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.
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