Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Episode 10: The Importance of Prayer (and how to pray)
132 Plays5 years ago
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Root Like Faith
00:00:08
Speaker
Hi, we are Patrick and Ruth Schwank and we are so thrilled you are listening in with us here at Root Lake Faith. It is our deepest desire to encourage and equip men and women to be rooted in God's word, transformed by the love of Jesus, and moved by his mission in the power of the Holy Spirit. Nothing is more important.
What is Prayer's Purpose?
00:00:28
Speaker
Today we are talking about prayer.
00:00:31
Speaker
We will talk about what the goal of prayer is and different ways we can pray to draw us closer to God. This is going to be good. We're excited to share today's episode with you, so let's get started.
00:00:45
Speaker
On today's episode of Root Like Faith, we are talking about prayer.
Misunderstanding Prayer
00:00:49
Speaker
Now, prayer can seem like a topic that we all understand, right? It seems pretty simple. But I fear we're missing out on the richness and the intimacy that comes from a life rooted in prayer.
00:01:04
Speaker
Prayer connects us to our Father, our Father who loves us and desires to have a relationship with us.
Childhood Memories and Prayer
00:01:11
Speaker
Now, I don't know about you, but I think probably a lot of us could remember the first time or some of the first times that we prayed.
00:01:20
Speaker
Yeah, I know I can remember as a young child praying for certain things. And some of them seem really silly now looking back and praying for that favorite Star Wars figurine at Christmas time. But one of the probably the earliest memories I have of a more serious prayer was being out and playing with some of my friends in the neighborhood. I grew up in a neighborhood.
00:01:38
Speaker
We had lots of friends and we would get together and play football in the front yard or, you know, wiffle ball in the backyard. And I remember from a young age, you know, being at a friend's house and we're all playing football and hearing a siren go off, you know, an ambulance or a fire truck somewhere off in the distance.
00:01:53
Speaker
And for whatever reason, my first instinct was to begin praying that I immediately thought, boy, I hope something's not wrong with my mom or my dad. And I began praying for them. It would oftentimes go back home just to make sure everything was OK.
00:02:09
Speaker
And so that is, for whatever that's connected to, that's one of my earliest memories of prayer. And I think partly was because I found myself for the first time in a situation that was outside of my control. There was something
Prayer as Dependence on God
00:02:24
Speaker
I didn't have the power or the wisdom or the resources to fix. And the only thing I knew what to do was to pray. And I think to a certain degree, that's part of what prayer is all about, is depending on a God who is wise and loving and good and way more powerful than we are.
00:02:40
Speaker
Yeah. And I mean, this is really interesting.
Natural Longing for God
00:02:44
Speaker
I think I remember as a child when I was not even a Christian, I can remember writing prayers down in a notebook, anything that would come up that I just felt like I had no power or control over. I would write out a prayer to God. I wasn't even
00:03:06
Speaker
following Christ until I was in in high school when somebody invited me to youth group but something obviously there was a connection there I knew that there was some something somebody greater than me that could help me and I wrote those prayers to God so obviously as a little bit of knowledge of God but I just think that's so interesting that even you know back then when I wasn't really I wouldn't consider myself a Christian I was as a child writing my prayers out
00:03:34
Speaker
Yeah, that is so interesting. I think that shows you that we really are made for communion with God. It's kind of what we talked about in earlier episodes, that we were made to know God, and to love Him, and to worship Him, and to live for Him. And even before you were a Christian, God was pursuing you by His grace, and you had these longings for Him, these desires to commune with the God who created you and made you.
00:03:58
Speaker
long before you really understood who he was or what he'd done for you. Yeah, I knew there was something more.
Understanding Prayer as Communication
00:04:04
Speaker
So let's start with the basics here. Like I said, a lot of us maybe feel like, well, we understand prayer is pretty simple. But honestly, that makes me wonder why we struggle with it so much. So I think if we start with the basics here on prayer, so just in general, I think we should start with that question. What is prayer? How do we define prayer?
