Drawing Closer To God

Simple Prayer

 

Last week we arrived at the Place called Presence.  In our metaphorical cruise we are, now, at God's house.  God opens the front door saying, "Come on in.  Make yourself at home.  Take off your shoes and kick back.  My casa is your casa."  God longs for us to live at his house.  So, he gives us the key to the front door.  Prayer is the key to God's house.  Prayer is how we live in the Place called Presence. 

 

"Hey, where do you live?"  "I live at God's house."  I enjoy saying that.  Do you want to try?  "Where do you live?  (Listen)  I enjoy saying that, but I'm not sure it is 100% true.  I want to live there.  I want to be in the presence of God.  I want to spend my life dwelling in the house of God.  I want to be able to say with David…

 

Psalm 84:1-2 How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD Almighty!  My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.

 

But is that the reality?  How much time do I spend in the house of God?  Am I like a college kid who just blows through on the weekend dropping off my dirty clothes and grabbing a home cooked meal and then taking off again?  Why is it so hard to live at God's house?  "Hey Tim, where do you live?"  "Ahh… sometimes I live at God's house." 

 

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I want to live there.  But it's hard. 

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I suspect there are a lot of reasons why it is hard.  We may be able to come up with a dozen obstacles to prayer.  We all are different.  We may not all have the same obstacles keeping us from God's house.  But I want to share one obstacle I have in my prayer life, which may connect to you as well.  Here is my problem.  I only want to do the things I'm good at; or at least have the potential to become good at. 

 

If I try something and I am just horrible at it, I tend not to want to do it again; like Yoga.  Can you picture me doing Yoga?  It is not a pretty sight.  I have been doing Yoga, lately, because it is something I need.  But I suspect it is not going to become something I ever love.  I suspect you will never see me as a Yoga instructor.  It is just too hard for me.  

 

 Why does an artist love to paint?  Why does a singer love to sing?  Why does an athlete keep playing? Because there is a sense of joy that comes from accomplishing something they are good at!  We find time to do the things we love, because we can do them.

 

And so the problem I have, when it comes to prayer, is, I don't feel very good at prayer.  I don't feel like I am making a difference.  I don't achieve that joy from being a great pray…er.  I intellectually know prayer changes things.  But I don't often see the results.  I know I am supposed to do God's will.  But do I ever convince God to do something spectacular.  I don't feel I am very good at prayer; consequently, I don't get excited about doing it.  Because I am not excited about it, I don't do it much and because I don't do it much I am not very good at it, then I am even less excited about it and don't feel very good about it…  And the cycle continues. 

 

A lack of proficiency leads to a lack of participation.  So, living at God's house is not as easy as I would like it to be.  I would love to live continually at God's house, but I'm not good at it. 

 

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The question becomes how do I break this cycle?  How do I learn to love to pray?  If I love it, I will do it.

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The answer may be in changing my attitude toward what prayer is.  Prayer really is not something we try to be good at.  Prayer is more like watching TV.  What?  How many of you watch TV because you are good at it?  "I am one of the best TV watchers there is.  I can watch TV for hours.  I never get tired.  I can tell you what comes on every night of the week!  I am good at watching TV!"  We don't think about TV as having to be proficient in order to watch.  We all could be adequate TV watchers.

 

Why do you watch TV?  It is something we experience.  We should come to prayer with more of an attitude of experience and less of proficiency.  We should attempt to think of prayer as being rather than doing.  Yes, prayer changes things.  But that is not so much our part of it.  I know James 5:16.

 

James 5:16 The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

 

But I don't think the point of James 5:16 is we need to work on our prayers so they will be more effective.  The goal of our prayer life should be to experience God.  We are working on being in sync with God.  Prayer brings our will into harmony with God's will.  Prayer develops our relationship.  Then we can be powerful and effective in prayer.  Prayer is living at God's house.

 

If I could learn to make this transition in my thinking then I might learn to love being in the presence of God and consequently I would be able to live at God's House all the time.  Then I could answer the question, "Tim where do you live?"  "I live at God's house." 

 

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With that concept of prayer in mind, I need for us to go back to the Island of Simplicity for just a couple of minutes.  Let's jump on a helicopter and fly back to the Island of Simplicity.  Let's think about prayer as living at God's house on the Island of Simplicity.

