Prayer: The Ultimate Gift

by Tim Howard

In a conversation some time ago the topic of prayer came up and the person I was speaking with said emphatically: “ I don’t believe in prayer, I believe in luck!” I jokingly said in response: “I too believe in luck but it seems the more I pray, the luckier I get!”

In it’s broadest definition, prayer is talking with God. This can be done audibly as God hears our words or silently, since God knows our thoughts. And because communication is a two-way connection, prayer includes both speaking to God and listening to Him speak to us.

Prayer is like having an internal cell phone that allows you to call God at any time and from any place.

Speaking of cell phones: According to a national survey from CTIA and Harris Interactive, nearly half (47%) of US teens say their social life would end without his or her cell phone and 80% say their Cell phone provides a sense of security while on the go.

In comparison, prayer is the ultimate cell-phone and many are taking advantage of this amazing gift. According to surveys by Barna Research Ltd. over a 10-year period, 82% of adults and 89% of teenagers pray in a normal week. 88% of women and 75% of men pray. 96% of professing Christians pray weekly, while 72% of people not describing themselves as Christians pray as well.

One reason I pray is because Jesus prayed. He carried on an ongoing dialogue with the Father and prayed daily. He prayed over meals, He prayed early in the morning and sometimes all night long.  He prayed short prayers and long prayers. He prayed for His enemies, His friends and His followers. He prayed in private and in public. Even with a cursory study of the Bible, we discover that it is imperative to maintain constant communication with the Father each and every day.

Prayer, however, does not negate God’s divine prerogative nor does it override His purposes. We have the privilege of asking and He retains the right to answer on the basis of His vantage point. We may not understand why He chooses to do what He does and His answers may defy logic and analysis from our perspective but His response is always filled with wisdom, foresight and love. He has our best interest in mind and knows what is correct. What we think we need isn’t always what we really need!

My prayer in this season is for us to continually give thanks throughout the year and not merely one day out of 365. The Thanksgiving season comes every November and is awesome, but Romans 1:21-24 gives us the rationale behind giving thanks each and every day. It’s worth reading to discover the logic for making this prayer. 

A cell phone will set you back a few bucks especially when you include the extensive package. It may provide teens and others with a sense of security but the ultimate cell phone is free! No upfront fee, no monthly service charge and no hidden cost. It truly does provide real security because the emergency line to God is always open. B.T.W. Everyone has been given an internal cell phone and if you pray, God will listen and if you listen, He will speak!

Praying Like Jesus

by Andrew Cromwell

Jesus knew how to pray. He did it all the time. He was always leaving the crowd to spend time with His Father in prayer. And it wasn’t only the amount of time that He spent in prayer that was is startling, but there was something fundamentally different about Jesus’ prayer life. He REALLY talked with Father God.

One day the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray. You get the sense that they wanted to be let in on this powerful relationship that Jesus had with the Father. Jesus’ well-known answer is what we know today as the Lord’s Prayer. It is a powerful prayer that is repeated today by millions upon millions of Jesus followers.

But it is more than a prayer to repeat. We know this because He tells the disciples to be careful to not pray like the pagans, who babble and repeat prayers in the hopes that their gods will hear them. The power in the Lord’s prayer is not found in repetition.

Rather, it is a pathway and a pattern.

When we see the Lord’s Prayer as the entrance to prayer, rather than the end of it, we will watch our prayer life explode into something rich and beautiful. We will discover that there is so much more to what Jesus was teaching the disciples than just a few short phrases.

If you look at the prayer, you will see that it naturally falls into five petitions or requests. Each of these represents countless other prayers that can be offered:

“Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be Your Name” — this opening petition is the foundation upon which all there rest of the prayer is built. To hallow something, is to make something holy. In other words, here we are taking time to recognize how great and awesome and holy God is. Unless we begin here, the rest of our prayer will be out of balance. For once you put God in His place, then everything else falls into its place. We dare not move too quickly through this section of the prayer, for the One who made all things is surely worthy of praise.

“Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” — now we move from declaring who He is, to inviting His kingdom into the place where we live. A kingdom is where the king rules. What the king says is done. He is the source of law and ultimately of justice. We know that in heaven, whatever God says is done. In heaven there are no tears and no sorrow because complete and total justice and goodness dwells.

We also know this is not the case in the world today for wherever we look we see injustice, brokenness, and destruction. We also see this same brokenness and evil in our own hearts. So here, as we pray, we are giving the King of Kings the invitation to come into our hearts, our homes, our cities, and our world and to bring His righteous rule and reign to bear. We are laying our agendas down and picking His agenda up. This means that we are not saying to the Father, wherever my list of wants comes into contradiction with what You want, You win!

