Teaching | Teach Us to Pray | Prayer E01 (From the Archive)

Hello and welcome to the John Rakoma Teachings podcast. My name is Inka Dawson and I'm your host. Each week we've space. It's wonderful to have you with us. Yeah, yeah. We want to resent the This week we're starting a series Revealing key foundational truths. God that moves us from a sense of obligation in our prayer time to genuine enjoyment of the Father's company.

Luke chapter five verse have a look at verse fifteen. Yet the news about him spread all the more so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their illnesses. But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. Let me read that again. But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. Turn the page chapter six. Verse twelve. One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and he spent the whole night praying to God. Turn the page. Chapter 9.

Verse eighteen. Once when Jesus was praying in private that can also be translated in the lonely place, and his disciples were with him. Skip down to verse twenty eight. But eight days after this Jesus said after but about eight days after Jesus said this, he took Peter, John, and James with him, and he went up on a mountain to what? And as he was praying, watch what happens, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright.

as a flash of lightning. Skip down to thirty-four. While he was speaking, a cloud appeared and covered them. and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. A voice came from the cloud, saying, This is my son, whom I have chosen. Listen to him. One more, turn the page, chapter eleven, verse one.

One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples. Notice that for Jesus of Nazareth. Prayer was the center point of his life with God. was woven into the fabric of his day to day existence, into his morning routine, into his weekly schedule.

into the warp and woof of his humanity. He made time for it. Even when he was really busy, he would stay up all night because for Jesus, prayer was even more important than sleep. But if I'm reading the story right, Uh, it doesn't seem like it's a drag for Jesus or a to do list to check off, you know, to get rid of guilt or shame. It seems like he really enjoyed the father's company. Maybe I'm reading that in, but I don't think so.

Seems like he really enjoyed prayer. And in times of prayer, we read that story, he would literally encounter God and be transformed. I mean, literally in that story, transformed. Now, the reality is for most of us, this is just not our experience when it comes to prayer. Am I right?

If I were to take a poll or a survey of Bridgetown Church and ask one simple question, how many of you just feel like you are killing it at prayer? I mean you just feel like you slay in the language of the nineties. You Prayer, you wake up in the morning and you just you don't even need an alarm clock. You can't wait to get out of bed, make a quick cup of coffee, and like the first thing on your you can't.

don't wait to pray, you just feel like, man, I have it down, I don't need a teaching series, I don't need practice. I ha I have I kill it at that. Anybody here? The reality is my guess is that very few of us would check the yes box. If we're brutally honest, um for most of us, prayer does not feel that way at all. If anything, it feels really boring, um, especially, you know, when you have Netflix.

And it feels like a bit of a drag, you know, like there's a religious guilt trip or duty or obligation thing and you have to check the box and when you finally actually make time for prayer, you know, you pray for everything you can think of, world peace, everything And then it's like two minutes and you have nothing else to say.

and your mind starts to wander and you're like, Oh yeah, focus and and it feels like hard work and you're already tired and season three of Man in the High Castle is on. And so you feel a little bit of like, ah, I I'm lousy at this, but then you get over it and unlock your phone and just go do your thing. And it comes as no surprise our day and age is one of the most difficult times in all of human history to pray.

For all sorts of reasons. Um of course, digital distraction. We literally have multinational corporations spending billions of dollars on marketing and R and D with one goal in mind to distract you and addict you. Don't get me wrong, your iPhone, you pay for it, but it doesn't work for you. It works for somebody else in Silicon Valley. All right?

And literally, because that's where the money is. Economists are talking about the attention economy. That's where the future of money is. And what that means is all those. Remember like before two thousand and seven and the iPhone? Remember that thing back in the early two thousands called boredom? You remember that? There were these little time slots where you were like stuck in line at Trader Joe's for three minutes and you had nothing to do. You remember that?

