Well, good morning. This morning we're going to continue on with the sermon series that we began last week, looking at spiritual disciplines. And if you were here last week, you'll remember that Dan started us of with an overview of spirtiual disciplines. But today we're going to move in and look at the first in what will be a series of specific disciplines. We kind of have the grand-daddy of them all, the disciplines out of which all the others come from. We're going to look today on prayer.

Being asked to preach on prayer is almost like being asked to preach on God. There is almost an unlimited amount of material, and you have to throw almost all of it out to get anything down to a sermon size. So there's an awful lot about prayer that we could profitably consider together that we're not going to touch today. But that's because I want us to look at prayer through the lense of spiritual disciplines. Specifically, what does it mean to cultivate a spiritual discipline of prayer?

Now last week Dan told us what spiritual disciplines were and were not. He reminded us that spiritual disciplines were not. He reminded us that spiritual disciplines are not for super-Christians only. They're not duties that we're required to perform. They're not ways in which we call ourselves to God's attention, earning our right to gain favors from God. They're not even things that enable us, or at least cause us, to grow. Our growth as Christians really is the work of the Holy Spirit in us and around us.

Perhaps the best kind of metaphor that I've heard for spiritual disciplines is that it is like tilling the ground so that the ground is soft and fertile and ready to receive whatever growth it is that God wants to bring us.

Last week Dan gave us a definition of spiritual disciplines. He said spiritual disciplines are things that we routinely do to respond to and to cultivate our relationship with God. I think of it in slightly different words but essentially the same sentiment. Spiritual disciplines are cultivating habits against a backdrop of longing - our longing for God and God's longing for us. And so I want us to think about what does it mean to cultivate a habit of prayer.

Now, you don't always need to have a habit of prayer to sustain prayer. One time, I stepped onto an elevator, the elevator's door closed, and then the Nisqually earthquake hit. I didn't realize that it was an earthquake when I was in the elevator. What I experienced was the elevator feeling like it was in freefall. And then banging against the sides of the shafts; a part of the elevator falling into the elevator, catching once and then falling again. I can assure you I had no problem with prayer. It was focused. I didn't need any habits to sustain it.

But by and large my prayer times are not found in falling elevators. I suspect most of the time that's not true for you either. And so I want us to think about how we work on building habits of prayer. And specifically, I want to talk about one particular habit, one that I think undergirds much of the rest of prayer. It's a habit that I grew up hearing described as "daily quiet times." Or if you want to think of it more generically, "taking time out of the busy activities of your day to set aside time specifically to focus on God, to be with God, to pray.

Now as you listened to these various prayer verses that we read earlier, you'll realize that this has long antecedents. Jesus himself modeled this. He was regularly pulling himself out of the busyness of his work, his day, and finding a way to get aside to the mountains to some solitary place where he could be with God the Father and commune with Him in prayer.

And you find this down through the history of the early church fathers, the great pivotal figures in church history, modern day Christian writers - everybody will consistently affirm the importance of having a regular time set aside to be with God in prayer.

If you think about this, there's a logic to it. Think about other relationships. Supposing you think about a marriage relationship. If you and your spouse only interact around the details and work you have to do:

• You get this.
• I'll pick up this.
• You get the kids.
• I'll buy this.

If you only interacted with each other conversationally around the table where the kids are chiming in and the conversation is fruitful - all legitimate and important parts of marriage - but never took time to pull aside as just the two of you to focus on each other and focus on the relationship, it is unlikely that that relationship would flourish. And the same is true with our relationships with God. If we don't take the time out of all the rest of the day to spend together with God it is unlikely that that relationship will flourish.

And so that's what I want to talk about: How do we cultivate this habit?

Now normally when we preach here at Bethany, we start with some text and we open the text up (hopefully) in ways that make it relevant to us here and now. But with your permission and indulgence I'd like to take a different tact today. We've read a lot of Scriptures. What I'd really like to do is share more out of my own experience. You can think of this, I suppose, as more of a testimonial than an exposition.

I want to quickly tell you that it is not the testimony of a victorious prayer warrior. In fact, as I was thinking about what to title this sermon, for a long time I was going with something like "When it comes to prayer, I am pathetic."

I was going to actually do that until I was online and read a blog about prayer and came across this statement by the blogger. "If there is anything more pathetic than a Christian who does not pray, it is one who feels sorry for himself when he does not pray."

Ouch. I said, "Alright. We won't go that direction."

But this is to tell you that I have been a Christian, walking seriously, trying to follow Jesus 35-40 years of my life. And it has really only been in the last 3 to 4 years that I have been able to sustain a regular habit of daily quiet times, or daily times with God. And even then it's not perfect, but it's better.