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On the Island of Simplicity we pray simple prayers.  We bring ourselves before God just as we are, warts and all.  Like children before a loving parent, we open our hearts and make our requests.  We unpretentiously share our concerns with the Father.  We tell God how frustrated we are with the ding-dongs all around us.  We share how that sometimes we are the ding-dongs.  We ask for food, for the world to be a better place, for health.  We bring any and everything just as it happens into the house with us.

 

We pray the prayer Jesus taught us.  Join me…

 

Matthew 6:9-13   "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us today our daily bread.  Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.  And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one."

 

This is a simple prayer.  It praises God.  It asks for God's will to be done.  It asks for food and forgiveness.  It is about 50 words.  It is beautiful.

 

Simple Prayer is just like a kid drawing a picture.  Have you ever noticed a kid cannot draw a bad picture?  A child of God cannot offer a bad prayer.  What happens to all the pictures kid draws?  They end up on the Refrigerator!  All of our prayers are stuck on the really big refrigerator in the kitchen of God's House!  That is more the flavor of prayer.  We just pray who we are to God and it ends up on the refrigerator.  Being good at prayer is beside the point.  God loves us so much all our honest prayers go on the frig! 

 

 In a very real sense we are the focus of Simple Prayer.  Our needs, our wants, our concerns, all dominate this type of prayer.  We make mistakes.  We ask for the wrong things.  Maybe even our prayers are selfish.  Simple Prayer is simple.  It is ordinary people bringing ordinary concerns to a compassionate Father.  There is no pretense in Simple Prayer.  We do not pretend to be more holy, more pure, or more saintly than we are. We don't use Holy words.  We don't talk funny to God.  We simply bring all we are and what we want and give it to God.  We pray for everything and let God sort it out.  We can trust him to give us what is best for us! 

 

Simple prayer is beginning prayer.  It is the prayer of children.  Yet, we keep returning to it again and again.  We never outgrow this kind of prayer, because we never outgrow the needs!  Nor should we ever neglect Simple Prayer, because God wants us to color our pages so he can stick them on the frig.

 

Ephesians 6:18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.

 

Philippians 4:6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

 

1 Timothy 2:1-3 I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone --for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior.

 

We begin to live at God's House when we bring all of us to God in prayer.  The adventure of living in the presence of God begins when we bring it all to God.  We worship a God who was born in a barn, who walked on this earth, who worked with his hands, and who bled on a cross.  There is nothing too mundane to bring before our God!  "Where do you live?"  "I live at God's house… when I move in with all my stuff."

 

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All right.  Let's make it real.  Let's make a dot out of it.

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Tomorrow night is the final game of the Big Dance.  The NCAA Tournament final game is 7:30 Monday night.  What do you suppose Matt Howard is doing today?  Matt Howard is the center for Butler.  How he plays tomorrow night will determine if Butler is the National Champions.  Don't you think that every time he stops doing something else, his mind is going to snap to the big game tomorrow night?  What do you think will be his last thought tonight?  I need to get to sleep so I will be sharp tomorrow night.  What will be his first thought in the morning?  Today is the day.  All day long whenever Matt stops focusing on whatever he was doing, his thoughts will instantly go to the game.

 

That is what I am talking about.  If we were like that with God, we could honestly say we live at God's house.  Every time we stop focusing on what we are doing, we would think about God.  Every break in the action of life becomes a time for Simple Prayers.  In between every part of a work project,  Bam our minds snap to God with a simple prayer.  At the end of every conversation, bam a brief prayer for that person.  When we finish reading our emails, bam we offer a quick prayer for what they were about.  After lunch, bam prayer.  At every transition in our activities, throughout the day, we have a quick Simple Prayer.  If we could do that I think we could honestly answer, "Where do you live?"  With, "At God's house!"

 

So, here is your dot assignment for the week.  Pray a simple prayer at every transition.  You can pray about what was just finished or what is about to happen.  Use your dots as a reminder of those simple bam requests made at every junction.  Wow.  If you get anywhere close to doing this you can say, "I live at God's house!" 

 

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We are about to have a transition from sermon to closing song.  Let's do our first dot assignment together.  Let's pray this prayer, together.

 

God, I am a jumbled mass of contradictions.

One moment I adore you.

The next I forget you.

I want to live at your house.

But I can't remember to pray.

Help me to remember to live at your house.   Amen.

 

Tim Stidham

Los Alamos Church of Christ

April 3, 2011