"Prayer as Dialogue with God
" Sermon Transcript for July 15, 2001 By Reverend Mike BeckScripture Reading: I Thessalonians 5:16-18
We will learn this morning how to see the unseen Christ as we experience the privilege of prayer. Prayer takes many forms all of which have their place. There is silent prayer or meditation. There is responsive prayer where we pray together as we did just a moment ago. We should pray the Scriptures. If you don’t know what I’m talking about there, I encourage you when you are reading the Word if something speaks to you, to stop to pray about it, read awhile then stop and pray. There is a place for heads-bowed, eyes-closed prayer. We use that often in worship as an attitude of reverence to cut out distractions. Some persons keep a prayer journal where they write down prayer requests. They write down their own thoughts and prayers. And then the form of prayer I want to talk briefly about this morning is what I would call dialogue prayer.
In the materials the Mainstay Ministries provide for us in the 50-Day Adventure, when I watched on video the drama for this week, I finished it and I just said, "Wow! The insights that came to me through that clip on The Lord’s Prayer". Those words that, if we’re not careful we know them so well that we just say them without thinking about them. Let me set the stage for what you’re going to see now. A young lady is praying the Lord’s Prayer, and then she gets quite a shock because God enters in to dialogue with her. Parts of it are kind of humorous, other parts are absolutely profound. Let the Holy Spirit minister to you as you watch the screen.
Adapted from a the work of Reverend Clyde Herring.
VIDEO:
Linda: Our Father, who art in Heaven...
God: Yes, what is it?
Linda: Excuse me, I’m praying.
God: Oh
Linda: Our Father who art in Heaven...
God: Hello, I’m here.
Linda: Can you wait till I’m done?
God: You called me.
Linda: I did?
God: Yes, You said, "Our Father who art in Heaven.
Producer of the Video www.friendsofthegroom.org for full text.
I watched that this week and just said, "I’m not sure I could ever pray the Lord’s Prayer in quite the same way again." Let me just pull out a few of the quotes from that video that provide us some profound theological truths about prayer. She starts in and God says, "Go ahead, I’m listening." How often we pray as if there isn’t anybody on the other end of the line or to switch it in the opposite direction, how often we just plow on and on and on and never stop and listen to what God might have to say to us. God says, "So you want My will done? Who do you think is going to do it?" For we are God’s hands, God’s feet to do His works in the world. And then the one, she doesn’t want to pray about forgiving others as we forgive them. God says, "Well, how do you want your forgiveness, with or without forgetting?" Jesus was pretty blunt there when he said, "You’re unwilling to forgive the one who’s wronged you. Sorry, I can’t forgive you." And then she said, "Well, Lord, it seems like every time I open my mouth you’re always wanting me to change something." The line there is absolutely classic where God says, "Sometimes you expect a little more from your immediate family." And then, in the end, God says, "Do you know what would really bring me glory? Just keep talking with me. Okay?"
In I Thessalonians 5, the verses we read there we’re told to pray continually or the King James version says "pray without ceasing". Now, how do you do that for the other forms of prayer that I mentioned earlier in the sermon won’t allow you to do that. Friends, if I pass you in my car and you’re coming down the other way, I don’t want to see you head-bowed, eyes-closed. I don’t want to see you reading your prayer journal when you’re suppose to be working for your employer. How do you pray without ceasing? How do you pray continually? In fact because of my rather activist personality type I struggle with some of the forms of prayer there. For example, if I try to meditate I’ll be asleep in five minutes. But I’ve learned how to engage throughout the day in dialogue prayer with God. And what I mean by that is where in the thought processes that God and me carry on a running conversation about my personal life, about other persons that I care about, about the church, about the world around me.
The two greatest lessons that I ever learned about prayer came ironically from Bob Davenport, an All-American fullback at UCLA back in the 50's. Bob was the Director of the Wandering Wheels cycling ministry of which I was a part. We were on our cross-country trip in 1968 from San Francisco to New York and we got up early in the morning for breakfast and Coach Davenport asked if there was one of the guys that would lead in prayer. And this guy volunteered. And he started out his prayer and pretty soon he said, "Lord bless the hands that prepared it." And Davenport just interrupted the prayer, which doesn’t normally happen, and he said with a great deal of love and compassion, "Look over there at Ralph. Now look at his hands. Is that what you really mean? That you want God to bless the hands that prepared it or is that just a phrase you picked up from your mom?" He said, "What did you really mean there?" And the young man said, "Well, I wanted to thank God that Ralph got up at 5:00 a.m. this morning before any of the rest of us and the pancakes are really good today." And Coach said, "Well, why don’t you just say that to God?" The Coach just thanked God that Ralph got up early and he cared enough about you and the pancakes were better than usual today. In other words, I learned that morning to quit praying the pious words and to be natural.
The other lesson I learned about prayer, of all places, came at a coffee shop at the top of TrailRidge Road at Rocky Mountain National Park. I was leading a group of kids on a trip around Colorado and we were coming up the east side of TrailRidge Road and cars began to tell us there was a whole bunch of other bike riders coming up the west side. It was Wondering Wheels on a cross country trip. And I got to sit down there in a coffee shop with Coach Davenport and in the course of the convesation I said, "Coach, remember us in prayer." And I’ll never forget his reply. He said, "I probably won’t remember to do that." And my heart kind of sunk. I wanted him to say I’ll put it in my journal and every morning at 6:00 a.m. I’ll pray for you. But he said, "I probably won’t remember to do that." But he didn’t stop there. But he said, "I am quite confident that many times as I am riding along you will come to my mind." And he said, "I believe God honors that as a prayer." What he taught me is that God invites you to a life of prayer tuned in 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to the frequency that has God on the other end. God invites us to that kind of life. And I meant it when I said twenty-four hours a day. Because I believe that even when we are sleeping our unconscious minds can be tuned in to God.
So allow the Holy Spirit to teach you about that kind of prayer for as you dialogue with God in prayer, you’ll see the unseen Christ and His presence will transform your life! We sometimes close our service with the singing of the Lord’s Prayer. So as you stand, take the hand of the person next to you and let’s sing this great prayer.
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