Getting Good at Prayer Isn't the Point Part 1 (of 6)

This week’s posts are paraphrased from Dr. John Ortberg’s insights to prayer as he expressed them for Christianity Today on July 6, 2015.  John is trained as a pastor, theologian and psychologist  I find everything he writes to be insightful, God honoring, practical and written in a way that speaks to the actual lives that average Christians live.   Jeff

“If you ever feel guilty about not praying enough, raise your mental hand. If someone at a party were to ask you: "How is your prayer life these days?" (which, by the way, is a great way to kill a conversation at a party), what would you say? Is the state of your prayer life determined by how often you pray? How long you pray? Is it measured by how many people you are praying for, or how much faith you pray with, or how many prayers get answered?
Why is it that some Christians pray fervently and frequently, yet their lives always seems to be a struggle? Why do others pray rarely, yet their lives seem to be flourishing? Prayer has an essential relationship to our effectiveness in life, yet there's a mystery to it. One day Jesus' disciples came to him with a difficult ministry challenge—an exorcism they could not perform. With a word, Jesus cast out the demon. The disciples asked, "Why couldn't we drive out the demon?"
"This kind only comes out by prayer," Jesus told them. But here's what's curious—Jesus didn't pray. He just told the demon to leave. And it did.
Perhaps Jesus was already prayed up. Perhaps for Jesus, prayer was embedded in a larger context of life in which prayer permeated every moment.
Many years ago I read words that helped me to understand Jesus and ministry and prayer in a new way:   

To believe is to begin to pray  

To believe as Jesus did doesn't just mean believing that God exists. It means to believe he's always present. That's a different level of awareness, which begins to turn all my words into prayer.

We can understand this by thinking about speaking in the presence of another person. There are three possibilities:
1. I can speak to someone.
2. I can speak in the presence of someone.
3. I can speak in the absence of someone.

If I'm speaking in the absence of someone ("behind their back"), I might say something I would not say in their presence ("to their face" or knowing they will hear my words).

In fact, the strain of managing my words in the presence of others is why some believers look forward to being ‘off duty’ from God so they can just "be themselves."

When it comes to God, we know Scenario #1 is possible (I can speak to God), and Scenario #2 is possible (I can speak to someone else aware of God's presence). But we can forget that Scenario #3 is not possible ("where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?" writes David in Psalm 51).

Yes, at times God "hides" himself from us. God does not force his presence upon us, and we can live as though God were not present. This leads to oddities in our spiritual lives. I (John Ortberg) went to a Christian college where in the cafeteria we would play the "thumbs game" to see who would pray. The last one to raise his thumb (the loser) would have to pray over the meal: "Heavenly Father, we are grateful to be in your presence and grateful for this food."

Years later it occurred to me that God must wonder, "If it's such an honor to pray to me, how come the loser is the pray-er?" It's as if, while we were playing the thumbs game, we thought God was not watching. Then when we bowed our heads, we were suddenly on the heavenly radar.

Jesus never did this. Jesus knew his Father was listening not just when he prayed but all the time. For Jesus, the line between praying and just speaking in God's presence thinned out to the point of disappearing. This is why, when he healed people, sometimes Jesus would address his Father, and other times address the person he was going to heal.

He actually comments on this directly when he's about to raise Lazarus: "I thank you that you hear me. I know that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here" (John 11:42).  

In other words, the goal of prayer is not to get good at prayer, not to see who can spend the longest time in prayer. (Jesus said not to pray like the pagans who believe they will be heard because of their many words.)

The goal is not to pray with greater feelings of certainty, or greater eloquence, or even greater frequency.  

The goal of prayer is to live all my life in the joyful awareness that God is present, right here, right now. This is the prayer-filled life that can sustain and empower a life of loving God and loving others”

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