Or you were on a plane and like you you know, it was before the T like iPad thing or whatever and like you finished your book and then you were just over Missouri and bored. Anybody remember that? It was a long some of you are too young. It was you know it was a long time ago, like ten years ago, you know. Um remember that? Like there was there used to be these little moments in the day that were potential portals. To life with God.

Just a little a minute here, five minutes there to wake up, oh yeah, to the reality of God and to the reality of yourself. Now for the most part, all of those moments are gone. We reach for our cyborg, you know, appendage.

And we pull it out and we check the news or we look at the weather forecast and we praise God right now. Or we send an email or we catch up on Instagram or we Google or we this, that, or the other. So digital economy. Of course wealth. We have more money than any other generation, pretty much ever. And why pray when you have a good job and health insurance? Money can do what prayer can do, but for the most part it's easier and a lot faster.

And plus with more money comes more activity. You have a little bit extra after rent and so hey, let's go out, let's have a beer. Let's go out to dinner, let's take a vacation, let's go over to the beach, let's do this, let's do that. We're busy, busy, busy on the go, on the go, on the go. And it's not all bad. But most of us just don't have time to pray. And then more than anything, secularism is the air we breathe, full on agnosticism, if not atheism. Now we all have an inner cynic.

So when you go to pray, is this just me or do any of you think, Man, is am I just reading a shopping list to the sky? Is that is that what like I don't feel anything and even when my prayer is answered, do you ever think, would that just have happened anyway? Was that God or was it me or was my boss actually nicer than I thought? Or is that just a coincidence or is a godowance or whatever lame thing? Don't start a trend with that, by the way.

I rebuke that spirit. My point is here's all I'm saying. For most of us not all, but most of us, prayer is a weak point in our apprenticeship to Jesus. Can we agree on that? And it's really hard to do in the digital age in a city like Portland. Can we agree on that? But But all right. One for two.

But we have to figure this out. Why? Because prayer is more important than just about anything. Think about it. What is prayer? When when I say that word prayer, a lot of you with all due respect What comes to your mind's eye or imagination is three eighty plus year old women in a church basement with a styrofoam cop and really bad Folgers copy coffee.

like praying for, you know, a missionary in Indonesia or something like that. Now that is prayer and that's great, but so much more than that. Put simply, prayer is talking with God. And note, not just talking to God, but talking with God. We'll get into that more in weeks to come. And on even on an even more basic level, prayer is life with God. Paul Miller, in that book I said, um he writes this. Prayer is simply the medium through which we experience and

And connect to God. I love that. Yes, prayer is a practice, but like all the practices, it's a means to an end, not an end in and of itself. The end is relationship to God. Just like I have a weekly date with my wife T over here. So this Thursday night, seven PM, we have reservations. Somebody gave us a gift certificate to Tusk, my new favorite restaurant in town. So we'll sit there Thursday night and have a conversation. And conversation, as you know, is an art form that takes practice.

But the end goal of the conversation isn't to talk, it's to experience and to connect with my wife. In the same way, the practice of prayer, yes, it's an art form, yes, it takes a little time to figure out, but the end goal is life with. God. So we have to figure this out. We have to learn how to pray with a smartphone in your back pocket, in the city, all of that. And the best teacher I know of on prayer is Jesus.

of Nazareth. And it was such a part of his life that it comes as no surprise, right here if you still have your Bible open to chapter eleven, verse one, that Jesus Talmudim in Hebrew, or his disciples or his apprentices, asked Jesus, Okay, Lord Teach us how to pray. And I love this by the way. So there are four Gospels or first century biographies of Jesus in the New Testament. This is the one and only time in all four that we read a question like this. Teach us how to dot dot dot.

So Jesus did a whole lot of amazing stuff, healing the sick, casting out demons, preaching the gospel. We never read one time the disciples asking Jesus, teach us how to heal the sick. Jesus teach us how to cast out demons. Jesus teach us how to preach. Jesus, the one and only time is right here. Jesus teach us how to pray.

