It’s been our experience that challenging life situations and times of despair probably lead people to pray more than any other thing. A very individualistic perspective of prayer. For most of our lives we have had a pattern of praying less, when life seems to be going well and praying more when things are not. This is certainly very unfaithful. It’s kind of like if our children come to us only when they are struggling or need something from us, and ignoring us most of the other time. It shouldn’t be this way. But this makes it clear to me why we can struggle to embrace prayer as Jesus taught us & why our prayers are perceived as ineffective. As we discover prayer in Acts and the early church, it seems the Holy Spirit leads us on Jesus’ mission as prayer is the ‘central engine‘ of human activity in the church. Or as they were dedicated to prayer together, the Holy Spirit moved them further on Jesus’ mission. Our friend Brian Zahnd says something like this about prayer; “the goal of prayer is not to get God to do what we want him to do for us, the goal of prayer is to be properly formed”. We think he’s right. Maybe weve just been asking God to do stuff for us for so many years. Our primary motivations in prayer may need to change from primarily individualistic, to the missional engine of our marriages, families, and church families. We see this in our Lord’s teaching on prayer. In the Lord’s prayer, Jesus invites all people to converse with “our“ Father so that the Kingdom of Heaven will come and His will be done- His beautiful and perfect will on this ugly and imperfect earth. We are to ask Him for “our” daily bread. His will does not come outside or separate from humanity, but His will, will be done through His body for all cultures. How will His divine will be done? We pray as His forgiveness-representatives, showing sacrificial love to all peoples. As we pray, our hearts align with His truth and mercy for others who have been beaten up in life. It’s Jesus-like people sent to deliver and to release others from their sins and the evil that has influenced them. We pray so that we can be formed and informed to know how do His will. We get to speak and we must listen to God so that our words will become flesh, just as The Word became flesh. We are convicted now more than ever, that Our Father wants to form us so that we can become like the One who loves us and to show the world what He is really like. Especially, our American culture needs to see the uniqueness and distinguishing passion of sincere Jesus-followers who love to pray kingdom-focused prayer.
Kyle and Jeff, Sanctus Missional Communities St Cloud MN