#7 The Conclusion of Why Pray

 

#7 Conclusion of "why" pray?

 

We have started things here with some “why should we pray” chapters and we could conclude that topic with a few recaps and a few new reasons. First, you and I are motivated by the fact that prayer works. I started with the Jenny story as a good example. When you ask and God answers that is a great motivator.

Some other reasons to pray are because we were told to in the Bible and we have great examples in that book that we will look at later. Some models from Daniel, Paul and some from Jesus Himself.

The Bible also says to devote yourselves to prayer or in another translation it says “Continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it.” Col 4:2. We also pray because Jesus used terminology like “When” you pray, not “if” you pray. And then there are those 100 verses in the Bible that teach us all about prayer.

Let me give just a few: “Be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and mind [your thoughts] through Christ Jesus.” That was a lot. We could write an entire book on those words alone. For now, allow me to say “anxious” as in anxiety? A quick check from a reputable website writes that 40 million Americans suffer with anxiety. I could start quoting statistics about how much we spend on antianxiety medications and all kinds of facts here. And peace? Isn’t peace the number one thing we are chasing? I believe drug abusers are and so are many other people are trying everything from Yoga to cruises.

Then we have I Thessalonians 5:17, a very famous verse on prayer, “pray without ceasing.” Let’s talk about that quickly. It is one of the methods of prayer that I will cover in another chapter and it can mean a few different things. It can mean that you literally never stop praying no matter what you are doing or perhaps Paul was trying to say in my own words, “keep it up, keep going, and do not stop. Pray, pray, pray.” I lean toward that one. I don’t necessarily pray while I clean the cat litter. I could, but I think that the Creator of the Universe deserves a little more respect than that and I have 24 hours every day. While I’m scooping through the sand looking for Kitty’s droppings may not be the best moment to pray. Again, it all overlaps. Unceasing prayer is a type of prayer but it also falls under “when” to pray.

Ephesians 6:10-20 is a great teaching on prayer. This is the famous “Armor of God” teaching from Paul but we won’t get into all that right now. Let’s only look at verse 18 “Praying always with all prayer.” Goes nicely with our “pray without ceasing verse” doesn’t it?

My personal favorite is when Jesus teaches us about the persistent widow that we talked about already with the Jenny story but look at how that teaching is introduced, [Jesus] “…spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart…” Wow, I love that so much.

But before you start to devote yourself to prayer you need to know “who” you are praying to. Read your Bible so that you will KNOW Him. That’s the only way. I can tell you all about the Lord and write you a Bible study and tell you which verses to go read but the best way is to do this on your own, with YOUR Bible and your time. If you want to become “cult proof” then please read and understand Genesis, the four gospels and the book of Romans. Add to that a dedication to knowing what Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians say. That’s the beginning. I’m a huge believer in every kind of Bible reading but I firmly believe that every Christian should read the entire Bible from front to back every year of their lives. You really do need to know it, all of it. After you feel you have reached a certain point of familiarity then you can explore all the others ways to read it. Slow and meditatively or involve yourself in deep and difficult studies while learning some Greek and some Hebrew so that YOU will not be at the mercy of the translations. You can learn to read the Bible in its original languages. Sometimes it is soothing to the soul to just read passages at random but when you are new to the faith it is vital to get the basics correct.

Why is this important? Because you can’t just make up a Jesus and pray to that made up Jesus and expect your prayers to be answered or expect a good result in the afterlife. If you really know the God of the Bible you will not make up features of God that are not true or take on a fake view of Him. Do not add to the Bible. Don’t make it harder than He taught us. Don’t make up rituals and rules that the Bible doesn’t teach you. What do I always say? “Let’s go with what God clearly taught us and do those things and not guess about what He did not say.”

The Bible will teach you precisely everything you need to know if you will read it faithfully. Do NOT take other people’s word for it. That is how cults begin (many times) and there are a lot of cults and false teachers out there.

God said that in the Old Testament (many, many times) and Jesus said it in the New Testament. In Matthew chapter 24 Jesus’ disciples asked Him three questions: “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” This was a private conversation involving only Jesus and His very closest followers. The very first thing He said when He answered was, “Take heed that no one deceives you.  For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many.” And He went on to detail how things will end here on earth for the rest of the chapter. (Side note: It is a hugely important chapter about the end and probably the best starting place for that entire topic.) As He continued to teach on this He says again in the 24^th verse, “²⁴For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you beforehand.”

Or for now, while you are learning, keep it simple. Consider this, the early believers met by the river and prayed and if you only knew one verse of the bible a good one would be, “…seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.  Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” Jesus taught us that in Matthew 6:33 and we usually refer to this in the short version of, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God.” Sometimes it helps just to keep repeating that to yourself.

Isaiah is the best book to read God’s word in the first person. He is pouring out His heart in the book. It’s large and it’s complicated and very thorough so read it more than once, study it and it will help you to know our Creator’s heart and a lot about what is going to happen in the future that is important too.

I believe the first example of who God is can be found right at the beginning of Genesis. You can learn a lot about His power in a very short amount of time. I also think that you can see the first example of prayer right there too. It appears from Genesis 3:8 that Adam, the first man, used to walk with God in the cool of the evening. I’ll take a night of that myself. Wouldn’t that be fantastic? I would love that. Adam had it made as far as fellowship with God goes. But then Adam sinned with his wife’s assistance and mankind fell. The two of them were cast out of the Garden of Eden and things changed. Curses were given to people from God Himself. But I still think that is our first glimpse of praying in the Bible. Like a friendship, walking around just talking, spending time together. The biggest difference is the Almighty God is in conversation with you and He is just that, Almighty, very powerful…not quite the same as having a small talk with your neighbor. There needs to be some reference as to who He is.

The verse, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God…” is not exactly a teaching on prayer, I will concede that. But it gives us such a good backdrop to how we live, how often we pray and what our priorities are. It struck me the first time I ever read it which must have been within days of becoming a Christian. At that time, 1982, having a T-shirt made for you with what you wanted said on it was very popular. You could find a store like that in every little shopping center. I ran out and bought a plain white one with light blue raglan sleeves. It was blank on the front and the back I had the store owner write, “Seek Ye First” in black letters. The idea was that people would stop me and ask what it meant and then I would tell them the rest of the verse.