During the first 30+ years, I was absolutely convinced of the importance of this intellectually. I had mentally said, "I want to do this." And I tried many times. In fact, I have evidence of that. I have a stack of journals that bear one thing in common. They all have writing on the first 2 or 3 pages, reflecting the first 2 to 3 days of quiet time. And then all of the rest of the pages are blank, reflecting that that was the end of that particular effort. Each time I listed, "Give if another try," I thought somehow that it would be better if I started with a fresh journal.

Albert Einstein once said that the definition of insanity is someone who does the same thing over and over, expecting a different result.

But then, 3 or 4 years ago, something changed. And I honestly have no understanding of what was different. I prayed one day. I prayed the next day. I prayed the next day. And I began to find that I was able to regularly meet with God on a daily basis. I think it was just God's grace that anything was different.

So I want to share some thoughts with you today, really from a place of weakness. I was a little embarassed that Dan/God
(I know there's a distinction) invited me to preach on this particular subject because I know that there are many of you who have far more robust prayer lives than mine. But I have struggled with this for a long time. I've read a lot about it. I've prayed a lot about. And so perhaps there will be a few thoughts that I can share with you that will be helpful.

I've thought, since it has been kind of a constant thing for me, I might best organize my thoughts around some struggles that I've had. And I actually mid-week put some sermon notes together that you can find in the middle of this sheet. That was foolish of me, because at that time I thought we could cover 5 of those challenges, and now I'm clear that sermons only really have room for 3. And so we're going to do the first 3 of those challenges.

Making Time and Space. The first challenge, I call: Making Time and Space. I want to start with the word making, because frankly you won't cultivate this habit until you decide that you're going to try to do it.

I think there are some of you here who would say to me, "Jeff, my life is too full. I simply could not add into the day another block of time like this."

And if that's what you would say, I would say back, "Your life is probably way to full not to do this - not to have this as the integrating piece of a very full day."

But you have to decide that it's something that you want, and that you're willing to pursue it. You need, in a sense, to start with a decision to go for it. As my own experience testifies, that doesn't get you there. And I would encourage you if that's something that you're just starting out on, try to find someone who can:

• partner with you
• check in with you
• pray for you
• call you to account

But it is something that starts with a decision that this is something that you want. And then the next thing you need to do, is to make time.

Now when I was doing this in those 30+ years there were periods where I would try different things. One period of time, I thought that I could just pick different times during the day - it didn't have to be the same time. And so I would look at a calendar and I would say, "Oh look. Between 1:00 and 1:30 today looks like an open block. I'll pray there."

It never worked. For two reasons:

1. By the time I got to 1:00 or 1:30 the block had disappeared. Either there was something that took longer or something that was more urgent.
2. But more importantly it was something that never established any kind of rhythm.

And I don't know that you can make any of these things "rules," but for me it was very helpful to find a time that I would come back to each day to pray at that time.

I think, when you look for those times, you need to take into account your life circumstances. If you're with small children, it may be nap times. Although I realize those are kind of irregular. If you have small children and you go to work, perhaps it's at your work place over lunch. Some people like to pray just before they go to bed.

This definitely does not work for me. In fact, Margie will tell you that sometimes she and I will pray together just before going to bed. And we'll pray out loud. And I have been known to be praying out loud and fall asleep. Sometimes after 3 or 4 minutes, Margie will lean over and say, "Do you think we should say Amen now?"

So the idea of me trying to sit down just by myself and God quietly and pray before (bedtime) is not likely to be successful. For me, what has worked best is to pray in the morning. I tend to get up. I tend to get ready for the day to fully wake up. Then before leaving for work, I set aside a little bit of time to spend with God in prayer.

Now a couple pieces:

1) If you set aside a time, work hard to guard it. I can't tell you how many prayer times of mine disappeared around something like this: "I know it's time to pray, but let me just take a quick peek at my e-mail before I settle down." You want to guard the time and hold it.

2) Don't go into this heroically. The temptation sometimes is to say - I haven't ever done this, but - "I'm going to set aside 2 hours to pray on my knees." That's not going to likely work. I mean, if you're going to run a marathon, you start walking and jogging around Greenlake. And so I encourage you to think 5, 10, 15 minutes - something that's likely going to have some potential for repetition.

Then you need place. I, again, have found it useful most of the time to come back to the same place. Some people have gone so far as to say, "You need to have a chair that you only sit on when you have your daily quiet time." I think very few of us have the luxury of that kind of a house, and it's not really necessary. I just plop down on a chair in the livingroom. But I'm usually up before Margie is up, and that's a place where I can sit, be quiet, and meet God.

