Spiritual Habits: Obligations or Opportunities?

Sometimes talking about developing steady spiritual habits of daily prayer and Bible reading can sound pretty legalistic. I worry that I sound like a broken record-- repeating a list of arduous and boring tasks that everyone has already heard hundreds of times—when I am actually trying to help others walk through an open door to a deeper, more exciting relationship with God. I particularly worry that when I explain basic spiritual disciplines to my kids I am only adding in their minds to a list of difficult things they “should” do, like chores, homework and musical instrument practice. How can they understand that I’m just trying to hand them the keys to a fabulous life of peace and joy?

This morning I heard some helpful words from Dr. Andrew Purves of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. He spoke on Philippians 3:12: “…I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.” Christ has already grabbed hold of us and offered us eternal life as well as an abundant, peace-filled life on earth. When we strive to live the way He lived and do the things He did what we are doing is trying to take hold more fully of that life He has given us. Prayer and Bible reading/study then are not obligations that must be fulfilled daily in order to avoid ending up in God’s dog house. Instead, they are opportunities that allow us to live more fully and enjoyably in His presence everyday.

That’s why developing daily spiritual habits is so important. They are your way to grab hold of that for which Christ took hold of you. Without them, you miss out on what He’s hoping to give you. So take a few minutes to look back at April. How are you doing with prayer, reading and creating some quiet oases for Him in the day? What practical things can you do during May to cement these habits into your day?

"Unanswered" Prayer

My daily email from Back to the Bible today contained an excerpt from Elisabeth Elliot which is exactly what I had been planning to blog about. Since Elisabeth Elliot undoubtedly writes better and with more experience and authority than I do, I'll let her say it:

News came one day which indicated that a matter I had been praying about had deteriorated rather than improved. "What good are my prayers, anyway?" I was tempted to ask. "Why bother? It's becoming a mere charade." But the words of Jesus occurred in my Bible reading that very morning (and wasn't it a good thing I'd taken time to hear Him?): "If you, bad as you are, know how to give your children what is good for them, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him?" (Matthew 7:11, NEB).

Are you as often tempted as I am to doubt the effectiveness of prayer? But Jesus prayed. He told us to pray. We can be sure that the answer will come, and it will be good. If it is not exactly what we expected, chances are we were not asking for quite the right thing. Our heavenly Father hears the prayer, but wants to give us bread rather than stones.

I know from other of Elisabeth Elliot's writings that what she is referring to in that last sentence are those verses in the gospels that say "If your son asks for bread will you give him a stone?" and "If your son asks for an egg will you give him a serpent?" No, we know that God would not do that. But what if what we ask for is a stone or a serpent and we are just too ignorant or short-sighted to realize it?

In that case, God will give us the bread or the egg and we will be disappointed. But we will not be unanswered. Faith is accepting what is put in our hands and accepting that it is good, and in fact, better than anything we could have asked for.

(The excerpt is from Elisabeth Elliot's Keep a Quiet Heart. To sign up for daily email excerpts from Elisabeth Elliot or other devotional writers, go to Back to the Bible. They'll also email daily Bible reading guides.)

Keep a Quiet Heart By Elisabeth Elliot / Baker Available at Christianbook.com for $9.99 (save 23%!) When you long for a quiet refuge away from the noisy, frenetic circumstances of day-to-day commitments--where do you turn? If you're Elisabeth Elliot, acclaimed speaker and author of many best-selling books, you look to one place alone: to the embracing arms of our omnipotent and infinitely loving Heavenly Father. This book is a unique collection culled from the lead articles featured in Mrs. Elliot's newsletter over the past several years. "Mostly they are about learning to know God," the author says. "Nothing else comes close to being as important as that. It's what we are here for." Join Elisabeth as she points the way to a deeper, more fulfilling--and restful--walk with God.

Praying with Faith in God's Answer

Elisabeth Elliot writes in A Lamp For My Feet:

Sometimes when I was a child my mother or father would say, "Shut your eyes and hold out your hand." That was the promise of some lovely surprise. I trusted them, so I shut my eyes instantly and held out my hand. Whatever they were going to give me I was ready to take. So it should be in our trust of our heavenly Father. Faith is the willingness to receive whatever He wants to give…

I don't know about you, but sometimes I find it hard to know what to ask for when I pray. Should I ask God to help me pursue this goal or that new direction? I torture myself with questions like “What if this thing I’m praying about is not in ‘His will?’” What if my requests are merely reflections of my own selfish desires? I feel very much like the double-minded man James talks about, who asks God for wisdom but doubts God even while he is asking, and is therefore unstable in all he does (James 1:5-8).

