INWARD PRAYER – seeking the transformation we need

Simple Prayer

Prayer of the Forsaken

The Prayer of Examen

The Prayer of Tears

The Prayer of Relinquishment

Formation Prayer

Covenant Prayer

UPWARD PRAYER – seeking the intimacy we need

The Prayer of Adoration        

The Prayer of Rest                          

Sacramental Prayer                               

Unceasing Prayer                             

The Prayer of the Heart              

Meditative Prayer                                      

Contemplative Prayer                             

OUTWARD PRAYER – seeking the ministry we need

Praying the Ordinary

Petitionary Prayer

Intercessory Prayer

Healing Prayer

The Prayer of Suffering

Authoritative Prayer

Radical Prayer

So what can I tell you about learning to pray? A few very simple things.

WE MUST WANT TO PRAY MORE

In Uganda it was VERY hot. Especially down by the Nile. And it was in a country like that, under the heat of the sun that Jesus taught his disciples, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they will be satisfied.” (Matthew 5:6)

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst to be in a right relationship with God,” Jesus is teaching. It’s GOOD to have an appetite for the things of God, to desire to know God more and more! But just how big is your appetite for God? How much do you want to deepen your relationship with God?  Starving? Or just a bit peckish? Could you nibble a crumb or eat a horse? Are you dehydrated or parched? Or just a bit dry in the mouth?

The Bible gives us some fine examples of what it means to hunger and thirst after a right relationship with God, truly to desire to know God and to live a holy life.

Psalm 42:1-3 As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.  2  My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?  3  My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me all day long, "Where is your God?"

We don’t have a deer, but we do have a dog. So we have an idea of what panting with thirst is all about. When our dog Sasha is thirsty she will drink ANYTHING! Puddles. Streams. Anything! Occasionally I got that desperately thirsty in Uganda. Are we that thirsty for God?

Psalm 63:1-6 O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

There indeed was a man who was OBSESSED with God! Too few Christians today are that fanatical about God and spiritual things. Is prayer a joy or a burden? Is praying something you are always sad to stop doing because you have run out of time, or is praying something you can never be bothered to start doing?

Jeremiah 29:13  You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

If we don’t meet God when we are praying, for much of the time it is because we didn’t really want to meet with Him in the first place!

A.W.Tozer wrote - Every Christian -will become at last what his desires have made him. -We are all the sum total of our hungers. The great -saints have all had thirsting heart. Their cry has been, “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?” Their -longing after God all but consumed them. It propelled them onward and upward to heights toward which less ardent Christians look with languid eye -and entertain no hope of reaching.

Orthodox Christianity has fallen to its present low estate from lack of spiritual desire. Among the many who profess the Christian faith, scarcely one in a thousand reveals any passionate thirst for God. We fear extremes and shy away from too much ardor in religion as if it were possible to have too much love or too much faith or too much holiness.

Occasionally one’s heart is cheered by the dis­covery of some insatiable saint who is willing to sacri­fice everything for the sheer joy of experiencing God in increasing intimacy’. To such we offer this word of exhortation: - Pray on, fight on, sing on. Do not underrate anything God may have done for you before.  Thank God for everything up to this point but do not stop here. - Press On into the deep things of God. Insist upon tasting the profounder mysteries of redemption. Keep your feet on the ground, but let your heart soar as high as it will. Refuse to be aver­age or to surrender to the chill of your spiritual environment. Unless you do these things you will reach at last (and unknown to you) the graveyard of orthodoxy and be doomed to live out your days in spiritua1 mediocrity!”

(AW Tozer Root of the Righteous pp 55-56)

We have to WANT to pray more – to want to get to know God better!

WE MUST MAKE TIME TO PRAY MORE

Another very obvious statement: if we are ever going to learn to pray better, we need to spend more time praying. Prayer is the most concrete expression of our relationship with God. And all relationships require time! We are all busy people, and sometimes our activities and our noise squeeze God out. If we want to experience God’s presence and God’s peace, if we really want to grow closer to God in prayer, we must make time and find space and search out silence. Everything in life - our worship, our Christian service, our witness, our love for other people – all spring from our relationship with God. If we do not spend “quality time” in prayer, everything else we do will be futile.

My hero A.W.Tozer has written this.

“The Christian is strong or weak depending upon how closely he has cultivated the knowledge of God. Paul devoted his whole life to the art of knowing Christ.

