"Heaven's 999, What's the emergency?"
I was thinking about prayer and the reasons why we pray, because despite my desires to be more intentional with prayer, I just don't seem to be doing what I want to do. For a while now, I've been feeling lead to pray more regularly throughout the day. If you read the book of Daniel, he took prayer very seriously; he prayed three times during the day, and his dedication to prayer inspires me.
Although I don't want to make prayer some kind of religious action, I do feel lead to have more purpose in prayer, and a dedicated time to pray at different times throughout the day. And more than just the few minutes in the shower, and whilst I do the household chores, in the car etc....a busy mum takes advantage where she can, but as the kids are older now, I want to make prayer time a sanctuary, not part of my magical multi-tasking skills.
As I've not yet put prayer on the map of my day like I really desire to, I have been thinking about what prayer looks like to me.
When I think about it, we usually pray for 3 reasons:
- Praying for others: i.e. someone needs prayer and either they ask for it, or you know they need something, so you pray for them
- Prayer for ourself: I need something so I pray
- Communication: I'm just chatting with God
If you're part of a church, you may have prayer meetings (when you're not in social distancing or lock down obviously), and you may even be part of prayer groups or prayer chains.
If you're not, and you're wondering what I'm on about, basically the request comes in that someone has a need, and you pray for them, as does everyone in the prayer chain or in the prayer group.
It's akin to the heavenly version of 999 (the UK emergency services number). That emergency comes in and the church get 'on the phone to heaven', and via prayer they bring the details to the One Who can help. Likewise, when we have a need, we get on the emergency hotline to God, and bring our requests to Him.
Thank God for His Power and ability, and loving kindness that we can do that! I'm not suggesting these are wrong to do. We are told in the bible to pray for each other and to bring our requests to God.
Yet, sometimes, I feel like all I'm doing is coming to prayer times with a big list of emergencies, either for me or others. And it's great to pray for others, as I said, I'm not trying to say it's a bad thing.
But, if we're using prayer mainly for our emergencies, I think we're kind of missing the point of prayer.
Prayer is conversation with God. We can get really religious about prayer. We can make it into something that is all about us, or all about looking good in front of others, or even thinking we're impressing God with our prayers because they're eloquent and grand. Jesus was clear that prayers of that ilk did not impress Him (Luke 18).
Jesus gave us an example of a prayer, and most of us are familiar with that prayer - the Lord's Prayer. But notice how the prayer starts out, so personally and also with praise? Heavenly Father, holy is Your Name...
Jesus' prayer template starts personally. Not "Jehovah Jireh" (the God Who provides), not "Jehovah Rapha" (God Who heals). These are valid names of God. But Jesus taught His disciples (therefore us too), to be personal and approach God relationally. How much more personal can you be than going to your heavenly Father?
He role modelled prayer like no one else ever has. He often went off by Himself to pray. What could Jesus be doing in those prayer times? Praying for His disciples? Sure! Praying for the crowds that were following Him? Probably. But then what...? Sometimes He was gone the whole night!
I think He was just talking with the Father. Like any father and son would, so did He.
The point of prayer is to bring us closer to our Father. Just like any relationship, if we're only contacting people simply to get something from them, or because we're in a mess and need their help, that isn't really a good relationship. It's very one-sided.
We've all had (or have) that friend who only contacts us when they want something. The one who never replies to us when we message them to see how they are.....but gets in contact when they have a need. How does that make us feel? Lousy! Unimportant. Unloved.
It also means on the odd occasions that you do actually meet up or speak, that you feel awkward because there's actually no basis of a relationship there.
Prayer is relational. It's fine to ask our heavenly Father for things, the bible tells us to "Ask and it shall be given" (Luke 11 v 9), but if we're missing the conversation, the talking, the praising, the friendship part, we're missing the point.
Kids are needy! As a mum I get asked for stuff from the kids all day long. "Can we have a snack?" "Can you open this?" "Can you reach me that?"......to infinity!
And any parent loves to help their children and give them things. But how amazing does it feel when the child just comes up to you for a hug? Or just to say, "I love you".
I'm so blessed that my children do this regularly, and I get showered with love from them. We talk, we spend time together. And when they are in need, because we have a good relationship, they feel easy asking for help.
God is our Father. He loves us to ask Him when we have a need or when we're praying for someone else's need, but if that is our sole purpose of prayer, we're making heaven solely our 999 emergency service.
God is wanting us to seek HIM, not just the things He can do for us.
He's asking us to enjoy prayer time, and come and talk to Him and enjoy the relationship.
Let's make the time to go to our Father, just because we want to say "I love You".