Blogged Through Books - A Praying Life

Blogged Through Books is a series that I hope to continue regularly. I will use posts from this blog that have already been produced for a particular book and will compile them all in one post. This will give the reader access to all of the content concerning particular books, as it appears on this blog, in one convenient location. This edition of BTB deals with the best book on prayer, tied for first with Bill Hybel's Too Busy Not To Pray, that I have read recently; A Praying Life by Paul Miller.

• Cynicsm
• Bending our hearts
• A child's heart
• Quietly Confident
• You don't create intimacy ...
• Most. Dependent. Ever.
• Sloppy and meandering prayers
• Seven suggestions from Paul Miller
• A Praying Life

Cynicsm

In reading A Praying Life(Miller, Paul E. A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2009. Print.), one of the most convicting aspects of the book was its confrontation of cynicism in the life of the believer. Miller sees the cynical tendencies of North America as a major stumbling block to prayer. I agree with him; I have first hand experience with cynics. I see one in the mirror every day.

I often accuse others, not to their face mind you, of impure motives and believe they are working an angle. And yet, I attribute to myself the purest of motives and the integrity associated with authentic living.

Cynicism is a prayer killer. It jumps from "God will never do what I ask him" to "God did that in spite of my weak prayers and would have done it anyways".

This is a far cry from the reckless, passionate, child-like approach that Jesus takes in prayer. Perhaps that is why we are called to be child-like; cynicism is rarely found in young ones.

Consider this quote from A Praying Life:

THE AGE OF CYNICISM

Our personal struggles with cynicism and defeated weariness are reinforced by an increasing tendency toward perfectionism in American culture. Believing you have to have the perfect relationship, the perfect children, or a perfect body sets you up for a critical spirit, the breeding ground for cynicism. In the absence of perfection, we resort to spin-trying to make ourselves look good, unwittingly dividing ourselves into a public and private self. We cease to be real and become the subject of cynicism.

The media’s constant Monday-morning quarterbacking (“this shou1dn't have happened”) shapes our responses to the world, and we find ourselves demanding a pain-free, problem-free life. Our can-do attitude is turning into relentless self-centeredness.

Psychology’s tendency to hunt for hidden motives adds a new layer to our ability to judge and thus be cynical about what others are doing. No longer do people commit adultery out of lust-they have unmet longings that need to be fulfilled.

Cynicism is the air we breathe, and it is suffocating our hearts. Unless we become disciples of Jesus, this present evil age will first deaden and then destroy our prayer lives, not to mention our souls. Our only hope is to follow Jesus as he leads us out of cynicism. (82)

Bending our hearts

Most of us simply Want to get rid of anxiety. Some hunt for a magic pill that will relieve the stress. Others pursue therapy. While antidepressants and counseling have helped many people, including me, the search for a “happy pill” or “happy thoughts” will not stop our restless anxiety. It runs too deep.

Instead of fighting anxiety, We can use it as a springboard to bending our hearts to God. Instead of trying to suppress anxiety, manage it, or smother it with pleasure, we can turn our anxiety toward God. When We do that, we’ll discover that we’ve slipped into continuous praying ...

What does an unused prayer link look like? Anxiety. Instead of connecting with God, our spirits fly around like severed power lines, destroying everything they touch. Anxiety wants to be God but lacks God’s Wisdom, power, or knowledge. A godlike stance without godlike character and ability is pure tension. Because anxiety is self on its own, it tries to get control. It is unable to relax in the face of chaos. Once one problem is solved, the next in line steps up. The new one looms so large, we forget the last deliverance.

Oddly enough, it took God to show us how not to be godlike. Jesus was the first person who didn’t seek independence. He wanted to be in continuous contact with his heavenly Father. In fact, he humbled himself to death on the cross, becoming anxious so we could be free from anxiety. Now the Spirit brings the humility of Jesus into our hearts. No longer do we have to be little gods, controlling everything. Instead, we cling to our Father in the face of chaos by continuously praying. Because we know we don’t have control, we cry out for grace. We become anxious when we take a godlike stance, occupying ourselves with things too great for us. We return to sanity by becoming like little children, resting on our mothers. (Miller, Paul E. A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2009. Print. 70-71, emphasis mine)

I, like most people I know, get anxious. I really liked the imagery Miller uses in this excerpt to describe how to deal with anxiety: "Instead of fighting anxiety, We can use it as a springboard to bending our hearts to God. Instead of trying to suppress anxiety, manage it, or smother it with pleasure, we can turn our anxiety toward God." The idea of bending our hearts back to God expresses both the inclination of our hearts to drift from God as well as the effort it takes to return it to a God-focused orientation. This is what the Christian walks is about; our effort coupled with God's efficacious enabling resulting in the sanctification of our prayer lives.

A child's heart

From A Praying Life by Paul Miller

It took me seventeen years to realize I couldn’t parent on my own. It was not a great spiritual insight, just a realistic observation. If I didn’t pray deliberately and reflectively for members of my family by name every morning, they’d kill one another. I was incapable of getting inside their hearts. I was desperate. But even more, I couldn’t change my self-confident heart. My prayer journal reflects both my inability to change my kids and my inability to change my self-confidence. That’s why I need grace even to pray ... If we think we can do life on our own, we will not take prayer seriously. Our failure to pray will always feel like something else-a lack of discipline or too many obligations. But when something is important to us, we make room for it. Prayer is simply not important to many Christians because Jesus is already an add-on. (59, emphasis mine)

I can't change my children's hearts. How could I? I can't even change my own heart. I identify with the quiet desperation that Miller describes here. My inability to transform my children is a great motivation for me to pray. Because, God can change their hearts. And he can change mine too.

