DUMB PRAYERS THAT I HAVE PRAYED AND GOD HAS ANSWERED OVER THE YEARS

Over the past nearly 29-years of pastoring Legana I have occasionally mentioned that one day I would write about “the dumb prayers that I’ve prayed.” It’s not really that they are all ‘dumb’ prayers, it’s that they are the kind of prayers that are guaranteed to be answered by God (because they are “surrendered” prayers) but have not been fully considered what God’s answer might entail. I do not consider the more well-known and obvious “dumb” prayers – such as praying for revival to bring in hundreds of lost/lonely/broken souls into the kingdom and then being surprised by God’s answer resulting in exhaustion, burn-out, over-stretched resources, spiritual attacks, and the inevitable pride. Neither do I consider the even more obvious “dumb” prayer for patience and humility and the resultant means (difficult people and obvious trials!) by which such a prayer can only be answered. Instead, I begin with a prayer I prayed as a teenager then others that I prayed down through the years which have led me to this unexpected point. What I hope, and pray, you might discover after you have read this is something which will might benefit you in your knowledge of God and how He often answers prayers.

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WHAT’S THE POINT OF PRAYING THEN?

There a different ways to pray. Some prayers can be verbalised. Some prayers can be silent. Some prayers are spontaneous. Some prayers are prepared. Some prayers are prayed in private and are clumsy. Some prayers are prayed in public and are clever. Some prayers are long. Some prayers are short – even just one word. Whatever way you pray, there are three things you need to keep in mind.

¶ “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. ¶ “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.
JESUS THE CHRIST, Matthew 6:5-7

Firstly, when we pray, we are talking to God. When praying at a public occasion we are still praying to God and we are praying on behalf of those present. Out of respect for those who are present these public-occasion prayers should be well considered. This is why I recommend writing such prayers out and reading them with passion when prayed in public. Otherwise, the pray-er often sounds confuddled with mindless phrases such as this prayer I have heard many times:

“Father God, oh Father God, Father God Lord, I [pause] I come to You to pray Father God, Father God Lord. Yeah [pause] Amen.”

(Perhaps this should go in the obvious dumb prayer category because I have no idea what is being prayed for.)

Secondly, when we pray, particularly in private, our words don’t particularly matter. There are not ‘right’ words to use in prayer. Prayer is not magic. Prayer is not like a Harry Potter spell. Prayer is coming from your spirit to God’s Spirit (Rom. 8:26; 1Cor. 2:11). God hears your heart when you pray.

Thirdly, God always hears our prayer but does not always answer our prayer/s they way we want. Prayer should be an expression of worship for God and trust in Him. When we pray we should also trust God with the timing of His answer not just the ‘how’ of His answer. One of the most inspirational books on prayer that I ever read — which had an enormous influence on my life — wasn’t even a book on prayer! It was the story of Dawson Trotman. As a young man he came to Christ and together with a few other guys they began praying for people, then nations, to come to Christ. Before his tragic drowning death as he rescued a young drowning girl, he had remarked that nearly everything he had prayed for some twenty-years earlier had been answered positively by God. “I now have” he said, “one regret – not that I didn’t pray enough, but that I didn’t pray for enough!” Dawson Trotman became one of Billy Graham’s intercessors and the founder coordinator of evangelism follow-up ministry called the Navigators. 

The point of praying is that we are invited by our heavenly Father to extend the reign of His Son over the earth through the ordinance of prayer. When we pray “Thy kingdom come!” we may not fully grasp either importance or the impact of our praying. 

 

WHAT’S ‘PRAYING IN THE SPIRIT’ THEN?

Christianity is the only ‘religion’ that regards prayer as a God-focused and God-empowered conversation. Jesus taught that after He had ascended back to the Father that it was imperative for His disciples to wait for the outpouring of the promised gift of the Holy Spirit who had been with the disciples up until that point, but when He would be poured out into the earth He would be in the disciples (Jn. 14:17). Other religions regard prayer quite differently. Some religions teach adherents that prayer is like meditation and needs to be mindless, while other religions teach their adherents that prayer involves the recitation of certain words sometimes in a language unknown to the pray-er such as Latin or Arabic. But Christianity teaches worshipers of the Creator and LORD to pray “in the Spirit” (Eph. 6:18; Jude 20). This can be (i) praying a Spirit-gifted language that involves the Spirit-baptised believer speaking in tongues to God in prayer (1Cor. 14:2); or, (ii) praying in your heart-language in a way that the Spirit leads you to pray (1Cor. 14:15).

