Child – like prayer

Do you believe in prayer? 

I assume most people answered that above question rather quickly with a YES or an OF COURSE I do. So did I. But let me ask you a follow up question….

Does your life say you believe in prayer?

The honest truth was that mine did not. My life reflected that I thought life unimportant and I obviously did not believe it worked – otherwise I would have spent time actually doing it. I got very caught up in the theology of prayer and kept asking a million questions such as: Does it change God’s mind? Is there a right way to pray? Are my prayers theologically sound? Am I selfish in prayer? Are they all about me? I got so caught up in the academia of it, that I forgot to actually do it. Then I came across an interesting quote:

To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing. Martin Luther

So I decided 2019 would be different, I decided to use this year to read, to study, to learn to pray. More importantly I decided to use the year to practice praying. I started reading a book called a Praying Life by Paul E. Miller and I wanted to share some of his thoughts today. Early in the book he encourages us to come to God like children. He quotes Jesus in Matthew 18.3 when He says “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” He then proceeds to give 4 ways we can come to God like children: come messy, come asking like a child, come believing like a child and come babbling like a child. 

1.) Come MESSY

• 

• 

I have 2 small boys, they are always messy; they are usually wet or covered in mud or paint or icing or snot or something. They don’t care that I am on my way to work, that I need to look professional, that I would rather not be covered in mud and wee and snot and peanut butter. They run to me anyway. They run and they jump – sticky fingers and all. They know that I will catch them – that my love for them is greater than my desire to be clean. How much more does God love me? I keep thinking that I have to fix my praying process first; I have to have wise sounding and scripture filled prayers; I have to not be frustrated and close to tears and have all the answers to the questions that I ask. I have to clean myself up a bit first. But look what Jesus said in Matthew 11.28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Come weary, come heavy laden, come in need of rest. Do not clean yourself up first. Come to God messy. 

2.) Come ASKING LIKE A CHILD

I have been told that Why? is the most annoying question. Not in our house. In our house Little Mr asks ‘what you doing?’ over and over and over and over again. When he wants to go to the shops he asks over and over and over again. He asks repeatedly. Every 5 seconds. It drives me crazy. He is persistent in asking. Even Littlest Mr who doesn’t talk yet knows how to get what he wants. He makes VERY effective use of points and grunts and nodding. He asks for whatever he wants – his hearts desires; which usually involve food or being picked up. But he asks for what he wants and he too asks quite persistently.  In Luke 18 Jesus teaches with a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart.

Jesus wants us to ask persistently and to ask for what is on our heart. 

3.) Come BELIEVING LIKE A CHILD

My children do not doubt that I love them. Even when I say no. They believe that I can and will do what they ask and sometimes I do but sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I say no to their request, sometimes I tell them to stop asking when I have already said no and sometimes I discipline them for not listening to my answer. But still they believe that I love them and that I am here for them. So it should be with God. We believe that He hears and we believe that He can do what we have asked. But even if He chooses to say no or to say wait or if He does something that we do not like – we still trust in His character. We can trust in His goodness and His love for us. In Psalm 66 Davis assures us that “I cried out to him with my mouth; his praise was on my tongue. If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened; but God has surely listened and has heard my prayer.”

4.) Come BABBLING LIKE A CHILD

Little Mr is doing quite well with his vocab now that he is in play school and I love to hear him talk. His favourite thing to do at the moment is to go to the hops. And when I tell him it is SHops he says SH…hops. It never fails to make me smile. I love it when he talks to me even when I don’t quite understand what he is saying or it doesn’t come out completely right. Littlest Mr is learning to talk and he will facetime my parents and have an entire conversation with ums and ahs and various sounds. And they love it. They love when he babbles at them. It is a form of relationship, a way of communicating. And isn’t that exactly what prayer is. It is us communicating with God. He loves to hear us talk even when we aren’t sure what to say – He promises in Romans 8 to help us when we have lost our words “in the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.”

If you too struggle to pray, can I encourage you to just start? Just start coming to God as you are, come messy with all your baggage and weariness and frustrations. Come to Him asking persistently for your hearts desires and believing that He is good when he says yes and when He says no. Come to Him babbling the way children do; not with perfect sentences but just openly and freely. Come to Him and I pray that we will discover the blessing of prayer together. 

Once a month I will post on prayer. If you have specific questions or thoughts please feel free to share them, otherwise I will share with you what I am learning.

Until next time.