|
|
|
|
 Matthew 6:5-14
Let's talk about prayer - that mysterious, mystical, sometimes miraculous, sometimes disappointing activity of the mind and heart. I know that many of you are steeped in prayer. Prayer is so much a part of your life that with your every breath you are breathing in and breathing out some kind of prayer.
There are many others of you, I know, who wish it were like that, but you are still in process of growing into a more disciplined prayer life, and one day you will get there. And then there are still others for whom prayer is a sporadic experience. It is like a foreign object.
How do you describe prayer? Some people say that prayer is simply conversation with God, and it is. Others say that prayer is communion with God, and it is. I'm going to describe prayer as inviting God to participate in your life.
There's a phrase every one of us uses from time to time - Show me and I will believe it. I suggest a significant turn of that phrase - When I believe it, then I will see it. That is what faith is all about. When I believe something, then I will see it.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gave instruction about how to pray - in our room, with the door closed, praying in secret, letting our wishes be known. Then the Father, who sees in secret, will respond to our requests. The eleventh chapter of Mark quotes Jesus as saying, "Pray believing you have received." This is in the past tense. The receiving has already happened. The secret is, believe it, and then you will see it.
It's my belief - and increasingly so as the years go on - that we live in a world which is spiritual, that there are more influences and more control by the Spirit than by anything else - although you'd never know it. Our world appears to be a very physical world, and we think in very materialistic terms. Our lives are full of activity; we interact with each other and with the physical world. We have to work for a living. We deal with money and possessions on a daily basis. We are not really aware of the spiritual, but there is a lot that's spiritual going on all the time. We show wisdom if we are attentive to that dimension of our experience.
Evelyn Underhill, the English spiritual writer, is one of my favorite writers and one of my spiritual mentors. She says, "More and more as you go on with the spiritual life, you will see the strange power of Spirit over circumstances." Think about that - the number of times when Spirit has taken power over the circumstances of your life.
I had an enlightening experience the other day. I had taken a taxi to the church. When I got upstairs to my office I realized my wallet wasn't in my pocket. I checked every compartment of my briefcase. It wasn't there. It had to be on the back seat of the cab. I said a quick prayer, "Dear God, please let the next person in that cab be an honest person."
As soon as I had prayed that prayer, something happened to me. I suddenly felt I had to get downstairs right away, so I bounded down the steps, sped through the hallway, went out into the street and discovered my wallet lying by the curb.
Back upstairs, I tried to analyze what had happened. By some grace, upon discovering I didn't have my wallet, I didn't panic. If I had, I would have blocked my mind's ability to receive the movement of the Spirit. I didn't think about what I was supposed to do. I certainly didn't visualize the wallet being down on the street. It was more like being commanded by something beyond me to get down to that street as quickly as I could. That, to me, was the power of the Spirit over circumstance.
If that should happen again to me, will it have the same result? There's no guarantee, but one thing I do know. When we invite God to participate in the concerns and challenges we are dealing with, we are open to the flow of the Spirit.
Prayer matters. Prayer makes a difference. Prayer is a powerful force.
Later that day I had lunch with a man, now fifty-five years old, whom I have known since he was fourteen. He was a youngster in the church in Brooklyn that I served before coming to Marble, and I see him only occasionally, as he lives in Florida. The last time I saw him was about three years ago, and he was very, very unhappy. He seemed to have the weight of the world on his shoulders. His second marriage had just gone sour. His two sons, whom he adored, were not talking to him. His blood pressure was dangerously high. The doctors had told him he would have a stroke if he kept on as he was. He was beginning to entertain an ulcer in his stomach.
Now, three years later, as we ate lunch together, he was buoyant and happy and positive. "What happened?", I asked.
"Rev, it got to be so bad that one day I just got on my knees and I said, 'God, I cannot manage my life any more. I don't know how to make it better. Help me.' And in the instant that I said 'help me,' I felt the burden lifted. And then an idea came into my head."
"It wasn't a voice," he said. "It was an idea, which I believe was from God, that since I needed help so badly, I should see a counselor. So I did start seeing a therapist, and I began to learn very quickly that the only person I had any influence over, and the only person I could change, was myself. I had to understand what I could do and what I couldn't do. I began to get myself centered."
