Prayer - VineLife Communities

In August of 1972, God, reminded me that back in August of 1953, He had called me and sent me out as His messenger to preach the gospel of the Kingdom. For nineteen years He allowed me to wander about in what appeared to me to be, for the most part anyway, an aimless journey. In fact at times I wondered whether or not God even cared. Oh, He had given me my wonderful gift of a wife, Jennie, and two precious children, and all my physical needs were met. I just seemed to lack direction in life.

Since the time of my conversion and call I had worked as a farm hand, a phosphate worker, a soldier, and was in August of 1972, an insurance sales manager for one of America’s larger Insurance Companies. Looking back, I have learned that in each phase of my journey God used everything for my good and for preparation for the apostolic work that I now do.

That August, God interrupted my professional track toward success with a series of three dreams through which He reemphasized my call as His messenger. I attempted to work a deal with God, promising Him that I would be His messenger if He would allow me to continue my journey toward success in the insurance field. I was promoted in the winter of 1972 to Life/Fund Sales Manager and sent to Dallas, Texas. I arrived in Plano, a suburb of Dallas, March 1st of 1973. I was sure I had “arrived” professionally, and that God was going along with my “deal.”

Jennie and I immediately connected with some people who were preparing to do a church plant in West Plano, and became part of that core group. God blessed the efforts of the team and soon, Prairie Creek Baptist Church was birthed. Meanwhile, I had received another promotion from my Company and was now Field Sales manager in Oklahoma and Texas. At about the same time I began to experience a loss of joy in my work. Another company recruited me and I accepted their offer because I thought I needed another challenge to prove myself. It didn’t take me long to figure out that the change of employers was not the problem. The problem, though I didn’t want to recognize it, was that I was running from God. Oh, I was involved in our local church and a lot of religious activities. I think Jennie recognized that and asked me a question that I felt really out of line. “If God wants us in the ministry full time as a way of life, why don’t we do what He wants?”

I didn’t like the question! It meant giving up my professional position, income, success in the eyes of my friends and fellow workers, my company car, my new boat every couple of years, Jennie’s dream house, financial security for my kids…., etc., etc., etc! WE DID IT ANYWAY! Now, 33 years later I look back and see the hand of God providing for us and gently guiding us. We have never suffered lack.

Early on we taught our children that prayer was asking God what He wanted, and as much as was possible on our part, receiving and walking in His answers. On one occasion I was presented with a situation that seemed to me to be impossible. We knew that it was time for us to get out of the “nest” at Prairie Creek and begin our journey of being “sent” ones. A church in South Carolina extended us a call to come as pastor. The very same day the Home Mission Board of our denomination notified us that we were approved to plant a church in Rochester, New York, and another church north of Plano asked me to come and talk with them about becoming their pastor. Prairie Creek wanted me to stay on as Associate Pastor in our fast growing area.

I called Jennie at her work and told her what had happened that day and, to say the least, we were both overwhelmed. In my own mind I was sure that Jennie and our son David, would want to move to South Carolina, close to Jennie’s parents. Her father was dying of cancer and we would have been near during this difficult time. Our daughter on the other hand, was very involved in the youth ministry of our church, so I figured she would want to stay in Plano. I had been up to New York on a mission’s trip earlier in the year and really desired to go back and plant a new church.

Without discussing any of my thoughts with the family regarding what we should do, we all agreed to invite Jesus into the situation and give him access to each of our hearts. We further agreed to pray silently around the kitchen table, asking Jesus what He wanted us to do, and then writing on a piece of paper what we thought He answered. As an act of faith we wrote on a slip of paper what we thought we were hearing from the Lord. Then we folded them, placed them in the middle of the table, stirred them around and began to draw them out one at a time. I drew the first one. It was the one I had written “Rochester” on. I drew the second…, “Rochester.” I drew the third.., “Rochester.” By now I was shaking. I drew the forth.., “Rochester.” Jesus had spoken to each of us with no manipulation or direction from me, and simply said, “Rochester.” I couldn’t hold back the emotion any longer and broke down and wept. As a matter of fact, we all wept. We moved in July of 1977, and planted a new church in North Greece, a suburb of Rochester.

That experience of giving Jesus access to my need was a profound lesson in the simplicity of prayer and the love and faithfulness of Jesus. I have been on a prayer journey since then. I must confess that there have been times I had to go to God and ask forgiveness for taking an action and then asking Him to bless my choices rather than seeking His face in advance. He was always gracious when I blew it.