Philippians 3:10  I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings,   12  Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.  13  Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead,  14  I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenwards in Christ Jesus.

Tozer goes on - Progress in the Christian life is exactly equal to the growing knowledge we gain of the Triune God in personal experience. And such experience requires a whole life devoted to it and plenty of time spent at the holy task of cultivating God.   God can be known satisfactorily only as we devote time to Him.

We may as well accept it: there is no short cut to sanctity. Even the crises that come in the spiritual life are usually the result of long periods of thought and prayerful meditation.

A thousand distractions would woo us away from thoughts of God, but if we are wise we will sternly put them from us and make room for the King and take time to entertain Him.  Some things may be neglected with but little loss to the spiritual life, but to neglect communion with God is to hurt ourselves where we cannot afford it.

God will respond to our efforts to know Him.  The Bible tells us how; it is altogether a matter of how much determination we bring to the holy task.

                                                            A.W.Tozer in The Root of the Righteous

We get to know God through prayer!

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7

Paul is not saying, “Whatever your problems, one quick prayer and everything will be alright.” It is an invitation to continuous prayer, to pray without ceasing! Paul is saying “keep on presenting your requests to God”. And as you keep on bringing your situation to God in prayer, God will keep on meeting your needs and so you will continue to experience that peace which passes all understanding, which only God can give.

You know, for all their problems with water supply and health and transport and survival hand to mouth from day to day, the Christians in Uganda know much more of the peace God gives than most English Christians. Even though many of them suffered terribly at the hands of Idi Amin’s regime, these Christians experience God’s peace. They depend on God for their daily bread and for all their day to day needs much more than we think we need to. Their lives are not filled with mindless entertainment on radio and television. Their thoughts aren’t continually interrupted by telephones and “muzak”. They have space in their lives to commune with God and experience His peace.

We are so different. We like to be busy and active. Sometimes we hide from God in busyness and activity. We surround ourselves with noise. What we need is silence and space to meet with God. It’s all about how we use our time. The more important an activity is to us, the more time we will give to it. If we want to get to know God better, we need to make time to pray!

So finally - HOW CAN WE PRAY MORE?

Let me share the most important things I took from my study and reflection, which we have been putting into practice in our courses on prayer. The first is so simple. Learning to pray is like learning to ride a bicycle, or learning to play the piano. We don’t learn either of these things by reading books or watching videos or talking to other people about them (although books and videos and advice from others can be helpful). We learn to ride by sitting on a bike and pedalling and steering and getting back on when we fall off. We learn to play a musical instrument by practice. Scales, pieces, arpeggios, pieces, broken chords, pieces, hands separately, hands together, practice, practice, practice!

Similarly, we learn to pray by praying. Sometimes the reason we don’t pray is that we feel we are not good at praying. We feel we need more teaching before we can pray properly. But this is nonsense! The way to learn to pray is to pray. We feel that our prayer is spoilt by impure and mixed motives, so we do not pray. But only the act of praying can purify our prayers. Foster says we must learn “the prayer of beginning again”, getting back on and trying again, and again, and again, rather than giving up and just not praying.

We should begin with “simple prayer”, asking God to meet our needs, “ordinary people bringing ordinary concerns to a compassionate Father.”

As Spurgeon once said, “Whether we like it or not, asking is the rule of the Kingdom.”

But then sometimes we stop praying because we are afraid that our prayers are “too selfish”. Foster reminds us, “We never outgrow that kind of asking prayer because we never outgrow the needs that give rise to it.” “The only way we move beyond `self-centred prayer’ (if indeed we ever do) is by going through it, not by making a detour round it.” So our prayers must begin with where we are. “The only place God can bless us is where we are, because that is the only place we are!”

Foster gives very wise advice. “For now, do not worry about `proper’ praying, just talk to God. By praying we learn to pray.”

And the Bible commands us to “pray without ceasing.” Wise words: “We only learn to pray all of the time everywhere after we have resolutely set about praying some of the time somewhere.”

When I visited him before Christmas, my predecessor REV. ARNOLD SEWELL told me –

“If I had my time over again I would do less and pray more.”

So we start with making sure we have regular space in our lives for prayer - simple Prayer “ordinary people bringing ordinary concerns to a compassionate Father.” Just talk to God. By praying we learn to pray.”

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Last modified: 11/07/09