00:04:28
Speaker
Yeah, I think there's probably a lot of different ways we could define prayer. I mean, you know, kind of what we were talking about on one level, prayer is like one of the most natural things we can do. But on the other hand, there is something about prayer that feels unnatural. You know, we we can tend to do life on our own.
00:04:44
Speaker
But I think maybe the most simple ways to define prayer is that prayer is simply communicating with God and communing with God. It's that idea of communicating God. We talk to Him and we hear from Him, but we also commune with Him that prayer is both communication and communion. And that makes me think about, I don't know, my life as a mom or as a parent. How can we possibly know our kids
Prayer and Parenting Analogy
00:05:13
Speaker
If we don't spend the time communicating with them and communing with them, I mean really I think about the pretty much Well, our habit is at nighttime before the kids go to bed. Sometimes it's you know, right after dinner or whatever We always end up all sitting on the couches
00:05:30
Speaker
and talking for a long time and communicating and communing. And that's really how we kinda stay, I feel like, connected. And there's definitely a correlation there as you think about our relationship with God in prayer. Yeah, I mean, obviously it's not a perfect analogy. I mean, God knows us perfectly. And yet we, as His kids, are getting to know Him and understanding Him in prayer. And we're communing with Him. We're experiencing His presence and listening to His voice.
00:05:58
Speaker
and being known and loved by him. And so it is a great picture. I feel like you just learned so much about a relationship with God when you're a parent. Right. And that's one example. I love that. Definitely.
How Should We Pray?
00:06:08
Speaker
So here we are saying that probably, you know, we must struggle with this because why would this, prayer is a topic that people want to talk about. They want to know how to pray. And so
00:06:19
Speaker
I mean, think about the Gospels, right? I mean, you see like in, I think it's in Luke chapter 11, verse one, where one of Jesus' disciples comes to him and says, teach us to pray. And so like other Jewish boys and girls, I mean, they would have grown up praying certain prayers, going to synagogue. And so certainly they knew how to pray,
00:06:42
Speaker
But there was something about being a disciple of Jesus, being rooted in Christ and belonging to his kingdom that informed their prayer. And so even the disciples, I love that, just even the disciples had to learn how to pray. I don't know, that makes me think maybe we do make it a little too simple.
00:07:01
Speaker
Well, I think that there are, yeah, I mean, I think sometimes we can fall into thinking there's just no wrong way to pray, which isn't accurate. I mean, think about, again, in that example from Luke 11 or Matthew 6, where Jesus gives us the Lord's Prayer, several times before he gives us the Lord's Prayer, he says, do not pray like this.
00:07:21
Speaker
And so clearly there are wrong ways, and Jesus saw that there are wrong ways to pray. And so on some level, prayer is simply talking to God, but there are some things that we shouldn't do, and Jesus points those out in Matthew 6. But yeah, I think prayer is, most simply defined is this idea of communicating with God and talking to Him and hearing from His voice, but also communing with Him.
00:07:45
Speaker
and yet there is something that we have to learn. There is a right way to pray and things we need to overcome to pray.
Challenges in Prayer
00:07:51
Speaker
Yeah, because we can really struggle, at least maybe I'm just speaking for myself here, but I can struggle to remember to pray at times, so let's talk about some of those struggles that we face when it comes to praying. Why do we struggle to pray? I mean, it seems so... I've never struggled in this area. I'm gonna have to let you take this one out. Right, sure, honey.