When I want to cut through these thoughts and get to the heart of what prayer really is, it helps me to take a deep breath, shut my eyes and picture myself as a very young child holding out her hand to her father. I think, “Whatever You have in store, I know it is good.” I open my mind to gratefully accepting whatever it is God puts in my hand that day. Praying this way takes the burden off me and puts it on God, where it is supposed to be anyway. It is a simple way to pray, “Thy will be done.”

I prayed this way just yesterday with surprising and reassuring results. I was busy preparing for a meeting about a new business opportunity. I really did not know how to pray. Should I ask God to bless the meeting and help me maximize this new opportunity? What if God really did not want me to pursue it? What if pursuing it would take time and attention away from other things He wanted me to do? On the other hand, what if my praying that God would eliminate the opportunity if it was not His will was just some spiritualized form of laziness or reluctance to work hard? What if the hours involved would impact my kids? What if? What if? (See, I told you I can torture myself.)

I stopped, closed my eyes and pictured myself as a child holding out her hand for a gift. I said, “God, I am happy to take whatever it is You have planned for this meeting and this opportunity.” I relaxed. Within 15 minutes, one of the parties involved called and removed what had threatened to be a fairly significant obstacle to me. This morning, the other party involved took the meeting in the direction I would have most wanted it to go if I was calling the shots. I could just lean back and thank God for His good gifts.

“Which of you fathers, if your son asks for an egg, will give him a snake instead?” Luke 11:11

Praying Without Ceasing

A year or so ago I caught the flu. Now I have often thought that being confined to bed for a couple days with nothing to do would be like heaven on earth--but of course it wasn’t. It was awful. And it happened at a time in my life that I was longing to have more time to pray. Yet when I was handed that time on a silver platter, I couldn’t pray--I was just too sick. My mind was mush. All I could say was, “God please help me feel better.”

Now I have no doubt God heard my simple get well prayer (see the previous two posts on Praying Simple Prayers) but I was somewhat sobered by this inability to get my mind in gear when there were lots of things I wanted to pray about and time on my hands to do it. When I was back on my feet I decided to create a simple outline of things I knew I always wanted to pray about whenever I had the opportunity. I took one of those packs of 3x5 cards that are spiral bound together and began to write short sentences or phrases—one per card—that would help guide my prayers. The first card says, “God, thank you for loving me, a sinner.” The second says, “Please make the periphery and all the day’s distractions drop away. Let me see only you.” Some cards are deliberately open-ended—“Lord, thank you for the situation I find myself in today”—so they will launch me into praying specifically about what’s going on right now. Some cards just have one word—just enough to remind me of the issue so that I can remember to pray about it.

These cards have helped me to pray many times. I am not sure they are the best way to pray when you have a few minutes to be alone with God in undistracted peace and quiet, but they have been a great way to expand my prayer life into times that I would never have been able to pray before. Now I can actually pray while killing time in the orthodontist’s waiting room or sitting in traffic. I just grab my little deck of cards and it reminds me of the things I most want to talk to God about. They focus me on the task (or, rather, privilege) of praying when I used to be worrying about what to cook for dinner, fretting about the time I was wasting, getting irritated about the doctor overbooking appointments, etc. For me, they have been another step toward “praying without ceasing.”

The 3x5 cards only cost a couple bucks. It’s probably worth the investment to see if this is a trick that will work for you.

"...be clear minded and self-controlled so that you can pray." 1 Peter 4:7

Praying Simple Prayers #2

Henri Nouwen expands on the idea of simple prayers in his book, The Way of the Heart:

When we simply try to sit silently and wait for God to speak to us, we find ourselves bombarded with endless conflicting thoughts and ideas. But when we use a very simple sentence such as “O God, come to my assistance,”…it is easier to let the many distractions pass by without being misled by them. Such a simple easily repeated prayer can slowly empty out our crowded interior life and create the quiet space where we can dwell with God….Our choice of words depends on our needs and circumstances of the moment, but it is best to use words from Scripture.

Some days when I reach the time I have set aside to pray, I find myself distracted and unable to focus on prayer. No matter how hard I try, I just feel I can’t “get through.” It helps me to let out a deep breath and say simply, “Lord, thank you for loving me, a sinner.” Somehow, saying that simple phrase, thinking over all that it means in terms of God’s greatness, my insufficiency, and His love for me, has the power to settle me. It focuses my mind on God, gives me a greater desire to talk to Him, and prepares my heart to continue praying.

