This was a very encouraging chapter for me. Sometimes I read or hear someone make a statement that makes sense to me at the time, so I adopt it as THE yardstick by which I measure myself from that point forward. For example, about 10 years ago I read an article about this mom who lived in a small house. She put a huge priority on having her quiet times each morning, so she designated a certain chair and taught her children that when she was in the chair, she was having her special time with the Lord. To show appropriate reverence, she had trained them to be completely silent when she was having her quiet time. Somehow, this stuck in my head as "THE" standard I needed to live up to; needless to say, I have failed miserably.
Even though I try to get up earlier than my kids, it doesn't always work. My quiet time / prayer time is frequently interrupted by kids crawling in the bed for an early morning hug; asking me tell them where a certain piece of clothing might be, etc. I have always struggled with alternating feelings of guilt and frustration about my inability to have a quiet "quiet time".
Thus, I felt a lot of freedom when I read Mr. Miller's description of his prayer time. He accepts interruptions as a way to bring God into his life. I really like that perspective --it makes sense in the context of what we've been studying-- and I am going to experiment a little with it.
Aside from his real life description of prayer time, two other points stood out to me. One was his question "How would you love someone without prayer?" I'm struggling with loving someone right now and had to honestly admit I haven't been committed to praying about it very much (figuring, I guess, that I could "logic" myself into acting in a loving way toward this person).
I'll close by quoting my other favorite point from the chapter:
"We don't need a praying life because that is our duty. That would wear thin quickly. We need time to be with our Father every day because every day our hearts and the hearts of those around us are overgrown with weeds."
Chapter 30 - Prayer Journaling
What a chapter! I hope you all have read it--I read it a few times just to let it sink in. For those of you who haven't read it yet, or don't have a book, let me take you through the highlights.
"When life makes sense, it becomes a journey, a spiritual adventure. Writing down the adventure as it happens gives us a feel for our place in the story God is weaving in our lives. Journaling helps us to become aware of the journey." p. 250
"Many of us rush around without much conscious knowledge of the pilgrimage God is carving out for us. When tragedy strikes, we've not learned the ways of God, so we have no frame of reference from which to respond. So, we slog through life, missing the divine touches.
Writing in a prayer journal helps us take stock of our location of the journey. We can become poets, artists with our souls. When we keep a prayer journal, we can reflect on what God is doing, on the patterns of our Father's care instead of reacting to life. If we see our lives as a pilgrimage, then it becomes an integrated whole. It makes sense. When we understand the story, it quiets our souls. It's okay to have a busy life. It's crazy to have a busy soul." p. 251
"The modern quest for self-fulfillment is a secularized version of Christianity's discovery of the self. Without the Shepherd guiding us to see our true selves in relationship to him, we can lose our way and become obsessed with self. Instead of seeing our bent toward evil, we can become increasingly touchy, supersensitive to self but insensitive to others. We no longer see ourselves clearly.
The spiritual pilgrimage is the opposite. The discovery of self in relationship to God leads to a lifestyle of repentance. For example, we are seldom aware of our impatience. What we feel is everyone else's slowness. Because we are naturally the center of our own universes, we don't feel irritable. We just notice everyone getting in our way. Here's where a prayer journal can help." p. 252
Then the author describes using a journal over the course of a year and using a journal during a morning prayer time.
"The key was being honest about what I was feeling and then letting Scripture speak to my heart. By being honest, the real me was talking. I wasn't trying to be good. When we look at our life through the lens of Scripture, we seldom lose our way. We can be real, but we don't get lost in our feelings.
If I hadn't written down my reflections, I wouldn't have known what God was teaching me. By the time I was finished, I knew my part in God's play. It was offstage in a corner, waiting. Not particularly glamorous but crystal clear. Opening my heart up for God to speak to me through his Word opened the door to repentance. My prayer time itself was a journey, a mininovel.
You don't have to write well to keep a prayer journal, nor do you have to be consistent. It is just a written version of childlike praying, except more organized. Begin with what's on your heart, what's bugging you, what you are thankful for. If you are real before God, then everything else flows.
