In the beginning, God - prayer in relationship
A Vineyard pastor and a New York taxi driver were knocking on the pearly gates. St Peter opens up and says to the taxi driver, "Welcome, there's your cloud, just over there, waiting for you." Then he turns to the Vineyard pastor and says, "Sorry, we're full now." The pastor protests, "Whatdo you mean you are full? You just gave a place to the taxi driver but I'm a pastor, surely I get at least a little cloud?" Peter replies, "You did OK, you got a few people to pray on a Sunday but that taxi driver got all his passengers praying."
Lots of people pray for one reason or another, in one way or another. Over 75% of people say they pray at least once a week. What are they doing? To whom are they praying? Do they all believe in God?
The word prayer doesn’t start appearing until we are well into the Genesis stories. But relationship between God and man/woman and conversation between them happens right from the beginning. We learnt before that the God we worship is transcendent, above all things; but also immanent, amongst us.
Prayer takes place because he is enters that silent space between our understanding & experience and God. It comes out of relationship with him and time spent in his presence.
Mike Riddell calls it “entering the womb of silence in order to hear what is beyond words”.
So it consists of quiet and listening, but also questions and conversation, pleading and asking please, ranting and asking why, thanking and praising. It is conversation between us and God and sometimes it involves words.
Three weeks ago Alison and I were wandering around Boston with our sons – we noted the posters and banners everywhere publicising the Boston marathon. A fortnight later two bombs went off during the marathon right where we had been walking.
The twittersphere was flooded with the #prayforboston. For a while #prayforboston was the global trending theme on twitter. At one point it was being tweeted more than a million times an hour.
What does “pray for Boston” mean? On the same day there were explosions in Baghdad, Fallujah and Kirkuk in which 33 people were killed. We should pray for them too, shouldn’t we? What should we pray for Boston or Baghdad? Are we meant to pray for the place or the people? Which people? All of them? For the police? For the health services? For the bombers? How should we pray?
There is a strange story in Genesis 18 about Abraham praying for a city. He was praying for mercy – for that city.
It's fascinating and puzzling – it raises a lot more questions than answers for me, but let’s see what we can learn about Abraham’s prayer life.
1. WAITING AS WE PRAY
It seems like Genesis is often describing God appearing to Abraham, talking with him and guiding him. Actually, on average, it happens every 25 years. I suppose Abraham talked with God a lot without him appearing but nevertheless there were long periods when nothing much seemed to be going on.
With good friends we don’t always need to say much. We can just be with each other in silence.
Psalm 46:10, ‘Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.’
Sometimes praying involves waiting. Beryl has been telling me about a fresh awareness of God in her prayer life through being still and waiting. She was wary of some meditation techniques from previous experience but has found God revealing himself to her through regular times of silence.
Are you giving time to God – without the need for big experiences and encounters? It is an attitude of humility. What are you teaching me, saying to me God?
Wait for him as you pray.
2. WELCOMING AS WE PRAY
God turns up as a man with two angelic henchmen. Why? Why not on his own? It is a bit reminiscent of that verse I talked about last time from Genesis 3:9 where it describes going looking for Adam and Eve saying, “Where are you?” He is looking for conversation. I think the reason those words resonate so strongly with me is that they imply relationship. The creator looking for whom he has created. A father looking for his son and daughter, a brother looking for his sister, a woman looking for her friend. “Where are you?”
Are you welcoming or shutting up shop?
Some of you who have questions or who feel guilty have run away – avoided God not turned to him. Just like Adam and Eve. We all know how hard it is to re-build relationship with people who turn away from us. Children often react like that when something has gone wrong. Fortunately God comes calling – but we still need to step out from behind the bushes and say hullo.
Are you hiding like Adam & Eve, or on the lookout like Abraham?
Abraham fed them – as though they would need it. Why? I guess he knew who they were but he still wanted their company.
Are we making God welcome? Inviting him into our lives? “Why would he want to?” we think. But he does, he comes looking for us.