“Give us this day our daily bread” — Now the prayer shifts gears to focus on our practical need. It is so wonderful that God is concerned with our need. He desires for us to have provision for our body (food and shelter), soul (relationships, imagination, and education), and spirit (affirmation and direction). He wants us to recognize Him as the source of all provision. He is the one who cares for our needs and while things like our paycheck may come through our human employer, ultimately He is the one that signs our check!

“Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors” — here we are reminded we are desperately dependent on the Father’s forgiveness. If we are not acutely aware of our own internal brokenness, then we have not approached the Father very closely, for His light will surely expose us for who we are. But this realization is not cause for condemnation, but rather for celebration, for even in the moment of failure, we are provided what we need. Forgiveness. Here too, we cannot miss that the gift that we have been given can only be enjoyed to the extent that we are willing to give it to others. This lesson, we would prefer to skip, but we cannot. For to say that we are unwilling to forgive is to say that we are somehow better than them.

“Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil” — This final petition is about winning in life. We are not concerned that the Lord will tempt us, for we know He cannot and does not. We are concerned that as He leads us, we will fall into the ever-present temptation found all around us all the time. So we are praying that as we walk in this life, the Lord will preserve us, He will help us to see the enemy’s traps, and He will give us the strength to run away rather than run to temptation.

No wonder the Lord’s Prayer is so well known! It covers everything.

Have you ever prayed it in this way? Perhaps you have never prayed it at all. Whatever your experience of the Lord’s Prayer, it is an invitation to start talking to the Father. Will you answer?

Hey Moms, We’re Praying For You!

by Candace Cortez

There is a reference in the Bible, when Paul is writing to one of his favorites, Timothy, and he refers to Timothy’s grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice (2 Timothy 1:5) as being women of sincere faith, who passed that same passion on to their children. As a mother, I know this is the goal. Yes, my daily goal is simply keeping them alive (some days this is harder than others). My secondary goal is not emotionally damaging them by my own journey of growing up! But ultimately, my goal with parenting is to pass on my love of Jesus in a way that actually grows in the context of their own lives.

This is not easy. Mostly because I feel like the sand is quickly pouring through the hourglass, my kids are growing up, and we are losing the place in their lives as their primary influence. In the meantime, meals must be made, homework must be checked, and we have full-time jobs. We also have family to visit, social lives to maintain and holidays to celebrate.

I will be the first to admit, that I probably have enough time to do all the things I need to do, but I waste time doing things that I want to do or feel obligated to do. There are social pressures put on parents, on moms in particular, as our lives are on display. For generations, a mother’s success has been placed on the fruits of her children’s lives. Did your kid pass the test? Score the goal? Get into the good school? Somehow the pride we feel in our kid's accomplishments, manifests itself into pride in ourselves. Now that it’s possible to display every little win, not just the life-changers, the rush to win at things that aren’t actually winning is absurd. I should not feel like a failure as a mom because I spent 12 hours at work today while my Instagram feed is full of Saturday picnics. I should not feel like a failure as a mom because my kid came home with a not so 100% grade on a test, while my Facebook friend’s kid just got into an Ivy League school. Not every moment is a win. But every moment adds up. Sometimes we cannot appreciate the full picture when we are focused on this very minute.

So this is why we are praying for you moms. We are praying that you can honestly celebrate the wins in someone else’s family and life. We are praying that you can identify more wins, but do self-identify with either the wins or the loses. We are praying for regular and productive rest moments for you. We are praying that you would find confidence that God is involved in raising your kids as well…you’re not alone! We are praying for your marriages so that they will maintain a priority level in your lives. We are praying for those of you whose kids are far away, or not living well, that your relationship would be restored. We are praying for those of you who are a mom at heart but have never been able to have a child. We are praying for you to be able to pass on your love of Jesus to your children. We are praying for you because you probably are not praying for you enough. God sees you! And He loves you even more than you love your own kids. Happy Mother’s Day!

Just Wait

by Candace Cortez

I have two kids. They are marvelous little humans who consistently show me new things about myself, about life, and about God. They are growing up, which I am daily appreciative of. But I do feel like my mommy heart is missing phases we have just graduated from even though I am always looking forward to the next stage. It’s a weird place to be but I think a lot of parents can understand that tension with me…right?