I don't know why. All I have is speculation. My guess is it's that because they started to catch that Jesus' entire kingdom work, healing the sick, all of that, was rooted in his life with the Father, was rooted in his prayer. And so they start to ask, okay, Jesus, and this is the question I want to chase after for the next few months at Bridgetown, Jesus, teach us to pray. And look what Jesus has to say. Verse 2. He said to them, When you pray, say, or pray like this. Father.

Hallow In fact, read this out loud with me if you have the NIV open. Father Hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, give us each day our daily bread, forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation. Now I want to say a short word in each line, but really I want to focus on the first half of what has come to be called the Lord's Prayer. Because in the first half we get Jesus

framework for what prayer is and how to do it or not to do it. Notice before we start that Jesus does not get to asking God for needs and wants. until halfway through the prayer in verse three, give us each day our daily bread, forgive us our sins, and lead us not into temptation. Now most of us start there, God, I need this, I need that, I need the other, and we have our list. And that's not bad. But it feels at times like reading a Christmas list to Santa up in the sky or something like that.

For Jesus, before you ever get there, there's time and place for that. But first things first, there are four things that you need to know. And by know I mean enter into the reality of. First is this. If you're taking notes, go ahead and write all four down. First is this. that God is your father. Line one is quote, Father.

That was Jesus' favorite name for God. He used it all the time in prayer after prayer after prayer. Jesus thought of God as his father, and get this, he wants you to do the same.

He wants you and he wants me to think of God as our Father. Now Before we move on, I know that this is really hard for some of you. Some of you right now are thinking, well, you have a decent relationship, you have a good relationship with your dad, John Mark, easy for you to say. Absolutely, you're right. I know that with the breakdown of the family over the last few decades, a lot of you have father wounds.

So to think of your God uh think of God as your father is a tough sale if your dad raped you when you were five or your dad left the family when you were thirteen. Bethany and I were chatting about this a few days ago. I mean how do you pray to God when that as Father when that is

your reality due to the trauma or emotional pain from your childhood or your family of origin. I just want to say that it might take you a while. You might have to go on a journey of emotional healing and spiritual healing to get to that place where you call God Father, but that is a journey that you want to take. It's worth every excruciating step.

Because for Jesus, this really matters. It's the number one thing you need to know about prayer, that God is your father. See, I think what Jesus is getting at is when you come to God in prayer. What comes into your mind's eye or imagination, what comes to mind when you think about God, who you pray to, that will make or break your prayer life. My friend John Tyson in New York City puts it this way.

Unless you break the stronghold of false images of God in your mind, and some of you have that, strongholds of false images, bad thinking about God in your mind, you'll never be drawn to prayer. The angels, I love this, have been locked in a room with God for thousands of years and they still haven't gotten past the word holy. Holy, holy, holy. If you're bored with God, you may be the person who's boring. Or it could be that you're just distracted by trivia in our culture.

When you break through that boredom, you'll be drawn to the glory of who God is. So think about it. If you think of God as I don't know what the character is, a grumpy old man up in the sky, mad at the world, just waiting to lay in you, where have you been? It's been three days or whatever. Or if you think I don't know what the character is, you think of God as the CEO of the universe kinda running the galaxy

um from far, far away and you're like an underling and he doesn't really have time for you and why bother the CEO or whatever? Or if you think of God as an energy force. Not a a person but an energy force out there in the universe or whatever it is, you will never want to pray. Who would? You will never have a a heart kind of desire from the inside out, Oh, I wanna be with that or him, I want to be with God. But if you think of God as your father, that's a whole other story.

So I'm a dad, I have three kids, I'm downstairs eleven, eight, and eight, and I'm a decent dad. I'm not great. I don't think any dad feels like he's a great dad. It's right?

If you do, please email me and tell me how. I just feel at a loss most of the time. But Um but I love my children, I have a a great relationship with all three of my kids. And when I walk in the door after a you know a long day at work and I wheel my bicycle through And you know, I'll say hello and I'll immediately hear from like the distance upstairs.