I did not just wear a shirt though. I took that verse to heart and lived it. And we need the beginning of it right now in order for my next story to make better sense.

Jesus is speaking, “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’  For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.”

Very clear, isn’t it? Seek God first and because He knows what you need He will add these other things to your life, such as food and clothing. You do not have to put pursuing anything else ahead of God. It is the opposite of how many of us live before we are believing Christians and sometimes after. There are things we seek, that we want, like jobs and good apartments, a family and all the stuff the department store sells. But I decided it was literally true so you think I’m going to tell you I gave away all my stuff, right? No, I gave away a person. Within one, two or perhaps three days (of becoming a Christian) I called my boyfriend on the phone. I broke up with him on that call. I have no recollection of what he said but I know what I said as if it had happened yesterday, “Hi. I became a Christian and even though I don’t know what all that means I do know one thing. I don’t think that Jesus is going to want us doing what we have been doing and I don’t think I can take the temptation and I am not going to be the same. I can tell I am going to be different. So, I can’t be around you.”

That breakup worked with very few glitches. He did try to contact me by leaving notes on my car and calling sometimes. You also need to know that I moved from where I lived right away even though he and I did not live together at the time. We had a rental together earlier but when I accepted Jesus and started to follow Him I had a little one bedroom apartment and he did not live with me.

However you need just a little bit more background. I’ll be brief. I had a fulltime job in downtown Seattle but could not afford to rent a place in Seattle so I lived outside of the city by the airport (not a nice neighborhood). I had a horrible, cheap car with a big V 8 engine and one child in daycare. So picture this, the first week I am a Christian I go into work where I’ve been for almost two years and my boss said he loved me and it broke his heart but he could not afford my wages anymore. He could only have me work six hours a day instead of eight. I told him, “But my rent will not go down, and neither will my daycare bill so I won’t be able to work here.” I could not even afford to park in downtown Seattle. I drove my “beater” car to a bus station and took public transportation into the city five days a week.

I caught the bus home, in the rain, and picked up my car and knocked on the door of the lady who was running a home daycare. At the door, on the same day as my boss’ bad news she announced that she was no longer going to be a daycare owner. She was returning to her regular job. I take my toddler (whose father had committed suicide earlier that year but he and I had been apart for her entire life—two years) and I put her in her car seat. We drove about 2 miles and my engine threw a rod I think they called it, so it was totaled, meaning that fixing it was not worth the money because its overall worth was less than two hundred dollars.

I do not even remember how I got home. Maybe I carried my two year old the rest of the way, I just don’t know.

I was pretty helpless but not at all despondent because I was “seeking first” God, the Almighty, the creator who saved me from my sins by sending His only son here to earth to die for me. So that I would never have to go into the lake of fire myself and I could have Jesus’ righteousness instead of my own…and that was a good thing because I KNEW I had no righteousness at all. I was okay because a God that powerful must have a plan for me. That is how the first week of Christianity played out for me. Suddenly, I did not have a boyfriend, a proper job, a daycare or a car.

Obviously, the Lord provided a place to live and I got a different fulltime job and a different daycare and my boyfriend moved hundreds of miles away because he said he would not be able to leave me alone unless he left.

He was gone for five years. On occasion I would pray that he would become a Christian too for his own sake. I did not expect to ever see him again. I prayed about 20 or 25 times for him over the five years. I prayed that no matter where he went someone would give him the gospel. I prayed that everywhere he turned another person would give him the gospel.

I was single for those five years except for one brief time that I won’t go into now because it doesn’t serve any purpose to do that. But, when I woke up one morning in early 1987 I said to myself and to God quite emphatically and frequently that I wanted to get married that year. I asked Him repeatedly to pick out the right husband for me. I asked God to help me change so that I could be a good wife and boy oh boy did I ever get persistent about it.

Men started lining up around the block. All of sudden everyone wanted to marry me. There were all kinds of men asking but it felt a lot like the time Adam named every animal and none of them proved to be a proper mate for him. While my social calendar was going crazy the phone rang one night and my old boyfriend was on the line asking to come over. I remember that like it was just yesterday too. I didn’t know what to say at all. In a spilt second I was going back and forth between yes and no in my mind and then I thought, why not? I gave him my address and he came right over.

He asked me what I was up to and I let him know, I am getting married, I don’t know who to but I am getting married this year. He told me that he had got on a plane with nothing with him and his plan was to come to Seattle and try to find me. I have no idea how he did get my phone number, but he did.

Was he a Christian though? For five years I had been reading in my Bible that a Christian should not marry a non-Christian so he was out of the question if he wasn’t a believer.

He told me his conversion story and it goes like this. He said, “Everywhere I went people told me the gospel. I would join a basketball team only to find out they were Christians and they would tell me the gospel.” He went on and on and said everywhere he turned people were popping up telling him about salvation through Jesus Christ. It happened at work, it happened at soccer teams, it just kept happening.

That is not the only time I’ve heard my own words, said alone in prayer, repeated to me verbatim. No, that has happened many times now.

We married late that summer and it’s been happily ever after since then. He and I have had fights and gone through some major issues at times but everyone knows we are a happy couple and the Lord did add unto me all the things I needed.

I tell that story sometimes to ladies who are living with their boyfriends and trying to live the Christian life at the same time. I can’t promise them anything but I can tell them that my sacrifice to break up with my boyfriend changed my whole life. I should say it was God who changed my whole life and he prospered us and I am not sure there is another man anywhere that loves his wife as much as my husband loves me. I could write a whole book on all of his sacrifices for me and things he has given me. He is the most selfless man I’ve ever met and I thank God that out of all the men he could have paired me with he chose the husband that I have. I am blessed and God answers prayers.