They have reached the days when they are relatively tech independent and can control our tablets, phones, and gaming consoles without assistance from me or my husband. This is both a relief and a fresh worry. (Yay parent controls!) The other day, while my son was enjoying his last day of winter break binging, I noticed he was keeping the Xbox controller turned on even after he began his episode. Frustrated at this frivolity, and realizing why I am constantly being berated for batteries, I told him to turn it off. He obeyed, but then I noticed the same controller back on around 8 minutes later. Que mom rage. Yes, I get there quickly sometimes. I decided to wait with the verbal reprimands and observe further to see why he was determined to send me shopping for AAs. That’s when I noticed it. When an episode of a program ends, Netflix gives you a certain amount of time to decide if you want to switch programs. At the end of that time, it just begins the next episode for you. Pretty convenient if you ask me. However, not convenient enough for my nine-year-old. He was keeping the controller on to press “begin next episode” instead of waiting for the 14 seconds that Netflix allotted. He could not wait the 14 seconds! What?! This kid.

I see this inability or unwillingness to wait in so many areas of life. It seems that we are creating systems that help us be more efficientwhile surrendering some of the very tools that create patience. In trying to teach my own family the power of patience, of waiting without complaining, I find myself purposely denying them the easy and immediate in order for them to build up those patience muscles.

Right now, I am currently in prayer for several big things happening in my life. I feel that same desire to just skip to the answer, the resolution, the healing, the growth moment now. I too, need to grow my patience muscles. I need to learn to just wait. Wait on the Lord, wait on my growth process, wait on people to learn how instead of just doing it myself. Patience is hard. But if we can just wait, sometimes that’s where we find the Lord’s voice.

Waiting creates anticipation, an awareness, a focus that we may not experience in the moment of possession. Once we have what we want, we are onto the next.

My heart for myself this year is to know God more than ever before. Yes, I want to get healthier, spend wiser, and read more books. But the beat of my heart is to know God for real, not just of Him or a second-hand account of Him. For me, I know this means I need to wait. Take it slow. Knowing God takes time. A lifetime actually. We can spend our entire lifetime pursuing God and still discover more of who He is. If we lose the ability to exercise patience, we may miss this. We may give up after we know a few Bible stories, or have a few mountain top experiences during worship and turn to something that doesn’t take as much effort. 

Just wait. Keep searching for who and how He is. There’s more to discover.

The Ultimate Cell Phone

by Tim Howard

In a conversation some time ago the topic of prayer came up and the person I was speaking with said emphatically: “ I don’t believe in prayer, I believe in luck!” I jokingly said in response: “I too believe in luck but it seems the more I pray, the luckier I get!”

In it’s broadest definition, prayer is simply talking to God. This can be done audibly as God hears our words or silently as God knows our thoughts. And because communication is a two-way connection, prayer includes both speaking to God and listening to God as He speaks to us.

Prayer is like having a built-in cell phone that allows you to connect at any time and from any place. At times the reception may be less than desirable and you might not hear God as clearly as you might anticipate but just having the privilege of talking to God and Him talking to you is an awesome gift.

Prayer is the ultimate cell-phone and many are taking advantage of this amazing gift. According to surveys by Barna Research Ltd. over a 10-year period, 82% of adults and 89% of teenagers pray to some ‘Higher Power’ in a normal week. 88% of women and 75% men pray. 96% of professing Christians pray weekly, while 72% of people not describing themselves as Christians pray as well.

I pray because Jesus prayed. He kept an open line to the Father and stayed in constant contact. He prayed daily, He prayed over meals, He prayed early in the morning and sometimes all night long.  He prayed short prayers and long prayers. He prayed for His enemies, His friends and His followers. He prayed in private and in public. Just like an airline pilot who never takes his headset off while in flight due to the extreme importance of maintaining constant contact with the tower; so too Jesus shows us how significant it is to maintain constant communication with the Father as we go on our journey throughout life.

When I pray – I talk to God our Father in ‘Jesus Name’ because Jesus made relationship with the Father possible. Because of His love for us – His willingness to live and die for our sin – We have access to God.  Plus, God the Father gave Jesus all authority so when I am in need – I go to the one who has the final answer.

According to the Bible the future has not yet been written and prayer is our way to become God’s pen that He uses to write our tomorrows. When people pray, God moves! Prayer, however, does not negate God’s divine prerogative nor does it override His purposes. We have the privilege of asking and He retains the right to answer on the basis of His wisdom, foresight and love. His answers sometimes defy logic or analysis but when we pray, He hears and always responds.

