If you have read my other essays than you know how God interacted with me while I was out harvesting a dead Ash tree. During my desperation at not being able to fell the tree in a normal way, I said a prayer and asked Jesus for His help. I said a prayer to God but I did not really think of my words as being a prayer at the time. They were just words to me, spoken in the passion of the moment.
I discovered I had actually prayed only after I started studying my 1599 Geneva Bible and was actively trying to discern what exactly a prayer is. The Bible is full of examples of people praying. But what I wanted to know is how it comes about that a person simply speaking out loud could also be praying without knowing he or she was actually praying at the time? As happened to me.
This question must be answered. Because if we cannot separate the difference between normal conversation and praying, if there is no way to distinguish between the two, than everything we say must also be prayer. Let that sink in for a moment. Think about the ramifications if everything we say is prayer. That would mean He hears everything we say and it then becomes His decision as to whether or not He acts upon what He has heard. It means we better be careful of what we say.
Certainly there must be some definition concerning prayer life. Some theological understanding of when one is in prayer and when one is not in prayer. Isn’t there? The answer that comes to me is no. There is no difference. The words spoken are heard by God whenever He chooses to listen to them. Meaning He hears all, but chooses what He wants to pay attention to.
Because God is the Sovereign LORD of all life. He is the ultimate authority of what is right and what is not right and God wants to know what is going on in His Kingdom thefefore He has established for Himself the right to hear the words of His chosen ones whenever they speak.
I have use the words “chosen ones” because the Bible is full of examples of people who have had the ear of God verses those that do not. I will get into this more later and maybe in a different essay. But for now, consider that Moses had the ear of God (Exodus 3:10) but most of the Israelites did not. And this would hold true for many of the other religious leaders in the Bible, of both the Jewish faith and of the Christian.
As examples; Jesus had the ear of God (Matthew 3:16-17, Luke 4:18) as did the Apostle Paul (Acts 9:5-6). Aaron and Miriam had the ear of God but sometimes they did not understand the truth of God’s power, read what happened to them in Numbers 12:2 and following. And the entire clan of Korah and even their close friends did not have the ear of God at all. Read what happened to them in Numbers 16:1 and following. And sometimes people do hear the words of God and choose not to do them, as was the case with Aaron’s two sons. (See Leviticus 10:1 and following).
Prayer is made up of words, God created all that there is using just His Word. Words have meaning and words have power. We must learn to respect the power in words.
Man cannot tell God what to do and what not to do. God is always right. Man is almost always wrong. God does not consult with man before He rules unless He wants to teach a man something. In other words, when God’s chosen ones speak their concerns – God may or may not do what is asked of Him. It is always God’s choice.
Bible study shows me that a prayer might delay God’s decision to act in a particular way but that as you continue to read the scriptures you will see where ultimately God does finish what He started out to do.
For example: God was going to kill all the Israelites after they built a Golden calf at the Mountain of God. But Moses prayed and argued to Him not to do this. (See Exodus 32:10 and following). If you keep studying you will learn that God did kill all the first generation Israelites, including Moses himself, before the camp went into Canaan. (Deuteronomy 31:1 and following) God’s decision to kill the Israelites was delayed long enough by prayer to give the people a chance to change their beliefs and ways. Ultimately God was proven right, the Israelites would not change their ways even after they received the signs and wonders of God. They had to be killed off. God’s original decision was eventually executed.
I do think often of this as I consider my Tree Incident. Will I too be killed off if I do not change my ways? I fear this might be the outcome of my own struggles. I write these essays so you will consider this also. What will be the outcome of your own life!
So the question for me becomes; Is there a way to frame our prayers to God that we will ensure, or that will result in, His doing more for us who have His ear? In order to “frame our prayers” we must again consider when we are praying and when we are not. Because if everything God’s chosen (also called God’s elect) people say is heard by God then to “frame” our prayers means everything we say must be right. We must come to know, believe and live the righteousness of God all the time, before He will do more of what we ask in prayer.
Whoa that is some frame work to try and keep.
Yet that is precisely what Christians are suppose to do! Is it not?
