"A Praying Life" (chapters 16-18)

A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World

By Paul E. Miller

What We Don’t Ask For: “Our Daily Bread” - Chapter 16

• Most prayer requests are limited to sickness, joblessness, kids in crisis, and the occasional missionary.
• Jesus’ prayer for daily bread was an invitation to bring all our needs to him.
• Daily bread = “the bread I need for today; what is necessary for my existence today”
• We don’t ask because we feel self-confident in providing our needs.
• Often our need for daily bread opens doors to deeper heart needs for real food.
• Jesus used the miracle of feeding the 5,000 to teach them about the bread from heaven.
• What kinds of daily bread do we fail to ask God for?
• What kinds of heavenly bread do we miss because we don’t ask for our daily physical bread?

Material Things

• We think they are too mundane – too physical, not spiritual, not important
• We think they are too selfish.
  • Perhaps they are, but praying about them:
    • Invites God into our lives.
    • Involves God in our decisions.
    • Opens us up to our spiritual needs.
    • Causes us to abide – including God in every aspect of our lives.
• We think it makes us too vulnerable.
  • Praying about our physical needs invites God to rule our lives.
  • We are like the crowd who was fed the fish and bread: we want breakfast but we don’t want the soul food.
  • Left to ourselves, we want God to be a genie not a person.
  • The heart is one of God’s biggest mission fields.
  • Prayer to God about our physical things is not meant to isolate us from the counsel of other Christians.
  • If you isolate praying from the rule of Jesus by not involving other Christians, you’ll end up doing your own will.
  • It is possible to use prayer as a cover for “doing your own thing.”
  • We can mask our desires from even ourselves.
    

Wisdom: Too Unexpected

• When we need advice, we find a wise person, ask him or her a question, and listen to the answer. It seldom occurs to us to do this with God.
• It is easy to fall into the enlightenment mindset that the infinite God is not personally involved in our lives.
• The Scriptures teach us that God grants wisdom to those who ask.
• We often speak of guidance, but wisdom is richer and more personal.
• I don’t just need help with my plans (guidance); I need help with the right questions to ask and the direction of my heart (wisdom).
• God speaks wisdom to us through his Word and his Spirit.
• Seeking wisdom from God is not just seeking his advice; advice leaves me in control to take or leave the advice. Seeking God’s wisdom is bowing before God and abiding in him.
• Seeking God’s wisdom is seeking to be in harmony with our Creator.

 

What We Don’t Ask For: “Your Kingdom Come” - Chapter 17

• “Your Kingdom Come” has lost much of its significance because we have confused its meaning.
• The Kingdom of God is not limited to just religious or spiritual things.
• The Kingdom of God is not limited to religious institutions.
• The Kingdom of God is much more all-inclusive than any of these limited definitions.
• Praying “Your Kingdom Come” type prayers involves at least these kinds of prayers:
  • Change in Others
  • Change in Me
  • Change in Culture
    

Change in Others

• Too Controlling?
  • We do not pray regularly enough for God to change the hearts and behaviors of those around us.
  • Is this kind of a prayer seeking for control over another person?
  • No, it is entirely the opposite. The point of this kind of prayer is to shift control from us to God
• Too Hopeless?
  • We do not pray for God to change others because we have become cynical about the possibility of change.
  • Often, prayers for others end up changing us too. It causes us to reevaluate our own hearts.
  • Once we’ve learned that God loves us, we then need to learn to extend his love to others.
    

Character Change in Me

• Too Scary?
  • We know that if we pray for God to change us, he will. That is why we don’t pray for God to change us.
  • We are scared of what the process of change might be.
  • We also don’t want to admit that we need change.
  • Modern psychology tells us to affirm our feelings and emotions instead of seeking change.

Change in Culture

• Too Impossible?
  • We complain about things in our culture or the direction our culture is heading, but do we pray for specific changes in our culture?
  • Have we become too cynical about the possibility of change in wider areas of our culture?

 

What We Don’t Ask For: “Your Will Be Done” - Chapter 18

• Until we see how strong our own will is, we can’t understand the second petition of the Lord’s prayer— “Your will be done.”
• Sin is complicated. We are never a passive observer, dispensing wisdom and justice. We are part of the mess.
• This is why Jesus said, “Without me you can do nothing.”
• Accepting the place that God has given me (content in all situations), then a door is opened between my soul and God.
• The more we are in touch with the depth of our own self-will, the more we will see the need of prayer and abiding in Christ.
• The great struggle of my life is not trying to discern God’s will; it is trying to discern and then disown my own.

Our Self-Will

• Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) reveals much about the depth of our self-will.
• Jesus’ sermon deals with areas of our selfish desires: money, sex, power, fame, etc.
• Jesus closes all the doors to power and glory and selfish desire.
• Jesus then opens the door to prayer and tells you how he gets things done.
• When our self-will determines how we want others to be and act, we can even allow prayer to be another weapon in our arsenal of control.
• Self-will and prayer are both ways of getting things done.
  • At the center of self-will is me, carving a world in my image, but at the center of prayer is God, carving me in his Son’s image.
• When we pray “Your will be done” it can be scary, but in reality we are leaving the shaky foundation of our own self-will and entering the stability of God.
• Instead of trying to create our own story, we become content with God writing our story.
• Prayer becomes effective when we see our own self-will for what it is. It then opens the door to doing things through God.