00:08:13
Speaker
So why do we struggle to pray? Well, I think, you know, first of all, even just me mentioning, you know, forgetfulness, I think I can forget. Like, why am I worrying about this? Why am I thinking about this when literally I can talk to the God of the universe who can bring me peace, who can help me in this situation? But so many times
00:08:36
Speaker
my first inclination is to worry about something. You know what I mean? It's not always natural to just go directly in prayer, so that I think of forgetfulness, forgetting that the God of the universe is right there with me. Yeah, and I think forgetfulness oftentimes is tied to just our own desire to do things our own way. And so you just, again, going back to
00:09:02
Speaker
the very beginning of the Bible and that story of Adam and Eve in their relationship with God, and they weren't content to depend on Him, they wanted to live independent of Him. And so instead of listening to God and seeking His voice and seeking His wisdom or obeying what God had already spoken, they charted their own course. And I know I can be guilty of that, that not only can I be forgetful, but just in my own pride, sometimes in my own self-centeredness or my own self-sufficiency, I can
00:09:30
Speaker
go out and do whatever it is that I'm doing, whether that's preparing a sermon or going to meet with somebody. I can do that in my own strength and my own wisdom and I can forget to pray and I can just sort of lean on my own wisdom, my own skills, my own education and forget
00:09:46
Speaker
to pull back and go, okay, God, I want to invite you into this. I need your grace to have this conversation. I need your wisdom. Is there something or somewhere you want me to go in these circumstances, in this situation, or in this decision? So I can forget
00:10:02
Speaker
I can, you know, sometimes just in my own pride, just do it my own way, rely on my own strength and my own wisdom. Yeah, it makes me think of, you know, I'll find myself feeling nagged. Something's nagging me, you know, bothering me for, and it might even go on for a couple of weeks. And then all of a sudden it's like the light bulb comes on and it's like, Lord, why have I not turned to you in this? Like you can help me in this. And I think,
00:10:28
Speaker
Not only is it forgetfulness, I think sometimes just busyness can distract us from praying. Absolutely. I think sometimes we're trying to accomplish so many things. And from the minute we get up, the first thing we do is we look at our phone and then we pop open the email or we begin meeting the needs of our kids or whatever it is. Or our puppy. Or our puppy. That needs let out first thing.
00:10:55
Speaker
And so I think, yeah, you're right. I mean, I think just our schedule, sometimes the way we've built our life, that busyness squeezes out those times for us to spend time with God, communicate with Him, commune with Him. And I think of one other one that is probably
00:11:13
Speaker
we wouldn't maybe just come right out and say this, but that's just our lack of faith. I think sometimes we have sort of this unspoken idea that I'm not gonna pray because I don't really believe that God's gonna answer this prayer. And maybe God did that in the past,
00:11:31
Speaker
Maybe God did that for somebody else, but our lack of prayer sometimes is evidence of our lack of faith. And so we don't really believe that God hears us or that God can answer us or that God is concerned about a decision we're making. And I have this memory of
Growing in Faith through Prayer
00:11:48
Speaker
When I was in college, one of my good friends, we were driving out because we went to school in downtown Chicago, went to Moody Bible Institute, and we were going out to Wheaton College. And I don't know whether it was for a concert or what it was, but Wheaton was about 45 minutes or so outside of Chicago.
00:12:04
Speaker
And I remember driving out there with him, and we got lost, and we were, you know, it was back before cell phones, it was back before GPS, and we had no idea how to get back to where we were, you know, we had gone to campus, we were heading actually back to Moody to downtown Chicago, and we couldn't find our way back. And so I remember my friend saying, just pull over, and let me just pray.
00:12:28
Speaker
And I thought he was kidding. I literally started laughing because I thought, who does that? Who just pulls over and prays that God would give us direction on how to get back to the school? And it was really revealing of my own faith, my lack of maturity at the time. And so I think sometimes we can still do that today where we just don't really believe that God is gonna speak to us in that way. Something maybe really small or seemingly insignificant, we don't invite God into that. And so I think that can be another cause for our lack of prayerfulness.
00:12:57
Speaker
Right. And he wants, I mean, he wants us to see how he can show up even in those little things. But I think, you know, doubt like you're talking about is such a huge struggle in prayer because like you said, we can look at, you know, wow, God healed that person, but can he heal me?
00:13:16
Speaker
Or I think doubt creeps into when we feel like we've been praying for a long time about something And we don't see God answering or not answering I guess and how we we want him to and so we doubt in them our prayer Maybe we stop praying about that and I you know, I think a great example. I mean we're we were to not cease, you know, I
00:13:40
Speaker
Yeah, I hadn't thought of that one, but that idea of just persistence in prayer, perseverance in prayer. And so often we can pray for a day or we can pray for a week or a month and we think, okay, well, God didn't answer my prayer. And so I'm just gonna give up. I'm gonna stop praying for that or stop believing for that. And we can so easily quit in the midst of our prayer and not persevere. And so I think that's a great example
00:14:06
Speaker
Okay, so we really talked about so many struggles that we all can face in prayer or when it comes to praying.