Let us get back to my prayer at the tree. I say that I did not think about what I was doing as a prayer. Yet, I think I must be lying to myself. The truth would be that when I put my hand on the tree and addressed Jesus I was invoking prayer. And somewhere deep down inside I knew I was doing this. Still, I maintain that in the heat of the moment, in the growing frustration I was feeling, I was not in thoughtful contemplative prayer as one normally envisions in their own mind prayer to be.
It was not a game I was playing with God, I was hot, I was searching in my mind for anything that would help me get that tree to fall, self serving is what it was, I was not against getting a little help from God above if I could. So in this sense, I did know I was praying. . . But since I was not active in Christianity, I was just play praying – just acting out a prayer and hoping something would come out of it. I guess what I should really be saying in this essay that I was and still am in shock that the prayer worked.
Since I now completely agree that God is Sovereign. And I believe He is in control of everything. I must now confess that I know in my heart that God put that thought of prayer at the Tree into my mind. I did not come up with that on my own. Everything that happened to me that day (probably even before that day) and every day since is orchestrated by my LORD. He is guiding my footsteps yet I can truthfully say – I do not do everything right. I now know God listens to my words and He is actively helping me; even answering my prayers to some degree. And He is actively shaping and molding me into a new creature. I know this, I can feel it and I also know when I have done wrong. He does discipline me. All I can say at this time is that He is moving me closer to His righteousness. But I have a long way to go.
I would like to state briefly, that God is speaking to me in my mind, I hear Him and recognize when He is speaking only because what He is saying is different from what I normally would do and say. The voice He has used so far is my own voice. I hear my own voice in my thoughts yet what the voice is saying lines up real well with Biblical teaching and often is at odds with how I normally go about doing things. That is how I know the voice is God. I would imagine, that this is also what the writers of the scriptures felt. What they wrote came from God, it was not taught to them by man, they somehow understood what God was telling them to write. And they did just what He showed them to do. They wrote what eventually became Canon scripture.
From all of that I have written in the previous paragraphs you should now know prayer does not need to be said out loud to be effective. God hears our outbursts as well as our innermost thoughts. I know this because I know when I have purposely prayed and when I have not purposely prayed and I have identified the gifts God has provided me and therefore I know whether those gifts came from my prayer life or from my private thoughts. Just like what happened at the tree, God answers words and if you can remember when the words were said, recorded, written down, sent as text or emailed you can see for yourself when God sent His Grace on you. For example; when I put my hand on the tree and prayed it was directly afterward the tree moved. I know then when my words were spoken and when God reacted to those words. If you keep track, you can be more aware of what God is doing with your prayers. If you keep track!
So, I cannot give a definition as to when we are in prayer verses when we are not in prayer. It appears to me that as a Christian we can be said to be in prayer at all times. Which is why we are to be so concerned with living a Christian life. God follows everything a Christian does and that is how He knows when we need his help.
It appears to me that all outward expressions of being in prayer are not to signify to God we are in prayer but to signify to the Godless, who are all around us, that we are in prayer and communing with God. Bowing our heads, glasping our hands, speaking with reverent tone in our voice does not work to make God more attentive to our prayers. God is already attentive to the Christian. We cannot convince Him to be more attentive than He already is. These prayerful actions are generally outward signs for the nonbelievers who are all around us. Maybe even a benefit to weak Christians as well.
Having said that I also must say that there are times when our souls are so heavy we simply must cry out to God. So we do. God wants us to do just that. He will hear our crys and He will sooth us in His Love. We are human, we belong to God, and there are times when we do what we do because God has decided it is what we need. This is what it means to say God is Sovereign. It is He that decides what we will do. He decides when we should be in prayer with our head bowed low, hands clasped, and softly speaking to Him.
Prayer to our God is not regulated as it is done in church. We pray whenever we want or need to do so. Sometimes our words, though not intended to be in prayer, are in fact being heard as if we were in prayer.
Who can know the difference?
To a Christian we want to be with God at all times. We are to be in prayer all the times. If we are not, where is our sovereign God going to be? Because we know from our Bible, He will not be with the people who are not his.
The people who are not with God, continue to suffer without his gifts which is the same thing as saying they live without His Grace!
L.
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