Why don’t we pray?

This is an article stimulated by and borrowing heavily from D.A. Carson, A Call to Spiritual Reformation, ‘Excuses for Not Praying’, chapter 7, pp 111-122. It’s intended to expose our excuses for not praying. What follows are the six most common excuses Don Carson believes we give to justify our prayerlessness. In places there’s a bit of expansion from me!

1. I’m too busy to pray

London life is frenetic. Our lives are filled with activity. Some of that activity is unavoidable. But not all of it is, surely? In reflecting on the hectic nature of our lives Don Carson writes,

‘We are not living in a contemplative age. When we stop rushing and performing and doing, many of us park ourselves in front of a television, possibly a television attached to a video recorder, and simply absorb what is dished out. The result is that we seldom take time to think, to meditate, to wonder, to analyze; we seldom take time to pray’.

I wonder whether we’re already feeling the intense heat of the spotlight? God’s response to our busyness is found in the account of Jesus’ time with Martha and Mary. Martha chose activism over pietism. She ended up indignant that her kingdom activity wasn’t being noticed and supported by the king. Jesus told her in no uncertain terms that Mary’s decision to sit and learn at her Lord’s feet was the better choice. I’ve written on this elsewhere http://richardperkins.blogsome.com/2007/06/08/cultivating-our-relationship-with-christ/ and I’d encourage you to chase that up. Consequently Carson says what we might struggle to say to one another,

‘It matters little whether you are the mother of active children who drain away your energy, an important executive in a major multinational corporation, a graduate student cramming for impending comprehensives, a plumber working overtime to put your children through college, or a pastor of a large church putting in ninety hours a week: at the end of the day, if you are too busy to pray, you are too busy. Cut something out’.

Cut something out. There’s an idea! Why not write down what you think you could cut from your week to make time for prayer.

2. I feel too spiritually dry to pray

It’s hard to do things when we don’t feel like doing them. That could be a tax return, an essay or the washing up. If we don’t feel like doing it we lack the impetus to do it. And in all likelihood we won’t. We’ll put it off. Sometimes, it’s like that with prayer. Some of us may already have experienced those times when discouragement, unbelief, emptiness and dryness strangle our prayer to within an inch of their lives. What triggers these feelings may be any number of things. If we’re tired we tend to see the dark clouds and not the silver lining! If we’ve been on the receiving end of some critical flak then our spirits may be a little low. If we’re anxious and stressed that takes its emotional toll. But whatever the cause, the challenge to pray just seems like one mountain climb too many. Carson suggests that there could be one of two presuppositions that lurk behind the excuse of feeling too spiritually dry to pray. The first presupposition is that we feel we can pray only when we feel good. But when we remember that Christ’s death is the sole basis of our acceptance before God we’ll recognise that we’re not thinking straight. True, we may not feel like praying. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t. The second presupposition is that we feel we should pray only when we feel good. The obligation to pray is not diminished because we don’t feel like it. This is a profoundly self centred way of thinking. How I feel is not the determinant of what I ought to do.

3. I feel no need to pray

Few of us would ever be so blatant. If we were, others might see the arrogance of our logic. Because at its root the logic runs ‘I am too important to pray. I am too self confident to pray. I am too independent to pray’. But we’d never be so obvious would we? But, as Carson observes, what happens is this,

‘Although abstractly I may affirm the importance of prayer, in reality I may treat prayer as important only in the lives of other people, especially those whom I judge to be weaker in character, more needy, less competent, less productive. Thus, while affirming the importance of prayer, I may not feel deep need for prayer in my own life’.

When we have a high opinion of our own capabilities, prayer seems a little beneath us. It’s for emergencies and is a terrific contingency when all else fails but it’s not the first port of call. In response Carson writes,

‘If Christians who shelter beneath such self assurance do not learn better ways by listening to the scriptures, God may address them in the terrible language of tragedy. We serve a God who delights to disclose to disclose himself to the contrite, to the lowly of heart, to the meek. When God finds us so puffed up that we do not feel our need of him, it is an act of kindness on his part to take us down a peg or two; it would be an act of judgement to leave us in our vaulting self-esteem’.