Welcome him as you pray.
3. PRAYING DESPITE OUR CIRCMSTANCES
Abraham didn’t allow his circumstances to get in the way of his relationship with God. He and Sarah were childless. Those of you who have experienced this know how devastating it is.
In addition, because God’s promises for his life looked as though they weren’t going to happen he must have been struggling with uncertainty. Not only were they dealing with the pain of childlessness they were dealing with what looked like promises that would be impossible to fulfil.
But Abraham doesn’t turn away from God until things improve; he welcomes him and enters into discussion with him.
King David sins and afterwards watches his son die. He still goes toward God in prayer & worship. Jesus can see the vultures circling for his body. What does he do? He gathers his close friends and prays. They don’t let their circumstances dictate their relationship with God.
What do you do when things are tough? When God’s promises seem distant possibilities? Do you turn away? Or do you wait expectantly and seek him out? Do you skip church and housegroup, let your devotional life slip? Or do you press in? Sharing your life and questions with those in your community of faith, calling on them for support & help & prayer.
Pray despite Your circumstances.
4. PRAYING THOUGH WE ARE NOT WORTHY
Abraham wasn’t very well behaved. He lied and cheated and slept with whoever was needed to try and make things happen. God ponders over whether or not to tell Abraham what he plans to do.
Doesn’t God know what to say? Is it a coin toss? God decides to tell Abraham but it wasn’t because he was a good guy but because God had made a promise to him of how he was going to use him.
How do you approach prayer when you know you have done wrong? Do you cover your shame with a fig leaf and hide in the bushes like Adam and Eve or do you believe God loves you and that Jesus died for and repent. Turn toward him. Like David when confronted about his adultery?
Pray even though you are not worthy.
5. PRAYING WITH PERSISTANCE
Abraham understood what God was planning to do and gets in his face. Blocks his path and starts to bargain. Extraordinary! And God allows himself to be beaten down in price (although we don’t exactly know what his original plan was). I think God loves that. I can just see a smile on his face as he sees this tribal chieftain trying to get his own way!
Does that mean we can negotiate good terms with God if we are cheeky enough? In the garden of Gethsemane Jesus knew what was coming and asked three times not to have to go through it. God didn’t bend to his request although he is without guilt and in perfect relationship?
We are finite, sinful, small-minded beings – in the sense that we cannot understand the mind of God who is infinite and perfect. So we come with many questions, and with our pleas for answers or justice or for mercy but we paddle in the shallows of a great ocean. We can’t know his ways or purposes and sometimes we just pray, with Jesus, “Not my will but yours be done.”
Do you persist in prayer or do you put up with what is happening?
There does come a point when the discussion is over and it is time to move on. Don’t make the prayer demand your on-going identity.
Pray with persistence, but stop when it is over.
6. PRAYING WITH QUESTIONS
Sometimes we are dealing with God about the effect and reason for something in the past and we are asking, “Why?”
Sometimes we are trying to change the course of events to suit us in the future and we are saying, “Please.”
Abraham is doing both here, he is aware of the horrific past of the city of Sodom but he knows his brother is living there. So he is asking “why let the past dictate the present?” and he is asking “please give my family special treatment.”
We have many questions when we talk with God. Why did that happen? Why did you let that person do that? When can I have this? Please don’t let that happen.
Just like Abraham here, David when his son was dying, Jesus when he faced the cross.
Sometimes we get answers, sometimes we don’t, sometimes the answers are what we want and sometimes not.
Jesus’ life ends with the unanswered question, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
God invites and wants our questions, they draw us into that space where words fail and we learn about who he is and we begin to hear his questions.
Pray with questions and pray even when they remain unanswered.
7. PRAY IN RELATIONSHIP
As we learnt previously, Genesis teaches us about an immanent God – not one who is distant and uninterested but one who is close and who invites us into everything – he wants relationship and prayer. He welcomes the questions and the pleading, the rants as well as the praise.
