.  I learned prayer devices which help remember some basics.  You may know this one JOY: Jesus Others Yourself.  You honor the Lord first, then pray about others and finally add your own requests. 

Another you may recognize was the ACTS prayer.  Adoration:  praising God for who He is.  Confession: acknowledging anything that is out of whack in your life or just plain sin.  Thanksgiving: letting God know you appreciate Him.  Supplication: making requests known to God.  Those are simple, but really helpful tools for entering into prayer.  I got it.  I practiced prayer.  And then this happened.  

I was involved in a ministry called The Navigators with a number of really fine people.  We were working primarily with U.S. military personnel, their families and support people in Germany.  I was given an opportunity to lead a workshop at a conference.  My topic for this 90-minute workshop was to be on prayer.  I was honored and scared.  Addressing people from up front was horrific for me.  Always had been.  So…I prayed.  And prayed.  I got busy.  I crossed every “t” and dotted every “i” in my study of prayer.  I read book after book and researched verse after verse on the topic of prayer.  If someone bumped into me I would spout prayer quotes.  

Now just for a little bit of the dark side of all this let me tell you about ministry covetousness.  That is a desire to be the guy upfront, but the guy with the big topic or the most exciting theme.  Somewhere in the process this ugliness arose.  The hot topics for conferences were things that motivated people to action or had something to do with finding God’s will.  Those were big.  Scripture memory…hmmm…important, but not really exciting.  And guess what I had prayer.  Also not one of the big ones.  The crowds would make their way to the really good workshops.  Ugh!  Covetousness.  Yep.  And I go present prayer.  Scared.  Honored.  Coveting the success of others.  And I survived.  

People actually got something out of it.  It was highly informational, but somehow helped.  That was at the University of Essex in England.  Another conference was coming up which was for all The Navigators in Europe.  It would be held in Gwatt, Switzerland.  Guess who they called on to present a workshop on prayer?  

Again I went to work.  But I was gaining some confidence in this and seeing God work in ways that rattled any notions I had about communicating with Him.  I was more and more amazed at what He was doing and wanted others to see it too.  So Switzerland was going to be different.  90-minutes of workshop would include some informational training, but this time there would be actual prayer practice with the actual anticipation that God would answer quickly and in the long term.  A bit brash.  We did it.  God answered short and long in wonderful ways.  

A lot of years have come and gone since those days back in the 1970s, but prayer has been and continues to be a passion for me.  Because being in touch with God is a passion for me.  Those early days of instruction and instructing helped lay a foundation for building on a relationship with God that is real and conversational and dynamic.  It was truly surprising communication with God to begin with and has continued and will continue into the days unending which lie ahead. 

Prayer Proliferation

Hanging out with God is a joy.  Humbled in His presence I find being with Him refreshing.  He has taught me more and more about prayer.  In His presence I have experienced prayer as affirmation, instruction, correction, reflection, adoration, and even power.  Prayer for me is no longer an exercise in definitions and research, but experience set in relationship with the living God.  So now I have the opportunity of continuing to share with others what it is to pray.  From basic essentials in relating to God to an ever deepening approach to prayer that engages the heart and sets the spirit free. 

What a choice opportunity.  Remember the covetousness of others in ministry referred to earlier?  That is gone.  God confronted it.  I repented.  And I found His plan better than one I could have designed myself.  He invited me into a hallowed place to learn the mysteries of prayer and to share them with those who want more in their communication with Him.  As a result, I pass these things along at various times and places.  Sometimes in a message at church, and at other times on a retreat over a weekend.

 A new approach in this process is to learn about laser prayer.  I first taught some about it at the Fall Retreat.  Sunday and on following 2^nd Sundays of the month at GBC we will look at this form of prayer and see where God takes us with that.  It will be challenging, but the rewards will be eternally delightful. Time for more surprises.