I haven’t been active on here, simply because I was preparing to give a speech and that took up so much time!!

A few weeks ago, I had the honour and privilege of giving a talk at a women’s retreat in my church.  This was the first time I did something like this and feel like this was an answer to my prayers over the last couple of years.  I have spent more time in God’s Word and studying theology in the last 2 years than any other time in my life.  This is only possible because I cannot work – and I see this as a blessing now. God does work in mysterious ways!  I have prayed that God would use me in some way, in his timing, for his glory.  Having received some counsel about this in the last half year, I resolved to just be patient and not go out to seek that opportunity.  Just to wait on God. 

As a member of the church’s prayer team, I took on the task of a prayer team initiative, which was to organize a women’s prayer retreat.  It was something initially begun by the member I replaced on the team, so it just made sense to carry it on.  Eventually a retreat team was put into place and planning began.  One of the women on the team was someone who has given talks before in a number of settings, and I was going on the assumption that she would do a talk of some kind.  But, as it turned out, the day we ended up choosing for the retreat, fell inside her vacation plans.  She just said, “Nicole can do it.”  And that’s how I ended up giving a speech.  And what a task it was.  I’m thankful I started preparing and studying for it in January, because I needed 3 months to get it to a place where it was ready for delivery! With several different ideas swirling in my head about prayer, I ended up connecting prayer with discipleship. 

I started off by defining/explaining what prayer was – not that the women in the room didn’t know what it was, but to lay out some concepts that maybe weren’t as familiar. Elizabeth Woodson says, “Prayer is about listening, abiding in God’s presence, and aligning our desires with His.” The goal of prayer is to have communion with God – that allows use to encounter, know, delight in, and love God.  The aspect of adoring God, loving Him, knowing Him, praising Him was something I really wanted to bring home.  That our prayers should be full of praising God just for who He is and what He has done.  We often launch into needs and petitions, forgetting that we find our joy in Him! 

John Piper suggests that the purpose of prayer is for God to be our joy. To enjoy God. To be in a living relationship with our Triune God – to be part of that union because we are united in Christ!  And to delight in the truth that we GET to call Him Father.  To know He loves us, delights in us – His children. 

Our God is a hearing, welcoming, and an answering God.  What a mystery to know that the infinite, almighty, eternal, Creator God of the cosmos, actually bends to speak to us through His word, creation, and Jesus, and even to listen to us – and crazier yet, answers us.  And one of the things we learn in prayer is that our will, our desires need to be aligned with His.  For He knows what is best for us. His plan is greater than we can possibly imagine – immeasurably more! And when we realize that we don’t know what is actually best for is – we can surrender to Him more easily.  Tanner Kay Swanson says, “If we want God’s wants to be our wants, we will ask God to do what He wants within all our wants.”  Think about that and realize that we need to want what God wants. 

Yet, our prayer lives can be – sporadic, difficult to maintain in our busy lives, lacking.  What we need to understand then is that just as we need food and water to live, so we need prayer to live.  It’s our lifeline to God, to His power and strength.  When Tim Keller was diagnosed with cancer, his wife used this analogy to encourage deeper prayer.  If you had a disease and your doctor said that if you take this one little pill every night before you go to bed, you will live.  How important would it be to take that pill?  Would you forget?  Would you toss it aside and say, “I can do without it tonight!”.  I doubt that. You’d take that pill because your life depends on it.  And that’s how he started to see prayer.  Our lives are powerless without prayer.   And prayer is fueled by delighting in our God and being in His glorious presence.  Psalm 16:11 “You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.”   THE path of life.  Not paths.  THE path.  Jesus. Our joy is being in His presence – and looking to our eternal life.  John Piper says, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.”  Our adoration of Him is OUR happiness!  He feeds our souls with His Word – the Bible.  Given to us to help us grow in our faith.  This food is for our instruction, encouragement, exhortation, and enjoyment.  And just as we savour good food, we learn to slow down and linger over the words of God. That word fuels our desire to worship Him….to pray, to glory in Him, to give Him all our praise!  We find God’s will in His word, and we are given the blessing of praying His words back to Him.  What a wonderful way to know you are praying His desires and within His will!

When we abide in Christ – when we consume his words, our joy will be full.  And we will GET God.  He will be our peace, our joy, our happiness. 

1 Thessalonians 5:17 instructs us to pray without ceasing.  This one always made me feel – uncomfortable, like I just wasn’t doing prayer right.  Then I read what Augustine said about ceaseless prayer: “If your desire (for God) is continuous, your prayer is continuous too.”  Ceaseless prayer is a continuous desire for God!  What helps us have a continual desire for God? Frequent, intentional prayer.  That kind of prayer – prayer before meals, prayer at bedtime, prayer in the morning – fuels the flame of desire for God.  Intentional prayer increases our desire for God – and so, we need frequent intentional prayer.  Praying without ceasing is a life of delighting in God – of worshipping Him in every aspect of life.

I love what Joel Beeke says about ceaseless prayer.  “Ceaseless prayer – or a lifestyle of prayerfulness – is a command that refers more to praying with your hat on and eyes open than to petitioning in private.” No matter what we’re doing in our day – we can pray.  How?  We need an attitude of prayerfulness and perseverance that comes by being aware that we are in God’s presence all the time!  Remembering that everything we do is to be done to glorify God, then even in our mundane tasks like changing diapers, dusting, doing laundry, writing reports, working in your profession, etc – we can pray.  Because our intentional prayer is cultivating a desire and a hunger for God.  You become more aware of His presence!

And perseverance.  We’re called to persevere in prayer because it’s important to stay awake, alert, attentive – to keep watch over our souls in all things of life.  If we think prayer is easy, or not super important, or an optional thing in our day – if we don’t persevere, we’ll likely drift away from it when it doesn’t seem enjoyable or like it’s accomplishing anything.  Perseverance and a delight in God in prayer is a sure expression of our faith in Christ. 

Next time I’ll share some of my insights into discipleship and prayer. 

Grace and Peace.