Prayer

A couple of years ago I attended a Sunday school class that Faith taught on prayer. The class revolved around a book written by Walter Wangerin Jr., Whole Prayer; Speaking and Listening to God. The class taught me something about prayer that I would like to share with you this month.

Walter Wangerin announced in his book that the complete prayer is made up of four parts, four very discrete parts. Two of those parts are ours and two of them are God's. Each part may seem like it is separate from the other three because they are not necessarily all done in one continuous act of prayer but they can, in a lot of instances, occur in such a swift succession the complete prayer is a single, unbroken event.  Those four parts to prayer are:

First, we speak while,

Second, God listens.

Third, God speaks while,

Fourth, we listen.

I think it goes without saying, and we would all agree, that prayer is initiated by us. When we go to God in prayer it should always be deliberately, attentively, and openly turning our minds to God. There are a couple of reasons why we pray. Sometimes we don’t have a defined purpose beyond simply wanting to be with Him; we want to commune with our heavenly Father.  Other times, we have something specifically we want to talk with God about. We want to ask for this or that, we want to apologize to Him for something we've done, we want Him to intervene in a situation that bothers us – to turn a bad situation into something good, or we want to thank Him for something He has done for us or someone close to us. The main thing about prayer is that it is an act that puts us in our proper, natural relationship with God in the best possible way. The marvelous blessing in this is that we can, despite all of our sinful ways, initiate this talk with God and we do this whenever, wherever, and however we feel the need to. This is how we speak to God.

As we begin to speak with God, the second part of prayer begins immediately—God listens. It is this part that makes the first part possible. If God didn't hear us there would be absolutely no reason for us to begin to speak to Him. So, how do we know God is listening?  Because the Bible tells us so in 1 John 5:14 (see Bible Verses to Remember below). God's love for us all is the power that receives our voice. This is God's promise. 

It is at this point that many people stop praying. They've said their piece and they expect that God has heard them, so they are done. That's so sad because the prayer is only half complete. The third part of a complete pray is that God speaks back to us. Now please don't misunderstand.  Speaking to us is not the same as giving us what we want, which He may or may not do. In love He responds to us. He talks back, answers, makes Himself known, and makes His being and His intentions real to us. He does this and He does this every time we pray. How does He speak to us? He speaks to us through Scripture, through the words of other people—both other Christians and those who are not, through the church, and through the daily experiences we have in life. Rest assured He does speak back to us.

The fourth part is the heart of prayer—we listen. As God empowered our words by listening and responding back, we show our faith in Him and dependence upon His word by listening to Him. Very rarely does God speak in a dream or a vision as he did in the time of Jesus and before. Since God doesn't normally shout from the heavens for our attention, listening cannot be an accident. Listening must be our own conscientious action, a thing we do, a thing we choose to do, and a thing we can learn to do better and better.  We hear God by making ourselves ready to hear, by paying attention to our surroundings, and by trusting and having faith that God will speak to us.  But an attentive attitude is not enough if we don't know how to distinguish God's "voice" from other voices or how to interpret the voice of God when He speaks to us.  I said that God speaks to us through Scripture. The Bible is God's dictionary. The words of Scripture are God's words to us, but more than just His words to us, Scripture also interprets these words. It is the Bible where we find our deepest explanation of what God's "deeds" mean.  So, in order for us to recognize when God speaks to us in our own lives, we need to know His "language" as it is recorded in the Bible. When we learn the Scriptures we then have a basis for understanding and being able to distinguish God's "voice" from other "voices."  Even just to know that it is God talking and not our strong desires we are hearing.

We must remember that we don't know God exhaustively. We can't. We have an awesome and loving God. If you believe that then you're going to have to be okay with sometimes not being privy to the how's and why's of everything He does. When He speaks to you it isn't always going to be what you want to hear.  He isn't going to always explain why He does what He does. He expects us all to have faith that He does it for good reason and He does it because He loves each and every one of us.  We are joyful when He answers our prayer with a positive result that we like or want, but friends, I ask that you be joyful that He answers our prayers, whether we like the answer or not.  Be thankful He is there when we speak. Be thankful He is there to listen to us.  Be thankful He is there.

Bible Verses to Remember:

1 John 5: 14 – 15 (TNIV): This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.  And if we know that he hears us – whatever we ask – we know that we have what we asked of Him.

John 15:7 (TNIV):  If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 

By Ed Olson