Clevsea copyright 2015

God gets the glory Prayer Installment #6

#6

“Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel,
And his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts:
‘I am the First and I am the Last;
Besides Me there is no God.
⁷ And who can proclaim as I do?
Then let him declare it and set it in order for Me,
Since I appointed the ancient people.
And the things that are coming and shall come,
Let them show these to them.
⁸ Do not fear, nor be afraid;
Have I not told you from that time, and declared it?
You are My witnesses.
Is there a God besides Me?
Indeed there is no other Rock;
I know not one.’” Isaiah 44: 6-8

 

Think of all the things you have prayed for. Jobs, marriages, promotions, lives, healings, and houses you’ve wanted so badly … all these things you wanted. When your grandpa survived his double bypass surgery and when the vet tells you that it’s too late for your dog to live and he doesn’t die. I prayed for my second baby to not die as I went into emergency surgery. The surgeons told me that I would lose the baby that he would most likely die. Oh, the pleading, begging, bargaining I did as they wheeled me away. He lived.

I prayed hard when they told me that my 3^rd baby would not live through the night. She was supposed to die the day she was born and she did not. I had a funny prayer answer for my 4th baby. Because the third one was a premature baby I prayed every day for my fourth one to be born between 7 pounds and 7 and a half pounds. I prayed that daily for about 8 months. She was born 7.4 exactly between an even 7 and 7 and a half. I recognized that the very second when they told me her birth weight that God was doing it again, He was showing me exact answers to exact (and persistent) prayers.

When my 5^th baby got autism, and he had a very severe case of it, I prayed and I cried for over a year. He was cured. The Lord restored him and took the Autism away.

Even one of my unbelieving children calls me for prayer when she or her husband needs a job or a job promotion. I do pray hard for those requests hoping that as she sees the answers it will convince her that God is real, He exists. She still doesn’t believe that He exists but she does believe that my prayers are answered because she has seen that so many times. She has told me that dozens of times. She completely trusts in the process of prayer even though she does not believe in the Jesus of the Bible.

However, we believers in Jesus know better. We know that I don’t have some weird “powerful” brain that can manifest things into existence. That would be witchcraft and even in the case of witchcraft it is NOT that person’s power that brings something about, it is God’s enemies mimicking and deceiving so that the person will remain in darkness.

One lady that I didn’t even know told me I had a powerful brain and here is why.

Typical story of “dog follows children home” you know the one or you’ve had it happen to you. A very homely black mutt followed my kids home and of course they wanted to keep her. I told them right away that she belonged to someone else and that I was going to have to find her owner because they would be so sad to find out she was gone.

I called the humane society and reported the dog. She was not easy to describe because I had seen dogs exactly like her all over that neighborhood. Best guess? There was a loose unneutered black dog in our area. She was very medium in size too. There was really nothing to say but I had a medium sized, all black dog with no markings. They took my report.

About three days later I received a call. The owner had called in to the humane society as well, they gave her my phone number and she told me when she would be over to pick her up.

You probably know what happened over those three days. My children had become attached to her.  So, for their sake only I started to pray and pray and pray that the owner would change her mind. I prayed that she would see the dog sitting with my children and say, “Oh my goodness, she belongs with you and your children. So never mind, I’ll just go home without my dog and you can keep her.”  Personally, I didn’t care that much about the dog. However, something out of the ordinary had happened to me earlier that very day she entered our lives.

I remember clearly sitting in my backyard considering a thing that had been occupying me that was now gone from my life. As I sat on the steps and thought about the new amount time I would have a very strange thought came to me.  You could get a dog and take care of it and take it to obedience school and the two of you could go for walks. Because I’m not a dog person I let that go and very nearly forgot it had happened.  It happened to be September 11^th, 2001. I didn’t even think of that series of thoughts that had come to me when I met the dog. To me it was just something that happens to every mom at some point.

But as I knew the time was approaching I sure was praying for that dog and her owner. Really, really, really praying. I even helped God out a little bit by lining up my children and borrowing about three neighborhood children to sit next to the dog.

There they were, all in this line I created as she pulled up in her car. I’m still praying like crazy and I will never forget what happened next. Her car door opened and one foot came out. She looked at the line of children and, of course, the dog and she did not get out of her car. I was on my way to greet her and from inside her car I heard her say, “Never mind. Look at that. You can keep her. She belongs with you.”

Okay, I’m used to answered prayer so I’m not too bowled over but she does get out of the car and we went to the side of the house (so that she couldn’t see her dog anymore, I’m not stupid) and she wanted to tell me a little bit about the dog. How she always got out and couldn’t be contained and she herself had just gotten her from the humane society within the last few months. I asked her how much that had cost her and she gave me a number. I insisted on paying her that money back and she refused. She finally settled on half the money. As I made out a check to her I started to give my side of the story and how much I had hoped she would let us keep the dog and that even that day, before the dog showed up, I had experienced some type of feeling that I might be getting a dog.

So what does she say? “Wow, that’s one powerful mind you have there! Whew, if I ever need something I might get a hold of you and ask for your help.”

What?

She thinks I can conjure all this up with my big brain? Are you kidding me? I tried to explain God and prayer to her but she wasn’t interested in that or converted on the spot.

Just as you think there is nothing to add there is. I had kind of a love-hate relationship with that dog. She was stinky, had bad breath, did get loose quite a lot and of course she needed to eat and be let outside and all of that. She was work, in other words, and a little bit hard to love.

Time went by and she stopped running off and she settled into her neighborhood life but then something happened. The value of all the houses dropped significantly and we were able to buy a house, with a creek and six acres by doing a refinance on our house. We were able to buy our retirement home (early) which we started out using as a weekend cabin. Guess who got to come with me every Friday? My stinky little mutt who was stinking up my car. She loved it. She rolled in the grass and we have a thousand pictures of her rolling, running, jumping over the creek, running in the creek and laying there in the sunshine a lot. She had never seen anything like this before. She was from the city and she was in heaven on six acres.

