Geero.net
I had something of a realisation this morning as I was firing off a quick text message to my wife. My first draft read “I hope today isn’t too stressful for you” – as parents of a teeny tiny little baby, there are many reasons why the day might turn out to be pretty hard work. Then I remembered the Bible study we did at church the other week on Ephesians 3:14-21, looking at the apostle Paul’s prayer for the Ephesian church. Paul’s prayer could have read “I bow my knees before the Father and pray that he would stop bad stuff happening to you and that your life would be stress-free and straightforward”. Thankfully he didn’t, and what a rebuke to me that has been:
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
It’s generally fairly easy to spot the more crass forms of the Prosperity Gospel when it rears its head: the idea that if you obey God then he will abundantly bless you right here and now. But I realised that it’s all too easy for the same spirit to creep into our prayers without even realising it. How often do we treat God like a genie whose sole purpose is to make our lives easier?
So what would it mean to resist this kind of “Prosperity Prayer Life”? What would a more Ephesians 3-style prayer look like? In the end I decided to send this to my wife: “I hope you know God’s grace through the challenges of today”. God’s desire isn’t to make our lives as easy as possible. God’s desire is to make us more like Christ, and he will use the struggles and the stresses of each moment to achieve it. Like gold, we are refined through the fire, not by sitting around on a comfy sofa.
Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians was that through everything, they might be given supernatural grace to more deeply understand God’s love for them. How much richer our prayer lives would be if we shared that same desire for one another! Next time you’re wondering how you can pray for me, feel free to pray Ephesians 3. It may not be what I would have asked for, but it’s certainly what I need!
If you’re a PrayerMate user, why not create an “Ephesians 3″ index card that appears at the start of each session, reminding you how you could be praying for each of the people that you’ll be praying for that day? To do this, create a new category, make sure that it is “Pinned” so that it appears every session, and change the order of your categories to make sure your new one is at the start of the list. Add a single subject, and perhaps you could copy and paste the passage from Bible Gateway.
Goosey, goosey gander,
Wither shall I wander?
Upstairs and downstairs
And in my lady’s chamber.
There I met an old man
Who would not say his prayers,
I took him by the left leg
And threw him down the stairs.
Perhaps Goosey should have suggested he buy himself a copy of PrayerMate instead?
It turns out that waiting for a baby to make an appearance in the outside world really is a great analogy for waiting for the return of Jesus. You know it has to happen at some point, but you really have no idea when it’s going to be. You keep getting little signs that it might be imminent, and then it turns out to be a false start. You kind of have to get on with real life, rather than just sitting around all day until it happens. But at the same time, you have to make sure you have your mobile phone on you at all times when you go to work, and you know not to book any foreign holidays any time in the next couple of weeks, and of course you have your hospital bag carefully packed in a corner – in other words, you need to be ready for it to happen at any moment. It’s given me a much better appreciation of the emotions of Romans 8:18-27:
18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19 For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.
22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? 25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
26 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. 27 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.
I’m waiting eagerly for the arrival of Mini-Geers, but how much more should we be waiting eagerly for that moment when Jesus comes back, and those who trust in him will get brand new bodies, freed for our bondage to sin and decay! The Mrs and I are eagerly longing to meet this little person, but how much more should we be longing to meet the one who made them and us!
So, we do our best to wait for it patiently (but boy is it hard!!)
A good friend of mine who has a real gift for tracking down little-heard-of Christian books that turn out to be total gold dust recently presented my wife and I with a copy of “The Upper Room” by J.C.Ryle, the one-time Bishop of Liverpool (a bishop who believed the gospel – they do exist!!) He had bookmarked a carefully chosen chapter titled “The Duties of Parents”, which so far has been inspiring and daunting in equal measures. One duty in particular stood out as especially germain to this blog: “VI. Train them to a habit of prayer”. Allow me to quote:
Prayer is the very life-breath of true religion. It is one of the first evidences that a man is born again… Prayer was the distinguishing mark of the Lord’s people in the day that there began to be a separation between them and the world. “Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord” (Gen 4v26).
Prayer is the peculiarity of all real Christians now. They pray,-for they tell God their wants, their feelings, their desires, their fears; and mean what they say. The nominal Christian may repeat prayers, and good prayers too, but he goes no further.
Prayer is the turning-point in a man’s soul. Our ministry is unprofitable, and our labour is vain, till you are brought to your knees. Till then, we have no hope about you.
Prayer is one great secret of spiritual prosperity. When there is much private communion with God, your soul will grow like the grass after rain; when there is little, all will be at a standstill, you will barely keep your soul alive. Show me a growing Christian, a going forward Christian, a strong Christian, a flourishing Christian, and sure am I, he is one that speaks often with his Lord. He asks much, and he has much. He tells Jesus everything, and so he always knows how to act.
Prayer is the mightiest engine God has placed in our hands. It is the best weapon to use in every difficulty, and the surest remedy in every trouble. It is the key that unlocks the treasury of promises, and the hand that draws forth grace and help in time of need. It is the silver trumpet God commands us to sound in all our necessity, and it is the cry He has promised always to attend to, even as a loving mother to the voice of her child.
Prayer is the simplest means that man can use in coming to God. It is within reach of all,- the sick, the aged, the infirm, the paralytic, the blind, the poor, the unlearned, -all can pray. It avails you nothing to plead want of memory, and want of learning, and want of books, and want of scholarship in this matter. So long as you have a tongue to tell your soul’s state, you may and ought to pray. Those words, “Ye have not, because ye ask not” (James 4v2), will be a fearful condemnation to many in the day of judgement.
I for one feel really challenged by all that. But also really encouraged that prayer doesn’t have to be this really complicated thing- it’s just a talking to God and asking him for the things we need. Let’s resolve to be people who pray. And if you’ve not tried it already, may I recommend to you a handy little app for iOS called PrayerMate which you might find useful in getting going in a habit of prayer!
