"A Praying Life" (chapters 13-14)

A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World

By Paul E. Miller

 

“Why We Can Ask” - Chapter 13

 

• In contradiction with the prevailing thought of western culture, prayer is not just private and personal. Prayer is both private and public.
• Power in prayer comes from being in touch with one’s weakness.
• The persistent widow and the friend at midnight get access, not because they are strong but because they are desperate.
• Learned desperation is at the heart of a praying life.

 

An Infinite-Personal God

• Western culture conceives of God as infinite, but not personal (Deism).
• Non-western cultures conceive of God as personal but not infinite (Polytheism, one of many).
• Scripture teaches us that the one true God is both infinite and personal.
• An infinite God is personally involved in the details of our lives.
• Majesty and humility are an odd fit, and this is why we struggle in prayer. We don’t think God could be concerned with the puny details of our lives.
• Truthfully, more often than not we are more comfortable with a God who is distant than intimate.
• We are afraid of a God who is too close, especially a God we can’t control.
• A praying life opens itself to an infinite, searching God.
• We can’t do that without releasing control, without constantly surrendering our will to God.
• “Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” can be a scary prayer, because we have no control over the outcome.
• A praying life opens itself to an infinite, searching God.
• We can’t do that without releasing control, without constantly surrendering our will to God.
• “Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” can be a scary prayer, because we have no control over the outcome.

 

“How Personal Is God?” - Chapter 14

 

Complete Dependence

• A life that is completely dependent on God and his grace does not think of any matter as being too small to bring to God in prayer.
• Making distinctions in our minds about what is or isn’t big enough to bring to God implies that we can handle the small things and God can handle the big things. But aren’t we dependent on God for all things?

 

Disconnected from Real Life

• Prayer is not a zero-sum game. Praying that a fire truck isn’t headed to your house doesn’t mean that you are wishing it upon someone else.
• We need to submit to our infinite-personal God, but we still have the freedom to voice our desires to God.
• Jesus prayed, “take this cup from me” as well as “not my will, but yours be done.”
• It is possible for prayer to become “overspiritualized” when it becomes detached from the real world.
• There is no neat division between the physical/mundane and the spiritual.
• If we separate our mundane needs (doing) from God’s best gift, his loving presence (being), then we have overspiritualized prayer.
• The world has been shaped by the Enlightenment to think that the spiritual isn’t important.
• But the church has been influenced by Neoplatonism to think that the physical isn’t important.
• Jesus was the God-man, spiritual and physical. Jesus had real feelings and desires, and he was completely in tune with God his Father.
• Desire and surrender are the perfect balance to praying.

 

A Moment of Incarnation

• The wonder of the infinite-personal God is displayed, more than anywhere else, in the Incarnation.
• Prayer is a moment of incarnation—God with us—God involved in the details of my life.
• Sometimes we don’t pray with specificity and transparency, because we don’t want to risk our prayer not being answered.
• Our dislike of asking is rooted in our desire for independence.
• What do I lose when I have a praying life? Control, independence
• What do I gain? Friendship with God, a quiet heart, the living work of God in the lives of those I love.
• Essentially, in a praying life, I lose my kingdom and get his.

 

The Mystery of Prayer

• The way prayer works is something of a mystery, but if we try to figure out the mystery it will elude us.
• You can’t experience something and observe it at the same time.
• Prayer is not something to be observed or measured or tested, it is something to be lived in relationship with God.
• The closer something is to the character of God, the more it reflects him and the less it can be measured.
• The most precious things in life can’t be proven or observed directly.
• As soon as you take a specific answer to prayer and try to figure out what caused it, you lose God.
• We simply cannot see the causal connections between our prayers and what happens.
• Love is like prayer in that it can’t be measured or fully understood. It doesn’t make sense, analytically, for someone to give sacrificially to another without any hope of return.
• Love, like prayer, makes perfect sense when you realize it is a reflection of the divine image.
• The inability to see the connection between cause and effect is intrinsic to the nature of prayer because it is the direct activity of God.
• Sometimes the answer to our prayer began before we even prayed.
• The only way to know how prayer works is to have complete knowledge and control of the past, present, and future.
• If you are going to enter this divine dance we call prayer, you have to surrender your desire to be in control, to figure out how prayer works. You have to trust God.