Here is a little diary entry from three years ago and probably the only time I ever wrote about my dog:

“It’s beautiful outside and I want to be relaxed and alone. I went outside and it had clouded. There is snow on the ground but the VERY green grass is showing too. I put on ski-pants and 2 coats, gloves and went down to the creek. Just as I got there it started to rain but I decided to stay outside. Under the cedar trees it was dry. I thought about Brother Lawrence and how he talks with God all day long. So do I when I am alone. As I came out of the trees I saw strong sunlight on the forest floor. I smiled my way to the meadow and stood in the warm sunshine, snow all around me. The trees had droplets with rainbows in them. I lingered there in peace and tranquility. The kind of peace drug people probably want. God was good to me. No pain, just peace and sunshine and then I looked at my homely black dog and she was covered in sparkles. She didn’t know it but her black coat had droplet on it, from the rain, and she sparkled. Amazing.” And then I wrote, “Remember to wait – the sun is coming.”

She was aging and I saw her tripping up the two steps to the front door and other weird things and I knew she wasn’t going to live forever. She wasn’t all black anymore. She was greying. I couldn’t picture nursing her through a long term illness because she wasn’t the cuddliest dog you’ve ever seen. So I prayed that if she was going to die (and clearly we all do eventually) then it would be quick and not a painful, long ordeal.

The next day she died at 4:00 in the afternoon. I checked my diary and found this:

“The dog died today. She loved it here in the country. I prayed for her yesterday about her death and if it could be quick and not drawn out. She was a happy dog. She even had a happy look on her face when she saw the bus. It was this time of year (9-11-2001) when I praying about what I was going to do and God gave me an idea for a dog and she came into my life later that same day. Now, eleven years later I prayed for her and she was taken very quickly. She had a good last year of her life and she lived to the end of summer. She got to enjoy life at the property and all our walks.”

No, it’s not my powerful brain that killed my dog. God’s mercy is why she died quickly. I saw the whole thing. It happened only a few yards away from me. That is how I was able to see her last smile. She saw me coming out the door and knew she was not supposed to be across the street chasing the bunnies. She was headed toward me with a smile on her face like, “here I come.” I looked at her and I looked at the school bus and there was nothing I could do. (If my brain was so powerful it would have levitated my dog out of the way.) No, I saw her look up and smile at me and then smile at the bus and she was instantly dead.

“For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.” Rom 11:29

The whole entire story of her life was like a gift to me.

Ps 4:3 says, “Know that the Lord has set apart for Himself him who is godly; the Lord will hear when I call to Him.”

It goes on to say, “be angry, and do not sin” but I was not angry with God. I cried and I cried and I cried for an old greying dog that I didn’t know I had loved so much. She was gift before I even knew she was headed home that day so many years ago and even her last day was a gift in its own way.

Clevsea, copyright 2015

Why Pray (Installment #5---look below for the others if you missed them)

Why Pray?

I meet Christians very often who either say I don’t “how” to pray, or they say I do “not” pray. Usually, I just blink a couple of times and they are probably happier people that I don’t open my mouth and start talking because this book has been inside of me for 33 years and I don’t know anyone who has time for the conversation I would want to have with them. There is so much I could say to that. “Do you know how to talk on a telephone?” And, they would answer of course I do, then you know “how” to pray. It’s pretty close to the same thing. You are talking to someone you cannot see. You trust they are on the other end listening to your words. Even the people who say this to me may have had some experience with “Now I lay me down to sleep…” Or perhaps they heard grace at every meal.

This even came up in the Motion Picture, “Gravity” with Sandra Bullock. Whether you saw this movie or not there is a scene where she realizes that she is alone and probably going to die and what does she say? Paraphrasing, “I don’t even know how to pray. No one taught me to pray!!” She is so exasperated that she is crying out these words over and over and now her character wanted some knowledge of how it’s done. And, as a side note: We are going to return to the topic of the mechanics of prayer later.

Sometimes I don’t just blink in shock and I do respond with this, “How do you drive? How do you pull onto the freeway and drive down it with any peace at all if you didn’t pray first?” It’s freeway collisions that often result in fatalities. When you have a fender bender on the freeway you are likely to go into a spin, hit the guard rail and if you are going fast enough you might even flip your car over onto its top. What am I talking about? The fact that I am not going to drive anywhere without praying first.

This is a little side note but people also tell me that they don’t read the Bible. Pardon? Did you know that reading the Bible and praying really is our walk with the Lord? You could add to that, meeting with your fellow Christians, and giving money and few other things but “our” walk with Him really does boil down to prayer and Bible reading. So simple. However, we are going back to “why” we should pray other than to live through a drive on the highway.

If we could ask Samuel of the Old Testament why he prayed he would likely answer the way he did when confronting the Israelites. The people had recently gone against the Lord’s way and requested a king be placed over them as a nation. And here is what he said to them:

  "Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD in ceasing to pray for you; but I will teach you the good and the right way. ²⁴ Only fear the LORD, and serve Him in truth with all your heart; for consider what great things He has done for you." I Sam 12:23-24

 He was an elderly man with a lifelong relationship with God and this was not the first time Samuel prayed for Israel. He had just prayed for rain and for thunder to destroy their wheat crop. A prayer that was answered, I must add.

 Samuel himself was an answer to prayer. His mother Hannah was in long term anguish over her inability to conceive a child. Her husband’s other wife had not only managed to have several children but she taunted Hannah regarding this which was driving her rival toward bitterness. The entire account is found in the first chapter of I Samuel. The short version is Hannah prayed and the Lord answered.

 We already see two truths with Hannah and her son. One is the entire premise of prayer. We ask of the Lord and He does the answering. The second is that we, at times, have a responsibility to pray. Samuel felt it would be a sin against the Lord to stop praying for the people in his care.

 To be like Hannah is to “pour out our soul before the Lord.” When we get to that point of desperation we have a strong motive to pray. And when we get to old age we are very familiar with our responsibility to pray.

 In my own life I have had this sense of responsibility many times. One vital example would be from just a few years ago. I met a woman in the health care profession who shared with me her heartbreak of infertility. She was 27 years old at the time of our meeting and had never conceived. As a married couple her husband had done all he could in way of preparation. They were Christians; they had purchased a house and thought a little baby would come along at any moment. By time I met her years had already passed and she was heartsick. My response was to ask her if she had prayed about it. She claimed to not know how. (As I just explained to you this happens to me on a rather constant basis…it is the entire motivation for the book.)