Methods of Prayer
00:14:15
Speaker
And I think now would be good to transition to how we actually pray. Practically, what does that look like?
00:14:22
Speaker
And I think it's really interesting because, like I said before, you know, I think we can feel like, oh, this is real simple. This is really simple. I know how to pray. Not that we have to make it too complicated, but the truth is the Bible actually has a lot to say about prayer.
00:14:41
Speaker
Yeah, I think when we look at the Bible, there's certainly different examples of how to pray. And then when we look at church history and the way Christians at different times and different places pray, that that can be helpful to us. And so I think one of the practical ways we can pray is what people have called spontaneous prayer. And so it's kind of that example of what I shared earlier of just
00:15:03
Speaker
in a moment of fear or worry, spontaneously beginning to pray. Or that can be a positive thing. We're overjoyed by a situation, the birth of a child, or we're on vacation and we're on the beach and we're just looking at God. In California. In California, we're just in awe of God's beauty. And so we can break out into prayer, thanksgiving, or just praying what's on our heart. That's spontaneous prayer, and that's generally how most people
00:15:32
Speaker
think about prayer or practice prayer. It's just praying what comes to mind, what's on our heart, praising God, thanking God, confessing sin, or giving praise or thanksgiving. But I think that there are times in our life where we go through different seasons or circumstances where it's hard to find the words. Yeah, definitely. And it's difficult to feel. I remember in those early months of treatment, it just felt like my words were amiss. I just couldn't get my hands around
00:16:01
Speaker
them. I don't know how else to describe that other than the words themselves seem so shallow at times. And so in those moments and those seasons, it's almost like we need somebody else's prayers. And I think that that's for many people throughout church history
00:16:18
Speaker
more structured prayers or written prayers. So we might think about praying the Psalms. Jesus teaching his disciples to pray the Lord's Prayer. Maybe some of our listeners grew up in a faith tradition where they prayed the Lord's Prayer on a regular basis. That would be an example, not of spontaneous prayer, but this second type of prayer of actually praying a written prayer.
00:16:40
Speaker
Yeah, and I can, like you mentioned, I can think about when, especially those early months when you were going through cancer treatment, and I literally had to find scripture. I had to go to a blog post or a social media post that had some sort of prayer written out or words to God. That is what kept me going. Honestly, it's I did not have the words except for Lord help me.
00:17:08
Speaker
Lord heal him, but also just going to the Bible and also to, you know, those, any sort of content that I had friends that were, you know, sharing to lead me to God and his truth. And that's really what the early church did with the Lord's Prayer in particular. And you know, there's a document called the Dedicates. It's, you know, one of the earliest documents outside of the New Testament. So it's not included in the Bible, but it's a really early, early document that was discovered in it.
00:17:37
Speaker
records for us some of the early practices of the church. And one of the things that it says about prayer is that those early Christians prayed the Lord's Prayer three times a day, which is really interesting. I mean, what it says is those early Christians weren't just praying spontaneous prayers, whatever came to their heart, but they were actually praying those words that Jesus had given us in Luke 11 and Matthew 6. And so
00:18:04
Speaker
Praying somebody else's prayer, whether it was written by a theologian of the past, or it comes from the Bible, the book of Psalms, or the Lord's Prayer, doesn't have to mean that that's less of a communication with God or communion with God. Oftentimes, those can give us
00:18:21
Speaker
words that we can't come up with on our own. I think some authors have called those types of prayers, prayers of conviction. We have prayers that are spontaneous at times, but when the words won't come, the feelings aren't there, our thoughts aren't there, sometimes it's helpful to pray the prayers of those saints that have come before us. Which is why I love little prayer books where the prayers are already written out, because sometimes I think too, we don't even realize
00:18:50
Speaker
what we need to pray for. We forget. There's so much that we could pray for, and that's why I love pre-written prayers like that. Right, absolutely. And obviously, we know from the Scriptures that the Holy Spirit helps us in prayer and guides us to know what to pray for at times, but you're so right. I mean, there are times where
00:19:10
Speaker
if I'm just praying in a spontaneous prayer or in a spontaneous way, oftentimes I'm just praying for the same things over and over again. And so it's what you're saying that those more structured prayers or praying scripture, they really broaden our prayer life. They make it more robust. They include things that we might not ordinarily think of.
