Apologies, my hoped for a twice weekly reflection on prayer crashed on the rocks of reality last Thursday. My post-operative condition seem to worsen as the week wore on. So I was unable to post anything. I am back and realize that one thing essential in prayer that I haven't spoken about is listening. Prayer is a dialogue between us and our heavenly Father, or sometimes between us and our Lord Jesus. Our part is problematic, although we all know how to converse. Our talking with God, as Sylvia said on Sunday in the Children's Lesson, sometimes comes off as a shopping trip. We have so many needs that we come bearing our list that we present to him. Prayer is so much more. It is giving thanks, surrendering, interceding, worshiping at the throne of the one who created and sustains all things. But then too, it is listening.
Listening is perhaps the hardest lesson of prayer to learn. Particularly the listening prayer that comes from trying to still and quiet our souls so we can hear the voice of the One who dwells within us. I occasionally have the confidence that I have heard the Father's voice, but most often there are so many other voices whispering or shouting within I struggle to discern the One voice I want to hear.
For instance, in me I always have to contend with the voice of duty. I am a pastor and I should be this and do this and fix this. It comes with the calling. Duty calls and it is difficult at times to still that relentless voice, there are so many good things that need to be done. Then there is the voice of anxiety and fear. This voice was bequeathed to me by my mother. She was an anxious personality and passed it on to me. Of course I have learned to cover it up over the years, but inwardly that voice shrieks at times. Then there is the voice of experiences past. This voice tells us what happened the last time we were in this situation. We feel that "history is doomed to repeat itself."
None of these voices are reliable, though. Duty needs to be balanced with self-care. If we do not attend to the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of our own person we will be of little help to others. The voice of anxiety and fear is only helpful when there is a real threat, which is rare. The voice of experiences past do not take into account that what happened "yesterday" may not be what happens today.
There is only way clear and sure way to hear the voice of our Father, read the Word of God. He has already spoken. Scripture is the historical record of God's self-disclosure in deed and word. We must steep ourselves in the Bible. It must become part of our daily spiritual diet. What was it that Jesus said, "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." We have that sure word in the Bible. As I encouraged people to do during this month of prayer, take a single book of the Bible and read a chapter a day for a month. Meditate on it and ask the Father to speak to you personally through it.
Yesterday in chapter 18 of Luke I read about the parable of the persistent widow. Jesus told it as a picture of how we are to pray, with persistence. We are never to give up. But at the end Jesus asks a haunting question, when he comes will he find "faith on the earth." I realized how often I have prayed and didn't believe he would help me. I asked forgiveness and took his promise into prayer.
Then came my favorite parable of the self-righteous Pharisee, who prided himself on all his good works. He looked down on this humble tax-collector, who felt deeply his sin and unworthiness and simply asked, "God have mercy on me a sinner." That is who I am, a sinner in need of mercy. I heard that reassuring voice, "you are forgiven and loved." That was the voice of the Father. We hear him through his word that we have in Scripture. In all your praying, keep listening. The Father longs to speak to his children and he does so through his Word.