I assured her I would pray for her. I felt that responsibility at the very first. I decided that fasting and prayer would be the best approach and I asked a few friends (a few of you are reading this right now) to join me in a day of prayer set aside for this young lady. I am very happy to report that she did conceive 3 days after our day of prayer. She was delighted and delivered a baby.

 This has happened many times in my life. The reason this happens has nothing to do with me and everything to do with the Lord. You see it was the Lord Himself who had closed Hannah’s womb and stopped her from conceiving. It was only after prayer that she did have a baby, in other words, after prayer the Lord God Almighty acted and answered her prayer. And with that we are back at a “why” God question that will go unanswered.

 I know that God got the glory for Hannah’s conception of Samuel and also for the health care worker. It is impossible for me, as a female human, to bow my head, fast from food and create a baby in another person. We can all agree to that. I lack the power to impregnate other people, that is obvious. It was an answer to prayer so that God would get the glory and those of you that prayed and fasted with me also know that. 

I conclude that there are times when God allows what appears to be a sad situation to occur and in His timing He nudges someone to prayer. All along He had a plan. All along He knew what was going to transpire. He used the miracle of prayer to get the glory, to have all concerned know that He is listening and has the power to bring about the answers.

So our Bible passages for this chapter have come from I Samuel which showed us the responsibility to pray when Sam said, “far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD in ceasing to pray for you.” But there is another well-known verse from James 4:2 “Yet you do not have because you do not ask.”

What did that just say? You don’t have what you want because you didn’t even ask. Now, James is a book that should not have verses pulled out of it without their context so please go read the whole thing. It is five chapters long so if you have ten spare minutes today you have the time to read the whole thing.

That is our second verse to answer “why” we should pray. Because if you do not … you may not receive all that much from the Lord. I do believe that He is answering things we do not ask for all day long. I’m sure we’ve been spared thousands of things that we did not even think to pray about. But sometimes we get stuck.

Just before I started writing today I washed some dishes by hand. My husband had just purchased a new pair of dishwashing gloves for me and they are size small. Nice man to think I have small hands, right? Well, it was a bit of a squeeze but I got my hands in there and did my work and then these purple “Playtex living gloves size small” were definitely living, on my hands, perhaps for the day. I was really stuck. That’s when it hit me the ruts we get into when we pray.

Do you ever do this? You pray a while and say to yourself, “That’ll do. I prayed for Grandma’s hip, to get that mortgage approved and for my husband to be promoted…that’ll do for today.” To me that is like flossing one tooth. Sure, it is time consuming to floss all of your teeth and it would be a cinch to floss only one of them, but shortcuts are not the Lord’s favorite way to go about it.

Here is what ought to happen instead. When we think about “why” we pray then we can see many reasons, one is to get the answers. If God can answer that prayer about that pregnancy then what else can He answer? That ought to be our motivator. If we pray for a good parking spot and get one right in front of the store then maybe we should praise God for that and then later, when you’re finished shopping, pray for Afghanistan.

Another answer to “why” to pray is that many, many people from the Bible did pray and they are our examples, including Jesus Christ.

Expand friends. Wiggle out of your gloves, get unstuck, get motivated by the answers you have had or the answers you are going to see in this book and pray more. It takes time and effort, I know. I am extremely familiar with that but I had to share with you how Samuel’s feeling of responsibility had impacted me and how James’ verse put it so succinctly. Those two verses alone were enough to get me started and I hope they are for you too.

Clevsea, copyright 2015

Prayer Book #4

(As you know from the announcement written earlier, you are reading my book on prayer in a kind of "installment" method. This method was employed by Charles Dickens too only he was paid for it. Here you are getting it free. Please be a person of integrity and do not plagiarize what I write here. If you joined us late you will need to go back a few posts and try to find the announcement and then the subsequent installments. To help you with this I'll attempt to number them. This would be considered #4 and it might possibly serve as my introduction should this become a printed book at any point.)

The Prayer Book

Introduction

 

Getting lost is ordinarily an unwanted situation. It has happened to nearly everybody at some point. What are some ways to avoid becoming lost? One is to know your way very well. But what is to be done if one is in uncharted territory? Unfamiliar terrain? If that is the case it is best to have someone show you the way.

 

This was proven true through the recent creation of a walking path my husband created for my use. Because this path is located on official forestry land he was not at liberty to carve a path for me to follow. Instead he created a sure way through the dense forest by placing blue flagging ribbon that he hung in the tree limbs. He said, “Always wait at the blue flag you are at before moving. Look for the next flag before proceeding. That way you cannot get lost.”

 

Let me assure you that following blue ribbons works in a way that trying to memorize each tree branch cannot. The reason is the trees all look alike because they are all exactly the same age in forestry land. It is insanely easy to get turned around and lose your sense of direction in 100 acres of very tall trees.

 

I feel it is the same way following the Lord Jesus in regards to prayer. It’s best to follow a sure path but even then I have become disorientated and lost my way on occasion. Others have too. The best plan is to know something that is one hundred percent true first, the Bible. Use that certain truth as a starting point and do not leave that until you can clearly and unmistakably see the next truth.

 

That method has worked for centuries, however, it is also helpful to follow someone who already knows the way. My husband knew the way through the woods through his experience whereas I did not. That is the reason his ribboned path is a success. The pathway would not work for me, as a follower, if it were flawed. My husband took considerable effort and care to make certain it was not flawed. It is the same when the blind lead the blind in a spiritual sense. Obviously that places the follower on uncertain ground. This is a common mishap in prayer.

 

To avoid misunderstands it is best to know the Scriptures and what they say about prayer. This book attempts to follow the clear teachings of the Bible and illustrates how applying truth to one’s prayer life is a trustworthy way to pursue God’s will. It will also provide some clear examples of miraculous answers to prayer.

 

There are elements concerning prayer we cannot know and will probably never understand. Let’s start with this one: Why did God, The Almighty, invent prayer in the first place? It is bewildering. There is no way that He needs us to ask.  He cannot possibly be bound by humans praying to Him. He cannot be dependent on hearing from one of His creatures before taking action.  So, why did the Lord God Almighty create this process of asking and petitioning?

