Today we begin with the gold standard spiritual practice: the discipline of prayer.
- Prayer is the most ancient of spiritual practices. It’s older than the Bible and it predates the church.
- Before there was a gospel to preach and a salvation song to sing, there was prayer.
- Prayer is at the heart of faith because it’s all about communion with God. You and I were made for communion with God. That means we were made for prayer.
What’s unfortunate is that so many believers feel inadequate when it comes to prayer. Public prayer in church is partly to blame, if I had to guess.
Bob Reynolds was a member of my church back home. Brother Bob led the most beautiful prayers in our worship services when I was a child. For starters, he had a voice like he was anchoring the evening news. And his prayers were so eloquent and heartfelt. And he didn’t even use notes! Bob was a first round draft pick when it came to corporate prayer.
As a teenager, I was asked to lead prayer and you know what my immediate thought was? I thought of Brother Bob and I thought, “There’s no way I can pray like that!” He set the bar too high!
And I think many of us can relate to that. Thinking about prayer makes us feel inferior or we feel guilty because we don’t pray enough.
I would like to encourage us to think of prayer differently, to take away all the performance anxiety and church-y language. Instead, I want us to think of prayer as keeping company with God. I think that’s how Jesus understood prayer.
Mark begins his gospel account of the life of Jesus by jumping right into the action. In thirteen brief verses, Mark tells of Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist, being led out into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan, and calling the disciples to follow Him. Jesus preaches the Good News and casts out demons and heals people of their illnesses. But Mark also includes a little note about the prayer life of Jesus that is incredibly revealing.
Mark 1:32-35
That evening at sundown they brought to him all who were sick or oppressed by demons. And the whole city was gathered together at the door. And he healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons. And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.
Jesus’s ministry is just exploding at this point. And this explosion of ministry is ripe with Gospel opportunity. And yet, in the midst of it all, Jesus gets away to a quiet place — a desolate place, Mark says — in order to keep company with God the Father.
Noise is one of the great deterrents to our prayer life. Just think about how much noise surrounds us at any given moment:
- The constant buzz of our phones. Your phone is the greediest entity in your life. It is always beckoning you, demanding your attention. And that can be quite detrimental to your spiritual life.
- I was in the airport the other day and I was hoping for some prayer time while I waited for my flight. But the person next to me had their phone up so loud — watching reels and videos, etc. We’ll have to be intentional these days if we’re going to follow the example of Jesus and find “desolate places” to pray.
Prayer was such an essential part of Jesus’s life that He made time for it. He woke up early so He could have some quiet time with God.
- When do you make time for prayer?
- Is prayer a discipline in your life?
- Are there dedicated times in your day, in your week, that you have set aside just for prayer?
Daniel is a good example for us on the discipline of prayer. When his enemies outlawed prayer to anyone other than the human king, Daniel continued his practice of regular prayer to God. He determined to keep company with God no matter what.
Daniel 6:10-11
When Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open toward Jerusalem. He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously. Then these men came by agreement and found Daniel making petition and plea before his God.
Daniel had a regular practice of kneeling in prayer three times a day. In fact, his practice was so regular that his enemies knew exactly when and where he prayed.
- That’s a good rule of thumb for us, not in a legalistic way but in the way of grace.
- A regular time
- A regular place
- Again, athletes and musicians understand that you have to have those times set aside for practice. You have to be intentional and dedicate the time to practice if you want to grow.
- Jesus says the most important command is to love the Lord your God with your heart, soul, mind, and strength. If He were preaching today, I wonder if He would add “time” to the list. It’s hard to say you love the Lord with all your heart when He gets less time in your schedule than Tik Tok and Instagram.
- When and where do you practice prayer?
An author from centuries ago named Theophan the Recluse writes: “To pray is to descend with the mind into the heart and there stand before the face of the Lord.”
- Prayer is taking your mind into your heart in order to meet the Lord there. It’s about a whole-self relationship with God.
- One thing that hurts our prayer life is when we limit prayer to a stream of requests. We come into prayer with all these things we’re asking God to do: please bless this person, please heal that person. And that’s certainly a part of prayer in the Scriptures. But when your prayer life is always and only about requests, you’re sacrificing relationship. And prayer is primarily about communion with God, it’s about keeping company with God.
There’s a sanctuary in your heart. It’s where your truest self lives, free from the masks we wear and the roles we play. It’s where we hide all our fears and our dreams, our disappointments and our desires. And there are a lot of things trying to break into that sanctuary. Our enemy wants to infiltrate that sanctuary with things that don’t belong there. But the great challenge is to keep that sanctuary reserved for God and God alone.
In the discipline of prayer, we keep our inner sanctuary holy. We keep God seated on the throne of our hearts. And we wage war against the enemy’s attempts to infiltrate the sanctuary with these things that don’t belong there.
Imagine what would happen if we were disciplined to say, “God, I’m giving you the next 15 minutes. I’ll be right here. Use this time however you’d like.” What a great way to keep company with God!
I want to close with a practical suggestion for those who feel like they’re stuck in a prayer “rut.” There are many different ways of praying if you find yourself in a prayer “rut.” Here are just a few suggestions:
- Try different prayer methods. Many of us have been taught that there’s one way to pray: bow your head, close your eyes, and come up with words to say to God. But there are a variety of different methods people have found for communing with God, for keeping company with God. Some of my favorites include breath prayer, centering prayer, and silent prayer.
- Try different prayer postures. If you normally pray while you’re seated, try praying on your knees. Or get up and go on a prayer walk. This is one of the best ways to break out of a prayer rut.
- Try praying the words of Scripture. When someone comes to me and they’re in a prayer rut, I encourage them to pray through the Psalms. Let the words of the Psalmists give shape to your own prayers. Won’t take long before you find something there that connects with your heart. And I think you’ll be surprised at the kinds of things that people bring before God in prayer. It’s all right there in your Bibles.
This week I want to challenge you to really practice the spiritual discipline of prayer. Dedicate some time to God — any amount of time. And turn off your phone and get away from the noise. And see what God does with that time.
You were made for prayer, because you were made for communion with God.
already & not yet 