a prayer revolution?

prayer. it's something we all do as christians. or, at least, say we do. sometimes we pray as much as we want (maybe i should rephrase that and say as little as we want...), but most the time we end up praying less than we tried.

how do we structure our prayers? sometimes we follow the pattern of the Lord's prayer. sometimes we actually repeat the Lord's prayer. do we ever mean it the way Christ did? sometimes we make things up as we go along, offering our laundry list or our shopping list or sometimes even our christmas wish list. i'm not here to say that there is one model that will guarantee an answer- in fact, i believe all prayers are answered, it's just that sometimes we never hear what we want to hear so we pretend we don't hear.

i do believe that there is a scriptural pattern to prayer.

before i go any further, let me first say this. every great revival, every revolution is not preceded by someone uncovering something new that no one ever noticed before; they have come when someone radically takes what has always been there as the truth.

i'll repeat myself so you don't have to remember what i said before, 'i do believe that there is a scriptural pattern to prayer.' the most prevailing and powerful of which can be found in the life of Christ.

i have recently discovered for myself how Jesus alludes to His own prayer life. there are only a few recorded prayers of Christ in the entire Bible, yet the four gospel writers spent three years with Him. the powerful personal discovery came in john 5:19-24.

the passage has nothing to do with prayer, or does it? the context of this passage is that Jesus had just healed a lame man on the sabbath. the passage is a window into Jesus' actual prayer life.

i believe that we maybe missing something in our prayer lives.

we pray. 'Lord, please save [heal, set free, come near to, bless, etc.] and i'll do anything [say anything, go anywhere, give up anything, etc.] '.

the only prayers i see Jesus actually praying (and if i'm wrong, feel free to leave a comment) is "Father, I thank You that You've heard me. I knew that You always hear Me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe You sent Me." (john 11:41-42)

where is the "Father, please heal this man..."? this is where the other passage comes into play. john 5:19-24 is Jesus admission that He can do nothing except that which He saw the Father do. when did He see the Father doing it? probably in a vision as He was doing it. why don't we see those visions? probably has something to do with our prayer lives.

we gather together in large groups and pray and lay hands and believe that all of us together have enough faith, but we aren't believing in the faith that God has in us. that's right, God believes in us, in our ability to have faith in Him.

faith comes by hearing, hearing by the Word of God. funny, that passage just came into a new light. when God tells us something directly to say, or shows us something directly to do, what is our usual response? i know my first response isn't always saying or doing it. there are many times when i think, "God, you must think i'm crazy to do that [say that], because if i do that, people will think i'm crazy..." i wonder if that's why we don't see or hear about more things happening today.

yeah, there's the occasional report coming in from overseas or in third-world areas, but why doesn't it happen in the "civilized, western world"? maybe because we're too image orientated. let me rephrase that, we're too selfish and self-conscious when we need to be selfless and God-conscious. after all, we here for the world-wide renown of His sovereign glory, right?

for Jesus, prayer was where He saw the thing acted out and then He went out and did it. we're looking at prayer wrong. we look at it like we're saying, "ok God, here's the issue, now go ahead and do it." when we should be saying, "ok God, here's the issue, show me what to do [say...] and I'll do [say...] it." then go out and do it.

sometimes i think God doesn't respond to us because He knows we haven't responded to Him in the past. sometimes He requires us to do a simple thing (something that may seem silly or foolish- remember naaman and the jordan river?) and we feel too self-conscious over it.

in further preperation for this posting, i even checked out numerous old testament prayers where the power of God was manifest so strongly, and they all revealed the same thing, (solomon praying a blessing over the temple and elijah on mt. carmel, among others) that they did these things at the Lord's command.

what is our motivation? what should our motivation be? i think Jesus said it best in john 11 when He says, "for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe... (v. 15), and "this sickness will not end in death. no, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it (v. 4).

the greatest reward for praying is the prayer itself, the act of spending time with God. often, the time spent praying is a greater joy than the answer we were seeking.

for the world-wide renown of His sovereign glory...