Transcript An Exploration of Prayer

An Exploration of World
Prayer
Prayer
• Basic human need
• Expression of who we
are
• All people at some time
(i.e. trenches)
• Small, insignificant
beside mountains or
stars
• An emptiness that calls
for fulfilment
Thomas Merton 2001
Leonardo da Vinci
The Vitruvian Man (1487)
That Basic Human Need!
• For something outside
ourselves
• For something beyond our
reach
• For something spiritual or
supernatural
• A place to run to
• To feel there is someone
out there to cry to
• For someone to take notice
of our predicament
Leonardo da Vinci
The Vitruvian Man (1487)
Prayer is universal
• The act of addressing, or communication with a
God(s) or Spirit(s) or with ourselves
• For all faiths or none
• For petition or thanks
• To awaken inner wisdom/enlightenment
• For forgiveness or strength
• For assurance that we are not alone
• From Latin – “precarius” (doubtful, precarious) or
“precari” (to beg or implore)
Unusual Prayer in the past
• Aztecs used blood
sacrifice to attract
attention and appease
the Gods of Sun and
War
• 2,000 prisoners once
sacrificed over 4 days
Aztec Temple
Unusual Prayer in the past
• Population in Stalin’s
Russia were told by
the State to pray to
Lenin’s portrait
• Atheists?
Prayer in the East:
Japan
Shinto
• Shinto ‘Tori’ leading to
shrine
• 400+ deities
• Nature and Spirit
worship
• Rattle ‘Sugi’ bell, hand
clapping
• Throw coins into wooden
collection box to
purchase prayers
Shinto Shrine
Prayer in the East:
Japan
• Bow X2, clasp hands
X2, bow again X2
• Prayer tablets (wood)
and power of beautiful
words
• Bought prayers
Prayer of Man
Prayer tablets (Ema)
Prayer in the East:
Japan
• Physical activity
important before
prayer
• Contact with nature
too
• Mud a sign of good
luck
Prayer in the East:
China/Korea
• Tao (essence of life) ism
• 400,000,000 worshippers
• Prayer links to a deity or
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Tao Deity
ancestors
Ying-Yang
Ghost money
Printed prayers bought and
burned
Yoga, meditation and martial
arts (Kung Fu, Tai Chi etc)
more important than prayer
Tao Priests
Prayer in the East:
India
• Devotion to one or many
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Gods
Salvation is freedom
from repeated birth and
death
Yoga assists meditation
Mantras of praise and
prayer rituals
Cow is sacred – caretaker
and maternal figure
Shiva
Sacred
cow
Prayer in the East:
Buddhism
• No real God
• Enlightened ones (Buddhas)
are prayed to
• Prayer awakes our inner
capacities rather than to
petition external forces
• Spiritual enlightenment through
meditation – prayer enhances
• Self-quieting through
meditation or stimulation of
senses (bells, chanting, incense,
flickering candles)
Buddha’s temptation
Buddhist Temple
Prayer in the West:
Monotheistic
Christian prayer
• Wide variety from
spontaneous to ritual
• To God the Father, through
Lord Jesus the Son, in the
unity of the Holy Spirit
• Praying in tongues
• Prayer of the 12 steps – to a
higher power
• Meditation less common – use
of rosary
• Society of Friends (Quakers)
Prayer in the West:
Monotheistic
Judaism
• Prayer X3 / day
• Prayer book (Siddur)
contains a set order
of daily prayers
• Communal prayer
preferred over
solitary
• A quorum of 10 adult
males a prerequisite
for communal prayer
Rabbi
Wailing Wall
Prayer in the West:
Monotheistic
Islam
• Brief ritualistic
prayers (salah)
• Facing Mecca X5
daily
• Call for prayer
• ‘Dua’ in own words
Mosque
Praying
Our Lord and other gods
• You shall have no other
God’s before me (Ex 20:3)
• For the LORD is a great
God, and a great King
above all gods (Ps 95:3)
• O give thanks to the God
of gods, for His steadfast
love endures forever
(Ps 136:2)
Titan
Bible : 1407
Malmesbury Abbey
Non-Christian Prayer
(pseudo-Christian)
• Use of prayer to get
what I want!
• To make my life easier
and happier
• God is my genie in the
lamp
• Prayer is a formula; get
ingredients right and
answers will abound
• Prayer only when at the
end of our human
resources?
Christian Prayer
Prayer only works
when you learn to
put our Lord at the
centre.
When He calls, you
have to listen.
Can we hear Him?
Christian Prayer
Prayer is an offering up
of our desires unto God
for things agreeable to
His will, in the name of
Christ, with confession
of our sins, and
thankful
acknowledgement of
His mercies.
Thomas Vincent 1674
Shorter Catechism
Pray-ers of Yesteryear and Today
• Martin Luther –
prayed for 2 hours
each day on his
knees
• Susannah Wesley –
apron over head
• 24-7 prayer
movement
So What is Christian Prayer
Anyway?
Many things – depends upon
personality, faith and experience.
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requests for guidance
confessing sins
expressing thoughts
gratitude and praise
Begging or pleading
whining
bargaining
focus
meditation
silence or anger
praying in tongues
And yet?
“Of all the activities in
which the Christian
engages and which
are part of Christian
life, there is surely
none which causes so
much perplexity and
raises so many
problems as the
activity we call
prayer.”
Dr D Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Dr M Lloyd Jones
Why the Problems and Perplexity
with Prayer?
