Pray As You Go

Spirituality Column #138
June 30, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Pray As You Go
By Bob Walters

God is constant, unchanging and eternal, while our mortal lives often change by the minute.

Prayer puts us in touch with God’s world, a peaceful and safe place. Yet we pray in response to the joy and pain, the hope and horror, the love and despair, the blessing and need, the goodness and sin, of daily human life.

We pray as we go, constantly striving for a Godly prayer connection that lifts us out of confusing human dualities and into the clearheaded, divine sphere of faith, hope and love.

It’s that wonderful place where we can “Be still, and know that [God is] God.” (Psalm 46:10)

The most beautiful and effective of prayers, to me, focus on God’s goodness, Christ’s sacrifice, and the Holy Spirit’s indwelling of our hearts.

Traditional, denominational books of Common Prayer are filled with these eloquent offerings. For example, here is the opening “Collect” (prayer) from the Episcopal Church’s Order of Holy Communion, circa 1952:

“Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid; Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love thee, and worthily magnify thy holy Name; through Christ our Lord. Amen.”

Wow. I think God deserves our best, most eloquent and sincere effort when we pray. Many of us are not especially eloquent – not like these liturgical prayers developed over centuries – but I do believe God always honors a heavenly-directed, focused, sincere prayer.

Satan, I’m pretty sure, prefers that we pray about ourselves.

The liturgical churches – Roman Catholic, Orthodox, mainline Protestant – become nervous when prayer and/or worship go off script. Conversely, the more freeform, Bible-based and widely varying Baptist, Wesleyan, Nazarene, Brethren, independent Christian churches, etc., are often suspicious of prayers written down before they are actually prayed … scripture, of course, excepted.

I see both sides. I grew up in the liturgical Episcopal Church, did not go to church for nearly three decades, then came to Christ, was baptized and joined a non-liturgical Bible-based Christian church.

Prayer at first was difficult. I knew the Lord’s Prayer, didn’t know scripture, and couldn’t imagine an uncharted personal prayer path. But we pray as we go, using old prayers or new praises, but always with the Holy Spirit’s help directed toward God in Jesus’ name.

Can’t miss.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes for the Fourth of July that the word “liberty” isn’t in the Bible, and the word “freedom” isn’t in the Declaration of Independence.

Covering All the Bases

Spirituality Column #137
June 23, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Covering All the Bases
By Bob Walters

We are advised by both scripture and tradition to lead a prayerful life, but it is often hard to know how to pray.

The Bible has plenty of advice on prayer – look up pray-prayer-praying in your Bible’s index. Make sure not to miss Matthew 6:5-15 in the Sermon on the Mount. That is Jesus’ advice on praying.

To learn how Jesus Himself actually prayed read John 17, where Jesus prays powerfully and beautifully in the Garden of Gethsemane for Himself, for His disciples, and for all believers.

Catholic, Orthodox and the varied Protestant denominations have spent centuries perfecting their prayer books, and the prayers are magnificent to recite, majestic to hear.

Some people are hooked on rote prayer – prayers we memorize. Some people think rote prayer is akin to an Eastern mantra or the “babbling like pagans” mentioned in Matthew 6:7.

Rote prayer, I think, is incredibly helpful when we don’t know where to start praying, or aren’t quite sure what it is we are personally trying to say to God. The Orthodox “Jesus Prayer” – “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me” – is often my jumping-in point for prayer.

The key to prayer is to focus on God, on Christ, and on the Holy Spirit … not on our personal needs. In John 14:26 Christ promises that God will send us the Holy Spirit to act as our Counselor. And what is prayer, really, other than seeking divine Counsel?

Ask the Holy Spirit how to pray. Ask the Lord Jesus how to pray. Ask God Almighty how to pray. You’ll find their answers will all be identical. Only by focusing on Them, however, can you possibly hope to hear Their counsel.

When my prayer focuses on me … guess whose advice I get? Mine. And if my advice were all that great, I wouldn’t be praying.

A prayer formula can be helpful. I like “PTA” - Praise, Thank and Ask.
- Praise God for being God and for all the ways He lets us know it.
- Thank God for His blessings.
- Ask God for greater closeness to Him and understanding of His will.

I think it is safe to say we are all inclined to ask God for material things or physical/emotional comfort, but it is God’s closeness and our understanding of His will that brings the peace that passes all understanding (Philippians 4:7).

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) advises the inclusion of “Confession” in prayer as well. We can’t surprise God, and confession properly tempers our requests.

Praying Continually

Spirituality Column #136
June 16, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Praying Continually
By Bob Walters

If “praying continually” isn’t something that seems practical or doable given life’s demands, responsibilities and temptations, is it more likely the Bible is wrong, or that our priorities and practices are wrong?

1 Thessalonians 5:17, like the rest of the Bible, is not passive in its language. “Pray continually,” (NIV), “Pray without ceasing,” (KJV) and “Pray all the time” (MSG), three versions of this same verse, leave no wiggle room.

So … shall we all become silent monks and nuns?

There is a place for that, certainly, but not for most of us. God gave us our lives and He gave us free will … and He is eternal so He already knows how everything is going to turn out.

No matter how much we debate predestination vs. free will, we can’t surprise God or create a truth God doesn’t already know. But we can surprise ourselves by how close we can truly be to God 24/7 if we learn to think about God first and ourselves second.

Prayer doesn’t have to be complex. It’s easy to say or think the words, “Jesus Christ is Lord.” If you mean it, that’s a prayer.