00:19:31
Speaker
And so I just love that. Praying, for example, some of Paul's prayers in the New Testament, that's an incredible way to pray. Taking some of those, Ephesians chapter three, for example, where he's praying for that church in Ephesus and just praying that prayer. Paul prays in a way that I don't typically pray. And so I think just even looking at some of those prayers that are recorded for us in the New Testament can be powerful ways to make those prayers our own.
00:19:58
Speaker
There's another example in the New Testament, 1 Thessalonians 5-17, where Paul says we're to pray without ceasing.
Integrating Prayer into Daily Life
00:20:09
Speaker
You just realize that there's this way of living our daily life
00:20:14
Speaker
in constant communion with God. That can be a challenge. And that's actually what I was just about to say, because I feel like our life needs to be enveloped by prayer. And I have friends who I just so look up to for that one reason. I know they have timers.
00:20:32
Speaker
set on their phone to pray multiple times a day. Like maybe there's those types of reminders that we need or you know like those structured prayers that are already written out. I think prayer is probably more complex than we make it.
00:20:48
Speaker
Yeah, and I think, you know, part of the idea of Prank Without Ceasing is not that we just sort of go throughout our entire day, you know, saying prayers, but it's living, like you said, in this awareness of God's presence at all times and in all things. And so, you know, some writers in the past have kind of talked about this idea of connecting our work with our worship. And so if we're a mom and we're folding clothes at home or we're working or we're in the office or whatever it is, you know, no matter what we're doing,
00:21:18
Speaker
we're in some way connecting that with our relationship with God. And so Paul says in the New Testament that we are to do all things as if we're doing them for the Lord.
00:21:27
Speaker
And so to pray without ceasing is to really live, not just horizontally, but to live horizontally and vertically. It's to connect those two, and to always have this awareness that God is with me, that He's present, that I'm communing with Him, I'm aware of Him, I'm inviting Him into conversations and circumstances, I'm looking for Him.
00:21:48
Speaker
I think that's really at the heart of what Paul means when he says to pray without sin. Because there's so many times, I mean, there's so much that we do in a day and there's so many times where I'm doing mindless tasks that my mind is going a million miles a minute and I'm thinking about all sorts of things. And what, I think, what a great opportunity to turn my thoughts towards him and in prayer. Yeah, no. And I think, you know, just think about so many times where
00:22:17
Speaker
I don't have the strength to pray. There are times where I think we do the heavy lifting in prayer and we're using the words and we're praying. And then there's times where I think God's doing the heavy lifting. And I don't know how to explain that 100% other than there are moments in prayer where we're communing with Him and maybe there's not a lot we're saying, there's not a lot we're doing.
00:22:41
Speaker
And yet we're so aware of God's presence. We're just being loved by God. We're being ministered to Him. And one of my favorite things to do at night is to fall asleep praying. And I just have the image of, we never scold one of our kids for falling asleep in our arms. We don't get mad at them because they fall asleep. And yet that's been the image that I've had.
00:23:03
Speaker
you know, so many times over the last couple of years, whereas I'm just praying, and many times God's doing the heavy lifting, he's just ministering to me, I'm just aware of his presence, being reminded of what his word says, and then I drift off into sleep. And it's that picture of, you know, a son falling asleep in his father's arms. Yeah, I love that. And so, you know, let's talk, I know we don't have a whole lot of time left, but let's talk about one last part of prayer. Okay.
00:23:28
Speaker
We've been talking mostly about our personal prayer with God, our prayer life with God.