How about picking phrase from the Psalms you have been reading this month and praying it as a prayer? Pick something that resonates with you, your needs and what you want to say to God right now. Here are some ideas:

“God, help me to follow you the way a sheep follows a shepherd." Psalm 23

"God, please lead me beside still waters. Please restore my soul.” Psalm 23

“O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the earth.” Psalm 8

“O Lord, by Your hand, please save me.” Psalm 17

“God, please make me like a strong tree planted by streams of water.” Psalm 1

“Father, don’t let me trust in my own power. Help me trust in You.” Psalm 20

Praying Simple Prayers

Do you wonder how to pray? Do you think to yourself, “What good is it to set aside time to pray each day if I don’t even know what I should say?”

Here is helpful advice from John Climacus, a 7th century Christian monk:

When you pray, do not try to express yourself in fancy words, for often it is the simple, repetitious phrases of a little child that our Father in heaven finds most irresistible. Do not strive for verbosity lest your mind be distracted from devotion by a search for words. One phrase on the lips of the tax collector was enough to win God’s mercy; one humble request made with faith was enough to save the good thief. Wordiness in prayer often subjects the mind to fantasy and dissipation; single words by their very nature tend to concentrate the mind.

When you stop to remember that God is our Father and specifically took time to reassure us in the Bible numerous times that we are adopted as His children and heirs, it becomes wonderfully obvious that He will appreciate even our simplest, stupidest prayers. Parents want sincerity from their children--not long, rehearsed, word perfect speeches. In fact, if my kids start speaking in a way that sounds overly rehearsed, I start wondering what they are hiding!

So if you are having difficulty articulating prayers, try the simple phrases a little child would use, "Help!" "I'm afraid." "I'm tired." "I'm worried about this meeting today." "Thanks for dinner." "Can you sit beside me for awhile?" "Can you sleep in my room tonight?"

Resurrection Power for Your Habits

When we try to establish good habits that increase our time with God and our capacity to hear His voice, we begin to realize how very often we fail. We get busy; we get tired; we forget. We become conscious of “the body of death” that we are lugging around. (In Romans 7, Paul wrote about how, on the inside, he loved God and longed to do what was right yet constantly discovered that his outward actions failed in many ways. He said he was trapped inside a “body of death.”) It can be overwhelmingly discouraging.

Yet the good news of Easter is, of course, the resurrection—victory over death. You and I know that Christ’s resurrection on Easter meant victory over the ultimate death that is the penalty for sin. But do you realize what the resurrection means for the body of death and the sinful, half-hearted tendencies we deal with everyday? It means the same thing--victory. Because the resurrected Christ lives, that power is available to you every day.

This is what Paul was talking about when he said, “just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives. Since we have been united with Him in His death, we will also be raised as He was. Our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin.” (Romans 6:4-6). Later in the discussion Paul says, “The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, He will give life to your mortal body by this same Spirit living within you. So, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation whatsoever to do what your sinful nature urges you to do.” (Romans 8:11-12). He goes on to say there is no need to live like powerless, defeated, fearful slaves (v.15). As an example of the power at work in us, Paul says the Holy Spirit helps us, “for we don’t even know what we should pray for, nor how we should pray. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying….”(v.26-27).

I know this is hard to get your head around. It’s especially hard for those of us who have been believers a long time and have gotten a little too familiar with the factual story of the resurrection to think much about its practical ramifications today. The truth is, Christ seeks to live His life through you and that life is not just a regular life—it is a resurrected life. And the truth is that the Holy Spirit, who possesses the kind of power that can bring a dead man back from the grave, lives in you and is actually there helping you do things like pray. No need to get discouraged or act like a powerless slave to sin or sleep or the TV. You do have the power to do what pleases God.

Think about these truths as we head into Easter. Think about them during your daily prayer minutes. Let’s ask God to help us understand them more fully and to live in their reality.

Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord, equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. Hebrews 13:20-21.

April Habits

It’s the beginning of April and time to stretch ourselves a bit and add another new habit.

This month, while you keep up with the habits we've already established, try to add two minutes of Old Testament reading to each day. The easiest way to do this, I think, is to read one psalm a day. You can do this at the same time as you do your New Testament reading if that time is working well for you—or you can pick another time, say immediately after you get up or before you turn out the light at night. It might work to keep a Bible open to the Psalms beside your bed so you can avoid the distraction of hunting for your Bible first thing in the morning! Just two more minutes. Simple, right? You can do it! (As always, if you already have far better habits than the ones we’re talking about in these posts, great. Use the principles we are using—picking small achievable goals and sticking to them to form solid habits—to work on something you think God wants you to do in your life.)

I’m going to use the rest of the posts this month to focus on our prayer times. Remember, we are trying for several minutes three times a day. Do you worry about how to pray during these times? Do you get distracted easily? Wonder if God is really listening to what feels like half-hearted rambling to you? Me too sometimes. Join me as try to get a better handle on prayer.