“… prayer is much, MUCH more than bringing requests to God.”
“So WHAT IF … God wanted you to view prayer as a means of seeking Him, to know Him, and to grow towards Christ? Let me say it from a different angle. WHAT IF you approached prayer with the purpose of KNOWING God … rather than GETTING FROM God?”
(excerpt from the book: “A Reason to Pray at Mountainview.”
In the book, the main character–Mark Terrell, held a view of prayer that is common among Christians and non-Christians. It is a view that sees prayer as a 90:10.
What I mean by that is, for most people prayer is made up of man talking 90% of the time and giving God about 10% to respond. This view and approach to prayer neglects, or at least, diminishes the best and predominate part of prayer. Don’t misunderstand me, we need to talk to our God and that comes out in different types of prayer, i.e, calling on Him for help; provisions; guidance, or to offer praise and thanksgiving. These are correct purposes and motives to pray. We know that the Father enabled fellowship with Him by and through Christ Jesus so that we can go to Him with requests, with sorrowful and hurting hearts, and with expressions of thankfulness and praise. These are scriptural types of prayer but we need to examine our mind-set of prayer. Is it one-dimensional—man to God?
This leads to a new question on the table:
Should the main purpose of our alone time with God be a 90:10 conversation? I think that we would all agree to a simple: No! Mark’s mentor challenged him to develop a different main purpose and motive to pray. It would incorporate the above reasons of prayer (calling on Him for help; praise) but changing them to by-products of time with God rather than the end reasons to pray to God. The new purpose of prayer would put an emphasis on building a relationship with God rather than seeking Him primarily as a resource. This new purpose would make a person’s relationship with God as both the beginning and end reason to pray.
“Prayer has been ordained by God as a means of our growing in a personal relationship with Him.” – John Bunyan
Outcomes of a Shift in the Purpose of Prayer
If you evaluate our time of prayer under the light of this new purpose of prayer, how intimate is your relationship with the Father. A 90:10 formula of prayer only cultivates, at best, a one-sided relationship, a 90:10 relationship, which is lopsided. Do you view God as a high in the sky impersonal God rather than a Father who is with you in your needs and daily life, Who wants to lead, teach, and mold you? This is the time to examine your past times of prayer. As with Mark Terrell, they may be few and short. Are your times with your Heavenly Father a time of bonding or shallow and weak? You may know that Jesus Christ came to reconcile man to God, and you trust in Jesus Christ for eternal life, but is that the extent of the depth of your relationship with God? When we come to realize the truth about God’s desire towards us it is difficult to ignore the obvious. Our hearts should hunger for more, because we realize that we need more … of a walk with our God.
Perhaps you can relate to the character of Mark Terrell. In the story he decided to step into this new view and purpose of prayer, and yes there was an awkwardness and a fumbling of what to say to God. But this changed as he began talking to God who was with him in his room rather than trying to reach God in another galaxy. Mark was beginning to view God as a close Father–Abba, and view Jesus Christ as his friend and shepherd, and the Spirit of God as His companion and divine helper. From this fresh relationship with his God, Mark began growing and maturing in Christ. His view towards and in the things of God began changing. His affections began moving away from making “self” the emphasis of his life and prayers. His heart found a greater treasure, an infinite treasure, that of knowing and walking with his Father and Savior. Mark’s shift in his purpose of prayer sparked new desires and reasons for living—God’s reasons for living.
There are, what we might call, negative outcomes to this shift in the main purpose of why we pray. I call it negative because it will include an ouch or two (actually a BAM! or two), and some hard work.
I’ll get into the ouches in the next post. In the meantime, here are two challenges to help you shift to the main purpose of prayer:
1. Take some time during your next “closet time with God the Father” and consider obvious and natural outcomes from making this shift in your view and purpose of prayer.
2. Practice harnessing your wandering thoughts and tongue in the quiet time with God. Let Him speak to you through His Word. He has more to tell you than you have to tell Him.
Leave a Reply