Daddy. And then I hear this like herd of buffalo down the stairs. And usually my daughter Sunday is there first and she's always giant smile on her face. Hi Daddy and jumping into my arms. The boys are hit and miss. I Jude is either the exact same thing, but he's he's eleven, almost twelve. So th there are other days where he's like on the couch with like Justin Bieber and the headphones and young adult novel and all I get is the chin nod or whatever. But

You take what you can get, right dads? You take what you can get. My point is that my kids, I think, if I'm reading my kids right, want to be with me because they know that not only do I love them but I like them. And I like to play with them. I like to play Legos. I like to go on a walk to the park. We like to eat Blue Star. We like to do life.

Together and so they wanna be with me, they wanna play, they wanna talk, they wanna ask me for stuff. Dad, can we go see Guardians of the Galaxy? Dad, can we go to Salton Star after? Dad, can we what do you think I'm made of? Money and sin? No. Um Dad, can we this? Dad, like be be there's a freedom there. My kids are drawn to me because they know I am their father and I have good intentions toward them. And I'm human. And if you know me, I like I have problems, I have issues.

But my kids are drawn to me because they know I'm their father and they know I have good intentions toward them. In the same way, the first thing that Jesus is trying to get you and me to believe, because a lot of us don't. is that God is your father and he has good intentions toward you. Second thing that Jesus wants you to know is this that God is as close as the air up against your skin. Um is father and then in the NIV, if you have that translation, there's a footnote.

And if you go down to the bottom of the page and read it, it says some manuscripts have our Father in Heaven. Now there are two versions of the Lord's Prayer, one in Luke and another in Matthew. Luke's is the short version, Matthew's is the director's cut, it's much longer.

And um we have some manuscripts for Luke that just say father and others that say with Matthew, our Father in heaven. So for our purposes today, think Father or Our Father in Heaven. Now heaven is a tricky word. Because an American, most people read that word, our Father in Heaven, and immediately think of like, I don't know, a cloud city. I'm just so into Star Wars for this teaching. Um, not that cloud city. Think Cupid cloud city, not Lando cloud city. Up in you know

The universe, far away, that place you go when you die. Okay? So that is not at all what the word heaven means in the New Testament. In fact, it's actually plural in Greek, a more literal translation is our Father in the heavens. The word is Oranas, more literally it just means the air or the sky. That story that we read in another gospel um has it this way God spoke to the word.

Him from the oranas, from the heavens, from the sky, a voice right all around Jesus in that time and in that place. So hear it this way: our Father in the air. Think about it, the air is all around you, it's up against your skin, it's even inside your body in your lung cavity. Jesus is saying that's how close the Father is to you. The damage done by thinking of heaven as a far off place in the future rather than thinking of the heavens as all around us in the present can't be put into words.

Most of us don't feel close to God all the time, but we are. Why is it that so many people feel closer to God when they are out in nature on a hike with no cell phone reception and no city noise? Or feel closer to God early in the morning, like when the day is quiet and you have a cup of coffee and your children are still in bed or whatever. Why is it that is God closer to you? Is he like a morning person and by three PM he's just out? It's like I don't do email and traffic, I'm out, you know?

Or I'm not into the city, I'm only like is that I don't think so. I don't think God is the issue. I think I am the issue. I think that This feeling that most people have of separation from God is a legitimate, valid feeling, but I think it is an illusion for the most part created, a mental and emotional illusion created by distraction and by disordered love.

The reality is that there is nowhere God is not. Augustine defined it this way God is the reality whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere. Another author I read last week said, God does not know how to be absent. There are some things that are impossible for God. One is not being close. And there's a lot we could say about that and pick apart there, but when we think of God as absent.

mentally or feel like God is absent emotionally, usually the problem is us, it's not with God. It's distraction, it's this, it's busyness, it's our phone, it's disordered loves and our own heart. Jesus is saying, okay, first most important thing, think of God as your father. Second thing you need to know, God is as close as the air up against your skin. He's all around you.

