How to Pray for Another Person

In every church there's a prayer list people with special needs, who we are to pray for daily.  This is harder than it sounds.  If all we do is recite to God a list of names, prayer seems a monotonous and futile chore.  After all,  God knows these people better than we do! While I would never suggest we not pray for them,  I have to ask--how effective can such an mechanical approach to prayer be?  Praying for someone is more than reading off a list.  It has to be something deeper.
 Praying for people is more than praying for their problems.  Frankly, we can never be sure that we know the real problem, because it is often not what it appears to be. Real prayer implies special interest in individuals.  Don't just pray for the lost, pray for your lost neighbor next door. Don't just pray for the poor--pray for the beggar you met on the street. Prayer is an empathic process in which we become acquainted and involved with real people as we pray.The Lord's prayer in Matthew 6 gives us a pattern for prayer not only for overall needs, but also for individuals.  

 "Our Father in Heaven"

Don't rush into in prayer for others.  Take time to praise God first.  Prayer is not just wishing someone well, but bringing them to the throne of God.  Before we do this we need to get to the throne of God ourselves, through praise and worship.  Do not pray for an individual need until you have first settled your heart in thoughts on God.  Our impatience wants to be done with prayer, to rush in, leave our concerns, and get out.  But effective prayer lingers in the mind on the nature and thoughts of God.
 "Hallowed be Thy name"  

Spend time in graceful contemplation of the person we are remembering.  The name of God is His nature, His divine attributes. As we pray for an individual, we need to see them as an expression of God's divine nature.   

Sin affects us all, and we are thorough sinners, but we are also made in the image of God.  God's forgiveness in Christ makes it possible for us to overlook the sins of individuals and focus on their God-like qualities.
This is empathy, the ability we have to see the world though others' eyes.  Empathy is an essential part of a true ministry of intercessory prayer. 
Before we pray for needs,  seek to understand the world from that person's perspective. Respect the things about that person which are good,  holy and truthful.  Try to imagine what it is like to feel what they feel, see what they see, and do what they do.  Celebrate the things about them which celebrate God.  Youth reflects the power of God, Age reflects the wisdom of God.  Creativity celebrates the creativity and diversity of God.  Learn to appreciate the things which are like Him in all people. 
This can be done for our enemies as well as our friends. It is good to remember that even the worst person on earth still bears something of the name of God in them.  For that reason, they are deserving of our love and appreciation.
"Thy Kingdom Come"   

Though we all are possessed of a portion of divine qualities, we are all fallen short of it.  Imagine what the person who is the object of your prayer might be, if he or she were fully in line with what God had for them.  Then, turn those thoughts to God. 
"Thy will be done"

 In this fallen world, we are all both sinners and victims.  Some of what happens to us in this world was not God's perfect will for us, but the result of our interaction with fallen people and fallen creation.  Pray that God's perfect will be done in their lives, so they can have the potential to realize their best and most perfect lives.
"Give us Thy daily bread" 

  Here is where we get into the physical and emotional needs which this person has, whether it be for healing, food,  a job,  etc.  We are praying not just for providence, but for them to have enough, so they can fully realize the life that can be theirs, if they live in submission to Him, and His kingdom.
"Forgive us our debts"  

 Unforgiveness holds us back from God's promises in our lives,  both our own unforgiveness, and not being forgiven.  It is impossible to pray for a person with all our hearts if we do not forgive them from the heart.  Pray that God will free them from the bondage of past sins,  both their own and others.
"Lead us not into temptation"  

 A person cannot realize theif full potential in God's kingdom if he or she falls into temptation. Pray that the person will have the strength to resist the false trails along the way to a full and meaningful life in submission to God.

"Deliver us from the Evil (one)"   

This is a recognition that there is an enemy--Satan--who is trying his hardest to get us off the path.  All prayer is warfare, since it is our own direct defense against Satan. Pray for protection, and thank God for the authority against the evil one that was given to us through the blood of Christ. 

Prayer for one person is not as easy as a short prayer lifted up now and then. To truly and fully pray for God's blessing takes time effort, involving the mind, will, feelings, and imagination.  To pray for others is not something we should take on lightly. But as we practice, it gets easier. 

My prayer is that I might have someone--anyone--who would take on the burden of prayer on my behalf, and that God would use me to take on that burden for some others.  Then I can start to think of them the way God sees them, as His children who need His help to be fully what He called them to be. 