It’s very easy for us to come to critical points in life, career and family and precisely because our judgement has led to success in the past we repeat the error and plough on without inquiring of the Lord. We love our independence and as a result we may repeatedly stumble and fall because we’ve exercised our intellectual ability but have not sought God’s opinion and his wisdom on the matter.

4. I’m too bitter to pray

Perhaps some of us feel that life has left us with the short stick. When we compare our existence with those around us the decisions that God has made can feel chronically unfair. We feel like the victims of injustice. We may respond with disappointment, bitterness and resentment. This is hardly conducive to a healthy prayer life, especially when we’re meant to be praying for others. Carson observes,

‘Life itself is consumed by the petty assessment of how well you are perceived by those around you. In the morass of self-pity and resentment, real prayer is squeezed out. In other words, many of us do not want to pray because we know that disciplined, biblical prayer would force us to eliminate sin that we rather cherish. It is very hard to pray with compassion and zeal for someone we much prefer to resent’.

On the other hand, Jesus taught that forgiveness ought to characterise our attitude to others. In both Matthew 6 and Mark 11 he explained that those who want to experience his Father’s forgiveness will be those who extend forgiveness to others. It’s this approach that reveals that our repentance is authentic.

5. I’m too ashamed to pray

We’ve all been there. Our sin shames us. We feel so guilty. And proximity to the Lord makes our failure feel so much more acute. Carson puts it this way,

‘shame encourages us to hide from the presence of God; shame squirrels behind a masking foliage of pleasantries while refusing to be honest; shame fosters flight and escapism; shame engenders prayerlessness’.

We’re fools to run from a God who is determined to seek us out and bring us home. The perverseness of our decision to run away and seek exile is the very thing that Christ died to prevent. The place of exile is the place of misery. The place of absolution, freedom, acceptance and forgiveness is to be found in his presence.

6. I’m content with mediocrity

Would anyone in our constituency ever be so bold as to state this publicly? I suspect not. But, this is what we settle for when we spurn the offer of fellowship with the Lord. We may want to own the name Christian but we’re not interested in the increasing spiritual maturity that ought to come with the territory.

Conclusion

No doubt there are other excuses that we could muster for not praying. But most of these nail me!

Prayer is speaking to God and asking Him for things. There are three main Greek words that are used and they all refer to the act of asking, requesting or seeking for something from God. In his 1662 book entitled simply, ‘Prayer’ John Bunyan, the author of ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ defined prayer in the following way,

‘Prayer is a sincere, sensible, affectionate pouring out of the heart or soul to God, through Christ, in the strength and assistance of the Holy Spirit, for such things as God has promised, or according to His word, for the good of the church, with submission in faith to the will of God’.

This is a definition taken from the chapter ‘What True Prayer Is’, Prayer, Banner of Truth Trust, pp 13-22. As definitions go, I think that’s a pretty good one. He identifies seven key components in his definition. Let’s look at those in turn.

1. Prayer is a sincere pouring out of the soul to God

Prayer that is sincere is honest and genuine. When we pray sincerely we simply open our heart to God and to talk with Him plainly about the issues at hand. And so we need to be warned that the Lord will not be taken in by pretence. He won’t listen to the prayers of hypocrites. So we need to beware of praying to be seen, to be admired and to be applauded by others. Bunyan writes, ‘Sincerity is the same in a corner alone, as it is before the face of all the world. It knows not how to wear two masks, one for appearance before men, and another for private use. It must have God, and be with Him in the duty of prayer. It is not lip labour that it regards, for sincerity, like God, looks at the heart, and that is where prayer comes from, if it be true prayer’. Sincerity matters in prayer because it’s what we really are and it’s not something that can be manufactured. It comes from the heart. Those of us who pray publicly need to be warned.

