HELP! I Don't Know How to Pray!

I'm staring into space again. I'm supposed to be praying, but honestly I don't know how to pray. My sister and brother are gone, I'm having relationship issues with Kim, Lucy's making some bad life choices, Renee has health issues, Michelle is struggling with depression, and I'm supposed to be praying for all of them, but honestly I just don't know how. There is so much I could be praying for, yet here I am struggling to pray. How do I pray for others? 

I’m sure at some point in your life or perhaps right now you can relate to my own situation of ‘prayer uncertainty’. I had gone through the easy prayers "Please help so-and-so, protect blank, heal you-know-who--but beyond that I didn't know what was acceptable to pray. It was at that critical point in my spiritual life that I learned to pray the word; my prayer life flipped upside down. 

I must share that a lot of what I learned about prayer I gleaned from reading “A Praying Life”. Praying the word did three things in my life:

1. Praying the Word made me confident in prayer. As Don Whitney says “Can you have any greater assurance that you are praying the will of God than praying the Word of God?” There is no fear involved when I pray the word, no question of whether it's 'ok' to pray for this or that--I have confidence in prayer because I'm praying the very words of God! 
2. Praying the Word taught me how to pray. Scripture is full of models of how we are to pray. From the Old Testament prayers and psalms to the Lords prayer and Paul’s prayers in the New Testament. The biblical authors are constantly praying to God because they see their need for him. As I have prayed the word, I have learned what prayer means from the best prayer warriors. 
3. Praying the Word requires you to learn the Word; I can’t pray for what I don’t understand. Praying the word caused me to be intimate with the Bible. I wasn't just reading a text, I began to really think upon it and in turn see God more deeply. The more I learned about God in his word and more I knew what caused his heart grief, what he was worthy of and what I should change in my own life. In brief the more I read the Bible the more I ran to Jesus in prayer. 

MY CHALLENGE TO YOU

If you’re struggling to pray, I challenge you to read through a Psalm a day focusing on how you can pray the Psalm for yourself, friends, unbelievers & the world. Pay attention to the life sustaining character of God—pray that you and your friends would experience that character. Look at the effects of sin and pray that God would protect you and your friends from sin. See the satisfaction found in Jesus and pray you & your friends would be satisfied in Jesus. 

Are You Thirsty?

Over the summer I spent a month in the desert. Oh not a spiritual desert, mind you, a physical desert—and boy was it HOT. Less than 120 degrees was a cool day. Of course, being the adventurous type, I would valiantly march outside in spite of the heat to view the city, only to run back inside shortly after desperately longing for a cup of water.

If you haven’t been in a desert than imagine with me a bleak dry place scorching with heat, gasping for life that comes from water. Desperately crying out for water, according to Psalm 63, is the longing our souls are to have for Christ.

Psalms 63:1 says “O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you; as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.”

Psalms 63 gives us three ways we can choose to increase our thirstiness for Christ.

• Seek: “earnestly I seek you” (v.1) When you are parched the need for water drives you to seek unendingly for it. Psalm 63 calls us to passionately seek for God to fill us. We seek after Christ by being constant in reading his word.
• Look: "I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory” (v.2) We increase our desire for God by choosing to look at him. Thirsting after Christ is a choice. Just like we choose what movie we watch or book we read we can choose to focus on Christ. Choosing to fight the battle of gazing at Christ results in a desire to continue beholding Him.  We look at Christ by looking at God’s revealed character in his word.
• Remember: “When I remember you upon my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night” (v.6) Remember the past grace God has showed you in salvation or during a hard circumstances. Meditate specifically on the character God has showed you through circumstances, prayer and through his word, whether mercy, grace, faithfulness or love.

While in the dessert I found the longer I stood in the heat of the sun the thirstier I became. Nothing felt better than walking into an air-conditioned room to drink a cup of cold water. What’s interesting about Psalm 63 is that David was in the desert of Judah when he composed it. David knew how it felt to be physically in need of water and the wonderful satisfaction of being filled with it. David's physical need to be filled with water paralleled his spiritual need to be filled with Christ. David was desperately thirsty. 

The beautiful result of being thirsty for Christ by taking time to seek, look & remember Him is that you are filled with Christ! And as David shows us in Psalm 63, being filled with Christ produces an out-pouring of thanksgiving for Him “my lips will praise you” (v.3) “I will bless you” “in your name I will lift up my hands” (v.4) “I will sing for joy” (v7) “the king shall rejoice in God” (v.11)

QUESTIONS TO PONDER:

• Are you thirsty for God?
• Do you find yourself overflowing with thanksgiving for Jesus?

A Day at the Movie Theater & God's Love for Me

On New Years Day I went to the movie theater. Now I don't go the movies very often, so it was super fun! The movie was nice, but what struck me the most was the previews.

A majority of the previews featured a catastrophe coming to take over the world, or something like that. All were full of violence; violence done in the name of defeating evil and defending good. Most singled out a seemingly ordinary person who would shape the world's future. And all tried to answer the questions "where did the world come from?" and "why are we here?"

It may sound funny, but I was reminded in those few previews of the lostness in our world. We all desire to know where we came from. We all long to have purpose. Something found only Christ; a Christ the world rejects. The world finds its purpose in thwarting evil, so they naturally think violence is the answer. If we defeat the bad guys we'll have peace. If I'm not careful I start functioning as if I could destroy all the evil surrounding me. I think "If I could just change this situation... I would be happy." 

The gospel tells me that the biggest evil around me is me. It's the hidden evils of my heart that create the great chasm between me and God. Paul describes himself in 1 Timothy 1:15 as the foremost of sinners because he sees his sin in light of God. I once heard Richard Chin say that, “the only thing we contribute to our salvation is our own sin." 

I really wish I could be the hero of my life, I wish I could protect myself and the world from evil.  But the truth is my sin is the very reason I need to be saved. And no matter how much I'd like to be the hero of my own story I cannot save myself from my own heart.

That is why the gospel is such good news! Jesus didn't conquer sin by physically tearing apart his enemies. He didn't grab an automatic weapon and run around shooting his enemies while dodging bullets.  He conquered evil in a way that seems so backwards to the world and to me--with love.  He died so that I could be saved from myself. Jesus conquered sin with love. 1 John 4:10 has new meaning to me: "In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins."

Oh how grateful am I for the undeserved steadfast love of the Lord!

QUESTIONS TO PONDER: 

• Do you want to be the hero of your own story? 
• Do you think if something outside of you (a person or circumstance) changed everything would be ok? 
• Have you ever thought about how backwards God's love is to the world?
• Have you confessed to God that you can't save yourself?