Forms of Prayer

“Prayer is the breath of the soul.” These few words are captivating because they are simple and true. We ask from the Lord. We give thanks to the Lord. We praise the Lord. We talk with the Lord. However, I was unfamiliar with one of the forms of prayer. Of course, I talk to the Him, make requests, give thanks for granting those requests, and praise His glorious name. But, I thought to myself, “How do you pray without words?”

We all have at least one friend who we can sit with in silence and still have a great time. There are individuals who can entertain us with unspoken words. And it is with those people who we can so freely express ourselves. “Finally,” I thought to myself, “I understand.” That is exactly how the Lord is with all of us. We come to Him at all hours of the day and He welcomes us with open arms. Often times, we are speechless when the Lord is near. Hallesby writes, “We can come into His presence and rest our weary souls in quiet contemplation of Him.”

Usually, when I am asked to pray for a group of people, such as small group, there are gaps of very awkward silence in my prayers. Just as much as I am nervous, I am also very humbled. The Lord is wonderful beyond description. I know that He can break us down inside and eliminate all the needless noise in order to allow us to focus directly on Him, in audible sound or silence.

WRESTLING IN PRAYER I
A lot of the statements that Ole makes in this chapter are quite true, in fact, so true that it scares me. Here are some of bold points:


1. "Satan desires above all to provide himself with servants who think that they are God's children and who are even looked upon as children of God by others."
Guilty as charged.

2. Because prayer is the very "heart-beat of our life in God", Satan's gonna try everything in his power to make sure that connection is lost.
And he will do it ever so slyly.

3. "The flesh lusteth against the spirit" meaning that it's sometimes hard to get ourselves to pray.
This is the one i struggle with the most. Ole makes a great point in saying that our carnal minds oppose prayer at very opportune times: for example, saying that i've gotta finish my physics studying first, or that i need to spend 3 days in a cave purging myself of sinful thoughts before i can talk with the Lord, or telling myself i'll have more time later to spend with God. who am i kidding myself? and before i know it, i've wasted a whole day and i haven't even said one word to God.

4. Prayer starts with being helpless! open yourself up to Jesus!
I always thought that being helpless was a fault of my own, that i was responsible for getting myself back up on my feet again before meeting up with God. i couldn't tell you why, but i always felt like i had to wipe the dust off my own knees after falling hard instead of letting God help me up. pride? could be. do i hear knocking? mmmhm.

5. The only way we can avoid getting distracted is to center our thoughts on Jesus.
It's easier for me to swim to the north pole and back than to do this one. (haha, i have lame examples, sorry) but it's SO hard to focus, on you, Jesus. It's so hard!! show me how to do this!!!

6. God is your Physician.
Whoa, never thought of it this way. Ole says to let God examine you. Let him speak to you and look at your heart! you're not supposed to go to the doctor's office and tell him everything that's wrong with you and then zip out the door. No, you're supposed to have a 2 way conversation with your doctor and most importantly, wait for his advice. get an MRI if you need to.

7. Wrestling in prayer is a GOOD thing.
What the? How? Ole says it the best. "The real purpose of our wrestling in prayer is, therefore, to render us so impotent and helpless, not only in connection with our physical and spiritual needs, but, above all, our inability to pray, that our prayer really becomes a prayer for the Spirit of prayer. Everyone who is experienced in prayer knows that to listen quietly and humbly for what the spirit of prayer says requires continued and powerful wrestling."

These are my thoughts for this chapter. I hope it summed things up in an ok fashion.

-EST
p.s. Ole is the man.

Hey Guys!
Hope your summer is going well. Sorry for the late post!

Ch. 2-Difficulties in Prayer

"To pray is to open our hearts to Jesus." This chapter indeeds point out very good points of how prayer may seem a burdensome task to many Christians. Also, prayer can be undermined but we do not realize that it is prompted by God and it is a command that He gives us. He wants us to invite Him into our daily lives and our situations. Prayer should be a joyous thing and according to the flesh we cannot and do not desire to pray daily. "To move in prayer as though one were in one's element, to pray daily with a willing spirit, with joy, with gratitude and with adoration is something which is far eyond our human capacities and abilities. A miracle of God is necessary every day for this. This miracle consists in receiving the Spirit of prayer." Therefore, we should ask God to teach us how to pray.

Why does prayer become difficult? We think that prayer can be burdensome because we don't realize that prayer is simply telling Jesus and others what we lack (p. 47).Well, how we pray is also important. We ought to pray according to the heart and purpose of the Lord and it is shown through His Word and His Spirit.

This chapter also brings out a good point about perseverance in prayer. Many times when we would be so fired up to pray for our friends and family because of our love for them and wanting God to change their lives, but if we do not see God moving we often become discouraged and stop praying for them. O Hallesby brings out a good point saying that we sometimes forget to pray in the Name of Jesus, to persevere in prayer even if we do not see any immediate physical transformation or movement of God. As he puts it, "to pray in the Name of Jesus is, in all likelihood, the deepest mystery in prayer" (p. 57). We need to be reminded to be praying out of Jesus' heart not just out of our own heart. To pray what Jesus desires and not to give up when we don't see any changes, it definitely is a challenge.

However, the Spirit wills us to pray, therefore we can always ask Him to teach us to pray and to be persistent! He wants us to be a part of His transformation and movement. He wants to include us so He can be glorified and we can take part in His glory!

I have realized the that prayer is key to intimacy. Prayer takes practice, O Hallesby also mentions that in this chapter. We need to shift our focus back on to Jesus when we pray. We need to acknowledge that we sin, we lack faith, we don't have enough love and earnestness, and our hearts are not spiritual many times, therefore if we pray in our own name there would be no hope. However, if we pray in the name of Jesus, we can come to Him just as we are and it is for Jesus' sake that we receive what we ask for.