2. Prayer is a sensible pouring out of the soul to God

Authentic prayer Bunyan writes, ‘is not, as many take it to be, a few babbling, prating, complimentary expressions, but a sensible feeling in the heart’. His point is that prayer is a sane, level headed and rational response that comes from the heart. It’s caused by a deep conviction of sin. It’s caused by the wonderful experience of God’s mercy. And it’s caused by excitement at the anticipation of what God has promised for us in the future. We don’t need to worry about working ourselves into a frenzied and heightened emotional state. We just sensibly respond to what we’ve heard in God’s word, what He’s laid on our heart or what we’ve found ourselves pondering.

3. Prayer is an affectionate pouring out of the soul to God

But lest we think that the affections are to be emotionally disengaged Bunyan continues. He writes, ‘when the affections are indeed engaged in prayer, then the whole man is engaged, and that in such a way that the soul will spend itself, as it were, rather than go without that good desired, even [namely] communion and solace with Christ’. In other words, unless we’re emotionally involved in the activity of praying, we won’t pray. And so, in his view, ‘There is in prayer an unbosoming of a man’s self, an opening of the heart to God, an affectionate pouring out of the soul in requests, sighs, and groans’.

4. Prayer is through Christ in the strength and assistance of the Spirit

We can only pray to God through the cross work of Christ and the work of His Spirit in applying spiritual life to us. Bunyan writes, ‘Christ is the way through whom the soul has admittance to God, and without whom it is impossible that so much as one desire should come into the ears of the Lord of the Sabbath’. What a thought! Not a single word would come befiore God were it not for the work of Christ. What a privilege we’ve been given.

5. Prayer is for those things that God has promised

Bunyan is clear that when we pray, the content of our prayers is to be guided by our knowledge of the scriptures. He writes, ‘Prayer is only true when it is within the compass of God’s word; it is blasphemy, or at best, vain babbling, when the petition is unrelated to the book’. But before we panic we must be reassured that the category of things ‘unrelated to the book’ allows a bit of leeway in those things we pray for!

6. Prayer is for the good of the church

According to Bunyan we’re to pray for, ‘whatsoever tends to the honour of God, Christ’s advancement, or to His people’s benefit’. Therefore we ‘must pray for the abundance of grace for the church, for help against all its temptations; that God would let nothing be too hard for it; that all things might work together for its good; that God would keep His children blameless and harmless, the sons of God, to His glory, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation’. I wonder whether those sorts of things have occupied our prayers for those in our small groups and our leaders.

7. Prayer is in submission to the will of God

‘The people of the Lord in all humility are to lay themselves and their prayers, and all that they have, at the foot of the their God, to be disposed of by Him as He in His heavenly wisdom sees best. Yet not doubting but God will answer the desire of His people that way that shall be most for their advantage and His glory’.

Conclusion

This is a terrific definition. There’s much to be thought through. But lest we drown in detail let’s remember that prayer is in essence speaking to God and making requests of Him.

CCB are in the midst of a terrific sermon series in Philippians at the moment. From a human perspective this is Gavin’s doing. Ultimately it’s God’s goodness to us. But that’s not what this post is about. This is a CD that’s been in my growing Christian library for a while. It’s called ‘Whatever Happen’s’ and it’s from Mark Peterson. You can learn more about him on his MySpace website http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=141037721.

I got to know Mark at Moore Theological College, Sydney and during his regular visits to Oak Hill Theological College, London. Like a good son he used to fly over to see his parents since his father, David, was our college principal. According to the album sleeve the guitar and bass for track 6 ‘Highest Place’ were recorded at ‘Skippy Studios’. ‘Skippy’ was our affectionate nickname for our much revered and occasionally mocked Australian Principal. Turns out that ‘Skippy Studios’ was in fact the Principal’s kitchen!

I’m no muso. I’m not qualified to comment on the musical arrangement or the production quality. But that’s never stopped me expressing an opinion! I love singing and this is awesome Christian karaoke. Mark’s got a passion for Christian rock and that gets my vote. The slow ones still leave me cold but the lyrics are brilliant and so he gets away with it. But the best thing about this album is that it’s essentially Philippians in song. As Mark comments,

‘Philippians has always been a source of extraordinary encouragement to Christians because of its warm, joyful tone and clear focus on Jesus Christ and on our citizenship with him in heaven. Each of these songs is a reflection on part of the letter, following the order of the letter’.