The act of writing out your worries, joys and prayers helps you focus and keeps your mind from wandering. But the best part is that over time you will begin to see patterns of what God is doing, to pick up the threads of a story." p. 256
From time to time in my life I have journaled. From the "little girl diaries" with locks to keep snooping brothers out, to required journal writing in school, to periodic/episodic writing in college and beyond--I have tried it. I like how the author gives permission for it to be childlike, inconsistent, a record of what is on our heart (including what is bugging you!!), etc. This is a very real, transparent accounting of our days and our hearts. Sometimes I go back and read some of my old journals. I can remember being in those places that I wrote about. I feel again the feelings I had then. I can also see how much He has taught me since then and I know He continues with me now.
What did this chapter say to you?
Chapter 29 - Listening to God
These are the places in this chapter that challenged me. What challenged you?
"If we focus exclusively on God's written Word when looking for God's activity in our lives but don't watch and pray, we'll miss the unfolding story of his work. We'll miss the patterns of the Divine Artist etching the character of his Son on our hearts." p. 242
"If we believe Scripture only applies to people in general, then we can miss how God intimately personalizes his counsel to us as individuals. We can become deists, removing God from our lives. But everywhere in Scripture we see God speaking to us with a personal touch, prompting us to obey and love." p. 242 & 243.
" Seeing God's activity in the details of our lives enhances the application of God's word...What is at stake here is developing an eye for the Shepherd. I need to tune in to my fathers' voice above the noise of my own heart and the surrounding world--what C.S. Lewis called "the Kingdom of Noise." I need to develop a poet's eye that can see the patterns in my Father's good creation. Like a good storyteller, I need to pick up the cadence and heartbeat of the Divine Storyteller." p. 243
"When people call their own thoughts or feelings 'God's voice', it puts them in control of God and ultimately undermines God's Word by elevating human intuition to the status of divine revelation. Unless Scripture guards and directs our intuitions, we can easily run amok and baptize our selfish desires with religious language." p. 244
"The problem is that the Holy Spirit comes in on the same channel as the world, the flesh, and the Devil. The Lord does lead--we just need to be careful that we aren't using the Lord as a cover for our own desires. If we frequently interpret random thoughts and desires as "God speaking," we get weird." p. 244
"To correctly discern when God is speaking to us, we need to keep the Word and Spirit together." p. 245
Review the illustration on p. 246.
"There is a tendency among Christians to get excited about "listening to God"...this elevates an experience with God instead of God himself...When referring to communication with God, Scripture assumes that I know what God is saying. The problem isn't the activity of listening, but my listening heart. Am I attentive to God? Is my heart soft and teachable? Am I remembering His ways, His commands? Psalm 25:15 says, "My eyes are ever toward the Lord." The means of communication is secondary to a surrendered heart. Our responsibility is to cultivate a listening heart in the midst of the noise from our own hearts and from the world, not to mention the Devil." p. 247
"The interaction between the divine Spirit and my own spirit is mysterious. David captures this mystery in Psalm 16:7--'I bless the Lord who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me.' The parallel structure of the verse suggests that 'the Lord who gives me counsel' is identical to 'my heart (literally 'my gut') instructs me.' So what happened? Is David's heart talking to him, or is God giving him counsel? the two are impossible to separate." p. 248
This chapter reminds me of all the times Vikki has reminded us of the importance and "essentialness" of knowing the Word: reading it, meditating on it, memorizing it so that it is with us --deeply ingrained into our minds and hearts.
Chapters 27 & 28
My favorite part of this book is Chapter 27. It puts legs on all of the "theory" he's been teaching. I suggest you read it and, if you have no other methodical way of keeping prayer requests, that you consider his 3x5 card method.
As Chris said, Chapter 28 is a must read, as you can see how his prayer, his methodical, patient prayer, is worked out in the life of Bob.
Throughout the process of this praying, God changes our hearts, as well. If prayer is aligning ourselves with the will of the Father, then we cannot help but be changed. We may start of "complaining" to God, but we end up humbled and are made less judgmental of others' faults. We become thankful to God and merciful to others.
"If Satan's basic game plan is pride, seeking to draw us into his life of arrogance, then God's basic game plan is humility, drawing us into the life of His Son."
Pray without ceasing. Pray with humility. Pray with hope.
James 5 (selected verses)
"Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts...Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door....Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy....Confess your faults to one another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much."
As Chris said, Chapter 28 is a must read, as you can see how his prayer, his methodical, patient prayer, is worked out in the life of Bob.