¶ Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.
Romans 8:26

 

WHAT’S GOD DOING IN ME WHEN I PRAY THEN?

When C.S. Lewis’s wife, Joy, was dying of bone cancer, Jack (C.S.) was seen praying everyday in the nearby Anglican chapel. The Rector asked him if he was praying to change God about Joy’s prognosis? Jack replied, “No, I’m praying for God to change me!” Since prayer is a worshipful conversation with God, there is a high likelihood that when we pray throughout our day as our spirit communes with God that our spirit is also ‘hearing’ unconsciously from God. This perhaps is even more pronounced when we pray in tongues to God. Therefore, what may surprise praying worshipers is just how much they positively change as they wait on God in prayer seeking His face rather than His attention (Jn. 15:7). 

 

MY DUMB PRAYERS

I consider a ‘dumb’ prayer to be one that the pray-er had not fully considered the implications of how God might answer that prayer. The unconsidered implications are especially its cost, discomfort, inconvenience, and potential suffering. At one point I was prayerfully begging God to redeem and rescue the hurting, lost, lonely and broken people of my community. Those who have experienced my pastoring will be aware how God answered that prayer and how at times it was overwhelming. Then I developed a deep concern for the unwell. Again, those who are aware of my pastoral journey will know that I began a season some time ago, when for every significant health issue that someone came to me for prayer, was actually put on me. On several occasions this resulted in me being hospitalised. The list of ‘dumb prayers’ below are only the first half of these answered prayers. I am leaving the second-half — the implications — to your imagination. These are some of my ‘dumb’ prayers over the years that God has answered and as a result I have been transformed and become more responsive to God’s will:

🥺 Father, send me wherever You want – but please don’t make it an easy place. Make it a really hard place spiritually. Make it a place where few of Your servants are prepared to go! [Prayed before Kim and I moved to Tasmania.]

🥺 Lord God, fill me with Your love. Give me Your compassion for the hard-to-love. Help me oh God to truly see people and to truly hear them! [Prayed after Kim and I moved to Tasmania.]

🥺 Jesus, help me to understand Your Word. Show me what Your Word really says and to see past what I have been taught and told Your Word says to see what Your Word truly says! [Prayed regularly while in Tasmania.]

🥺 Holy Spirit, please rescue the lost, the lonely, the broken, the hurting, the confused, and the unloved! Holy Spirit, please bring them into the Kingdom of Christ through Your church! Help me to love them, heal them, and care for them. In the meantime, please fill Your people with Your love and power to be the hands and the feet to offer the love, the care, and the Father’s adoption to these needy people. [Prayed very recently while in Tasmania.]

🥺 Lord GOD, give me the time I need to complete this PhD with Monash and help me to navigate each of the challenges that will arise in doing so! [Prayed very regularly in Tasmania at the moment.]

🥺 Father, help me to hear Your voice and to heed Your Word! In fact, help me to make a difference both now and for the next four centuries by what I will leave behind [Prayed presently while preparing to depart Tasmania for wherever God will lead us.]

🥺 God, have Your way in my life! Make me, shape me, and break me, to be conformed to Your will! [Prayed presently while preparing to depart Tasmania for wherever God will lead us.]

 

PRAYING FOR GOD’S WILL TO BE DONE IS NEVER DUMB

I am a Pentecostal, but I do not hold to the Word-of-faith / Prosperity-gospel. As a Pentecostal I believe that the gifts of the Spirit are still available and will be so until the eschaton (“the Last Day” referred to in John 6:39-44, 54; 11:24; 12:48).Thus, I believe that the Bible teaches that the Holy Spirit still performs miracles – including transforming lost souls into saved saints. But I also believe – not because I am a Pentecostal, but because I am a Bible-believing Christian – that God is good and always does good. This means that God has a good will and that I need to pray according to His will — even when I do not like His will! My ultimate example to pray according to God’s will is the record of Jesus in Gethsemane just before He went to the cross. And therefore, so should we.