 

I may never know the answer during my earthly life because this is a “why” God question. Any and all “why” God questions are best left unanswered by people because when people attempt it -- they are merely guessing. I have a saying I made up: Let’s go with God did say and stop guessing at what He did not say. It’s fruitless in most cases and a waste of time and it is the fast-track to doctrinal fighting.

 

Let us each leave guessing behind when it comes to the highly important area of prayer. Let us get a sure footing on the truth and only proceed when the next truth presents itself.

 

Allow me to provide an example. There is a verse in the Bible that says, “If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.” That can be found in John 14:14. There are Christians who have read this and ran down the road with it. They have applied it in many situations and even for many years. That is my example of getting lost in the forest.

 

Is the verse true? Yes it is because God does not lie and it came straight from Jesus’ mouth. Is it the complete teaching on prayer? No, it is not. If it were then I would not be writing this book.

 

There is so much more. There is enough teaching on prayer in the Bible to fill several books. There are verses that give us “conditions” meaning, “if you will do this then I will do that.” From God Himself. There are actual “examples” of how to pray in throughout the Bible. Nehemiah gives us a fantastic example. Daniel does too. And so does Jesus Himself and Paul. And, by the way, Paul’s specialty is showing us “what” to pray for.

 

Anyone could write a book and cover all of the Biblical passages on Scripture and that would be great. I would buy it. But no one else, except for me, can write the book I’m about to write. Because I am going to show you a Bible verse and then demonstrate for you how I applied it and then exactly the outcome, the answer that God chose for me personally. Others would not be able to write about the answers to prayer that I’ve kept in journals. And know this:  He deals with all of us as He wills. In addition, I’m not writing an autobiography either. Only prayer answers.

 

I’m going to cover “why” should we pray, “how” were we taught to pray, “where” we should pray, “what” to pray,  “preventative” prayer, using a prayer journal, and the “responsibility” to pray which is coming next.

 

I predict that there will be interludes as well. Little off topic miracles that I feel God showed me as a gift. It’s all about faith building because it takes faith to pray.

 

And allow me to leave off with one of my favorite verses from the Bible. The Sadducees were asking Jesus a question and His answer is priceless. He said, “You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God.” I love that. There are a lot of mistaken people out there.

Clevsea, copyright 2015

 

how to conduct a Prayer Meeting 3rd installment on the prayer book

 

 

 

HOW TO CONDUCT A PRAYER MEETING

When you have a prayer meeting PRAY instead of talking. I’ve attended many prayer meetings that were intended to last about one hour followed by 15 minutes of fellowship time which is “code” for eating donuts and cookies. People get absolutely giddy about those snacks too. Or the opposite happens; it becomes a burden. You have to pass around a sign-up sheet to get people to bring in a little food and then remind them when it’s their turn. Just save some time and eat at home or better yet eat after you pray, when you get home, so that you were in a state of fasting while you were praying.

Here is a better way to get more prayer done. Instead of having them talking about their request as if they are at a counseling session have them write their requests on a big white board, as they walk in, if you’re in a church building. If you are in a home they can use a sheet of paper and turn those in to the leader OR, and this is the whole point, teach them popcorn style praying.

This is so easy and you can spend the entire hour actually praying. Without any preparation at all everyone sits down. One person agrees to open prayer and to close out the prayer session or another person can do the closing. Then let them know that they are to pray one at a time but they can just pray. Imagine this scenario … I wish I could film this for you: I start to pray about my child’s tooth being pulled. Everyone will catch on and pray with me on that. In fact 3 or 4 other ladies will chime in on Sam’s tooth and how careful the dentist will be and how he won’t be in any pain or get an infection. Believe me they will.

Let’s imagine it’s a larger problem. It can still be done in this style. The Holy Spirit will help you to remain orderly and you will know that it is your turn. Simply pray about your marriage (without gossiping), or the promotion you want, or getting enough money to pay for new tires and the same thing will happen. Others will add to your prayer. And, please let them do that. You, more or less, introduce the problem you want to pray about, by praying about it, and then ALLOW the others to come along and pray FOR you. Do not hog the prayer meeting. Once people come to understand they are not fighting for a chance to pray or going in a circle (that scares some timid people) it frees them up to speak less each time they are going to speak. Their additions will be meaningful and heartfelt….and they know they’ll have another turn. This is not their one and only chance to pray. When the next person prays the same thing happens and as you are led you and two or three others will pray about each need as they arise. There is never any dead-air time. Don’t worry about that and if there is a lull, don’t panic. That just means that all present can remain in a little silent prayer. But it won’t be silent for long, trust me.

We think we need a huge back story when almost always we do not. Those one hour prayer meetings I’ve attended usually consist of each person present going around in a circle talking about their prayer request (too much). Then the leader looks up at the clock and announces there is only 5 minutes left and that means we better “start” praying. It’s five minutes to three and I mean those brownies are not going to eat themselves are they? So in five teensy minutes we cram in all that prayer. Some people promise to keep on praying about the needs shared but either they do or they do not. Or they do not even remember them by time they get to the parking lot.

The ones who are going to remember are the ones who brought a spiral ring binder and you can observe that they are keeping a prayer journal. You can use those when the answers start to come in too. In fact, set the example and carry your notebook with you. When someone tells the group about an answer to prayer you will hear the flutter of paper as they all go looking back a few weeks to see the original request. You can write “Answered” with a big red pen and soon enough your notebooks will fill up with answers. Isn’t that great?

And, can you see the gigantic difference in the two styles of prayer meetings? In one meeting the ladies gossiped (I mean shared their problems and barely prayed, in fact one or two people’s requests usually get skipped due to those darn time constraints) and in the other meeting one full hour of prayer occurred.

Add this: People need to talk out their problems and there is a place for that but let's not call it prayer, let's call it counseling or talking. There is a ministry of listening. That is VERY needed.

Add this: We also READ the Bible for 1 hour too, just read. Didn’t mess around with talking about it and we got so much Bible in us. You can read a lot in one hour. I'm not against Bible study, not at all I've lead a bunch of them and taken a bunch of them. I am in favor of them but plain, straight reading gets a lot of teaching in, a lot!!

