Prayer. I have been
intrigued for a while about how I pray.
Too often I feel like I'm just praying for apparent needs in the lives
of others. Heal them, help them, guide
them, protect them are common phrases for others and for my family. Yet, while they are mostly selfless prayers, I
feel a tug that I'm missing the intentional mark of how Jesus would pray. As I read about Jesus I see that His single
concern was the spiritual health of people, not their physical health. He could see, better than anyone who has ever
lived, how insignificant the physical life was by comparison to the real life
in the spiritual kingdom. This leads me
to dwell on my prayers and how my own perception of someone's apparent need
should be considered.
What if God has put some event or happenstance in someone's
life for the very clear reason to develop their spiritual condition? And then I pray to God for it to be removed
from their life? At that moment, I am praying
against the will of God simply because I have not worked to view what that
person might really need spiritually.
But how can I possibly know what is someone's inner spiritual need? I also know that if I just pray, "God
have your will in their life", I'll feel like I'm not pouring my heart
into asking Him to be in their life.
"Thy
will be done" Jesus taught us to pray. I think we are to pray for others to
recognize and grow in some spiritual way in accordance to God's pressure so His
will be done.
Paul's prayers exhibit so much of what I think my own
prayers should reflect. His language
reflects thoughts and yearning for the spiritual relationship of others to
God. "Our prayer is for your perfection"
(2 Cor 13:9); "that you may approve the things that are excellent, in
order to be sincere and blameless" (Phil 1:10-11); "may God Himself,
the God of peace, sanctify you through and through ..." (1 Thes
5:23); "that
our God would count you worthy of this calling,
and fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness and the work of faith with power"
(2 Thes 1:11); "that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in
all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the
Lord, fully pleasing Him, being
fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God"
(Col 1:9-10); "that He would grant you, according to the riches of His
glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that
Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and
grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with
all the saints what is the
width and length and depth and height — to know
the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the
fullness of God." (Eph 3:16-19)
Just in these few examples I get the sense that Paul is
praying for their inner being, their spiritual relationship, and their
spiritual work. Where is this element in
my prayers for others and myself?
Oswald Chambers comments, "'You ask and do not receive, because you
ask amiss . . .' (James 4:3). If
you ask for things from life instead of from God, 'you
ask amiss'; that is, you ask out of your desire for self-fulfillment. The more you fulfill yourself the less you
will seek God." I have to
wonder if I ask for others for my own self-fulfillment. I do not think so as I do not see how I have
something to gain other than the knowledge that God has worked in their life. But I also wonder if I do ask amiss many
times, not centering my prayer on the aspects of the only life that matters,
our spiritual life, concentrating on that work as Jesus did.
1 comment:
This is really deep. Thanks
I'll be studying for a while.
I do think everytime we take prayer requests at church its always about the sick and dying. I believe its because A) its selfless, so a popular topic - who would argue? and 2) we can't control it, so the only thing we can do is pray. I rarely if ever hear someone say "my friend isn't a Christian," or "I need to grow." Recently, however, Rew challenged the choir to be in prayer about the sermon from last week that included an alter call as Rew was convinced that someone needed to hear the call to come into relationship with Christ that day. Everyone was buzzing that Sunday about being in prayer since Wednesday. That tells me that with some spiritual leadership, our congregation is willing to focus and act accordingly. But I digress...
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