This tongue-in-cheek post gave me a chuckle:
The Sales Pitch Prayer Request or
How To Get Whatever You Ask For in Prayer – by Jarrod Haggard
Post was submitted to the stuff Christians like blog by Jon Acuff. Jon is clever and generous. I’ve enjoyed his blog for a few years now. I’ll be featured as a guest writer there on 9/18/09.
A little while back, I responded to a reader asking if drinking coffee, (and other such things) were actually spiritual. You can look that up if you want to, if you want to read the post in full. But, in the post I talk about a truly interesting spiritual practice monks have used with coffee.
It gives me pause to realize how I may incorporate what I usually think of as “secular,” or everyday/common things, into the realm of sacred. This way, all of life is both a physical and spiritual experience, and a way to revere, love, and acknowledge our Creator. It is doing all of life as prayer.
As for me, I love coffee. I have since age 5. I would wait until my dad wasn’t looking, and I’d slurp down his milky sugary mixture, even if it had gone cold. Spiritually it does play a part in my life. It’s a way to sit back, and take in life, and to be more “in the moment.” I love to remember God is not apart from me, “over there,” or “in the sky,” but always with me. And, I enjoy realizing he delights in my enjoyment of things he has given me, even such things as simple as a good hot brew. So, I invite him into that experience fully, (when I have the right mind, and will to do so.)
I have a bag of delicious coffee to give to the visitor who best reveals, in the comment section below, how and why coffee (or tea, if you must) is, or has been, an enjoyment to them, or even a spiritual aid to their journey with God. Have at it.
If you know a coffee lover, point them in this direction. Hopefully, we can contribute to the dialogue on this topic.
Keep on brewin’! :)
Do you Pray like a Consumerist, and don’t know it? Many of us have slipped into a consumer mindset, and don’t realize it. (It’s a North AMerican speciality!) It could be hurting our spiritual growth.
Here are 5 questions to ask yourself to see if you may need some kind of revision in your communication with God.
You may be praying like a consumerist if…
1. Your praying resembles window-shopping, or a trip to the superstore with a credit card.
2. If you imagine God a bit like a waiter, or butler in the sky.
3. If bargaining or haggling seeps into your communication to God.
4. If waiting for answers to your prayer requests is just as awful, or feels eerily similar, to waiting in a long checkout line.
5. If your prayers tend to be mainly focused on you, and your concerns, and often do not include worship, praise, gratitude, or…and this is a big one…listening (because communication doesn’t consist of just talking).
If you answered “yes” to 2 or more of these questions, consider revising how you view and engage in prayer, and communication with your God: Creator and Redeemer.
The Takeaway– Prayer is communication.
It changes us because through it we may become more like our God, if we yield to God and allow him to work in our hearts. When God is the primary focus of our prayer life, more growth is possible. And like I mentioned, this involves both speaking and listening to him.
(For a new way to engage in prayer using Scripture, and a focus on listening to God, do a search here for Lectio Divina.)
Thanks for reading!
Leave your responses. Was there ever a time when you prayed like a consumerist?
Have you ever wondered what prayer is all about? Not just that it’s important, but why it is, or how it changes us? Why might God wish us to do it? Why did Jesus do it? I have.
In my Christian education class at church on Sunday, we’ve been going through the book by Philip Yancey, Prayer: Does it Make a Difference. I recommend it highly. It discusses the questions many of us have wrestled with regarding prayer. Such as, “If God knows everything, what is the purpose of asking him?” or “What is happening when it seems like God is silent, and my prayers seem to just be hitting the ceiling?” or “What should I pray to God? What is off limits? Is it for him that I pray, for me, or both of us?” Yancey goes through plenty of tough prayer-related subjects honestly, without pat answers.
If you’ve read this book, what did you like, or what didn’t you like?
What have been the most helpful thing or things you’ve learned about prayer? What books have helped you? Please, leave a comment or lesson you’ve learned here.
Delta asks:
I brought up the subject of Lectio Divina to my friend, thinking that we could use it together. Once a week we meet as prayer partners, and I thought this practice could be a really neat way to begin our time together. When I mentioned it, she hesitated and said it sounded like “New Age” stuff to her, not Christian, and it wasn’t in the Bible. She seemed really reluctant to give it a chance. What should I say to her, or should I let it go?
Lisa’s response:
The name “Lectio Divina” might do some of the scaring for your friend, but really the “Our Daily Bread” devotional is set up quite similarly to the basic movements of L.D. read, meditate, pray, rest/listen (or dwell/abide/apply) If it was just called “Reading with focused prayer”, maybe no one would care. The tradition of L. D. goes back to very early church times when the first manuscripts of scripture were made available, and Christians could read them out loud and ponder them, pray on them to God, and rest in God.
The nice fit for Evangelicals, for instance, as the major focus is on the Scripture, which Evangelicals LOVE. It puts the Bible in prominence for prayer, worship, and hearing from God. Meditation is Christian (of Yahweh). Personally, as someone in the Christian tradition, I refuse to let other religious/or spiritual sects rob me of what God has given us to grow, and adore and worship him. I think we are cheated to section off practices, used by other groups for other purposes, when they are there to use for our own loving of God. He is the object of our praise. He is our glory. The Christian tradition is rich with meaningful spiritual practices that may be less than cut and dry, or formulaic, but it doesn’t mean God hasn’t and doesn’t use them powerfully to change us into his likeness. The unfamiliar here is only unfamiliar to some, in our current culture and time.
To be clear, I don’t submit that L.D. and contemplative ways, are a WAY to God, only one of many tools, or vehicles, available to ready our hearts for His good work.
The Contemplative part (movement 4) may be the hardest to understand for your friend, (i.e. most unfamiliar) because it’s more common in the Catholic tradition. Again, some like to think, and reason all spiritual actions out, and figure out the formula of it all. If it’s just being, and resting, enjoying God and listening…how can it be “working”? Where’s the doing part? What good could it REALLY be? So, I like to explain it as resting, and yielding to God. We learn our place. He is God, we are not. We are dependent on Him. We don’t have to *do*. That is the whole point. When we complete this discipline this way, the reorientation can be quite beneficial.
Should you bring it up again? Probably not if it’s a big stumbling block for her. I suggest you enjoy God privately with this enriching practice, and if you would really like to engage L. D. with another, send them here to learn about it, (do a search here for more on the topic) or explain it in terms that they might be more comfortable with, such as “Scripture Reading and Focused Prayer.” May God Bless you as you strive to walk closer to him.
