Monthly Archive for September, 2009

Sometimes I wonder how in the world I will teach my children to pray when I’m feeling so weak at it myself.

I let worldly distractions, well, distract me. I get tired. I have something else to do with a deadline. I forget. I don’t know what to say. One million reasons exist for not praying some days. Praise God He loves us & sees us as lovely no matter how dark we are feeling or acting. (Song of Songs 1:5 & 6)

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.” ~Aristotle

Well, Mr. Aristotle, please tell me: how do I make my life a habitual song of praise & adoration to my Lord? How can I keep my spirit in constant communion with the One I love?

A little on my prayer history (so you know where I’m coming from):

One of my parents was raised Catholic & the other Lutheran, but neither really committed to their churches, & when they had us, decided not to attend or baptize us (I’m the oldest of 4 children) in either church, but instead to teach us what they knew about God. My parents told us the stories of the Bible they remembered learning, some prayers they had memorized, & also to pray whenever life warranted it (healing for a boo-boo or someone sick, financial problems, etc.). We prayed the standard before dinner & before bed. They also watched biblical movies with us & I accepted Jesus as my Savior during the crucifixion scene in “Jesus of Nazareth” when I was about 8 yrs old or so. I know that a church community is important, but I love my parents for doing what they felt was right for our family. All 4 of us now-adult children are Bible-believing Christians today.

The first time I felt the Holy Spirit I didn’t know I was encountering Him because I wasn’t even praying. I was about 15 yrs old & it was summer vacation so I was up late, maybe 4 or 5 a.m., playing Nintendo’s “Dr. Mario” in my brothers’ room. I used to play for hours at a time. I didn’t hang out with friends at the mall or talk on the phone. I was either reading, with my family, or playing puzzle games. Listening to Bryan Adams’ song “Heaven”, I thought about God & suddenly was overcome with His Spirit. I didn’t know what I was feeling, but I cried as I listened to the lyrics & felt God was singing it to me. My body played the game but I paid absolutely no attention to how amazingly I was winning. I could not explain it the next morning, but now I know Jesus was singing a love song to my heart & claiming me for His own.

When I went to college at a local university, in a weird twist, which I know was divine appointment, my dad & I met a campus minister. I joined that ministry in spring 1998 & met one of the other writers of this blog, Kevin. I never thought I would learn so much more about life outside the classroom rather than inside the university’s large, lecture halls. I’ve been really learning about a relationship with God ever since. I didn’t know we could hear God speaking to us in various ways until that spring of ’98 & was amazed when I first heard His beautiful whisper, “Follow Him. Give to Him”. I chose to get baptized & was flooded with dreams, learning about how God speaks to us all in the ways He chooses.

Eleven yrs later & many times I’m puzzled by His mysteries…I’m still learning that I need to make prayer more like a dialogue & less like me reading a list of to-dos to my Lord. Once in a while I get it right & walk away from the encounter with our conversation written (so I don’t forget), with His instructions & encouragement for me. Most days unfortunately, I don’t have this encounter. My heart longs for more of those purposeful, prophetic encounters when He dares to share a secret or 2 with me.

And so, now that I’m married, & a mom of an incredible 2 yr old son (yes, I know, I’m biased!) & 6 months pregnant with my second child, I have been trying to figure out how to teach my children to pray. In my blog posts, this is exactly what I’ll be discussing. The ups & downs, what works & what doesn’t (at least for us), my frustrations & “my successes” (meaning those wondrous times when my son surprises & teaches me, & I didn’t really do anything at all!)

My heart breaks for the little ones. Knowledge of their abuse &/or neglect is painful for me. I have grand ideas of how to change the world, if only I could, but in the meantime I’m starting at home. In order to make a real difference & teach the next generation to pray, I’m starting with my own little piece of it. It may be a drop in the bucket, but drops make ripples…

I’ll leave you with some Mr. Rodgers, because he got a lot of stuff right:
“Childhood is not just clowns and balloons. In fact, childhood goes to the very heart of who we all become.”