The dry soul

Since this April, I have diligently pursued the spiritual disiciplines.  Since then, I have noticed a difference in my walk with God.   I have gained much more insight into many areas of faith. My latest writing project, The  Faith Matrix, my workbook  Prayer- the Adventure,  as well as my course on spiritual disciplines have all grown out of this interest.   God continues to open up new ideas in this area, and I hope soon to write about ideas that may tie it all together. 

One thing I am finding, though is  that spiritual disciplines are not easy.  Just as your body gets tired from exercise, and your mind gets tired from study, your spirit can get tired from  seeking God. The spiritual life is no bed of roses.  It involves a lot of down and dirty wrestling with sin,  judgementalism,  impure motives, and a host of other problems.

There's a famous painting called The Temptation of St Andrew. He was one of the first hermits  in church history.  He's sitting on a rock praying, and all around him are hosts of devils of every kind, trying to tear him away. I haven't been a hermit,  but even  at home, trying to pray, I have experienced a few of their brothers bothering me. 

The hardest part prayer is when you seek some experience of God, and come up dry. Some times He seems to be right at your shoulder. Other times,  your prayers seem to be careening off the ceiling. 

I try to think of what to do. Maybe I should get my guitar and sing. Maybe I should just read more, pray harder,  study a little deeper, get quieter, etc.  But none of this works. There seems to be nothing I can do.  Nothing.

As unpleasant as it is to be separated from the feeling of God,  though, there is one good part.  When I realize that there is nothing I can do, I also realize that there is nothing I need to do.  We are not promised heavenly bliss all the time, nor that we will have ecstatic experiences. If it  happens,  then good. If not--well, so what?

The greatest danger in these dry spells is losing our focus. My focus shouldn't be on what feels right, but on what is right.  Faith is not in a feeling, it's in God.  Sometimes  God takes away the feeling so I can learn to trust Him.  

When my kids were younger, we'd go on a trip, and they would pepper me with questions.  "How much farther?" they would ask.  "Where are we now?" I'd give them the road atlas.  "What state is this?" they would say.

I don't blame them for being curious, but after a while, it could be annoying.  I would want to shout to the back seat  "If you're not driving, you don't need to know!"    If God is in control of my life, then why do I need to know what happens next?   Could it be that I don't fully trust him?   I want constant reassurance because My faith is not what it should.  The only way it can improve is to sit back and allow God to reveal Himself when and how He wants to.  He knows my need for His presence and He will show Himself when I need it. 

Even when I am a dry soul, I'm God's.  Even when I don't feel Him, I can believe  in  Him.  The feelings may come later.  I can trust Him today. 

Chloe's Violin

My granddaughter Chloe is learning to play the violin.

Chloe is a really delightful child, full of passion and sassy.  She is beautiful, witty, and tempramental.  She loves music;  she always has.  She comes over to my house and wants to play on my guitars. I sometimes let her plunck on the cheaper of the two, and she would say "Grandpa, do you like my music?"

One day I answered "That's not music."

She got a look on your face like I  had just hit her in the gut. "Isn't it beautiful?"

"You are beautiful," I  answered. "That's just noise."

It's fun to watch Chloe, in whatever she does--laugh, dance,  beat on a drum, play the guitar. I could watch her for hours.  Everything she does is a dance to me, every word she says is music.

But plunking on my guitar is not music. 

Now, Chloe is learning to play the violin--and she's making music and it really is beautiful--sometimes.

I am a little concerned about that.  Can a little girl with such a fire for life channel that fire through a bowstring?  Will she be enthusiastic about it for a while, until it turns into work,  and then let it drop going back into the fantasy of pretend music, or will she go on to the place where she will make beautiful music as a virtuoso violinist?  Will the music she feels inside of her own heart go out to others with  the same zest she feels inside?  I hope so. But I know for that to happen, she must work long and hard,  disciplining herself to get the music out.

When we are young, we have music  inside--we all do.  We want to let that music out, but we do not have the ability.  We plunk tunelessly on guitars and pianos,  we make karate kicks at invisible opponents,  we run marathons in our imaginations or score winning touchdowns.  Other people call it "pretending" but it's not really a pretense. It is our attempt to display the image of God we know inside.  We were made to do great things, to master the universe, each in our own unique way.

But we find we can't do it without discipline.  At some point,  fantasy runs into reality, and we give up at the difficulty of living. Unexpressed, the music dies.  As we grow older, we forget the tune. 

