Monday
Psalm 6:9 - The LORD has heard my cry for mercy; the LORD accepts my prayer.
Psalm 17:6 - I call on you, O God, for you will answer me; give ear to me and hear my prayer.
Psalm 54:2 - Hear my prayer, O God; listen to the words of my mouth.
Psalm 65:2 - O you who hear prayer, to you all men will come.
Psalm 66:19-20 - but God has surely listened and heard my voice in prayer.
Praise be to God, who has not rejected my prayer or withheld his love from me!
Psalm 88:13 - But I cry to you for help, O LORD; in the morning my prayer comes before you.
Psalm 141:2 - May my prayer be set before you like incense; may the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice.
This week we began a new sermon series called “Honest to God; the language of prayer”. We also begin a new series of “10 Minutes with God” devotions that will be centered on prayer in the Psalms. This series is focused on growing in our practice and experience of prayer through a study of some of the key Psalms in the Bible. The Psalms have historically been the place God’s people have gone to learn how to pray. They are in fact the prayerbook of the Bible in that they contain a record of the prayers and praises of God’s people.
One of my favorite little books on the Psalms was written by the German theologian and pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, called Prayerbook of the Bible; An Introduction to the Psalms. In this book, Bonhoeffer calls the Psalms “the great school of prayer”, and he asserts that we humans don’t really know how to pray. When left to our own devices we can’t find the words of true prayer. We must join the disciples in asking Jesus, “Lord, teach us to pray!” (Luke11:1). Sin has permeated our whole being, even to the point of affecting our ability to discern what we really need. Bonhoeffer writes, “It is not just that for which we ourselves want to pray that is important, but that for which God wants us to pray. Not the poverty of our heart, but the richness of God’s word, ought to determine our prayer” (p.157).
We are not the best judges of what we need to pray for. God tells us what we need and tells us how to begin to align our prayers with what God wants us to need. This is why Bonhoeffer turns us to the Psalms. In the Psalms we learn the language of prayer. There is a discipline to the practice of prayer. It does not come easy. Why would we expect learning to talk with God would be easier than learning to drive. Learning to drive took me days of sitting at the wheel with my dad sitting by my side graciously showing how not to stall every time I let out the clutch (remember manual transmissions?). I stalled all the time at first, but slowly I started getting the hang of it. This is what Bonhoeffer means when he talks about the Psalms as “the school of prayer.”
His analogy is better than mine:
The child learns to speak because the parent speaks to the child. The child learns the language of the parent. So we learn to speak to God because God has spoken and speaks to us. In the language of the Father in heaven God’s children learn to speak with God. Repeating God’s own words, we begin to pray to God. We ought to speak to God, and God wishes to hear us, not in the false and confused language of our heart but in the clear and pure language that God has spoken to us in Jesus Christ.
We learn to speak by repeating God’s words to us and for us. The Psalms are God’s gracious gift to us. Through their words we learn how to speak the language of God back to God. We submit our self-centeredness to God and allow him to shape our desires.
Jeff Frazier
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5 comments:
I find this both encouraging and discouraging. On one hand, it makes sense that we should talk to God "in the clear and pure language that God has spoken to us in Jesus Christ", and which the Psalmists "blueprint" for us; but on the other, I have always been taught that God wants to us to speak what's on our hearts, to praise Him, to ask His will, to ask forgiveness, to pray with and for each other, etc. It is discouraging to think that praying the wrong way with the wrong words is not heard.
I can understand your sense of discouragement at thinking that your prayers may not be heard if they are not offered properly, but that is not what is at issue here. God is all knowing and he knows our hearts completely before we pray a word. (Matt. 6:8) Of course God hears all prayer, even those offered imperfectly, awkwardly, or half heartedly. You are absolutely right that God wants us to speak whatever is on our hearts. Praying Scripture is always a good idea, but it is not the only way to pray. The Psalms are not given to us as set forms of prayer with exact words, like formulas that we must not deviate from. The Psalms are examples for us, they provide us with a vocabulary of the soul with which we can express our hearts more effectively to God. This is really for our sake, not for God's. I have often taken a Psalm, or a portion of a Psalm, that I felt expressed my heart condition, and rewritten it into my own words as a prayer to God. The issue is not whether or not God will hear us, He does and He will. The issue is our growth in prayer!
I don't find anywhere in this 10 minutes that the writer asserts that we won't be heard. I read that God wants us to pray for our hearts to be filled with his desires for us, so that when we speak what's on our hearts, we are that much closer to his answers and not our own rationalization. Jesus begged God in the garden not to make him go through with the crucifixion, But was willing to obey:"but even so, thy will be done, not mine". That was an honest prayer. "Teach us to pray, oh Lord" is the Disciples humbly asking God's advice on what some might think is remedial for "The Disciples". The Disciples honest prayers at the time would likely have been that Jesus would hang out with them forever and they would live a long and happy life in his earthly presence. That's not wrong. Who Could blame them? But it wasn't God's plan for them. It was closed God would have heard all those prayers, and his answer might have been, "I heard you. Now, Dig a little further, open your heart to more possibilities, trust Me that I will give you the right desires and help you achieve them".
If by "disouraged" you mean "challenged" then Praise God, He's working in your life"
"It was close"
Prayer to me means communication, much as a child talks with a parent. Children, and I was one of them, communicate their innermost feeling and thoughts, that is, until they become wise to the world. Is that not the same for us? God hears and listens to us when we are children, when we speak from the heart of our joys, our sorrows, our wants and needs. But just as a wise parent does not always grant the child's wish, neither does God. What a mess we would be in if he did! How can one answer the dilemma of two football teams asking for God to make them victorious over the other?
Communication cuts both ways. How many of us have at some point said "Be quiet and listen to me for a change"? When I was little and did not listen to what my parents to were telling me, things sometimes got the point of Mom saying, "Get the hair bush", a long, flat piece of wood with bristles. That piece of wood did some powerful talking and I did some careful listening!
Pray but listen to what He is telling us.
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