Now here is one of the great mysteries and shocks regarding my 33 years in ministry. In all of this time, not one person in the thousands Jennie and I have ministered to ever asked me to teach them to pray. Why? Perhaps they thought I couldn’t or wouldn’t help them. Perhaps they thought it was unimportant to them. You will recall that Jesus’ disciples told Him that John had taught his disciples to pray and asked Jesus to teach them. Well, here are some of the things I have learned about prayer along the way.

There is a word I learned in a systematic theology class. It is the word, prevenient. It simply means that God is already at work beforehand. Such is the case in Revelation 3:20, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; If any one hears My voice and opens the door, I will come into him, and will dine with him, and he with me.”

In this scripture verse, the prevenient work of Jesus is evidenced by His knocking and asking for permission to enter. When He is given access He sets up residence, with all of His power and glory available to the person who invites Him into their life and situation. We simply need to respond to His gentle knock and voice.

So then, to put it quite simply, prayer is giving Jesus access into our needs; giving Him permission to employ His powers in the alleviation of our distress and pain; allowing Him to glorify His name in the midst of our needs!

It is not commanding Him to do our bidding! It is not some emotional tirade with weeping, veiled religious gossip for the listening pleasure of others present, preaching or shouting! It is not hours of gut-wrenching begging, but rather releasing to Him our every need. It is simply giving Him access; soaking in His presence.

When I was about thirteen years old, my older half brother Russell’s wife, Ikie, was struck with tuberculosis. There was not a lot that doctor’s could do back then, other than isolating the patient in a sanatorium. There, regardless of whether it was cold or hot, the patient was placed outside in the fresh air several hours each day to bathe in the sun. Ikie went through this process and was healed of the TB.

Here is the point. She didn’t have to beg, plead, shout, agonize or even ask to be placed outside. All she needed to do was to give the sun and fresh air access to her body and she was cured. Prayer operates in much the same way. When we give the Son access to our need, His power is released to accomplish His purposes!

Secondly, prayer is an attitude of our mind and heart. Whether it takes the form of words isn’t really all that important to God. Words are for our benefit. This “attitude of the heart” which God recognizes as prayer is twofold:

Helplessness: Only the person who recognizes that he is helpless can truly pray. Jesus said in John 15:5 “…for apart from Me, you can do nothing.” We can’t even pray! Are you aware that it was not your prayer that moved God to save you? Your prayer was no more than the result of His knocking, asking for access! This act on the part of Jesus could be called prevenient grace. You did not deserve to be saved, but by His grace He knocked and called out to you.
Faith: In its simplest form the essence of faith is to come to Jesus. It is the first, last and most positive indicator that faith is alive and present. John 6:37 states, “All that the Father gives me shall come to Me; and the one who comes to me I shall certainly not cast out.”

On one occasion a young girl about thirteen in the church that I was shepherding, was given aspirin while she had chicken pox. She came down with Reyes Syndrome, a swelling of the brain often resulting in death, and went into a coma. Her father was a medical doctor and he brought the best specialists in the world to his daughter’s bedside to try to save her. Things looked hopeless as far as her survival.

I was on the way out of the city on Thursday afternoon with my staff for a planning retreat and decided I would make one more stop by the hospital. The girls mother was there, very despondent and downcast. She told me that all that was keeping her daughter alive was the respirator. We went into her room and prayed a very simple prayer, acknowledging our helplessness and giving Jesus access and permission to do as He felt best. I left and went on to my staff retreat.

About midnight the parents along with the specialist that had been flown in, decided to remove all life support and allow her to die. When they pulled the tube from her throat the precious little girl who had been in a coma for several days said, “Thank you.” By 9:00 am she was sitting up and asking for a “Whopper and a root beer.” Our act of faith was in going to Jesus with the problem. It wasn’t some kind of a “command” telling Him how to answer our prayer.

Living faith sees its own need, acknowledges its own helplessness, goes to Jesus, tells Him just how bad things are, and leaves everything to Him! Sounds so simple doesn’t it? Faith is placed in the faithfulness of Jesus, not in our “faith.” Faith in Jesus is believing He can handle any situation when He is given access.

The scriptures say that Jesus could do no great miracles in Nazareth because of the unbelief of the people

Unbelief: An attribute of the will that consists in a man’s refusal to believe, that is, refusal to see his own need, to acknowledge his own helplessness, to go to Jesus and speak candidly and confidently with Him about his sin and distress. Unbelief is manifested by attempting to do things on our own.
Doubt: Anguish, pain and weakness which at times affects our faith. Doubt may sometimes assail after we have gone to Jesus. We wonder if we are praying right, praying according to God’s will, even if He hears our prayers. BUT…., WE GO TO JESUS ANYWAY!