There is a natural rhythm in live, a kind of "donut" of passion with a hole in the middle called "drudgery." We begin a new endeavor enthusiastically.  We are eager to pick up a musical instrument, take up exercise, or to begin a quiet time with God.  In our minds, we imagine ourselves to be a great musician,  athlete, or saint. That imaginary future success sustains us for a while, and we feed off the joy of the imaginary, but it isn't real. It's not even a real hope, but a wish,  so it doesn't last long.  After a day, a week, or month, we start to get bored with it.  Our passion goes on to something else.  We get bored, and what began as  music soon becomes a mindless drone.

But we keep plugging away,  not because we want to, but because we know we should.  We make a choice of passions. We are tempted by other things which promise a momentary joy, but we do not give in to them. We deny them, because we know that all temptation is a form of adultery, a call to cheat on our first love.  We keep at it, running laps,  scratching on the violin,  reading the Bible through the "begat" chapters and the endless complaints of the prophets,  until somewhere inside the drudgery we see the glimmers of real music and real joy, not the pretend joy of the beginning but the realized joy of knowing what we are doing and doing it well. 

I heard a statement recently about practicing music, that if you really want to be good at is you should practice two hours a day. The first hour is rote repetition, scales, skill building, while the second hour is pure joy.  We can't get to the joy part without the drudgery.  A ballerina spends hours practicing forms, bending at the bar,  starving herself,  building endurance,  so that she can perform magic on the stage.  A magician practices his sleight of hand until his fingers almost fall off, and until he can't stand to look at another card.  Then he starts to do real magic.  A saint gets callouses on his knees  in silence--fasting, praying, reading,  meditating, until he can come to that place of seeing visions of third heaven.  There is no easy way through the dark night of the soul, but there is a fiery dawn on the other side. 

So Chloe is learning the violin.  One day, it may sit alone in her closet gathering dust, like my guitar did for years, her mother's viola, or that old exercise machine we were going to use every week.  I hope not, though. I hope she will be wiser than we are while she is young enough to enjoy it; that she will work through the drudgery of discipline until the music she has on the inside can come out of her fingers and amaze the world. 

A Call for Revival

In ten days,  my Presbytery will meet in Columbia, SC.   As we come up on our meeting, the need for special prayer seems more and more imperative. Do we really believe prayer can make a difference, or don't we? 

 What else can we do?  Programs haven't helped.  I get the impression that we are becoming increasingly irrelevant to the society we inhabit. 

I have never  seen a great awakening of the Spirit myself, though I have often prayed for the privilege.  But it did come close once, though.  In 1971 I attended Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky. The year before, on  February 4, 1970,  the Spirit of God sent revival to that institution. 

It began at a chapel service at nine in the morning. The Dean felt led to open the pulpit for testimony.  The service ended 184 hours later.  For eight days, twenty-four hours a day,  student after student testified, wept, and rededicated their lives to Christ.  By the end of the week, revival spread from the college to churches and colleges across the country  The revival at Asbury has been credited as a major spiritual influence in the Jesus Movement of the 1970's.

I wasn't there, but I came the next year.  It was real--in fact, it had not really stopped when I arrived on campus a little over a year later.   Here are some of the comments made by people who were there.

“The emphasis was never upon the gifts of the spirit. The emphasis was upon..sin. The need for repentance, need for restitution, the need for repairing relationships, human being to human being and the need for bringing alive into obedience the need for the highest and the best.”

“The amazing thing was a person would tell what had happened, it would be recapitulated, as a person would go somewhere and tell what God had done in his auditorium … it would

take place in the church where the person was telling it!”

“The less impressive the student was the more effective an instrument he was”

Sounds  exciting--yes?

This revival--like all revivals--came as a sovereign move of God.  No one can make revival come.  Only God can bring it. However, this doesn't mean he brings it without us playing a part. Revivals usually comes because Christians seek it--not just casually, but desperately and  deeply. In other words, revivals come in response to our passionate seeking after God. 

This was true of the Asbury Revival.  Robert Coleman in his account of it in One Divine Moment referred to the prayer that was going up before the revival broke.

Before the revival there had been a sense of general spiritual laxity at the college.  Professors had been accused of teaching false doctrine.  Financial scandals had rocked the administration.  More than that,  some among the faculty and student body had felt the only solution to their problems was to get serious with God.

So they reached back into their historical roots , all the way back to the early Methodist tradition.  The Methodists began with  prayer meetings on Oxford campus, where people came together for regular prayer, confession, and the practice of spiritual disciplines.  A small group of people influenced the world  through seeking the Spirit.

A few on the Asbury campus sought to emulate that early Methodist example.  Here are the words from someone who was there:

“How did it come? What called it?…Our need.”