Again, for the second time, He went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.”  And again He came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. So, leaving them again, He went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words again.
Matthew 26:42-44

Thus, praying for God’s will to be done in your life is never dumb!

Your Pastor,

Andrew

Let me know what you think below in the comment section and feel free to share this someone who might benefit from this Pastor’s Desk.

AT THE END OF THIS YEAR, I WILL RECOUNT 12 WONDERFUL THINGS FOR WHICH I AM THANKFUL

This is my last end-of-year Pastor’s Desk post. When the leader of our Live-stream ministry, Sari, asked me what I was thankful for this year, my immediate answer was obvious and predictable. But since then, I have considered that I also have eleven other things for which I am grateful to GOD for. In my last ever end-of-year Pastor’s Desk please indulge as I share my heartfelt thanks to God and for those God has used to bless me in my role as pastor of Legana Christian Church this year.

¶ I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart;
I will recount all of your wonderful deeds.
Psalm 9:1

When David penned this psalm he was clearly under pressure. He and his nation were under constant attack from surrounding enemy nations. Added to this, he wrote he was also being afflicted and near “to the gates of death” (Ps. 9:13). Yet his psalmic song is a song of thanks to the Lord (Ps. 9:1) in which he expresses his “praise to Your name, O Most High” (Ps. 9:2) and “recounts all Your praises” (Ps. 9:14). Despite his personal and national adversities he wanted to thank the LORD with all of his heart! And so do I.

The LORD is a stronghold for the oppressed,
a stronghold in times of trouble.
And those who know your name put their trust in You,
for you, O LORD, have not forsaken those who seek You.
Psalm 9:9-10

In the midst of all that David was going through he knew that “the LORD sits enthroned forever” (Ps. 9:7). It was God who surrounded David with faithful and loyal friends who gave him the support that he needed when he most needed it. And I too can thank God that He gave me my best friend who cried with me, assured me that God was still in control (“enthroned”) and that He had not changed His plans for us, and that we would get through this trial! Indeed, Kim was a model of a godly woman. As David was also thankful to God for his colleagues, I too am so thankful to Pastor Phil Hills who prophesied to Kim what she had to do, and then on several occasions prophesied by phone and text messages to me in some of my darkest moments. In addition to this, I am extremely grateful to Bishop Richard Condie for his pastoral care and for taking the time to travel up from Hobart to lay hands on me and anoint me with healing oil. Tasmania is blessed to have such a godly bishop.

¶ Sing praises to the LORD, who sits enthroned in Zion!
Tell among the peoples his deeds!
Psalm 9:11

I have only just recently been discharged as an outpatient of the Launceston General Hospital. I have but high praise for all of the staff of the LGH. The doctors, nurses, orderlies, radiological and neurological teams were brilliant. I am particularly thankful to Dasha in the Neurology Department who wrote down on a sticky-note superficial siderosis and then said it would be best if I went home and Googled it for myself, which Kim did and then read it out to me. I then realised why Dasha didn’t want to tell me what it was. And speaking of my gratitude for the LGH staff, when I was first admitted into the Emergency Department at the LGH it was Queen Karen Dickson who, while taking leave from her regnum mãternus to visit the provincial parts of her realm (E.D.) where I was a guest, who then took full advantage of my temporal suboptimal incapacity as I lay there with a dozen wires glued to my head and chest that Saturday morning, who regally told me that she was “preaching tomorrow.” To which I responded with the correction, “No no no, I’m being discharged later today and I’ll be able to preach tomorrow.” Karen H.R.H. then shot back,“For someone who is so smart, you can be really really stupid! Have you noticed where you are?” And I am deeply appreciative of Karen, and I was very proud of her for doing exactly what she said she was going to do the next day during church service when she delivered an outstanding sermon on the text of John 5.