In Mark 9, we have the story of the father who had brought his son to the disciples for deliverance from demonic control that would send him into seizures. The disciples were unable to heal him so the man went to Jesus who had just come down from the mount of transfiguration. The OPERATIVE word here is spoken by the man, “Teacher, I brought you my son…” Remember, prayer is giving Jesus access to the situation and faith is giving the situation to Jesus.

The man says to Jesus, “If you can do anything, take pity and help us.” He had come to Jesus as an expression of faith in Jesus, but he also had doubt whether anything could be done. Jesus replies, “If you can! All things are possible to him who believes.”

Immediately the boy’s father cried out and began saying, “I do believe, help me in my unbelief.” In other words, “I believe in you, but I have my doubts. Help me.” The man was so convinced of his own helplessness that he saw his doubts as unbelief. Notice however, that Jesus recognized the intent of the man’s heart and healed his son. God can overcome our doubt but is powerless in our circumstances through unbelief, the refusal to come to Him.

Now let’s attempt to answer the question I posed to myself, “Why, in all my years of ministry, was I never asked to teach people to pray?” Perhaps people simply thought that they should intuitively know how to pray. Perhaps they were fearful that I would “look down on them” if they confessed a need for help, or worse, that I wouldn’t or couldn’t help them. People are constantly told by many self-proclaimed “giants of the faith,” that to really pray one must toil or wrestle with angels, that one must pray for one hour every day at dawn, or that God does not hear the prayers of sinners and they recognize their own failures and helplessness and think its useless to try. You can find myriads of books on prayer that promote one or more of the above themes. Why do we make prayer so difficult. Why do we fail so miserably in prayer? What is so scary about soaking in His presence? Let me hastily add that there have been several godly saints and authors over the years who have opened my spiritual eyes to the love of the Father and contributed greatly to my understanding of prayer.

The natural man looks upon prayer as a burdensome task. As a result, since we often see prayer through our natural eyes, the more of an effort prayer becomes the less we pray. This results in our minds embracing the world’s way of dealing with the issues and circumstances of life. We become worldly minded! When this happens, our worldly mindedness is soon followed by an “unwilling spirit” concerning pray. We simply refuse to pray.

When we stop praying the inner life, which feeds on intimacy and community with God, is starved and we begin to weaken. Our spiritual vision becomes blurred and we can no longer discern clearly between what is and isn’t sin. In addition, we attempt to resist whatever sin we recognize in our own strength. This is essentially the same way that worldly people do. They struggle against those sins that are dangerous from the standpoint of their consequences, and succumb to the “less flagrant” sins.

When a Christian sinks to this level, his or her prayers become empty, religious words that strangle what little prayer life still flickering in their hearts.

Let me state that initially we must repent of our prayerlessness and ask for God’s help. Prayer is telling Jesus what we lack. Pray the Problem, not the answer! Intercession is telling Jesus what others lack. If we lack a prayer life we need to tell Jesus! In addition, I believe there are two basic disciplines that are necessary to begin to develop and sustain an ongoing prayer life.

I have already mentioned that prayer is giving Jesus access to our needs, but the temptation is to make time for prayer only when we want something badly. An infant is always dependent on its mother for survival. Likewise, we must always be dependent on Jesus! This means that if we are going to be disciples of Jesus, we must have some spiritual disciplines in place in our lives. Practice and Perseverance are the two basic disciplines necessary as you begin a prayer life.

We should recognize also, that the Spirit of Prayer can teach us to pray! This is accomplished through the study of the word (scriptures), through receiving divine insight through God’s answers to our needs, and through daily prayer exercise.

We think we must help God fulfill our prayer requests. We then act this out and start doing things to answer our own prayers, and in the process we sabotage God’s answer and provision.
We use prayer for the purpose of commanding God to do our bidding. This is neither prayer nor faith. It is presumption! To tell God the way He must answer your prayer request can be likened to Aladdin, “rubbing the lamp,” with demands for the Genie. God does not operate that way! You have no authority to command God.
We forget to pray in the Name of Jesus. Simply put, coming to the Father in the Name of Jesus gives unholy men access to a Holy God. We should enter His throne room boldly, based on the fact that it is Jesus alone who made access possible. It is not on our own merit, but through the blood of our great High Priest, our Lord Jesus Christ.
We only pray in times of crisis. No Practice! No Perseverance! Enough said.

Jesus longs for your presence and awaits access to your life, your circumstances and your needs. He awaits access to celebrate your victories with you. Will you allow Him to do so? May God the Father place in your heart a desire to pray at all times! In Jesus Name, Amen.