Not some place out there in the future, some place right here in the here and now. Third thing you need to know. Is that the primary goal of prayer is joyful, grateful, worshipful enjoyment of the Father's company? The next line is Hollowed be your name. Now that's another tricky line because we don't really like throw language like that around. Am I right? Gerald did you like say to Jenny the other day, Hollowed be your outfit, honey? That is just

Fantastic. I'm I'm guessing no. Feel free to try that one on for size, guys, if you want to stay single. Um Or marry like a really Christian girl. Either way. Um basically that word hallowed, what does that even mean? Hallowed basically means to set apart as holy. Now again, that word holy is also a bit tricky. Um we think of it as a moral word and it is, but in both Hebrew and the Old Testament and Greek and the New

It's not only moral, it also has an aesthetic sense to it. It's about the good and the beautiful and the true. To be holy literally means to be unique and special without any parallel in the universe. God is holy, He's good, He's beautiful, He's true, He's unique, He's special. There's no other being like God, no parallel in all of the universe. And there's so much we could say about that. One of the things I've been thinking about a lot lately is that God is full of love and joy and peace.

So Paul in Galatians six, um Galatians five, one of the most important I think passages in the New Testament, writes that the fruit of the Spirit is what? What are the first three on that list? Love, joy, and peace. And there's a whole bunch of other beautiful things there. The fruit of the spirit, meaning the byproduct of the spirit of God in you, when you tap into that in his belt language.

Live by the Spirit is love and joy and peace peace. Why is it that when you actually set aside time from your over busy life to take a few deep breaths and pray, that often you start to sense love? from God for you, for other people, for your friends, for your enemies. Sense love from you to God, to other people, to your friends, to your enemies.

Does that ever happen to you? You start to sense a love in you. Why is it that we start to sense joy? Even through the melancholy and the stress and the anxiety and the do you ever start to come awake? Why is it that we start to sense Peace. We start to settle in. I think it's more than mindfulness for followers of Jesus. I I think there's something deeper. There is something from God Himself. When you pray, you tap into the Spirit that is love and joy and peace.

and many other beautiful things. Jesus is saying that the main point of prayer isn't to ask God for stuff. That's great, and we'll talk about it in a minute. But the main point is just to be with the Father. And to tap into that love and that joy and that peace and to spend a little bit of time in joyful, grateful, worshipful enjoyment of his company. I like I love this from Tim Keller's latest book on prayer.

To hallow God's name is to have a heart of grateful joy toward God, and even more a wondrous sense of his beauty. Consider how different this is from the normal way we use prayer to get things. We may believe in God, but our deepest listen, our deepest hopes and happiness reside in things. as in how successful we are or in our social relationships. We therefore pray mainly when our career or finances are in trouble or when some relationship or social status is in jeopardy.

When life is going smoothly and our truest hearts' treasures seem safe, it does not occur to us to pray. Seldom or never do we spend sustained time adoring and praising God. We know God is there, but we tend to see him as a means through which we get things to make us happy. For most of us, he has not become our happiness. Is anybody else with me and Keller or are we alone?

Okay, just me and Tim Keller. Well, I'm in good company. All right. My point is that with hallowed be your name, Jesus is saying, Father, set you apart in my heart and my mind. as holy, special, unique, no parallel, beautiful, good, and true. And I set you apart as the emotional source of my well-being. You and you I have other stuff I want to pray for in a minute, and that's that stuff matters.

But you, God, are the emotional source of my well-being. And fourth, the last thing that Jesus wants you to know, and by now I mean enter into the reality is, quote, I'm sorry, number four, your prayers really do make a difference. So then next line is your kingdom come, three words that have the cha the potential to change everything for you in prayer.