The blood pressure is back to normal, without medication. There is no stomach ulcer. He is beginning to communicate more meaningfully with his two sons. Life is better. It was prayer that initiated this profound change. Prayer matters. It makes a difference and it changes things. Prayer is the power of the Spirit over circumstances, as we invite God to participate in our lives.
There are similar dynamics in the story of Bill Wilson, the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. For a number of years he had been a hopeless drunk. He would drink two or three bottles of gin a day, and he was right down on the bottom. One day, he got so low that for the first time ever he considered surrendering himself to a higher power. He got down on his knees and called out, "If there is a God, let Him show Himself." In an instant, as he tells the story, the room was filled with a bright white light. He writes:
It seemed to me, in the mind's eye, that I was on a mountain and that a wind not of the air but of the spirit was blowing. And then it burst upon me that I was a free man.... A great peace stole over me and I thought, 'No matter how wrong things seem to be, they are all right.
He found himself completely surrounded by providence. The barriers he had built up over years and years of time suddenly dissolved. He was in the presence of infinite Spirit.
He never took another drink. You probably know the rest of the story, how, with Dr. Bob, he formed Alcoholics Anonymous, and proved to everybody that when you surrender to God, when you invite the higher power into your life, God participates and helps to heal you.
People have told me that even though at times they have experienced that kind of freedom and wonder in some form, they still feel their prayers aren't working. It may be that if your prayers aren't working for you, you're doing what I did for a number of years. I remember when I was going through a very, very difficult time, walking through the darkest part of the valley, I prayed and I prayed and I prayed, but nothing happened. Finally I realized that what I was doing was praying to God, but not trusting God with the next five minutes of my life. I had to maneuver. I had to direct. I was praying for God to participate, but I wouldn't let God participate. I didn't trust God. When I got to the point where I could just release it, and trust, things began to happen in a very different way.
You see, when we pray and trust God, we make it possible for God to work on us.
There's something else we do with prayer - and I bet everybody has done it once or twice, or you're still doing it. You make a bargain with God. You wheel and deal with God. "I'll give You this if You'll give me that." For the most part you will find God doesn't operate that way.
Maybe you know the story of the little boy who wanted in the worst way to have a baby sister. He begged and pleaded with his mother for months and months. Finally he decided to take things into his own hands, and one day sat down at his desk, took some paper and a pen and started writing a letter to God. "Dear God, I have been a very good boy."
And then, realizing God would not believe that, he crumpled up the paper and began again: "Dear God, I am a good boy most of the time." Then he thought, "You know, this is not going to persuade God to do anything. I will have to try something different." So he went to the mantel where there was a statue of the Madonna. He was not allowed to touch this delicate object, but he took it down and wrapped it in a terrycloth towel and brought it back to his room. "Dear God," he wrote, "if You ever want to see Your mother again..."
We can laugh at that little story, but do we not sometimes play the same game with God?
One other thing I want to communicate about prayer, and that is my belief that we have a responsibility to pray. Seventeen hundred years ago, St. Augustine, one of the great minds of the Christian church, said, "Without God, we cannot. Without us, God will not." He is saying God depends on us to pray for one another, that God cannot, will not, without our proactive participation.
I am more and more convinced that I'm responsible to do some praying - for my family, for my friends and for my church. One gift I can give my grandchildren which is beyond any gift is to pray for them. It is not just a cursory mention of their names. I stay a moment with each one. "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on Isabella. Make haste to help her. Rescue her and save her. Do Your will in her life." The same for her brother Nils and her sister Claudia, and for my twin grandsons Christopher and Nicholas. My responsibility is to pray for them, and I know that the strange power of the Spirit over circumstance will bless them as they grow up.
Keep in mind the responsibility of praying for other people, praying for your church, praying, praying, praying. Praying makes a difference. It changes people. It's a powerful force. It brings God into the center of your life. Let us pray.
For the blessings of life, Lord, for the gift of prayer, for the challenge of the spiritual journey, we give You thanks. Be with us now, Lord. Help us to pray and love one another as we pray. In Christ's name we ask these things. Amen |
|
|
|
|
|