There are many parallels between Christ and king David. The prophet Isaiah prophesied that the coming Christ would possess “the key of David” (Isa. 22:22). This “key” was the ability that David had to inspire others and bring the best out of them. Jesus told the leaders of the church at Philadelphia that He was the fulfilment of Isaiah’s prophecy:

¶ “And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: ‘The words of the Holy One, the True One, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens.”
Revelation 3:7 

My diminished capacity enabled Kim to do for our church what I have never been very good at – inspiring others and bringing the best out of them. Since my return on March 26th many people have commented to me how thrilled they have been to see  so many of our young people used in our pulpit ministry — and I share their sentiments. King David had his “mighty men” (2Sam. 23:8) – but Legana is now blessed to have many (young) mighty men and women! Jared and Alexandra Nielsen have also made a significant contribution to this enhancement. This is another wondrous thing for which I am thankful to God for.

And it is not just from our pulpit that we now have mighty men and women, I am recounting my thanks to our ten elders and overseers who now share the pastoral burden of oversight for our church. I am particularly thankful to God for Dr. Ali Kidmas for his years of faithfulness as our senior elder. We now also have a team of seven deacons overseeing our various ministries and several intercessors committed to praying regularly for our church. (Our deacon responsible for our Worship Team, Thomas Ferguson, deserves much encouragement for his countless hours of dedication each week to prepare for our weekly Sunday worship services.)  I cannot begin to express just how grateful to God I am for our Board who have been outstanding in their level of care for, vision for, and oversight of, our church and our resources. Also, I am overwhelmed by the many unseen volunteers who have laboured to make our grounds so presentable (Lydia, Alan, and Paul Chatwin) for whom I am ever thankful to God.

Finally, my twelfth thanksgiving prayer point is for those largely unknown to our church but ocassionally mentioned in our church’s prayer points. This group of people are comprised of my local ministerial colleagues:
particularly Noel and Beckie Eagling, Anson van Delden, Steve Fitzallen; and interstate, pastors including:
Chris Maynard (“Pastor Encouragement”), Sean Wood, Ted Pangilinan, Kevin Thomas, and Michael Ridley. Most of these precious people have prayed daily for me and been in contact with me weekly (or every other week) to see how I was going. In addition to these colleagues I have been so encouraged by Prof. Stuart Piggin who has been very gracious toward me in his encouragement and prayers. As no doubt king David would have experienced during the background to his writing of Psalm 9, I too have felt unusually and supernaturally strengthened by the prayers of God’s people.

As you can see from these twelve thanksgiving prayer points I, like king David in Psalm 9, have a lot to be thankful to God for. And I hope that you will join me in prayer for the future of our church as the mantle of leadership is transferred to a new senior pastor. 

 

OUR SPIRITUAL WARFARE

Finally, many many people have raised with me their sense that what has happened to me (and our church) this year has been a spiritual attack by the evil one. I do not disagree with them. And this might surprise some people because I don’t talk about this very much. The reason is that I have an understanding of how the Bible says we should engage in spiritual warfare. I see king David employing this practice in Psalm 9. Rather than directing our attention at our enemy, the spiritual warfare encouraged and modelled in the Bible is to direct our attention and increased devotion to God! And this has been my practice and encouragement for others to do the same.

¶ Arise, O LORD! Let not man prevail;
let the nations be judged before You!
Put them in fear, O LORD!
Let the nations know that they are but men! Selah
Psalm 9:19-20

Thank you for indulging me by reading about my twelve wondrous thanksgiving prayers for this past year. 

Your Pastor,

Andrew

Let me know what you think below in the comment section and feel free to share this someone who might benefit from this Pastor’s Desk.

A DECREASING VISION OF GREATNESS

 

“For Pride is spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense.”
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 2017:125

There is one sin that is worse than all others. It is the worst because it is insidious and imperceptibly deceptive. It is always at the root of all other sins. It was the original sin. In C.S. Lewis’s classic book, Mere Christianity, it warranted an entire chapter (“The Great Sin”) and Lewis claims that it is the greatest threat to any person – including the Christian – and their standing before God. Thus, to be truly spiritual, Spirit-led, Spirit-empowered, and spiritual, demands that the man or woman of God be on guard against what Lewis called “spiritual cancer” — pride. To have any chance of guarding against the spread of this deadly spiritual and character blighting ‘cancer’ requires that we adopt a decreasing vision of ‘greatness’.