Some of our prayers are
answered –aren’t they?
House sold!
Headache relieved!
Operation successful!
Fracture healed!
Daily strength!
Church growth
Why the Problems and Perplexity
with Prayer?
But does He really listen?
• Why tsunami, earthquake
or holocaust?
• How do we reconcile these
despite our prayers and –
“If you ask anything of
the Father in my name, He
will give it to you”
(Jn 16:23)
Tsunami hits
An Experienced Christian’s
Conclusion on Prayer
Prayer is simply talking
to God!
He speaks: we listen.
We speak to Him: he
listens.
A two way process:
Speaking and listening.
(Mother Teresa of C)
Teresa of Calcutta
Can we Listen for our Lord in
Prayer?
Each of us has an inner
monologue – self-chatter
Dominates our lives
• Worry, Planning,
Remembering
Hinders spiritual insight about
our Lord
1) Hearing God’s voice
2) Being touched by the Holy
Spirit
3) Accepting Jesus as our
Saviour
The Inner Self
Listening to our Lord in Prayer
Prayer and our egocentric selfchatter: problem known for
centuries
We “must lose the radical self
centred awareness of our
being, for it is our own self
that stands in the way of God”
Saint John of the Cross
(1542-1591)
St John of the Cross
Listening to our Lord in Prayer
1)
Hearing God’s Voice?
Self-chatter prevents us
hearing God’s call (i.e
drowns out the ‘still small
voice’ of the Lord’).
(1 Kings 19:11-14)
Listen! I am standing at the
door knocking; if you hear
my voice and open the door,
I will come in to you and eat
with you, and you with me.
(Rev 3:20)
W Holman Hunt
The Light of the World 1854
Why May Self-Chatter be Louder
in West?
Can we hear God’s Voice?
• Taught to be self-reliant?
• Brought up to be
autonomous?
• Busy ++. Time pressure?
• Pressure to ‘succeed’
But
We are called to live ‘in the
world but not to be of it’
“Do not love the world or the
things of the world……”
(1 Jn 2:15-17)
What else can our ‘self’s’ prevent
2) Being touched by the
Holy Spirit?
Our response to a spiritual
reality – ‘He is risen’!
Transformation!
Except a man be born
again, he cannot see
the Kingdom of heaven.
(Jn 3:3)
Official tomb of Jesus
Pride and the Existing Self
2) The transformation
We need a rebirth, a
transformation or a
regeneration. Repentance is
confession and a turning
away from the old self.
Pride (ego) (image of oneself)
Can override ongoing guidance
from our Lord and stifles
personal transformation
“Spirit willing but the flesh
weak”
(Mt 26:41)
Adult Baptism
Effort and the Existing Self
3) Accepting Jesus as our
Saviour
Spiritual seeking requires hard
work and effort.
• Worship, prayer or
meditation, rituals, bible
study, pilgrimage
• Existing self can talk oneself
out of doing what is required
for listening to our Lord
(spiritual roadblock)
We are ranged against evil
powers and spiritual forces.
(Eph 6:12)
Good soil?
Prayer and Prosperity
• Poor countries – pray
constantly with signs and
wonders – acceptance of
our Lord’s will
• Well-off countries –
prayer considered less
essential – fraught with
frustration and confusion
when unanswered
What is Christian Prayer ?
• Where we stop life’s
routine and focus all our
attention on Him!
• Where we can reduce
self-chatter – with
experience
• Where we can meet with
the Lord and listen
‘Be still and know that I
am God’ (Ps 46:10)
What Prayer does for us!
Prayer permits us to
re-align what we see
until we see reality
(truth) through
God’s eyes
Via Dolorosa
A Prayer Knowing Forgiveness
The focus then moves from me
to our Lord!
God does not treat us as our sins deserve
Or repay us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the
earth,
So great is his love for those who fear him;
As far as the East is from the West,
So far has he removed our transgressions
from us.
As a father has compassion on his children,
So the Lord has compassion on those who fear
him;
For he knows how we are formed,
He remembers that we are dust
(Ps 103:10-14)
King David
What are we doing in Christian
Prayer?
• Seeking God’s face ‘Come my heart says, “seek His
face!”. Your face Lord do I seek’.
(Ps 27:8)
• Seeking the Lord ‘..but those who seek the Lord lack
no good thing’.
(Ps 34 :10)
• Calling on God’s name ‘..I will call on the name of the
Lord’.
(1Kings 18:24)
• Looking to God ‘…the hand of our God is gracious to all
who seek him’.
(Ezra 8:22)
• Approaching the throne of grace. ‘Let us therefore
approach the throne of grace with boldness so that
we might receive mercy and find grace to help in time
of need’.
(Heb 4:16)
What is Christian Prayer?
Conclusion!
• Prayer is a spiritual
place/activity (soul)
where our Lord and we
humans meet at His
request!
• It is a priceless point
of convergence
• It is ‘relationship’
• It is the Christian’s
secret weapon
Michelangelo
Sistine Chapel (1508-1512)
Further Topics for Exploration of
Prayer?
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What is prayer?
Why pray?
Prayer according to personality?
Our elements in unanswered prayer?
God’s elements in unanswered prayer?
Techniques for prayer?
Types of prayer
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Prayer of salvation
Prayer of Jabez
Prayer without ceasing
Prayer and fasting
Prayer in tongues
Prayer walk
Soaking prayer
Intercessory prayer
Silent prayer
Laying out fleeces
Power of prayer
Corporate prayer