“We had some students interested in prayer. In October before the Spirit came in February six students came together, banded together in what they called ‘the great experiment.’”

“They covenanted for 30 days to take 30 minutes every morning and spend in prayer with the Word, writing down what truth they got from the Word. They were to obey that day, sharing their faith somewhere in the course of the day, and meeting once a week for those 30 days and checking up on each other to see that each one had done his disciplines that week. So for 30 days they met that way and they worked that way.”*

As these students met, a sense of anticipation filled them.  And in time,  God answered them with revival. 

I am not sure that a sudden revival in itself is the best answer to our problems==but then I am not the Holy Spirit. It may be that such an outpouring of the Spirit is exactly what we need.   I am sure, however that the flame of the Spirit must be sought, nurtured, and fanned by the practice of spiritual disciplines and mutual support.  I truly believe that the shallow,  passionless,  listless,  cheap grace which marks most of our attempts at revival will make little difference in the end.  If we do not sense our need, we will not welcome the cure when offered.

It seems to me that the only way we will transform the world is through a faith that has more resolution and passion than the world has for sin.  If the world around us stubbornly persists in godlessness, then we must persevere even more in godliness.  It the world has passion for violence,  sex, and power,  then we must have even more passion for devotion, obedience, and prayer.  That requires the Holy Spirit, and a genuine effort to be seek His face. 

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*Pasted from <http://kimolsen.wordpress.com/2008/06/24/the-asbury-revival-the-great-experiment/>

Prayer Skills 1: Praise

Today I want to invite you to join me on an experiment in prayer. The goal of our experiment is to determine whether or no we can learn more from prayer by doing it than we can by teaching about it. For the next five weeks, we are going to treat prayer not as a subject, but as a skill. We are going to practice prayer, and hopefully get it right.


Whenever we learn a skill, whether it be playing football, learning guitar, or dancing, the only way to learn is to break it down into its component parts, and to practice them separately. If we are learning to play football, we repeatedly practice blocking, then kicking, tackling, passing, and so forth. Then we put them all together and practice it as a whole. If we are acting in a play, we first learn our lines, and then our blocking, and then we practice the play together. If we learn dancing, we practice the steps without music, and then we practice them together.

If we regard prayer as a skill, then we must first break it down into its parts, look at each sub-skill separately. Not everyone will break it down in exactly the same way. In our case, I want to break prayer down into five distinct sub-skills—praise, thanksgiving, confession, petition, and listening. There are other things to be learned, but these five sub-skills are the foundation for everything else.

The first of these is praise. Psalm 100:1-4

Make a joyful shout to the LORD,

all you lands!

2 Serve the LORD with gladness;

Come before His presence with singing.

3 Know that the LORD, He is God;

It is He who has made us,

and not we ourselves;

We are His people

and the sheep of His pasture.

4 Enter into His gates with thanksgiving,

And into His courts with praise.

Praise is how we enter God’s court. As such, it is the most important skill we must develop if we are to truly worship God. It is the door to the presence of God. Prayer is not simply a method of meditation, neither is it a wish for the Great Santa in the Sky. It is talking to a living, loving God.

But how often does prayer actually feel like a relationship? Many times, prayer seems like one-way communication. It is something we do because we are supposed to do it, or because we are in trouble. We come and go in prayer, but we never feel like we’ve really encountered God. If we truly met God in prayer, why would we want to stop praying?

The problem with most of our prayers is that we rush into them unprepared. God is ready to talk with us anytime and anywhere, so we assume that we are always ready to talk with Him. This is not so.

Suppose on the spur of the moment, that a husband decided to take you to a fancy restaurant. He calls ahead, and finds that no reservation is needed. They have plenty or room. The restaurant is ready for them any time. But is the wife ready to go? No! She doesn’t feel right going to a fancy restaurant without doing her hair and makeup. The restaurant is ready, but she must prepare.

God is ready to receive our hearts. But our hearts are not ready to enter His presence. We need to get into the right frame of mind to talk to God.

I don’t feel that it is necessary to dress for church. Other people do. I respect that. But I do feel that is is necessary whenever we come to God to first take time and prepare by understanding who God is what He is like. Our heart must be prepared to come into His presence.

I play the guitar. But when I pick up the guitar, I am not ready to play a turned. Before I do, I must tune the guitar. Then, I must do finger exercises to get m fingers limber.

We are all instruments of worship, just like a piano or a guitar. If we are to glorify God. we must first get in tune. We don’t want to rush into His presence hitting wrong notes. But if we can first tune ourselves to God, then we will get so much more out of our prayer.