Praying with Others
00:23:35
Speaker
Let's talk about praying with one another for one another, because that's a whole other part of the praying life that we haven't been down to. Yeah, because I think about so many times in my life where somebody has come up to me, this is just one example of this, has come up to me and they're really struggling or they're sharing something with me, and how many times I've said,
00:23:58
Speaker
Oh yeah, and genuinely I will pray for you. Which is usually code for, that's too bad. I'm sorry that's happening to you. Have a great day. No, I am saying even if genuinely, although sometimes it's like that, but even if genuinely I am going to pray for them, I feel like there's something that we can do here that's different. I'm not saying you would ever do that. I'm just saying, generally when other people say that, that's what it means for them.
00:24:25
Speaker
There are times where maybe it isn't genuine. It's like, anyways. So I think about, there was a time in my life, this was several years ago, where I heard somebody talk about praying in the moment when somebody needed it. Not saying, hey, I'll pray for you. Yeah, thanks for sharing that with me and I'll pray for you. But actually saying, can I pray for you right now?
00:24:50
Speaker
And I can think about a neighbor that this was probably over five years ago. We lived in a different town and she came to the door and she knocked on the door and she was really upset about something that had happened and like very upset and shaken. And I said, okay, let me pray for you right now. Yeah. And
00:25:12
Speaker
I can't even tell you how God showed up in that moment. I just, I really felt like, and it was such a relief to her, but honestly, it was, it was so life-giving for me to do that as well. And so that's what you're talking about. Yeah. No. And I think you're right. It's so easy for us, you know, in the Christian life to just say, I'll pray for you. And then, you know, oftentimes we don't, or sometimes we do, but I mean, what an incredible experience it is, just how the Holy Spirit
00:25:39
Speaker
uses those times where we actually pray with one another. And I remember being in college, I was home for summer break, and I remember going to a church in Toledo, Ohio. No, it wasn't in Toledo. I guess it was, it wasn't Toledo, but it was after college.
00:25:57
Speaker
But I remember being at this particular church and seeing the pastor out in the hallway stop and pray for somebody. And it was the first time, I mean this is crazy to think about, but this was the first time I had seen a pastor pray for somebody apart from being up on the stage.
00:26:15
Speaker
And that has always stuck out to me. And so then as I became a pastor, that was something that I have tried to do over the years, whether I was talking on the phone and somebody's sharing something with me, I mean, almost every time I will stop and say, hey, before I let you go,
00:26:32
Speaker
Can I just pray for you? We've done that with neighbors. I know we've had neighbors who have gone through difficult things. We have a neighbor who lost a child just about a year ago and praying with him in his front yard. And so I think this idea of praying for one another is so important, how God uses that not only in our own life, but also in the life of a brother, sister, and Christ. It helps root us and it helps root other people.
00:26:59
Speaker
And I love that.
Communion as the Goal of Prayer
00:27:00
Speaker
I think that's a great way to kind of wrap up the ways that we can pray is not forgetting that we can pray with one another in the moment. Well, we've talked about today what prayer is, the different ways we struggle and why we struggle and how to pray. And I hope this conversation on prayer has challenged you like it has challenged me to understand that prayer isn't so much a duty,
00:27:28
Speaker
But it's a privilege. We can talk to our creator. He loves us. He desires to hear from us. And he desires for us to seek communion with him through prayer.
00:27:42
Speaker
Well, what a great conversation today on prayer. And as you know, if you've been joining us every week, each week we walk away with a key idea. It's the main takeaway, summing up what we've talked about. So today's key idea is, prayer in and of itself is not the goal. Communion with God is.
00:28:03
Speaker
We'll also be sure to put that key idea in the show notes as well as anything else we referenced at RootLikeFaith.com backslash podcast. You can also follow us on Instagram at Patrick W. Schwank and at Ruth Schwank or on Facebook. And if you loved today's episode, we would be so honored for you to leave a rating or a review and share this podcast with your friends. This helps us get the word out.
00:28:29
Speaker
And as if you don't know it already, we are so thrilled you are joining us and we welcome you into our family here at Root Like Faith. If you enjoyed the show today, would you be so kind again to leave us a review and be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts so you don't miss an episode.