Jesus is saying that the main way, or at least one of the main ways, that the kingdom of God will come in the longer version on earth as it is in heaven, is through prayer. We'll talk about that in a few weeks, because I think well is through hard work, right? Or it is through teaching, or is through this. That's all fine, but the main way is through prayer. Meaning for Jesus, listen, your prayers change reality. Your prayers usher heaven into earth. Now, most of us honestly don't believe this.

We're so bent toward fatalism in our culture as a whole, and then there's a whole like theological thing behind it that I won't get into. But we're so bent toward this insidious idea that what's going to happen is going to happen with or without my prayers. We even spiritualize it with cliches like God is in control.

Or everything happens for a reason or whatever it might be. But Jesus seems to believe, and maybe I'm maybe I'm missing it here, but Jesus seems to believe and listen here, it's a very simple, very straightforward idea. That when you pray or if you pray, some things happen. And if you don't pray, some of those things don't happen. Are we tracking?

Is that a little over your head, you know? Little tricky, right? You pray, some things happen. You don't pray, some things don't happen. Your life is on one trajectory You pray, some kind of a transaction in the heavens, some kind of a change, now your life is on another trajectory. Or your life is on one trajectory, you don't pray, you watch Netflix or whatever instead, and guess what? Nothing changes. Most of us don't actually believe this.

And it makes prayer pretty much dead weight. The philosopher Dallas Willard, as you know, a hero of mine, he writes this God's response to our I feel like you all want to laugh the second I quote Dallas Willard. God's response to our prayers is not a charade. He does not pretend that he is answering our prayer when he's only doing what he was going to do anyway. Our requests really do make a difference in what God does or does not do.

The idea that everything would happen exactly as it does, regardless of whether we pray or not, is a specter that haunts the minds of many who sincerely profess belief in God. It makes prayer psychologically impossible. Replacing it with dead ritual at best. And of course God does not respond to this. You wouldn't either. So when you pray, come with the holy tremor in your mind and body because you are about to change reality, or at least you have the potential to.

You are about to partner with the Spirit of God to bend reality in the direction of God's will done on earth as it is in heaven. So to recap, four things Jesus wants you to know, wants you to enter into the reality of before you ever ask for a thing. One, God is your dad and he has good intentions toward you. Two, he is close by and not far away, and you have joy and love and peace just waiting for you to tap into. Three The main point is just to have fun in the Father's company. Enjoy God.

And four, your prayers really do make a difference. Those four ideas have the potential to unlock a whole new dimension of prayer for you and for me. Now, by the way, before we move on, think about how very different this is from how a lot of people think about prayer. God is a grumpy old man in the sky. I don't really want to be with him. It sounds boring and Netflix sounds more fun. Um God is really far away and I don't feel his presence. Um the main point of prayer is like to get what I want.

And my prayers don't really make a difference anyway. Now, we laugh at that, or well we don't, but whatever. We mock that. A lot of us actually believe, if not all of that, then bits and pieces of that. And if that's your framework for prayer, you'll never get off the ground.

Compare and contrast that with God, Father, in heaven, your kingdom come. When you have that framework, then and only then are you ready for the second half of the prayer. Let's read it one more time. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. Wow, that's weighty.

And lead us not into temptation. Now, we'll come back to this prayer in our series on the Sermon on the Mount and parse out each line. For now, I just want you to see that there is a time and a place to ask God for your needs and even for your wants. He is your father. He doesn't just want you to survive but to thrive. Now, disclaimer, disclaimer, disclaimer right that right there. He's not Amazon.com. This isn't where you, you know, get out your shopping list or rub the side of the genie lamp.

But this is where you get out your prayer card. Hopefully you have one from the front door. Did you get one on the way in? If not, we have more at the info booth. We'll talk more about this in a few weeks. Um it's pretty self-explanatory. I don't think you need a five minute teaching on it. Pretty straightforward. This is a tool that I started using recently that is really helpful for me in my prayer life.