Clevsea, copyright 2015

First Answer to Prayer

 

 

Because I want to get right into this I’m going to give you that detailed account of answered prayer first.

I was not raised a Christian and had never gone to church. As I look back at that now I realize the only Biblical theology I had was whatever you get in Christmas Carols. I had heard of a baby born in a manger but I had never heard the gospel.

On occasion people would yell out, “Jesus loves you” because I was attending high school in a large city or I would hear, “Jesus died for you” and that is the total extent of what I knew. Now this is weird: I thought I knew what the Bible said but that was delusion. That was a lie. I had zero idea of what it said because I had never read it.  I hated Christians without cause. I learned later when I did read the Bible that Jesus said that would happen. He taught us that they hate Him without cause and the same would happen to His followers. He was right. I had absolutely no reason to hate Christians or to hate Christ.

I had been exposed to the Edgar Cayce books when I was about twelve years old. I read through all of them and moved on to many books from all over the world that all seemed to mesh together. The result was that I was 100% convinced that reincarnation was the truth, but it is not the truth. I read all these books and was deceived for about 12 years and the public school system was there to reinforce that I had evolved from some amoebas on a warm pond surface, quite by accident as well.

Moving on to my conversation to the faith: I hated Christians enough to slam the door in their faces so the Lord knew I would have to be home alone when this happened. I will skip the details even though  they are good and say that one moment I was in Adam and the next I was in Christ. I knelt down, repeated the “Sinner’s Prayer” but I did more than that. I converted 5000% from new age thinking to a Bible reading machine. I could understand the Bible now. When I read it I saw and felt TRUTH. Because I had been deceived by man’s books I did not read them for the first 7 years I was a Christian.

That is the backdrop to the story. I went to a church and was water baptized (the same week) and they placed newly regenerated me into a “small group” also known as a home fellowship group or cell group, praying meeting, living room group. You get the idea.

The first week I went about 30 people were crammed into a living room and the meeting started. They used words that I had never heard before like “lifting you up in prayer,” stuff like that. The young woman (about 23 years old) next to me raised her hand for a prayer request. I’m astonished. I had only begun my Bible reading and it took a year to read the whole thing the first time so I’m there without much head knowledge at all. So I stared at her and listened to this “prayer request.”

Her face had an innocent quality to it. I can still see her in my mind and it’s been nearly 33 years ago. She looked sweet. She looked angelic. She was not pretty. She had kind of a moon face but she looked up toward the ceiling and told us what she wanted prayer for. I’m changing her name to Jenny because I have no way to contact her for permission to write about her, this account is one hundred percent true except for that. Her request was that she had been attending classes for about one year to be a Medical Assistant, also referred to as a “MA” and I had never heard of that before. It’s lower than being a RN or a LPN but that doesn’t matter. She had been working hard at this program and was about to finish and she wanted a job. That was the prayer request, a job as a MA. That means she will need to work in the medical field and she lived in an area called the east side of the Lake. If you look on a map and you should to fully appreciate this story you will see that Seattle is a large city and east of it is a large lake named Lake Washington. The east side of the lake grew and contains Bellevue, Kirkland, Redmond and these are large cities as well. Bellevue, for example, has a lot of high-rise buildings (sky scrapers). Bellevue Washington has a huge hospital and so many doctors’ offices I can’t even describe it but trust me there are a lot. The same can be said for Kirkland and Redmond; they have a lot of clinics.

While I’m on the topic of geography Seattle has a place called “First Hill” also known as “Pill Hill” because there are at least 4 gigantic hospitals there and because of that there are clinics surrounding them and again too many to count.

As to my prayer, well, I was new to that. So I went home determined to pray, to figure it out. I had read this verse: Jesus said, “’There was in a certain city a judge who did not fear God nor regard man. ³ Now there was a widow in that city; and she came to him, saying, ‘Get justice for me from my adversary.’ ⁴ And he would not for a while; but afterward he said within himself, ‘Though I do not fear God nor regard man, ⁵ yet because this widow troubles me I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.’ ⁶ Then the Lord said, ‘Hear what the unjust judge said. ⁷ And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him, though He bears long with them? ⁸ I tell you that He will avenge them speedily.’” From Luke 18

So I decided to go with the persistence of that widow from the parable. I closed my eyes and I could see Jenny’s face, her angelic face, moon shaped face and I prayed, “Please God, I know you love Jenny, I can tell she is sweet and you must love her so much. Please, please, please let her get a job being a MA.” And I did not stop, I said that prayer a lot.

Meanwhile I caught a cold or something and I have to go to the doctor myself. I worked right in the heart of downtown Seattle and usually one would go up to Pill Hill to one of those clinics but I didn’t. There was an old fashioned building (adjoining the former Frederick and Nelson building for you in Seattle) and it had about 9 to 11 floors of doctors and dentists. I walked in and looked at the directory, found my floor and rode the very old elevator to the 6^th floor or 7^th, I don’t know at this point. I waited in the lobby like everyone does and a lady called my name. I looked at her badge and instead of being a nurse she was a MA. My first Medical Assistant I had ever seen. So while she took my blood pressure and temperature and all that I asked her a lot of questions.

“Do you like your job?” “How is this doctor to work for?” And this woman nodded emphatically about how great the job was and how nice the doctor was.

Okay, now I’m still praying for Jenny and I’m still seeing her beautiful moon face as I pray but I can also pray more specifically, right? I asked God this, “Oh please, please, please give Jenny a job just like that lady’s job. A job she’ll like with a doctor she’ll like….please, please, please. I know you love Jenny. Please let her get a job just like that lady’s.”

I returned to home fellowship group for the 2^nd time and Jenny may or may not have repeated her request. I think she did or I think someone checked with her about that. Remember, there are 30 other people there and I’m not the only one praying for her to get this job.

So I don’t give up. Me and the persistent widow are going to be conjoined twins. I am going to emulate  her so every day and every night my prayer continues. “Just like that lady’s job. That lady liked her job so much. Please give Jenny a job just like that.”