He must increase, but I must decrease.”
John the Baptist, John 3:30

 

THE PROBLEM WITH RECOGNISING PRIDE 

C.S. Lewis tells us what we all already know about spotting pride: we loathe it when we see it in someone else, but never (except for Christians) imagine that we are guilty of it ourselves (p. 121). In fact, Lewis continues, the problem is that the more easily we can recognise pride in someone else the more likely we are guilty of the same pride. We are all quick to justify or excuse ourselves of our own pride, and just as quick to condemn it in others as inexcusable.

The fear of the LORD is hatred of evil.
  Pride and arrogance and the way of evil
and perverted speech I hate.
Proverbs 8:13

THE ESSENCE OF PRIDE IS COMPETITIVE

How we think about pride and humility is very often confused and unhelpful. In John DIckson’s book, Humilitas, he defines humility as withholding your power for the good of others. He gives the illustration of a black man in the 1930s sitting at the back of a bus in Detroit (USA) when a three teenage white boys got on the bus at the next stop. The young boys soon start to call the black man names and taunt him. This taunting intensified until the black man came to his stop and stood to leave the bus. The boys were surprised that he was much taller than they had realised. As he walked up to the boys he reached into his pocket and gave one of them a business card on his way past, and then got off the bus. After he left the boys looked at the business card which simply read: Joe Louis, Boxer. These three boys had just picked a fight with the undefeated world heavyweight boxing champion. Joe Louis, in the opinion of Dr. John Dickson, displayed great humility. Did Joe Louis know that he could dispatch these young men? Certainly. Was that confidence that he had in his ability a form of pride? Yes and no. C.S. Lewis writes in Mere Christianity that there is a virtuous pride that comes from working hard and achieving a desired outcome. We expect this of tradesmen. We want them to take pride in the work. This kind of pride, Lewis argues, is for the good of others. The ‘others’ in this instance could be a student’s parents as he or she strives to do their schoolwork for the pride of their family name. A teacher may encourage this in her students when she tells them, “Take some pride in your work and rewrite this essay.”

“We say in English that a man is ‘proud’ of his son, or his father, or his
school, or regiment, and it may be asked whether ‘pride’ in this sense is a sin.
I think it depends on what, exactly, we mean by ‘proud of’. Very often, in such
sentences, the phrase ‘is proud of means ‘has a warm-hearted admiration for’.
Such an admiration is, of course, very far from being a sin.”
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity.

But Lewis contrasts this desirable pride with the cancerous pride of competitiveness. 

“In fact, if you want to find out how proud you are the easiest way is to ask
yourself, `How much do I dislike it when other people snub me, or refuse to take
any notice of me, or shove their oar in, or patronise me,. or show off ?’ The
point is that each person’s pride is in competition with every one else’s pride.”
C.S. Lewis

Lewis writes, “Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better-looking than others.” Pride is therefore the attitude of considering ourselves to be better than another. Lewis is quick to point out that this does not mean thinking less of ourselves, but rather that we should each think less about ourselves! The ultimate pride is therefore atheism. The atheist’s pride reaches to the heavens and at its core wants to be better than the Supreme Being.

“In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably
superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that – and, therefore, know
yourself as nothing in comparison -you do not know God at all.” – C.S. Lewis

 

DECREASING INTO GREATNESS

Jesus described John the Baptist as the greatest man who has ever lived (Matt. 11:11). John had been drawing huge crowds to his baptisms (Matt. 3:5). When Jesus came on the scene, the crowds dissipated and went after Jesus (Matt. 4:25). John’s response is the inspiration for the title of this week’s Pastor’s Desk – He must increase and I must decrease. And I find in John’s words the essence to true humility and the antidote to cancerous pride. To be great – truly great – requires this kind of attitude. To be a great follower of Christ we must be others focused, thinking less about ourselves, prepared to serve without praise, forgive without apology, repent without pretense, and prepared to praise and thank others even if we are not. This is, I fear, what it means to decrease and allow Christ to increase in our lives.  

Your pastor,

Andrew

Let me know what you think below in the comment section and feel free to share this someone who might benefit from this Pastor’s Desk.