Quietly Confident

"If you are not praying, then you are quietly confident that time, money, and talent are all you need in life. You'll always be a little too tired, a little too busy. But if, like Jesus, you realize you can't do life on your own, then no matter how busy, no matter how tired you are, you will find the time to pray."

(Miller, Paul E. A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2009. Print.)

Well, my personal resources of time, money, and talent are not instilling me with much confidence, at least not when I stop and think about them. However, my "default position" seems to be one of quiet confidence; this is clearly not the case. So, I must, I will, find time to pray.

You don't create intimacy ...

An excerpt from Paul Miller's A Praying Life (Miller, Paul E. A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2009.):

Jesus' examples teaches us that prayer is about relationship. When he prays, he is not performing a duty; he is getting close to his Father.

Any relationship, if it is going to grow, needs private space, time together without an agenda, where you can get to know each other. This creates an environment where closeness can happen, where we can begin to understand each other's hearts.

You don't create intimacy; you make room for it. This is true whether you are talking about your spouse, your friend, or God. You need space to be together. Efficiency, multitasking, and busyness all kill intimacy In short, you can't get to know God on the fly. (47)

I really appreciated the line about not creating intimacy.

It is not something that can be fabricated when desired. Rather, it is the fruit of time spent together with someone; no quick fixes here.

I want my prayers to be saturated with an intimacy heretofore not yet experienced. And though I would like that reality now, I realize it is not procured or produced when desired. Rather it is created and cultivated in a relationship that requires time spent together.

I pray for God's grace in this.

Most. Dependent. Ever.

In A Praying Life (Miller, Paul E. A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2009. Print.) by Paul Miller, the author does, in my mind, an excellent job of elucidating what it means to become like a child; the well-known mandate of Jesus in the gospels. He does this specifically in regards to prayer, but also generally in regards to life. Here is an example:

When Jesus tells us to become like little children, he isn't telling us to do anything he isn't already doing. Jesus is, without question, the most dependent human being who ever lived ... He is telling us to realize that, like him, we don't have the resources to do life. When you know that you (like Jesus) can't do life on your own, then prayer makes complete sense." (45)

This was an unexpected twist on the "be like a little child" imperative. Jesus the most dependent. Ever? C'mon. If that were the case, you would expect that Jesus would not do anything of his own accord, but only what someone else prescribed.

John 5:19 - So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing.

Sloppy and meandering prayers

"The gospel, God's free gift of grace in Jesus, only works when we realize we don't have it all together. The same is true for prayer. The very thing we are allergic to-our helplessness-is what makes prayer work. It works because we are helpless. We can't do life on our own.

Prayer mirrors the gospel. In the gospel, the Father takes us as we are because of Jesus and gives us his gift of salvation. In prayer, the Father receives us as we are because of Jesus and gives us his gift of help. We look at the inadequacy of our praying and give up, thinking something is wrong with us. God looks at the adequacy of his Son and delights in our sloppy, meandering prayers." - Paul Miller in A Praying Life

Seven suggestions from Paul Miller

Here are seven suggestions from Paul Miller as they appear in his book A Praying Life.

• Get to bed. What you do in the evening will shape your morning. The Hebrew notion of a day as the evening and morning (see Genesis 1) helps you plan for prayer. If you want to pray in the morning, then plan your evening so you don't stay up too late. The evening and the morning are connected.
• Get up. Praying in bed is wonderful. In fact, the more you pray out of bed, the more you'll pray in bed. But you'll never develop a morning prayer time in bed. Some of my richest prayer times are at night. I'll wake up praying. But those prayer times only began to emerge because I got out of bed to pray.
• Get awake. Maybe you need to make a pot of coffee first or take a shower.
• Get a quiet place. Maybe a room, a chair, or a place with a view. Or maybe you do better going for a walk. Make sure that no one can interrupt you.
• Get comfortable. Don't feel like you have to pray on your knees. For years I was hindered from praying because I found it so uncomfortable to pray on my knees.
• Get going. Start with just five minutes. Start with a small goal that you can attain rather than something heroic. You'll quickly find the time will fly.
• Keep going. Consistency is more important than length. If you pray five minutes every day, then the length of time will slowly grow. You'll look up and discover that twenty minutes have gone by. You'll enjoy being with God. (p50-51)

A Praying Life

From A Praying Life by Paul Miller:

1) If God is sovereign, then he is in control of all the details of my life.

2) If he is loving, then he is going to be shaping the details of my life for my good.

3) If he is all-wise, then he's not going to do everything I want because I don't know what I need.

4) If he is patient, then he is going to take time to do all this.

(p22, numbering and line breaks mine)

I appreciate this four-fold outlook by Paul Miller on how God works in our lives. The foundational truths of God's sovereign control and his loving benevolence are pillars to build your life on. Add to that his perfect wisdom and time-defying patience and we have good reason to trust in God with a realistic optimism. Our lives are in good, great, perfect hands.