My own favourite track is number 10, ‘the Lord is near’ closely followed by track 12, ‘to our God and Father’. Whether you’re listening to a sermon series in Philippians or not, whether you come to CCB or not this is worth sticking on the mp3 player. You can buy this and other good stuff here http://emumusic.co.uk/Home.html.

I went hoping to be intellectually stretched, personally encouraged and apologetically equipped. I wasn’t disappointed. It was everything I was hoping for. Staying in a Cambridge College wasn’t bad either. Made me wish I was 18 again. And had managed decent grades!

I’d not attended a Christian Heritage Summer School before. For the past five years I’ve used my church study leave to go to the Proclamation Trust Younger Ministers’ Conference. I’ve enjoyed those immensely. But I’ve also wanted to continue the theological education I’d benefited from at Oak Hill Theological College. The ‘Apologetics for Leadership’ course seemed to be offering just that. And that it gave me the tools to engage critically with the culture meant it was a ‘no-brainer’. I’m now keen to do both and will shortly be approaching the elders and asking for another weeks’ study leave!

Dr Dan Strange was our lecturer for the week. Dan is the lecturer in Culture, Religion and Public Theology at Oak Hill Theological College. His PhD was concerned with the possibility of salvation amongst the unevangelized. But we never got onto that. We were too busy interacting with his apologetic tools for analysing culture, worldviews and idols. Throughout the week we had twelve hour long lectures followed by questions and discussion. We benefited enormously from the coherence made possible by having one lecturer for the week. The material was deliberately pitched a little higher than the other summer courses but Dan was brilliant at slowing things down so that I could catch up!

We were an eclectic group, predominantly British, but there were representatives from Russia, the States and Kyrgyzstan. Mealtimes were one of the highlights as we chatted informally about our ministries, our families and what God had been teaching us through the course.

Christian Heritage have done the local church a great service by providing these courses and I wholeheartedly recommend them to those keen to be trained for ministry.

Further information is available from www.christianheritageuk.org.uk. The course dates for next year are as follows

Introduction to Apologetics 7 - 11 July 2008

The Unity of Scripture 14-19 July 2008

Apologetics for Leadership 21-25 July 2008

A children’s slot for pre-school and infant children to accompany a baptism

[You Need: small tent, wellies and a bucket full of water]

We’ve just come back from a camping holiday. We stayed in a tent a little bit bigger than this. But it would have taken ages to put up. Now there’s one important thing to remember about living in a tent.

You can’t come in unless you’re clean.

We had a bit of rain whilst we were away. And so we were glad we took our wellies with us. But what do you think I’d say to you if you come up to my tent wearing dirty wellies?

You can’t come in unless you’re clean.

I’m not going to let you in. You’ll mess up my tent. And so you need to wash your wellies and your feet before you come in.

OK, I need a volunteer.

[Get them to put the wellies on and try and get into the tent, tell them that ‘they can’t come in unless they’re clean’. Then get them to take off their wellies and clean their feet in the bucket so that they can go in. Put them in the tent for the rest of the slot watching what’s going on!]

The key thing to remember when camping is what?

You can’t come in unless you’re clean.

God says the same thing about heaven. He won’t let dirty people come in. He only wants clean people. But he’s not talking about mud. He’s talking about sin. Sin messes up heaven the way that mud messes up a tent. And God won’t let dirty sinners into his clean heaven. So we need to be clean. But unlike wellies and mud we can’t get the sin off to make ourselves clean. We need someone else to cleanse us from our sin. And that’s what Jesus did when he took away our sin and he died on the cross. He took away our sin and he made us clean.

In a moment we’re going to baptise Isabella. It’ll involve getting Isabella wet with water. Because she’s only little we’ll only use a little bit of water. The water reminds us that we need God to cleanse us if we’re ever going to get into heaven. It’s a great help isn’t it to remember what Jesus has done for us on the cross.

Let’s pray.