Today in church I spoke on questions we have about Jesus. If you did not hear the sermon, why not!!!! Anyway, you can catch it on this web site this week.
This week the topic is prayer. Prayer is one of the assumptions of our faith. We are supposed to do it. But if that is true, why don't we do it more?
Perhaps it is because we have never really been taught to pray. Maybe our past experiences with prayer have not been satisfying. Prayer at times may seem like talking to the wall. There are things we have prayed for and have not received. Perhaps we can not get our head around the idea that God is waiting to hear us. Doesn't God already know what we need and think? So why do we have to say it? Is God waiting for us to tell God what to do?
Once I get started the questions about prayer start rolling quickly. What about you? What is your experience with prayer? What struggles do you have praying? What do you wish you understood about prayer? Let me know. We will be talking about this all week and on Sunday also.
Feel free to raise questions you may have about Jesus. I doubt we exhausted that subject in one week! Looking forward to your comments.
Rick - this week I'm preaching on "Why doesn't God answer our prayers?" - so if you could get that figured out & and then just send me your sermon, I'd appreciate it. ;)
ReplyDeleteI've come across this, don't know if it would be helpful to you... "Offered" by Roberta Porter (from Alive Now, July/Aug 2005):
To pray
sometimes means
not to request,
require,
but to receive
what has already been offered.
Through grace in Jesus Christ
God's word speaks peace
and hope and joy,
abundant life and love
to give away.
As we receive the promises,
believe the promises,
by Spirit's strength
we walk in faith and answered prayer.
I pray all the time but why is it so difficult to pray out loud in a group situation? Why do I feel like I wont say the "right" words?
ReplyDeleteSomewhere we are given this thought there is a right way to pray. There are many ways to pray and some are more helpful for us than others. But perhaps we need to focus on the moment of shared or public prayer more as a conversation. When we talk to a loved one, we do not think about how to say what we need to communicate. We simply talk with them. When I share prayer in public, I focus more on what needs to be share with God. Sometimes my focus is more on hearing what God has to say to us. Either way the focus immediately moves more to the one I am praying to than those I am praying with.
ReplyDelete