Conversations with God

Prayer is the name we give to the conversations we have with our heavenly Father. The collection of ancient Psalms in the Old Testament, as well as the book of Job, shows us how diverse and dynamic conversations with a mighty and merciful God can be.

What follows are a collection of notes from discussions we've had in small group about prayer: what it is, why we do it, and what advice Scripture has for us. We'll start by looking at the foundation of prayer: God is good and we are altogether dependent upon him, which leads to thanksgiving and requests. From there, we'll look as how we can pray for those in difficult times, followed by what it might mean to pray in Jesus' name. We close with thoughts on prayer as celebration of God's blessings, collaboration in God's project, and participation in the lives of God's people.

God is a Good God

The reality that undergirds prayer is the truth that our God is a supremely good God, from whom every good thing comes (cf. James 1:17). As we look back to good things he has provided in the past and the good things we enjoy in the present, we sing thanks. As we face our needs now and in the future we look to God’s goodness to continue to provide for us.

Thanksgiving and Request

These two ways of responding to God’s goodness—thanksgiving and request—form the template for many of Paul’s prayers. See Thessalonians 1:3-9, as well as Ephesians 1:15-19. This combination is also found in Paul’s teaching on prayer. “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6-7).

Last night we began to “tell God what we need, and thank him for all he has done.” This also allows us to better participate in one another’s lives, a key element in building friendships and developing community.

But what should we request? What kinds of "petitions" are befitting our status as the children of God? The Lord knew we'd need some guidance here, so he saw to it that his advice on prayer was recorded in Scripture for our sake.

Praying “faith, hope, and love” for those enduring difficult circumstances

When assailed with hardship it is tempting to measure God’s affections for us by our circumstances rather than by the cross. In times like this we need the Spirit to bolster our faith, for faith can look beyond what is seen to the enduring realities that are unseen, the realities of God’s goodness and reliability.

Hope, as we have discussed, looks ahead to the day when our trials will be all behind us, when peace and justice and joy will envelop the earth, and evil, suffering, and sin will be no more. Hope brings us the reassurance that this chapter of pain, heartache, and disappointment in our life is not the last chapter in our story. There is more coming, and it will be wonderful.

Love speaks of the community of faith and hope that we need around us in all times, and especially in hard times. Adversity was not meant to be carried alone. We need others to help shoulder our burdens. We need friends to keep us company, help us process our struggles, and face the dark night together. Too many people, however, fail to develop these kind of friendship during sunny days. Then when the eclipse comes, they find themselves alarmingly isolated.

Praying "in Jesus' Name"

Jesus promised his disciples that after he departed to the Father, he would return, in the form of the Spirit, to work among them and within them, and to help them continue his ministry, the project of restoring people to God and one another, the work that he had begun. With this promise came another--that whatever they asked for "in his name," he would provide. Listen to his words: "I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it" (John 14:12-14). 

To pray in his name is to ask him to help us carry on his work. This is what an apprentice does when she is delegated a task to do on behalf of her master. She goes "in his name," in his stead, with his authority, to conduct business as he has specified. Remember the parables of the stewards who are put in charge of the master's house in his absence? They aren't free to do whatever they please. No, they are obligated to do according to the master's wishes, to run the house as he would want it run. They are entrusted with his affairs and are to do things "in his name." Let's say your master entrusts his checkbook to you so you can purchase items for his house. You are authorized to sign the checks, but you are doing so "in his name," as though he himself were signing the checks.

It's interesting that instead of grasping that to pray in Jesus' name is to pray for things he himself would pray for, we think of this phrase "in Jesus' name" as though it were a little "stamp" we tag on to the end of our prayers to somehow make them more acceptable to God. But praying "in Jesus' name" is far richer than that. It reminds us that we have been given an incredible privilege and responsibility of carrying on Jesus' work in the world. We, of all people, are collaborators with God (more on this below). We are his junior apprentices, working with him in restoring the world. And he elevates us by soliciting our help and valuing our creative requests in advancing the kingdom around us. 

Do you want to pray "in Jesus' name"? Then speak words to God in keeping with things that Jesus himself might speak. Write prayer checks that Jesus himself would write. It is these kind of prayers that he has promised in advance to answer.

How do we know how Jesus would pray? Broadly speaking, he would pray for the things that he set out to accomplish. His prayers would attend his pursuits. This alone gives us excellent guidance on how to pray. We should pray for the things that Jesus pursues. But more specifically, we have in the Bible the accounts of two of his prayers. One is the pattern prayer, the "our Father" recorded in Matthew 6 and Luke 11. Here he prays that we would walk in God's ways, so that the Father's name will be honored by the church's Grace-governed conduct in the world, so that the nations would come to know him, so that his Kingdom would come to earth, that God would provide for us physically, that we would be forgiven forgivers, and that we would be protected from evil. None of this is possible without the Spirit's empowerment. This is why Jesus told us to ask, to seek, and to pray for the Spirit (see Luke 11:5-13; for more on this, see "Empowered by the Spirit"). So we can assume that Jesus would do what he bid us to do--to ask for the Spirit on our behalf. (For more on the Lord's prayer, see the excellent little paperback by Professor Darrell Johnson in our small group library).

The other prayer of Jesus for our sake is recorded in John 17. What does Jesus pray for? Very similar things to the "pattern prayer" above. He asks that we would know the Father, that we would keep his word, that we would be united as one, that we would be guarded from the evil one, that we would have joy, that we would be sent into the world, that we would be holy, that we would be with Jesus and he would be with us and in us.

