Comments on: Building A Healthy View of Prayer

By: Tyler

Tyler — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 02:11:24 +0000

Yeah! Lord willing, I’ll arrive the day after Christmas to spend a few days with my Grandparents, and then stay with the IT folks until January 4th. I’m looking forward to it. I’ll at least see Dan, Erin, and Kristen–but hopefully others.
What brought you there?

By: Beth Burkey

Beth Burkey — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 21:47:55 +0000

Man, who is NOT interested in post-modern spirituality?
And yes, I do like the emerging church. Or at least what I’ve experienced of it, which has helped me to grow enormously this semester.

By: Beth Burkey

Beth Burkey — Fri, 09 Dec 2005 04:25:02 +0000

Well, now that I’m all leaning Calvinist because of your influence, I have discovered the same struggle in my life. Darn you. ;)

Total depravity.

Now friend me! I just got a xanga! What?

By: Jessica Stoehr

Jessica Stoehr — Thu, 08 Dec 2005 01:28:32 +0000

Hey! Great Chris!! I don’t know what I think about predestination yet, but wow, prayer is important no matter what you think!

By: Ashley Keen

Ashley Keen — Wed, 07 Dec 2005 20:27:26 +0000

Simply the act of obedience and something we have the privilege to do

Like Witnessing? ~.^

Anyway, I think that prayer is one of the things that most draws me to God. I too have been in that place where it feels like my prayers aren’t making it through the ceiling — or worse that they’re bouncing off and hitting me in the face.

Then you get your mind wrapped around did He plan to rspond to the request

Why does that require wrapping your mind around? It makes perfect sense to me. The closer you are to God, the more your will and his will align, slowly you’ll start to pray for his desires as if they were your own. :) Likewise, God witholds our desires from us that are harmful, because he knows what is best for us.

In fact, prayer is super-basic, take a look at this:

Romans 8:26–27 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.

I think that that verse is a tough one to let sink in. Because although we are praying from our own hearts, we are also praying — through the Spirit — from the heart of God. :)

Likewise here:

Jude 1:20 But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit.

I’ve often seen those passages used to defend speaking in tounges. As a result, I think sometimes people refuse to touch on their intrinsic meaning because they’re too busy focusing on whether or not a certain doctrinal quibble is right or wrong.

To me, prayer is easy, because really it’s just trusting God. When you want to be held accountable to someone for something — you have to talk to them about it. In addition, God is glorified through answered prayer. If someone you knew was miraculously healed and you hadn’t been praying for them — yes, the hand of God was in it BUT, who recieves the Glory? If you can say to someone “I PRAYED for a miraculous healing and God healed them!” then the glory rests where it belongs.

But this is just asking-for-things prayer. :) I like to pray in worship better. I’ve never prayed “I love you Jesus” and felt THAT hit the wall ;D

By: Perry

Perry — Wed, 07 Dec 2005 17:37:23 +0000

Hey,

Glad to see someone be open about this. I actually spoke with my pastor at length about it after sunday’s service.

PsP

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 20:52:21 +0000

I appreciate your thoughts Daniel. I personally don’t want to turn this into a debate on Middle Knowledge (although it’d be fun) so we’ll let it be for now.

There is definetly an aspect Biblically that God does respond to prayer. Then you get your mind wrapped around did He plan to rspond to the request and so on.

By: daniel

daniel — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 20:04:23 +0000

Prayer is a difficult subject to think about theologically. The Bible seems to me to teach that God has planned everything in this world before time and yet it also teaches that God responds to our prayers. (In other words, our prayers in some way are factored into His plan). I think that here Molinism comes in and fits these two ideas together nicely. Personally, my confidence in prayer and God’s providence have been bolstered by the doctrine of middle knowledge.