Throughout the process of this praying, God changes our hearts, as well. If prayer is aligning ourselves with the will of the Father, then we cannot help but be changed. We may start of "complaining" to God, but we end up humbled and are made less judgmental of others' faults. We become thankful to God and merciful to others.
"If Satan's basic game plan is pride, seeking to draw us into his life of arrogance, then God's basic game plan is humility, drawing us into the life of His Son."
Pray without ceasing. Pray with humility. Pray with hope.
James 5 (selected verses)
"Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts...Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door....Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy....Confess your faults to one another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much."
Chapter 28 - Prayer Work
It's spring break here in NE Atlanta ~ always a busy time with kids, so there might not be as much time to read the book this week. Chapter 27 is a good, practical chapter about how to use prayer cards.
But, Chapter 28 is a MUST READ!!! It is a tiny gem of a chapter, containing just 4 pages but capturing much of the essence of the entire prayer journey we've been learning about all these weeks.
Through a story about his obnoxious (my word) friend Bob, Mr. Miller describes how we truly partner with Christ through prayer AND hard work to reach others for Him. Here's just a snippet from toward the end of the chapter...
"...Finally, when nothing is working, we might pray. But by that time we've concluded that (the situation) is hopeless and God is powerless. We decide that prayer doesn't work. But what really doesn't work is us. For starters, we only prayed after we'd mucked up the situation. Then, by praying at the end, we didn't allow any time for God to weave His story. Secretly we want Him to answer our prayer by doing a magic trick on the other person's soul. Our 'prayer doesn't work' often means "you (God) didn't do my will, in my way, in my time."
Now, please, please, go and read the "back-story" to this snippet and see if you are as convicted by the chapter as I was!
But, Chapter 28 is a MUST READ!!! It is a tiny gem of a chapter, containing just 4 pages but capturing much of the essence of the entire prayer journey we've been learning about all these weeks.
Through a story about his obnoxious (my word) friend Bob, Mr. Miller describes how we truly partner with Christ through prayer AND hard work to reach others for Him. Here's just a snippet from toward the end of the chapter...
"...Finally, when nothing is working, we might pray. But by that time we've concluded that (the situation) is hopeless and God is powerless. We decide that prayer doesn't work. But what really doesn't work is us. For starters, we only prayed after we'd mucked up the situation. Then, by praying at the end, we didn't allow any time for God to weave His story. Secretly we want Him to answer our prayer by doing a magic trick on the other person's soul. Our 'prayer doesn't work' often means "you (God) didn't do my will, in my way, in my time."
Now, please, please, go and read the "back-story" to this snippet and see if you are as convicted by the chapter as I was!
Chapter 26 ~ Using Prayer Tools
In Chapter 26, Miller points out the importance of writing prayers down. He poses the question, "Do you use a calendar?" I would venture to say that we all use calendars, whether electronic or written. Then he asks, "Do you regularly use a written prayer system?" If we think it's so important to write down the events of our daily life, then we ought to consider it more important to write down our prayer/requests. He points out that most of those who don't write their prayers down don't take prayer seriously! He uses the example of Paul in Scripture of one who took prayer very seriously. "It is clear from the love that pours out of Paul in letters such as 1 Thessalonians, that Paul has been praying for them."
Miller acknowledges that having a prayer life is not easy at all. It takes persistence and focus when it doesn't feel natural to us. Writing our thoughts and requests down helps us to focus. In the next two chapters, he will help us look at two practical prayer tools: prayer journals and prayer cards.
Miller reminds us that we are to guard against our prayers becoming rote, "desensitizing us to God as a person." So many times we can become too focused on a list or prayer system (ACTS) that "we can become wooden or mindless as we pray."
What tools/systems do you use when you pray? I would love for you to share some of your methods.
Miller acknowledges that having a prayer life is not easy at all. It takes persistence and focus when it doesn't feel natural to us. Writing our thoughts and requests down helps us to focus. In the next two chapters, he will help us look at two practical prayer tools: prayer journals and prayer cards.
Miller reminds us that we are to guard against our prayers becoming rote, "desensitizing us to God as a person." So many times we can become too focused on a list or prayer system (ACTS) that "we can become wooden or mindless as we pray."
What tools/systems do you use when you pray? I would love for you to share some of your methods.
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