That really speaks to me and does shift some misconceptions and helps me evaluate my own prayer life and my approach to prayer.

To sum this up, I really like how O' Hallesby puts it on page 61.
When the Spirit shows us how ugly and insufficient our hearts are toward prayer, they become "the opening of our heart's door to give Jesus access to all our distress and all our impotence". Further, as we keep practicing the art of prayer and connect with the Lord in that way, prayer becomes a time of rest for our weary souls. Personally, sometimes when I pray I just choose to wait upon the Lord and hear His voice instead of me always talking to Him. Further, being in the presence of the Lord is powerful and restful at the same time... as long as we let Him minister and pour out His love, joy, power, faith, and rest into us.

Therefore, when we begin to taste and see that the Lord is good, we will want more and we will look forward with joy and anticipation to our next prayer sessions. Further, we will start seeing change and our faith will increase and God will lead us to praying something greater of His heart the next time!

-Jen Huang

Wrestling in prayer...he talks about instinces of 'wrestling' with God (i.e. Jacob in the O.T. and how he physically wrestled with God) and how Jacob had to come to a place of humility before the Lord. He makes a point about 'wrestling in prayer' (from the previous chapter) being about ourselves, but striving in prayer is for others. striving in prayer is consistent striving concerning others.

So, what is striving in prayer and what is the point? Basically striving is focusing or continuing, and the point is to connect us with God and with each other. We are brought closer to other's when we pray for them, and when we pray we are in communion with God etc. The main hindrances to successful prayer are 1) our selfishness (we don't want to pray for others, or people we don't know) and 2) our love of ease, which often leads us to neglect praying at all, let alone for others.

I found this portion about striving for others in our prayer life to be particularly convicting as i have struggled with that so much lately. i have a few hard and painful situations in my life coming home and there are people that i want to pray for, but at the same time i want to avoid that pain altogether so i am not willing to make myself vulnerable to those points and focuses.

There's an awesome quote on page 112 that says, "The most difficult prayer, and the prayer which, therefore, costs us the most striving, is persevering prayer, the prayer which faints not, but continues steadfastly until the answer comes. To strive in prayer for a person or for a cause means, in the first place, to live, feel and suffer with that person or that cause. That alone requires a great struggle, especially if we are not related to the person concerned by ties of blood or friendship". He also talked about fasting. The purpose is to set aside earthly things for a while in order to concentrate more strongly on the spiritual. It must be voluntary etc. Circumstances in which Christians find the need for fasting:

1)during special temptations (as Jesus fasted in the wilderness before Satan's temptations)

2) before making a decisive choice (ref Acts 13:12)

3) the planning and carrying out of exceedingly difficult tasks (Acts 13:3 and 14:23)

4) before great and mighty acts (casting out demons in Mark 9:29)

he used an example of prayer being a conduit to the electric power of heaven and fasting as a bigger cable which allows us to transmit more power.

"Fasting helps to give us that inner sense of spiritual penetration by means of which we an discern clearly that for which the Spirit of prayer would have us pray in exceptionally difficult circumstances.

At the same time it helps to cleanse out souls of any impure motives which might be present when we pray for mighty acts." (that's from page 118).

I think it's a good reminder of what fasting is meant to be about. Taking away our focus on earthly things and specifically setting aside time to look at God is something that i find hard to do on a regular basiswithout some reminders. It's too easy to get caught up in the business of our lives or work or school or hanging out that i often just tell God that we've got an understanding and i can talk to Him anytime, right? but fasting provides that opportunity to really devote your time to Him.

-Heidi Stokes

Chapter 7 is by far the meaningful chapters of the
book, in my opinion. Why? It talks about what prayer
really means, why we pray, and what we pray for.
Chapter 7 tells us and focus our attention to what
prayers are really about.

I am a new Christian, and I am a simple minded person
when it comes to praying.

I am an extrovert, and love talking to people. But
when it comes to praying, I am an introvert. I am
scared of saying the wrong stuff at the wrong time, or
that I might offend God in my prayers. Reading this
chapter makes me confident.

Why this chapter makes me confident? I'll tell you
why! After reading this chapter, it says that always
be confident while you pray, because you know God
well, and for that reason you are watched over by him,
and He is speaking through you. Praying is a
conversation with God. Open your heart, soul, and
mind to Him. Do not hesitate or falter. Give in
openly to His grace and spirit.

Another thing that struck me most was the purpose of
prayer. ALthough I knew that to pray is to confess
and to tell everything you have in mind, and to talk
to God about your problems or to address something
that is bothering you to Him, but it is much more than
that. Praying is mainly glorifying God. The purpose
of prayer is to glorify the name of God. God created
you for a reason, and for a purpose. Everything that
happened in your life happened for a reason. Prayer
is the appointed way of giving Jesus an opportunity to
exercise His supernatural powers of salvation. he
desires to make use of us.

And another thing, do not be afraid to pray. There is
no wrong way in praying. To pray is to let Jesus come
into our need.

Praying is essential to every Christian's life. It is
our way to talk to Jesus and God.

We should pray for definite things, but at the same
time we should do as Jesus did and add "Nevertheless,
not as I will, but as thou wilt". He said this when
Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsamane. That is a very
touching and meaningful quote. It not our will, but
God's will.

I am grateful I was assigned Chapter 7. It opened up
to me. I love GOd and JE - SUS!. God is wonderful in
many ways and surprise you in every turn.

God Bless.

- Jeffery Jair