The wonderful Orthodox “Prayer of the Heart” or “Jesus Prayer” is similarly spare but powerful:

“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

This simple prayer lands an enormous theological punch. In 12 words it identifies Christ as Lord, God as His Father, me as a sinner and requests my most urgent, perpetual and all encompassing need: God’s mercy.

Effective prayers can be unspoken and even unformed by words. A prayer can be a momentary awareness or mental image of God. See Christ on the Cross and use that image to battle Satan’s constant incursions into our inner peace and outer well-being. Invoke the Holy Spirit; ask how to pray.

If we desperately fear sin – and we all should – praying to Jesus Christ as Lord should be an all-day, all-night, all-encompassing attitude, not just an early-morning activity. Satan never sleeps. Thankfully, neither does God.

Sure, find time in your day to focus on God on your knees in private. Read a devotional. Read scripture. Participate in a Bible Study. Serve others. Go to church. Worship. Volunteer at church. Give to the church and the needy.

But learn to glimpse God without ceasing.

You will find yourself praying continually.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) has discovered praying for money is less effective than praying to know and follow God’s will.

Praying Without Ceasing

Spirituality Column #135
June 9, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Praying Without Ceasing
By Bob Walters

The shortest verse in the Bible is John 11:35, “Jesus wept.” Our Lord wept over Lazarus, whom He soon raised from the dead.

The only other two-word verse in my New International Version (NIV) Bible is 1 Thessalonians 5:17, “pray continually.”

Traditional Bible versions like the King James say, “pray without ceasing.” The woefully obtuse but politically correct and idiomatically familiar “The Message” paraphrase says, “Pray all the time.”

In context, St. Paul is telling the still-tenuous Christian church at Thessalonica – in Macedonia around A.D. 51 where Paul had earlier begun his ministry but abruptly left – “(v16) Be joyful always, (v17) pray continually; (v18) give thanks in all circumstances for this is God’s will for you in Jesus Christ.”

Notice Paul doesn’t say “Be joyful when you are happy.” Or “Pray when it’s convenient.” Or “Give thanks when God gives you what you want.”

Our personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit is a fulltime affair. Joy is not a function of happy circumstance. Prayer is not reserved for a set-aside time. Thanksgiving isn’t just a Thursday in November.

We must have perpetual joy that Jesus is Lord. And say it.

We must pray continually to be with God continually. And know it.

We must be thankful for Christ’s sacrifice restoring us to communion with God. And live it.

Joy and thankfulness are attitudes we mentally and emotionally command. By living those attitudes, people around us interpret them as an expression of Godliness … as long as the glory for those Godly attitudes is given to God, not taken pridefully for ourselves.

Prayer, though, isn’t so much an attitude. It’s an action requiring discipline and willful engagement. Our closeness to God depends on it. When we aren’t praying, we’re drifting away from God and instead drifting headlong toward ourselves, the world, and Satan. Our faith waivers.

We pray to connect with God. To know He is there. To glorify Jesus. To praise Him. To thank Him. To confess to Him. And, of course, to ask Him.

As for “asking,” try this: Ask God for “stuff” last. First ask God how to be closer to Him, how to glorify Him, and how to help others know Him. Mean it. Ask God for deeper faith. As Morgan Freeman said to Jim Carey in the movie Bruce Almighty: “Now that’s a prayer.”

Walters knows that no matter how much or what we pray, we can’t surprise God.

Next week: Praying Continually (click here for link)

Film, Fiction, Faith and Fact

Spirituality Column #134
June 2, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Film, Fiction, Faith and Fact
By Bob Walters

Normally it doesn’t matter when a novelist gets as many facts wrong as Dan Brown does. I think Angels & Demons is a good example of that.

Yes, there is a Vatican, a Pope and a place called Rome. There are Christian icons, locations, histories and mysteries attendant to all three. Europe’s CERN laboratory is a real place; Harvard is a real college.

Brown’s novels though are fiction, as are his imaginative depictions of historic conspiracies and secret religious societies. In Angels & Demons, Brown’s 2000 novel concocts a thrilling tale with a thread of truth here and there, woven into a fictional fabric of highly entertaining action and historical rubbish.

Ron Howard’s 2009 film adaptation of the book starring Tom Hanks is a movie I planned to refuse to see, because I am still ticked at Brown for The Da Vinci Code. I don’t care so much that he writes fictional things about Christ or the Church or the Pope, because the Jesus Christ Who is my Lord and Savior is plenty big enough to withstand a novelist’s keystrokes.

So are the Catholic Church and the Bishop of Rome.

What did tick me off were Brown’s disingenuous and potentially hurtful “Hey, this is the true story” attitude in his Da Vinci media interviews, and his ridiculous “Fact” preambles to these two fictional stories.

Note an important distinction: Telling a wild yarn isn’t a lie; it’s a wild yarn. That Brown calls these books fact-based, well, that’s a lie.

That the faith of so many people may have been shaken, dampened, or muddled by The Da Vinci Code’s misrepresentation of history, tradition and facts, surely grieves the Holy Spirit. It matters that the facts were wrong.

On the up side, thousands (or maybe millions) of us went into specific Bible studies to refute Brown’s theological nonsense. We heightened our awareness of important religious history and better understand the veracity of the Bible. That’s better than OK … it glorifies God.

At the end of the far-less-dangerous Angels & Demons movie – which I wound up seeing and enjoying – there is a tender line of utter truth that does not appear in the book, and to me vindicates the story’s spurious “facts” and dark ecclesiastical innuendo.

The chief Cardinal says to Tom Hanks’ character: “It is surprising sometimes who God sends to help us.”

Amen to that.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) rarely goes to the movies, reads few novels, and as a general rule ignores network television.