~Dalene

My journey in a life of prayer has definitely had it’s ups and downs.  I spent 2 years in a “greenhouse” of prayer, where my job was actually to pray.  I was employed as an intercessory missionary at IHOP-KC, and I absolutely loved it.  In retrospect, prayer was easy.  Though I walked through difficult seasons in those 2 years as I said “yes” to God’s process of changing and healing me, it was definitely “easy.”  To be surrounded by hundreds of other weaklings like myself who were all choosing to press in to God in prayer with their lives, was the biggest encouragement I could imagine to receive.  It was easy to stir myself up and press in again, because everyone around me was doing it too.

Then I left the greenhouse.  I moved home to Canada, got married, and locked in to a 9-5 job.  I suddenly had a job that didn’t make me pray, I had a lot less free time to myself than I had when I was single, and I was no longer surrounded by a few hundred people who were pressing in hard.  This has formed the context of my journey into a life of prayer in the 9-5 world.  The big question is: “how do I pick myself up, shake off the dust, and press in again day after day?  How do I keep moving forward with a life of prayer, now that I’m out of the greenhouse?”

I learned a paradigm-shifting truth over my first weekend in “the greenhouse”, which was ironically 8 years ago this week.  This truth has been my greatest source of encouragement as I run my race (which has felt more like dragging a cart through mud on most days).  I looked at prayer in the context of an incomplete view of Luke 18:1-8.  The first 5 verses are the parable of the widow who persistently nagged and bugged the unrighteous judge for justice in her plea, and he eventually gave in to her because that annoying persistence.  The problem is, I stopped at verse 5.  I thought that prayer was just me asking God for something until I finally wore Him down and He gave me my request.  The problem with this paradigm is that it leaves you feeling like a nuisance.  It actually made me feel almost like God’s adversary; that I had to wrestle Him into releasing something that He didn’t really want to give.  That’s no way to foster a life of prayer.  I don’t know about you, but if I get the feeling that somebody’s annoyed with me, I tend to look for friendship somewhere else.

So that first weekend, I took a class entitled “Bridal Intercession.”  The lesson I learned was centered in the story of Esther.  What I had never considered in Esther’s story is that when she approached the king with her request, she was also approaching the one who was greatly in love with her.  If you recall, the king had asked for all the beautiful, single women of the land (which was impressively expansive) to take a full year to make themselves beautiful, and then present themselves to him.  He picked Esther.  He loved her more than all the other women.  So the big lesson I learned was that God, the Judge, the One who hears my prayers, is madly in love with me.  When Esther approached the king, she had not seen him for a full month.  Even though I go through dry seasons where I lag in my commitment to prayer, I can have confidence that He still loves me.  My favourite verse from the Song of Solomon is: “O my dove…let me see your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet and your face is lovely” (SOS 2:14).  No matter where I’m at, or how far I’ve been away, He is still captured by one glance of my eyes.  He loves it each and every time I turn to Him.  And I have found that if I can remind myself of this fact, in the face of all the condemnation and guilt I feel for falling short and choosing worthless, fleeting things instead of communion with the One who loves me, then I can easily get back to living a lifestyle of prayer.  I don’t know about you, but if I get the feeling that somebody’s REALLY happy to see me, I tend to spend as much time with them as I can.  I’m a real sucker for love and acceptance.

So I encourage you to fight to remind yourself of this fact:  that God is deeply in love with you, and that He actually moves at the sound of your voice.  Even if you feel condemned over a lack of pursuit, it’s okay!  He gets it!  Jesus walked in our shoes, He knows the weakness of our flesh and the temptations we face.  And just like the father of the prodigal son, He runs to us when we turn to Him again.  We take 1 step, He takes 10.  So if you keep falling off the bandwagon (like me), take heart:  He still REALLY likes you, and He still wants to hear your voice and see your face in the secret place.

- Brad