So for this first week of our experiment, I’m going to ask you to do something unusual. For this one week, do not pray for anything. That may seem impossible. It may even seem blasphemous. After all, aren’t we supposed to ask God for what we need? Of course we are, and we can throughout the day. But God knows what we want even before we ask. I want you to set aside some portion from the day, if you do not already do so, for spending time with God. During that time only in this first Week, do not ask anything from God. Piece by piece I want us to build the skills that make for a meaningful prayer time, and the first of those skills is praise. All I want you do to for the first week is just praise God. Tune your heart for praising the Lord. What is praise—the easiest definition I can give of praise is acknowledging the personal attributes of God. It is thanking God for who He is. In this, it is different from thanksgiving, which recognizes what God has done for us. We are not ready for that, though until we first understand Who we are thanking. For now, we concentrate on His person and attributes.

Why? Because that is how we get tuned. Let’s imagine four-strings on a musical instrument. Before we can play it, we must first tune it, to get just the right pitch.

The first string is the body string. This is the where, when, and how of prayer.

We can pray anywhere, and at anytime. We can pray on our knees, sitting, or standing. But the way we pray really does matter. We can’t just pray in the shower, or in the bathroom or while going down the road. But when our bodies and minds are involved in other actions, we are not fully attuned to Him. A guitar string cannot be tuned to two notes at once. Neither can our bodies and our souls be fully engaged in praising God and doing other tasks. We need to set aside a time place for prayer.

What time, and where? There is no fixed rule on this Just so long as during that time that is all we are doing. The saints of the Bible seemed to set aside as a minimum a morning and evening time for prayer.

What should our bodies be doing while we are praying. People assume various postures for prayer. I do not know that God had a preference for any of them Just as long as our bodies do not distract, but rather enhance our hearts as we pray. We must turn off he television, the radio, and other distractions. We need to find a way to hold our bodies that doesn’t make us forget why we are there.

Then there is the head string. We must remember who we are talking to. A common practice of many is to read the Bible when we pray. This can help us focus on God. But even more important than reading the Word, It is to focus on what kind of God we are addressing.

How big is your God? If we understood better the greatness of God, we would be more inclined to be silent before Him

Then, there is the heart string. Reformed Christians emphasize the primacy of the Word of God. This perspective is inadequate, though. Prayer is like any other relationship. It is emotional. God wants us to love Him, not just know Him.

Praise is by its very nature an exercise of the emotions. That is why singing and music is so much a part of worship. Music expresses the heart, not just the feelings.

Who wants to be in a love affair that is not emotional? Who wants a relationship with children that has no laughter? Who gets a pet for logical reason, and does not appreciate the joy of that relationship? Relationships require emotion to survive. If our hearts are not stirred towards Him, then worship becomes a dry and onerous duty.

How do we keep the heart in worship? There are many ways. Music is a big one. Listening to moving Christian music, or even better singing to Him, will provoke joy in us, as we celebrate His Greatness. Poetry is one of my favorite ways. So is art. An appreciation of God’s creation provokes joy in us.

Emotion that is shared grows. For that reason, the psalmists tell us to praise God to each other. Expressing our emotions regarding God causes others to experience those emotions along with us. If religion is boring, controlled, and solemn, few people will leave uplifted. But if our worship contains appropriate emotion, then others will share in the emotional praise of God.

The fourth string is the Spirit string. Paul wrote “I will pray in the spirit, I will pray in the mind, also. I will sing in the Spirit, I will sing with the mind also.” We should not treat worship as an emotional thrill ride. We should remember that it is the Holy Spirit who wants to speak through us and to us in worship.

The greatest hindrance to worship is the fear of losing control. We want to know what is coming next. But it is the when God surprises us that are the more gratifying.

When we open ourselves to the Spirit, we never know what will happen. He surprises us with blessings and bliss. But we must be willing to allow Him to do what He wants.

For this week, just praise God. Don’t ask for anything, don’t confess to anything, don’t even thank God. Just find a time every day to concentrate on His divine attributes,. I promise you that it can change our lives.

Confessions of a failed prayer warrior

As a pastor, I have preached and taught hundreds of times on the subject of prayer. I know all about its importance. I understand the vital need for it. I realize that prayer is the most important thing we do.

I know all about prayer. The problem is I don’t always practice what I preach. I read somewhere that the average pastor spends no more than three minutes a day in prayer. Many days, I am that average pastor. As much as I talk about prayer, I often still neglect it. I can talk the talk, but I fail to walk the walk.