Because prayer is about knowing the person and being known by him. You get the sense from this story that Abraham is in a relationship with God.
C.S.Lewis says, “Prayer is not a machine. It is not magic. It is not advice offered to God.”
It is not like a slot machine into which, when you slide enough well shaped prayers, out pops the treat you have chosen. Or like a ordering some geraniums for the garden over the phone.
That is brilliantly illustrated in Bruce Almighty when Bruce clicks “Yes” to every prayer request, all the many millions, and chaos follows.
What would happen if Leeds were playing Norwich and I fasted and prayed that Leeds would win and Ben fasted and prayed that Norwich would win? One or both of us would be disappointed.
When a man asks a woman to marry him it is not simply a carefully formulated set of words which will produce a desired response. A marriage proposal is a question which arises out of thought and discussion and relationship.
Alison didn’t say yes when I asked her to marry me because there was some sort of magic power in the words, “Will you marry me?” We had been going out for years. We knew each other well and potential marriage had been in discussion amongst friends and family.
There is an association between the question and the answer - but not a causal link.
She didn’t say yes because I asked. You could as well say that I asked because she wanted me to and knew what the answer would be.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer went further, he said, “When our will, our whole heart, enters into the prayer of Christ, then we are truly praying. We can pray only in Jesus Christ, with whom we shall also be heard.”
What he is saying is that prayer takes place in relationship, in knowing God, through Jesus and with the help of this Holy Spirit. When we ask we do so because we know what he wants, and we ask because he wants us to ask and listen.
Pray in relationship
SO HOW DO WE FIND OURSELVES PRAYING TODAY?
Here are some ways to pray these days.
With silence, meditation, waiting. Just sitting, not needing words.
Telephone or text
Our communication is sometimes a bit distant – through telephone calls, texting or social media. Its effectiveness again relies on relationship and a hope that the other person is present in some way.
Sometimes prayer feels like that – it is all happening at our end, is there anyone there listening, or reading?
Letters
Maybe like a letter or an email. A longer, written conversation between friends about something. Thanks, questions and answer.
I do this a lot in the form of journaling. Most days I will jot down some thoughts as a way of praying – talking with God about things that are on mind or particular things I want to pray for. A lot of questions – which I sometimes look back on and see if, when and how he has answered.
Coaching
Often we need help from someone. How do I do this? What shall I do here? What do you think about this? And prayer feels like that sometimes, as though we are asking God to be a sort of coach or adviser helping us with a particular exercise or problem.
When we pray for someone by laying hands on them it feels a bit like a coaching relationship, God coaching us as we pray and ask his kingdom to come.
Chat
Often we have meaningful conversations when there are just a few friends gathered around a hot drink at the kitchen table. How are you doing with that issue? What shall we do about that? Can I tell you about my holiday, my family, my job, my hopes and fears?
That’s like a small group of some sort, maybe a housegroup or prayer triplet. Aware of the presence of God we open up on issues and pray with and for each other.
Community
There are times when it is less a conversation between a few people and more a corporate activity – when people gather to celebrate, when fans sing at the football or we watch in horror as a tragedy unfold on TV. We watch a film together or mourn at a funeral.
These events are expressions of relationship, questions and conversation. We experience prayer in this way in corporate worship as a church when we sing and pray and learn together. Our weeks of prayer and fasting are expressions of the community at prayer – together building relationship with God and together conversing with and listening to him.
CONCLUSION
Prayer takes many forms. I encourage you to:
· Wait in prayer
· Welcome in prayer
· Pray through circumstances
· Pray though you don’t feel worthy
· Persist in prayer
· Pray with questions
· Pray in relationship
Prayer is about welcoming relationship with God. Being in his presence, knowing him and being known. Saved through the sacrifice of his son, Jesus, we can boldly approach him. We can ask questions and enter that place of silence in which we wait for his Spirit to join in conversation with us, question us, change us and touch us in ways that are often beyond words.
David Flowers, 21/04/2013