Third home fellowship I ever attending comes up and I go. Guess what? I learned a new phrase. Jenny lifted her hand and said, “I have a praise.” I’m looking at her eagerly because I’m feeling pretty invested in this due to three weeks of prayer and I want to know what a praise is too. Jenny then announces that she got a job.

The whole room bursts into happiness.

I’m right next to her and I ask where the job is. It would have been a great answer to prayer had it been in Bellevue, Redmond, Kirkland because that is where she lived and I expected her to name one of the zillion clinics in those cities. She almost brushed me off as she said, “Oh you wouldn’t know where it is.”

I insisted on knowing so I asked again. “It’s in Seattle.” She probably thinks I too live on the east side of the Lake, right. I insist further and ask again. “Well, it’s in a funny building downtown that you haven’t heard of.”

I excitedly told her that I knew downtown, that I worked there myself. So she answers, “My new job is in the Medical Dental Building.”

That is the old building that I had just been too and had been praying for, or I should say I had been using the Medical Dental Building as a tool during prayer.

Then I ask “Which doctor?” Probably thinking I’m quite the pest she said that doctor’s name. The same, exact doctor that I had gone in to see. That doctor. Not a different doctor in the same building; that would have been unbelievable enough.

No. God wanted me to see that she could get a job, as a MA for that doctor at the only medical clinic in downtown Seattle which was far from likely. That is why I had to point out the geography of not getting a job where there were thousands of possibilities.

People have asked me, “what about the other lady, the one who worked there?”

I don’t know, I wasn’t praying for her.

Clevsea, copyright January, 2015

Exciting NEWS

 

Exciting news.

Things are going to change around here.

Here is what happened to me.

Thirty two and a half years ago I became a Christian. When I was so very, very, very new to the faith I had a VERY powerful answer to prayer. I will detail that for you hopefully tomorrow. The Lord was very gracious to show me so early on that He was listening. He was also gracious to place me in a church where they just happened to being studying praying from the Bible.

These detailed answers to prayer have continued. (I am sure that about 100% of you know exactly what I mean and have had the same experiences. I am not claiming to be special.)

So I decided that when I was about 80 years old that I'd write a book about this and the writing style would be to  take 1 verse on prayer from the Bible (at a time) and after providing that verse I would show how I applied it. Give you a simple story of truth. I prayed this way due to this scripture and this was the mind-blowing result. That kind of thing.

There are about 300 mentions of prayer in the Bible and about 100 of them "teach" something about prayer versus just saying the word prayer. If it takes all 100 then I will use all 100 because that's how you get balanced and trustworthy teaching.  You get ALL of the Lord's counsel that way.

Well, I began to realize that waiting until I was 80 was probably not very intelligent. I currently have 4 published (and available) books on the market so I know how difficult the process is to go from idea, to hard work, through editing and then printing and/or publishing. I have one other completed book that is unpublished. So this prayer book was to be my 6th and final book. (My first book came out 20 years ago this year.)

One reason I wanted to wait until I was 80 is that the devil is not going to like it at all. The Bible is truth and my prayer requests and answers are true. The devil doesn't want you to pray so the attack on me might be gigantic. I know I've had attack just for helping homeschooling moms enjoy the process more (and their children too) so imagine the attack for writing about prayer....or better yet don't imagine it....just pray *Preventively" for me to be spared. Our Lord is more powerful.

I've started this book already so just about now you might be thinking I'm going to announce my newest book and start the fanfare, don't you??

Well, no, that's not the case. My smart husband had an idea today. Just write one bit at a time and publish it here with you (and my Yahoo groups) and it will be free of charge. No money changing hands at all.

There are a lot of bloggers out there but I'm not starting from scratch here. For whatever reason my blog(s) get a lot of hits even if I don't touch them for over a year. I know that blogs are not the newest thing either. Facebook somewhat killed the blogs and the Yahoo type groups but I don't care. I have a FB for my 4th book and it is already so saturated that getting anyone to notice your FB is very difficult or very expensive. I've been paying $10.00 a day to try to get my 4th book noticed.

I wrote that 4th book for the unbelievers hoping  to get them interested in believing that they are going to die someday and that there might be an afterlife and I tried to make it super interesting and fun for them to read and then at the end of the book I reveal my Christianity to them. It's a good book for believers too because they can learn how to evangelize by getting into the heads of the 42 people featured in the book. These are real people and their thinking is kind of loopy sometimes and it shows how easy it would be to speak the truth to them because they don't have it. We don't go to heaven because we recycle our garbage.

But this post is not a commercial for that book either.

It is an announcement that as often as possible I will write a post and  basically just write the book here right in front of you. If you see a boo-boo, great but I'm not treating this as a writing group or to get your help. I'm not trying to use you all as free editors or proofreaders. I'm doing it to help you because anything that is faith building is a GOOD thing and these posts will be faith building.

I'll put them on here and on my blog too. So far my blog has mainly been dedicated to one topic but I've said all I have to say about that so I will just change gears and post my book chapter by chapter.

And, it will probably never become an actual book. Like I said I know the agony all to well of publishing. I think my husband is smart and he has watched me start and finish 5 books and prayer book is just kind of languishing there and he doesn't care about the money at all. Neither do I. You don't know this but I have taken a vow of poverty. I don't care for plagiarism however and every word I write is already copyrighted. Did you know that? Your grocery list is copyrighted.  That's the law. So be a good person and don't steal my posts/chapters as they come out please.

And, if you don't like what I'm writing then ignore it. That is so easy to do. If you think, "Oh here's another Clevsea post about how she applied some verse from Nehemiah and prayed and it was answered......" if you don't like that then look the other way.

Friends of mine: Honestly the devil is going to hate this. I will need prayer for this.

Those I don't know as well: I think you're going to like it generally speaking. I think you're are going to want to chime in with your own answers to prayer which I'm sure are as fantastic as mine have been.

 

Everybody, THANK YOU. Thank you for praying, for reading and for supporting in advance.

If nothing else it will give us something to talk about, right?

Love you all,

Clevsea