Why don’t I? For the same reasons as everyone else. I get busy. I get distracted. I get bored. Other people tell of the mystical joys of prayer--I fall asleep. Other people write of the closeness their closeness to God—my prayers seem to hit the ceiling. When it comes to prayer, I can be a real hypocrite.

I think part of our (by that I mean my) problem with prayer is that we have heard much of prayer, but have never actually learned to do it. Prayer is not subject to be studied but a skill to be learned. When Jesus’ disciples asked Him “Teach us to pray” they did not have in mind “Teach us about prayer.” Every believer understands something about the meaning of prayer. It isn’t the meaning of prayer we have problems with—it’s the practice. The disciples lived in a day when rabbis didn’t just teach on prayer. They trained their disciples to pray. Every rabbi had a set of particular actions he required his disciples on prayer. Some had their disciples pray two times a day, others three. Some had their disciples kneel, others stood. Some raised their hands; others put them across their chest. All of them gave their disciples specific prayers to pray.

This has been the case for most of history. Catholics cross themselves, genuflect, and kneel as church-sanctions methods of prayer. Charismatics raise their hands and speak in tongues as methods of prayer. Most Protestant groups have stayed away from requiring such practices because we do not want to become rigid or legalistic. In doing so, we have often turned prayer into an intellectual exercise rather than a life skill.

We do have our rituals. We practice prayers before meals, prayers at the beginning of meetings, and so forth, without thinking of what we are doing. Our prayers resemble all our other prayers.

Eventually the form becomes more important than the actions. Then we think that the form itself is what God requires. If we don’t say it right, God will not hear us. If we don’t have a prayer before we eat, we might get food poisoning!

I’m not suggesting that we do away with these invocations and blessings—far from it! We need these rituals. They help to remind us of God’s presence in all life. I merely suggest that the practice of prayer is more than this. Prayer is a skill. We learn prayer by doing, not studying.

How does a person learn to play a musical instrument? By practice of basic techniques. Sometimes, the practicing seems boring and unfruitful. We are often tempted to quit. But if we continue to practice, eventually we will get better.

The same thing is true of prayer. Effective prayer requires that we practice it on a regular basis every day, and that we learn skills and techniques of prayer that will help us become deeper Christians

It is possible to backslide in prayer, just as it is possible to backslide in dieting and exercise. (I know I have, many times). That is why we need accountability and coaching from others. But eventually, we get better.

Martin Luther once famously said that his responsibilities were go great and the demands on his time were so severe, that he could not help but spend at least four hours a day in prayer. Not only do we not do this—we don’t even understand it! How can praying gain us time, instead of losing it.

The goal of this study is to help us all (including myself) gain or regain the skills necessary to become effective warriors in prayers. It will require working on it daily. It cannot be accomplished on a single hour once a week, but it has to be practiced on a daily, regular basis.

So where do we begin? First, we need to acknowledge the basic understandings of prayer that the Bible teaches, and that most of us understand.



The Basics

1. Prayer is talking with God. Not to Him, necessarily, but with him. In effective prayer, there is as much listening ad talking. Prayer is not about getting answers, but having a greater communion with our Lord and Creator.

2. Prayer does not depend on when, how or where we pray. We may pray anywhere and at any time.

3. Prayer rituals help us to focus our attention on God as we pray. It is best to have an undistracted, regular time in a quiet place to pray. It is also best to have a plan before we pray, so that we can get to business.

4. Effective prayer involves faith. When we ask, we should sincerely believe that God will answer. If God is God, then He will answer. It is therefore important to understand something of the nature of God before we pray.

5. Effective prayer involves repentance and humility. We don’t demand from God. He gives it. Some pastors and churches teach “sure-fire” methods of getting what we want from God. For example, if we say a few “Hail Marys” or pray using certain words as we pray, then God is obligated to bend to our will. This is ridiculous on the face of it. God is in control, so we cannot be assured what we want, even if we ask.

6. To God, the words we use don’t matter nearly as much as the condition of our heart.

7. We pray in Jesus’ name. This does not refer to a ritualistic mouthing of the name of Jesus. It is not the sound of the name, but understanding that our access to the Father comes through Jesus’ blood. We are sinners, and God is not obligated to hear sinners. But Jesus bought out access to the Father through His suffering and death. When we approach God in humility for our sins and gratitude for His salvation, then we are praying in Jesus’ name—that is, by his authority.