And uh we'll have it around the next couple of weeks. We'll talk about it more later. My point is this is where you get out your prayer card or your prayer journal or whatever and you start to pray. If there's a list, you start to pray through your list of needs and wants. Because now you have the right heart posture. Now you have the heart posture, this is no longer shopping with Santa. This now is an expression of your dependence on God.

This is looking to God and saying, God, first off, you and you alone are the emotional source of my well being. You're it, you're my father, you're my God. But I'm your child. Here's my needs. Here's my wants even. And I turn it all over to you'cause I can't do this without you.

You're the father, I'm the little kid. I need you here, and I need you here, and I need you here, and I need you here, and I need you on this list. Just like a son or a daughter to a father. Now stay with me for a few more minutes. Here's what I want you to see before we go home. The Lord's prayer. isn't a liturgy to recite as much as a template to follow. It isn't a liturgy to recite, meaning not so much I don't think Jesus has in mind. You wake up in the morning

Ah, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Can I do the short version? Your kingdom come and give us each day our daily bread. I don't think it's so much that. I think it's more a template for you to follow along with in your prayer life. There's a flow to the Lord's Prayer that is strategic. Make sure that you notice it's orientation before intercession, meaning Jesus starts with orientation, Father in heaven.

All around me, good intentions toward me. Hallowed be your name, you the source of all. Your kingdom come. Oh yeah, my prayers really make a difference. Then intercession. The first thing Jesus prays for is the kingdom of God to come. God's rule and God's rein reign to grow and expand. The next thing Jesus prays in the longer version is Your will be done. God I turn over my will to you. Your will be done in this area of my life. Your will doesn't mean I don't have desire.

But your will be done here, your will be done here, I give it all over to you. And then and only then does Jesus start to pray for daily bread, for wants, for needs, for forgiveness. For lead me not into temptation, which is a way of saying, God, um, keep me away from bad stuff. Whether it's demonic, whether it's human, whether it's natural, keep me away from bad stuff, keep me in safety and in security. And here's the thing, most of us pray in the opposite direction.

Most of us start with intercession. We start with, okay, God, I want a nice middle class American life. Um, don't mess with my job or my income or my comfort and God, don't let bad stuff happen to me, and God forgive me, I'm really sorry, and God I kinda have this list, here it is, needs, wants. And if you if you have a few extra minutes, oh yeah, and like your will be done and your kingdom come and like bless Bridge Town and all that stuff.

And if you want like extra credit, there's like a minute or two of just like, you know, oh yeah, with the father and his company. When you pray in the opposite direction, you're not praying the Lord's Prayer, you're praying the American middle class prayer. Right? So everything's on there, but order really matters. The flow of it really matters. Now that said, we are starting a new practice this week. Um as always, all of the material is at practicing the way dot org slash prayer.

You can do it alone, but it's all designed to be done in a home community. Each week we'll teach on one type of prayer on Sunday. So this week's on the Lord's Prayer. Next week we have a Jesuit priest actually coming, my spiritual director, to teach on contemplation. Amazing week after that intercession, we'll do lament, we'll do listening prayer, imaginative prayer, all this stuff.

Practice it, play around with it, experiment with that type of prayer. So this week um it's really easy. The goal is just to set aside a time and a place to pray if you don't already have that in your daily routine, even if it's just for five minutes. and to pray the Lord's Prayer. And just remember that, yes, prayer is a discipline. But it's a means to an end, and the end is relationship with God. Don't forget the heart behind it. Okay. Um all relationships take discipline.

I have a daily touch point with my wife every night at eight thirty when we put the kids to bed. And a weekly date and an annual getaway for anniversary. And those are disciplines, not out of guilt or obligation, but because I really value my relationship with my wife. What's that cheesy saying? Love is spelled T I M E So yeah, come on. So dumb, so cheesy. Usually we think about that like a dad with his four-year-old. That's true of all relationships. Love is spelled time.