A cell phone will set you back $$$$$ but the ultimate cell phone is free! No upfront fee, no monthly service charge and no hidden cost. It truly does provide real security because when you fall, make a call to Him – saying I’ve fallen and I can’t get up – God hears and helps you get back on your feet! 

B.T.W. Everyone has been given the ‘Ultimate Cell Phone.’ It’s not just for emergencies and It has unlimited talk time. It’s your free gift to use daily!

A Christmas Prayer

by Andrew Cromwell

Christmas is here and gone before you can blink. And as soon as this one is over, the countdown for next year’s December 25th is on. The date doesn’t ever change and except for an occasional leap year, it is an easy 365 day count from one to the next. We never should be surprised by Christmas.

For even if somehow we miss it on our calendars, there is no way we can miss the onslaught of Christmas music, decor and sweaters.  And if that fails to rouse the most oblivious among us, the fail-safe will surely be the never ending stream of advertising aimed squarely at convincing us of the need for this year’s new-fangled model of whatever.

The Christmas season, at its worst, is an over-commercialized holiday ripe with guilt, greed and sugary poison. And for all those grinches out there who can see nothing else, we all collectively can say “I’m sorry” for ever allowing it to become such a thing.

But at its best, Christmas is alive with hope, love and joy. It is an echo of the love our Great Father has for all of His children—the short ones, the tall ones, the skinny ones and the fat not so skinny ones. As we gather together with family and friends and give gifts to one another, we reflect, whether we realize it or not, the Father’s heart to give gifts to His kids and His desire to pull into the circle all those who are distant.

My prayer for you and your family this Christmas season is that you would not miss the miracle in the midst of the mess of Christmas.

Don’t miss it in the people pushing and shoving at the stores,

Don’t miss it as the advertising gets shoved through your doors.

Don’t miss it in the rush to get it all done,

Don’t miss it as your fingers fly to finish that cake made with rum.

It’s so easy to miss when God is at work,

because so often we’re too busy doing the Christmas-twerk.

Our homes are filled to the brim and decorated tip top,

but often we’ve forgotten to leave room for Pop.

God’s gifts often come in packages so small,

that we tend to forget they are there at all.

A kind word, a smile, and a hug filled with love,

These are little treasures He’s sent from above.

During this season filled with laughter and cheer,

let’s don’t forget that He has drawn near.

He sent us a child who became a man,

And gave Himself according to God’s plan.

God became flesh and moved into town,

a Divine visitation, a Child with a crown.

And to Himself He gathered all who had gone astray,

this little Child named Jesus, born in the hay.

Merry Christmas!

Keep Praying

by Andrew Cromwell

Have you ever prayed for something and didn’t see the change you were asking for? We all have. Sometimes this is because God says, “no”. Other times it is because He says “not yet.” Still other times it is because we quit asking too soon!

Far too often, we do not receive an answer to our prayer because we simply quit praying WAY too soon. Think about it, the big things in life -- a family member with an illness, a severely broken relationship, a life-long struggle with an addiction -- these things are so big that they often overwhelm us. We pray about these issues a few times, we might even do it for a week or a month, but soon enough we get tired and stop asking God for His intervention.

Most of my prayers are grenade type prayers. I face a bump in the road of life or hear about a difficulty that a friend is having and I lob up a prayer. I may even pause for a few moments and seek to really connect with God on the issue. But rarely do I carry these prayers throughout the day or into the next day. They are a version of the infamous hail-mary pass in football—a toss up that I’m hoping God can catch and make something out of.

There is nothing wrong with these types of prayers, except if they are the only kind of prayer we know how to do. A more difficult but necessary kind of prayer is one that involves continuous, sustained effort. This kind of prayer really is work. And this kind of prayer is necessary if we are going to see a greater movement of God in our lives.

Jesus told a story (recorded in Luke 18) about an unjust judge and a persistent widow. The widow pestered the judge night and day until he heard her case. At first the judge didn’t want to have anything to do with the widow but because she bugged him so badly, he finally listened to her and gave her the justice her situation demanded. Jesus went on to say, “Your Father in heaven is NOT like the unjust judge and will bring justice to those who cry out to Him day and night.”

The great Charles Spurgeon put it this way: "Prayer pulls the rope below and the great bell rings above in the ears of God. Some scarcely stir the bell, for they pray so languidly. Others give but an occasional pluck at the rope. But he who wins with heaven is the man who grasps the rope boldly and pulls continuously, with all his might."