8. Prayer is not a force or a substance. We sometimes assume if we get more people praying, then God must hear us more. Or if we pray longer and more emotional prayers He will give us what we want. Prayer is not a commodity that accumulates by the number of people and times we pray. He says where two or more agree it shall be done. He does not say wherever five or more agree it will be done more. He says ask, and keep on asking. He does not say that if we spend two days asking, He might change his mind

9. Nevertheless, God want us to work hard at prayer. Why? I don’t know. He just commands it. The act of prayer (and fasting) puts passion in our prayers and helps us attune ourselves to hear His voice. We pray and keep on praying, ask and keep on asking, not to change God’s mind, but to change our own. God will not bring am answer until we fully grasp the question. As long as we think that some part of us still thinks we are capable of bringing about change by ourselves, we are not ready to receive the answers of prayer.

10. Public and private prayers are both necessary. Prayers should not be for show. (see Matthew 6) Praying out loud or praying eloquently does not affect the answer to our prayers. Nevertheless, Jesus encourages us to pray together. In Matthew 18: 20 He says “Whenever two or more of you agree, it will be done for you in heaven” He is talking about shared prayers. Group prayer keeps us focused. If we do not have the humility to pray for our own sins in public (James 5:16), then we do not have the humility to actually admit them before the Living God, who is capable of judging us far more severely than our peers.

Nothing I have said here is new. Anyone who has sat in churches for any length of time has probably heard most of this. It is not just Biblical, it is also common sense.

But this is not the end of our knowledge of prayer. It is the beginning. It is the practice that gives us the skills to be an effective prayer warrior.

The Parts of Prayer

There are many ways describe the aspects of prayer. However, there seems (in my estimation) five aspects of effective prayer.

Praise—the introduction of ourselves to God by focusing our attention on who He is. In praise, we remind ourselves of the majesty, love and greatness of the personage we serve.

Thanksgiving—the attitude of gratitude for what God has done for us. In thanksgiving, we review our lives and see God’s grace and generosity.

Confession—this is a reality check before God. We admit to God who we really are

Confession has two parts to it. First and mainly, we confess the things we have done wrong. He already knows them, but confession is our admission to these things before an almighty Gd. Our confession of sin cleanses the line of communications with God from all obstructions. Second, we confess to God what He has done in us. We declare to God His faithfulness in our forgiveness.

Petition—this is the least important part of prayer, yet it takes up most of our time. God already knows what we need, and what we are going to ask for. He gives us our answers before we ask. Nevertheless God wants us to reveal our concerns before Him, not only for ourselves, but for the whole world.

Listening—this is by far the most neglected aspect of prayer. We need to take time in the presence of God to do nothing and to think nothing, but to let God speak to us. Prayer is a two-way street. We cannot be effective at it is we have only one lane, from us to Him. We have to have two lanes, listening as well as sending.

Getting down to business

In order to receive what I hope you will from these exercises, you will need three things

• A Bible

• A Notebook

• A group of people with whom you can share and will hold you accountable.

This group needs to people with whom you can be open and honest. We must not be judgmental, but neither should we mind our own business. We all fail all the time, and need mutual accountability. Nothing ruins a friendship group more than passing judgment on each other.

Your notebook will be filled in week by week. The pattern for the first week will be repeated for each upcoming week. It is up to you whether you want to make a page for each day or whether you just fill in a page a week. I recommend using the notebook daily to write down what you learn from God, but that is up to you.

The Bride of Christ

There are no words which adequately describe the relationship of Christ to His church. So when we talk about it, we have to use analogy and metaphor. The New Testament uses several metaphors to describe it—he Body of Christ, the Bride of Christ, a royal nation, a chosen priesthood. No metaphor though is more powerful or descriptive than the Bride of Christ.


The New Testament gives two references to the church as the bride. The longest is Ephesians 5:25-33

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body. "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." This is a profound mystery — but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

This passage tells us several things we need to know.

First it tells us how much God loves us. He loves us like a bridegroom loves his bride.

Second it tells us how God thinks of us as one person. We are His bride, not his brides.

Third, it tells us the importance God places on our relationship to Him. No human relationship is deeper or stronger that the one between a husband and wife. Yet Paul says that this sacred relationship is only a picture of a greater relationship in heaven. Our relationship to God is more important than our relationship to our spouses—or for that matter our children and grandchildren.

The other reference is Rev. 21:9

One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, "Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb."

The two great traditions of the ancient church were the Western, exemplified by Paul, and the Eastern, exemplified by John. If the same metaphor in John and in Paul, it must be important. The whole church must have used it.