This is wonderful. Here is disclosed the heart of Jesus, the lover of our souls. Do you want to know what Jesus desires for you? This is it! And in following in his footsteps, these kind of requests should form the substance of our prayers, as well. We spend much of our time asking for God to fix our difficult circumstances, when Jesus is more concerned about God fixing our hearts and our communities so that we can be agents in fixing the world. The words of Jesus promise this: "I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father" (John 14:12-14). Catch the goal here? So that the work of the Son, in response to prayers that are offered in his name, "may bring glory to the Father." What glorifies the Father? Jesus' prayer makes it explicit: "I have brought you [the Father] glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do" (John 17:4). The remainder of the prayer in John 17, sometimes called the High Priestly prayer, spells it out--Jesus was given the assignment of gathering a community, uniting them as one, transforming them into his image, and sending them into the world to carry on his task. As we participate in that mission of Christ, we are helping "the Son bring glory to the Father." Doesn't this dovetail perfectly with the scope and intent of our prayers "in Jesus' name," and with our prayers "for the Spirit," and with our prayers to the Father that he "hallow his name, bring his kingdom, and do his will"? All these things are pieces cut from the same cloth. These concerns of the Father, Son, and Spirit should form the foundation, the framework, and the focus of our prayers.

The problem is not that we ask for too much. The problem is that we ask for too little.

Celebration and Collaboration

As we have worked our way through this fascinating letter called Ephesians we have come upon the topic of prayer again and again. In fact, the opening half of this first-century letter to little house-churches scattered around present-day Turkey is but one long prayer, interrupted by a couple educational digressions. Paul starts with celebrating all that God has graciously accomplished on our behalf. He writes down his prayer do we can listen in and learn how to pray. He then goes on to request that God, by his Spirit, advance his work of transformation among the letter's recipients. In this respect, Paul is collaborating with God in his life-giving work. For explorations of prayer as celebration and as collaboration, see these discussions.

Prayer as Celebration

• Ephesians 1:3-14

Prayer as Collaboration

• Ephesians 1:15-23
• Ephesians 3:14-21

Participation in One Another's Lives

A New Command

In the upper room, the night of his arrest, Jesus spoke warmly and urgently to his faithful followers in light of his impending departure: “Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other” (John 13:34-35). As we’ve learned from the Jesus Creed (Mark 12:28-31), the summons to love others is anything but novel, for it goes centuries back to the ancient code of ethics that Yhwh gave to his people Israel at the time of their formation, shortly after their liberation from captivity in Egypt. So it’s not our need to love others that is new, rather, with the coming of God in Messiah Jesus, it is our understanding of love itself that has taken on new meaning. We are to love each other “in the same way” Jesus loves us. 

Love as Constructive Participation

How does God love us in Christ? He comes to us in our plight, stands by our side with steadfast loyalty and tender affection, takes our own struggles, before they crush us, onto his shoulders. He also shares his own abundance with us, meeting our needs and moving us forward. God’s love involves him in our lives, in our mundane affairs, in our relationships, in our victories, and in our trials. Yhwh tells Israel: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you” (Isaiah 43:2). This participation goes both ways. The Lord participates in our lives and he enables us to participate in his. In fact, this mutual participation is at the center of Paul’s understanding of salvation: we (amazingly!) participate in Christ—we participate in his life, in his death, in his resurrection, in his kingdom, in his Spirit, in his relationship with the Father, in his sufferings, in his joy, in his family, in his work on the earth, and in his inheritance (to name a few). These are marvelous and transforming realities. Not only is this participation mutual, it is altogether constructive. He sacrifices for our benefit, for our welfare. If we are to love each other as God loves us, then we will look for ways to constructively participate in each other’s lives. By loving like this we will discover we are partnering with God in his love for others, serving as his ears to listen to their stories, his words to affirm and counsel them, his hands to help meet their needs, his heart to care for them as family, and his feet to walk alongside them.

Paul had such committed solidarity with his fellow Christians that their joys became his joys, their sorrows his sorrows, their welfare his governing concern. He advised his friends to follow his example: “When others are happy, be happy with them. If they are sad, share their sorrow” (Rom 12:15). In fact, participating in the heartaches of others is one clear-cut way that we put into practice the Jesus Creed, referred to by Paul as “the law of Christ.” Listen to his words of wisdom to the house-churches in the region of Galatia: “Share each other’s troubles and problems, and in this way obey the law of Christ” (Gal 6:2). The family members in Philippi loved Paul. We know this because they joined with him in his hardships and they partnered with him in his ministry. He writes: “It was kind of you to share my trouble. And you Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church entered into partnership with me in giving and receiving, except you only. Even in Thessalonica you sent me help for my needs once and again” (Phil 4:14-16). “It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel” (Phil 1:7).  The underlined words are all variations of the Greek word ‘koinonia,’ which we sometimes interpret as ‘fellowship,’ an activity best understood as working together toward a common goal, like several ‘fellows-in-a-ship,’ or in a row boat, moving the oars together as a team. His friends in Christ were sharing, partnering, partaking, and participating in Paul’s life. Note the wide variety of things they participated in (in italics above): trouble, giving gifts, receiving gifts, needs, imprisonment, verbal defense and visible confirmation of the gospel.