So the next time you’re tempted to give up and stop praying, that is just the time when you need to pray again. Keep asking, keep pressing, and keep praying. Don’t give up the fight!

Wishing is Not Praying

by Andrew Cromwell

There is a tendency today to consider “wishing” and “praying” to be the same thing. The often used phrase “our thoughts and prayers are with you” is a good example, I think, of this confusion. We say this to people when we feel bad for them, but very often it ends up being just an empty saying. We neither think nor pray for the situation afterwards. 

Now, if you are the kind of person that says this and then goes and prays, then this clearly doesn’t apply to you! But I believe that many people do not, in fact, go away and pray. In these cases, there is a tendency for this phrase to become an empty filler—and when this happens, then “thoughts” very easily gets confused with “prayers.” And before you know it, we believe that anytime we “think” about a situation we are somehow sending positive energy into the universe, which is magically doing something good.

But that is just wishing. And wishing is a game we teach to our children when we see shooting stars or throw coins into fountains. It is the stuff of Disney movies and fairytales and princesses kissing frogs. It has no power to change the real world. Prayer on the other hand, changes things. 

The problem with wishing is that it is based in you and it is sent out directionless into the universe. It is like writing a letter addressed to no one and mailed without proper postage. 

When you pray to our Heavenly Father, on the other hand, you are having a conversation with the most powerful person in the universe. Your empty wish becomes a request, submitted to someone who sees all and knows all and is infinitely good. And the great thing about praying to God is that not only can He do anything, but also when we give our request to Him, we can trust that we have been heard.

When the disciples asked Jesus how to pray, He gave them a model—we call it The Lord’s Prayer. It starts out with “Our Father” and then continues to cover all the bases. The prayer Jesus taught the disciples was meant as a model for our prayers, not just a prayer for us to repeat. When we pray the Lord’s Prayer in this way, we are engaging in the work of prayer instead of just throwing out “hail Mary” passes to the universe.

So the next time you are tempted to throw out a wish when confronting a difficult situation -- take a few extra moments and actually pray.

Prayer

by Tim Howard 

Lily Tomlin once said: "Why is it that when we talk to God we are said to be praying. And when God talks to us we are said to be schizophrenic?" People who struggle with schizophrenia may experience auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions among other things. Unfortunately, people who admit they hear from God are often put into a similar category. If you admit to others you hear from God, be prepared for strange looks.

The answer of course is that people do all kinds of stupid things and blame it on God. God told me this… Two days later God changed his mind and told me something different… Many who have claimed to hear God are locked away because they are self-delusional. Everyone who claims to hear God accurately doesn’t! 

Communication is difficult on a human level so it stands to reason communicating with God will require a learning curve. Just because we don’t always hear God’s voice accurately, that shouldn’t stop us from communicating with Him anymore than it would if we were communicating with anyone else.

Husbands and wives have trouble communicating! I don’t always get it when my wife speaks. I’m sure she wonders if I will ever ‘get it.’ I sometimes misunderstand, misinterpret or just simply miss her point. That doesn’t mean we stop speaking and sharing on various levels. We continue to learn each other’s love language so we can communicate on an intimate level. 

In the Bible, 1 Samuel chapter 3 records a narrative of a young man named Samuel who didn’t know how to distinguish God’s voice. The account is not only interesting but it helps us gain some insight in regards to hearing God. Here are a few things we can glean: 

1. God is speaking but we don’t always recognize his voice. Samuel finally figured it out with the help of an old Priest named Eli. It’s always wise to check with other people who have walked with God for some time when you think God is speaking. They can help you discern his voice.

2. You will hear more clearly if you stop speaking and listen more intently. The Priest told Samuel: “If the Lord speaks again say, speak my Lord for your servant is listening.” Too often we view prayer as only talking to God. A monologue rather than a dialogue. Too often we say: “Listen my Lord for your servant speaks. You can’t hear God if you don’t stop yapping…

3. Samuel was at rest when God spoke. We live in a noisy world where it’s sometimes hard to hear God above the commotion. Do you know what most of us do with silence? Fill it! We fill it with noise. God can speak through the noise, or even over it, but usually, He waits for us to be quiet. Take a time out and press the pause button in your life. “Be still, and know that I am God.” Psalms 46:10.

4. Samuel was in the Temple when God spoke. I personally believe God can speak to you while you are mowing your lawn, fixing the car, shopping for a new dress or taking a shower but meeting with others in a Church setting is important. It is so significant that the author of Hebrews in the New Testament said: Don’t neglect getting together with those who believe in Christ.