This metaphor came from the prophets of the Old Testament. Isaiah says in Isa 62:3-5

You will be a crown of splendor in the LORD's hand, a royal diadem in the hand of your God. No longer will they call you Deserted, or name your land Desolate. . .for the LORD will take delight in you, and your land will be married. As a young man marries a maiden, so will your sons marry you;as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride , so will your God rejoice over you.

Jeremiah uses a similar image in Jer 2:2

"'I remember the devotion of your youth, how as a bride you loved me

We are the bride of Christ, not yet the wife. That does not happen until heaven. The wedding happens in heaven, while we are on earth, we are just engaged.

The image of the church as fiancé has special meaning to me right now. Two of my daughters are engaged. The house is full of talk about weddings. I think I understand what a bride must go through before she gets to the altar.

There are many parallels between the pre-nuptial state and the state of the church. There is a sense of hope and anticipation, as well as the romance and excitement. God wants us to love Him as passionately and as deeply as an engaged couple loves each other.

In our society, though engagement has a crazy side to it. We are obsessed with the wedding and not the marriage. Engagement has become a time of temporary insanity in which we throw caution to the wind and spend like drunken sailors--thousand dollar dresses, ten thousand dollar receptions, bridal carriages, limousines, orchestras, flowers, and every imaginable indulgence. We spend what we do not have to make every detail perfect. The fuss about weddings is the reason some couples choose to elope.

As the bride of Christ, we do not have to worry about the wedding or the ceremony. Our heavenly Father is paying for all that. We do not even have to plan it. It will be done for us in heaven, with the angels of God as attendants and servers. So what is left for us to do, to be the bride of Christ? What do we do in our engagement period? Several things:

1. We get to know our spouse. Before you get engaged, you think you know your girl friend. You don’t. You just know the face she wants to show you during courtship. But when you get engaged, you really begin to get to know her. Hopefully, you get premarital counseling. It’s amazing the answers that come when we sit down and face some honest questions. Getting to know each other is the main task of this period of life.

The main task of the church on earth is to get to know God. Worship is the first way we do this. Worship is getting your eyes off ourselves and onto Jesus. As we do all things for His glory, He reveals Himself more and more; It takes a lifetime to really know Jesus. In that lifetime, we need to stay close in prayer and worship.

2. We get to know ourselves. In the movie Runaway Bride, a woman gets engaged several times, but never gets married, instead, she keeps running away from the altar. At one point in the movie, someone tells her that the problem is that she does not know how she likes her eggs. When she was with one fiancé, she liked them poached, with another, she liked them scrambled, with another fried. She tried to please the man by pretending to be just like him, and having the same likes and dislikes. But we cannot be phony for a lifetime. Sooner or later, we have to face ourselves.

In the church is we often put on false faces. We pretend to be better than we are. It takes a lot of faith to be honest to God. There is a word for putting on masks. It is called hypocrisy.

3. We burn our address book. In the wedding ceremony, one of the questions we are asks is this—forsaking all others, are we willing to keep ourselves only to Him? If we are not willing to do that. We should not be getting married.

The church needs to purify its love for Jesus. We do that by forgetting the interests which have occupied us in the past. Married men still notice pretty girls they do not pursue them. Instead, we look to ur spouses to be our total fulfillment.

How often we are guilty of spiritual adultery! We need to look to Jesus and Jesus alone for our fulfillment. Cut off everything that will come between us and our relationship

4. We must learn to work in concert with God. Every relationship is like a dance. One leads, the other. Christians are always looking for some magic formula for righteousness. If we keep these commandments perform these rituals, we are going to be right before God. But it does not work this way. Relationships require learning the intimate details of our spouses life, responding to their moods, and hearing what is left unsaid.

There is no magic formula for knowing God’s will and His ways. We just as we work in concert with Him. It requires a lifetime of living to know His ways.

5. We deliver the invitations. God may be planning the wedding, but he expects us to deliver the invitation. When the wedding feast of the Lamb comes, and the church is united in final matrimony to God, who would you like to see as guests there?

Now is the time to invite other people to join us in the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. Who would you want to bring as a guest to it? We have to invite them today.

The only reason God has not taken us to heaven (though He is just as anxious to do so as we are) is that the number of those who are to be there is not yet full. We must grow to the size God wants us. We must reach the others who are supposed to be wedding guests.

If you are not telling others about Jesus, then you are neglecting the greatest task you have. It is the one thing that God has left for us to do. Invite others now, so that the wedding will be full.