The Place of Prayer

My wife thought a blog on MP's sermon would be appropriate. Our other LG leader called to say how excited she was about the sermon. I was not as excited but yes it was a good sermon.

I suppose that the reason you get away from praying is that you have been praying and you get used to God answering and you take it for granted, then you get out of the habit, somehow thinking God will keep acting even though you are not praying. You can call it like entropy or that Satan is trying to keep us from praying but we have to often get ourselves back on track. We have to actively work to make sure we are praying. It will not happen naturally. We have to work at it.

MP did mention that God sometimes acts even though there is not prayer involved. He mentioned God's sovereign act to intervene in the life of Saul (who became Paul). Direct prayer for Saul is not mentioned. But we do not know that Christians had not been praying for Saul. Perhaps they had been praying curses on Saul and God chose to answer those prayers in his own way.

I remember a testimony of a woman working in a government job. She had just become a Christian. She was so excited but all her co-workers were annoying her big time. So she prayed they would all be fired or transferred. Instead God converted all or most of them and they got to be fast friends. God has best in mind and he can answer prayers in ways different than we have the faith for.

So I suspect many Christians had Saul, the leader of a pretty fanatical group trying to stamp out the fledgling Christian sect, in their prayers. Some may have had faith for conversion. But most just probably prayed that his actions would be thwarted somehow.

MP mentioned liturgical prayer, that some of the Jewish prayers of that time would be specific, often memorized, prayers spoken at set hours of the day. I thought of my evening service where a time is set aside for prayer. SJD has been influenced by charismatic elements and is comfortable with extemporaneous prayer. They leave pauses for people to speak prayers out loud. I always say the names of the many missionaries I know. I also speak out those I know who are sick and who have recently died. Not loud, in a whisper maybe the guy next to me can hear. This week I mentioned Dottie as one who is "sick". Well she is sick of being pregnant, hehe.

We were at a niece's confirmation Saturday. At that Episcopal church it seems all prayers must be out of the book. Everything prayed was pre-written. So I thought of that when MP mentioned that the Jews would also have prescribed prayers for certain times.