If you love God and want to live in your relationship with God, it takes time. How often? How much do you want to be in relationship with the Father? So there's a discipline to it. Absolutely. But it's about relationship. But if you don't get your relationship with God at some point into your

daily and weekly and monthly schedule, it just won't happen. You know this is true. For most of us the best time is the morning, but maybe not for you. Maybe it's an afternoon walk on your lunch break or before you go to bed at night. I love Paul Miller's six rules of thumb for morning prayer. One, get to bed, two, get up, three, get awake. That's my favorite one. Four, get to a quiet place, five, get going, and six, don't stop.

And the goal for this year, this week, as I said, is just to pray the Lord's Prayer every single day. You can do it in two minutes. or you can do it over two hours. Totally up to you. Nobody's there looking anyway. Just you and the Father. And what I'm praying for in closing, for you For me, for my home community, for yours, for our church as a whole, is that we move over the next two months from practice to pleasure.

There's a place for practice, right? For the the discipline side of prayer. There's a place for that. I believe that. My hope is that we move past that to a change of heart to pleasure. You know, in every church, there are just a few people who really love to pray. Peter and Stephanie, who are down here, love it.

These guys literally have a prayer do you still have the prayer room in your house? Literally have a whole room in their house just set aside. There's like a sound system in there or a prayer mat just for prayer. They just like When most people say to you, oh, I prayed for you, like if I say that for you, that means I thought about you once. Sorry.

But when when Peter says that to me, oh, I prayed for you, I I'm guessing what he means is, oh, I was up from like two AM to six AM interceding before the throne room of God for you. But he means it. Here but listen, listen. I have come I've come to realize something. I've come to realize that people who really love prayer aren't necessarily more disciplined than I am.

or than you are, aren't necessarily even more mature than I am or than you are, though often they are, but they have come to experience prayer in a very different way from most of us. They've come to actually really enjoy the father's company. What a novel concept. I'm on my own journey through this. We're all at a very different spot. For years this has been a weak point in my apprenticeship to Jesus. I would think about prayer and instantly just feel guilty.

Like and I have this ought to part of my heart, Oh, I ought to pray more, I ought to pray more, I ought to it was prayer was an ought to for me. Over the last few years, some of you know I've been on a journey in my own apprenticeship and really leaning more and more into prayer. And guess what? I'm I'm coming to really enjoy it more than ever before. My goal for I'm a New Year's resolution person, anybody else?

Um, I only made a list of d-resolutions this year, so my whole goal is to slow my life down, cut uh out as much as I possibly can, organize my life around the practices or the spiritual disciplines, and just pray, like as much as I can as a dad with a job and a city and an iPhone and all of that. And it's hit or miss. It's three steps forward, two steps back. There are weeks when I feel like a monk with a family and other weeks where I feel like a stressed out dad with an iPhone. But

I'm starting to watch my own heart change toward prayer, which really means toward the Father. So wherever you're at on that journey, way ahead of me, right in the middle. Just getting started. You're welcome here. This is a family. We're so happy you're with us. But our prayer is that you move, that we move from practice to pleasure. Let's stand together. I loved that concept of God being as close as the air around us.

In a hyper distracted world, it's easy to lose our ability to notice what's right in front of us, or in this case, all around us. So to end, let's take some time to just ponder that reality and sit in God's presence. around us. Stop by taking a few deep breaths with me. Become aware of God's presence. Not somewhere out there, but right here, surrounding you like the itself and just rest in that reality. I'll give you 30 seconds here to just enjoy God's presence and then close with Amy.

Thanks for listening. This podcast is from practice. We develop resources to help churches and schools. Thanks to Little Fox for our show meeting. a crowdfunded non because it's already been paid for by the circle. Danny from Tucson Air is a little bit of a little bit of a little And Randy from Dallas Texas. Oh very much. To join these friends in the circle. Until next time. May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.