INTRODUCTION

Imagine with me a baby versus a preschooler learning how to communicate with others. A baby learning to talk will make noises that you can’t decipher and parents will be teaching him to speak. “Say, hi. Say, please. Say, thank you.” Contrast it to a preschooler who has a basic grasp of the English language. Instead of learning to talk to you, he will be learning to talk with you. He will be able to ask you a question and listen to your reply. Both children are going through a God-created process of learning how to communicate and commune with others.

In as similar way, we are working through a four-stage progression in the life of prayer:

1. Talking to God
2. Talking with God
3. Listening to God
4. And being with God

While the spiritual journey is not linear, most of us learn to pray just like children. First, we learn the vocabulary and grammar of life with God. Say, Daddy. Say, Mommy. Say, Our Father who is in heaven. That is to talk to God.

But there comes a time when we desire a more personalized relationship to God. So we begin, to talk with God. Just meaning to tell Him what’s on our mind.

We see this progression from talking to God to talking with God in Luke 11. We left off last session in verse four; let’s pick it up in verse five.

Luke 11:5-8
⁵ Then Jesus said to them, “Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; ⁶ a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’ ⁷ And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ ⁸ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.

Jesus was drawing attention to a point. His point is not that God is the grumpy neighbour with a “do-not-disturb” sign on his front door, but if you bang loud enough he’ll give you what you want. Instead, if the grumpy, begrudging neighbour will answer your request, how much more will our Father?

Luke 11:9-10
⁹ “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. ¹⁰ For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

And then, notice, Jesus goes straight to the metaphor of a father and his child.

Luke 11:11-13
¹¹ “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? ¹² Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? ¹³ If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

Do you see the progression? Jesus starts by teaching His disciples to talk to God – to pray a pre-made prayer. “When you pray, say this: Our Father who is in heaven…”

But he assumes his disciples will move on to talk with God, to come to our Father with all we need and desire.

TALKING WITH GOD

Now, there are three categories of talking with God:

  1.   Gratitude – talking with God about what is good in your life and world.
  2.   Lament – talking with God about what is evil in your life and world.
  3.   Petition and Intercession – asking God to fulfill His promises to overcome evil with good.

  1.   GRATITUDE – talking with God about what is good in your life and world.

Colossians 2:7
rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

The starting point for talking with God in a more interactive prayer is to give thanks to God for the benefits received. Ingratitude is the failure to recognize the good things, the graces, and the gifts received. As such, ingratitude is the cause, beginning, and origin of all evil and sin. Think of Adam and Eve in the Garden; their sin was ultimately a failure to receive life as a gift, but rather, to take it as a right. Ultimately, life is a gift. Therefore, gratitude isn’t just the beginning of prayer, it’s the heart and soul of our entire relationship to God.

2. LAMENT – talking with God about what is evil in your life and world.

The honest truth is our life and world are both full of things that are not good, or beautiful,  but are ugly and evil. What are we to do with all the pain and suffering we carry in our heart? Pray it! If you have gratitude, pray that! Grief, pray that! Anger, pray that!  

It’s an open secret that many Christians find prayer boring; one reason for that is because  they aren’t actually praying; they’re performing. We are so used to performing our life with other people; we edit our thoughts; to present a more polished image of ourselves to the world; in order to be loved, and not rejected, and succeed and not fail. It’s like we can’t help but carry that way of being over into our relationship to God.

Learning to pray is about learning to bring all we are to God, because he already knows all that’s inside you!

Psalm 139:1-4
 “You have searched me, LORD, and you know me… you perceive my thoughts from afar… Before a word is on my tongue you, LORD, know it completely.”  

Talking honestly with God about our pain is a type of prayer called lament. Read the Psalms, and you’ll find that two thirds of the Psalms are lament! Read them — they are full of rage, anger, vengeance, jealousy, envy, doubt, suicidal ideation, etc. — and worse! Why would God put that in Scripture? Because we are full of rage, anger, vengeance, and more.  

Lament is as an emotionally healthy way of processing the pain of your life and world with God. Learning to complain to God. Because if we don’t complain to God, we’ll end up complaining to our spouse, or our friend group, or our boss, or the internet, etc. We’ll end up lamenting unhealthily to the people around us.

Now we’re getting into the third category. Lament will naturally lead you into…

3. PETITION AND INTERCESSION – asking God to fulfill His promises.

Petition is when we ask God to do something on our behalf – God, help me get a job or make  rent or know what to do in a tricky situation.  

Intercession is when we ask God to do something on someone else’s behalf. Intercession is a form of love. A way to carry one another’s pain into God’s healing light.  

Both petition and intercession are summarized by Jesus’ command to ask. Repeatedly, Jesus says, “Ask, and it will be given to you.” Many of us have thought about a problem in our life many times; but we have never stopped to ask Jesus to do something about it.   

But the single most important thing Jesus teaches his disciples about asking is to not just to  ask, but ask “in Jesus’ name.”

John 14:13
And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

However, it’s not a magic incantation you add to the end of your prayer to get what you want. It’s a way of praying. There are two dimensions to asking “in Jesus’ name.”  

1. The first is to invoke our status as those who are “in Christ.”  
When we pray in Jesus’ name, we enter into Jesus’ status in God’s favor, and invoke Jesus’ standing with God. It means that when we come before our Father, we come not as beggars off the street, but as royal sons and daughters, adopted into the family through Christ.”  We come in the name and authority of King Jesus with access to the full resources of the Kingdom. 

2. The second is to pray in alignment with Christ.
We ask “in Jesus’ name” when we ask for the kinds of things Jesus would ask for. That’s the sacred alignment through which the miraculous power of God flows. This is why, if you pay close attention the prayers of Scripture, be it from Moses in the Old Testament or Paul in the New Testament, they call on God to do what they know God desires to do!

CONCLUSION

As we pray, we must never forget that, whether we come to God with Gratitude, Lament or Petition and Intercession, through it all, God is forming us into the answers to our own prayers.  

Prayer is a way we ask God to act and do things only he can do in the world; and it is a way of giving God the space to do what only he can do in us. 

So, this coming week, may our anthem be: Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth, and in our own heart, as it is in heaven.

Adapted from Practicing the Way (practicingtheway.org)