Again, avoid heroics. I can remember in that 30 year period, times when I said to God, "God, today I'm going to have my daily quiet time in my office. (This was when I was in a law firm.) I'm going to be surrounded by pleadings. I'm going to be surrounded by letters. They're going to cry out to me, 'I'm urgent! I'm urgent! You have a very busy day!' But God, as a measure of my first-fruits to you, I will sit and give you a half an hour of quiet." Great speech. Never worked. I'd just get in and get busy.

Look for times and places where you are likely to be uninterrupted, where it's most likely that you're going to be able to meet with God. Make time and space.

Avoid Distractions. The second challenge I've encountered, and you'll encounter immediately, is distractions. It's amazing if you read people that write about this discipline, a lot of the writing is spent around how to deal with distractions. One of the clear messages that comes through is that everybody encounters distractions when they sit down to try this.

And distractions can take many different forms:

• I'm going to suddenly remember something I forgot to do yesterday and I feel so badly about it.
• I'm anticipating a conversation that I'm about to have that's going to be very hard.
• I'm going to have a sudden interest in something that you really could care less about.

I remember sitting down and suddenly thinking, "I wonder what national league teams are going to make the playoffs this year?" I have not given one second to thinking about the national league baseball season. But suddenly as I sit down to pray, this is an issue of burning curiosity. And if I could just get up and read the sports page. Distractions will come.

Everybody seems to have developed their own style for responding to distractions, and they seem at times to be opposites. So I think part of the message is that you'll need to look for things that work for you.

A couple of things that I've found helpful:

I like (when I remember) to start my prayer time with something like this - "God, you know I'm a lousy prayer. You know that when I sit down here, distractions are going to roll in. I pray that you will help me to pray. And you will hold the distractions at bay or let them in as you think best. Amen." That really changes the tone of the prayer time.

The second thing that I've found helpful with distractions is that rather than spending a lot of time fighting them, I can use them to direct my prayers. So if I find that I'm distracted about some conversation that is to come, I turn it into a prayer and say, "God, this is catching my attention. Could you please take care of it?"

And then there are very practical things that you can do that helps focus. If your mind tends to wander, you might try to write. That tends to slow you down slow you down so that it holds you to the place. Some people have told me that they put pictures up of people that they pray for so they can look at the pictures to hold their attention. Other people light a candle so that if their mind wanders, they can bring it back to that place.

I was dealing with an absolutely ridiculous distraction. During the early days, I was lucky during my prayer time to eke out 3-4 minutes of concentrated prayer. But somehow in the midst of that, I found myself worried that one day (perhaps this day), I might get caught up in prayer and get so involved in it that I would go long and miss my bus or miss some meeting. And so what I found myself doing was, every 2 or 3 minutes, getting out of the chair and checking the clock. "Well, I've still got a few more minutes!" I just set the kitchen timer now so I don't have to think about that. There are little practical things that you can do.

The other thing that I would say has helped me with distractions (and I don't know if this is universally so) is to change the nature of my quiet time periodically. Maybe every 2 to 3 months I shift what I'm doing.

So for 2 or 3 months I might be reading a psalm.

Then I might be reading a chapter from a book on prayer and doing a devotional.

I'm sort of embarrassed to admit, but what's working very well for me right now are some online devotionals. There's actually a site, www.prayasyougo.com, and you can download a devotional per day; 10 to 15 minutes.

For a season, these have been helpful for me in concentrating my attention and bringing myself to prayer. So I have, in a sense, tried different things as I go along.

I guess the overall message that I would want to leave you with on this dealing with distractions is that everybody encounters these. So if you start to pray this way and start to encounter distractions, it is not a sign that you are doing something wrong or that this discipline isn't right for you. Work your best to figure out how to deal with the distractions.

And the other piece of encouragement that I might give you is to say (more from my reading than my personal experience) that the distractions over time do begin to fade. They never really go away, but they begin to be less present.

So, making time and space, and dealing with distractions. And then the third challenge I have faced over the years is what I call talking to the wall.

Talking to the wall. This is the sense that after I'm there for a day or two and praying, I begin to feel like no one else is there or listening, and that all I'm doing is talking to the wall. And in fact, if you think about yourself in prayer, pouring your heart out and asking God for things that are incredibly important to you, and then say, "but I'm just bouncing that off a wall," after awhile you feel kind of stupid and you stop doing it.

If you are praying this way and you have that sense that you are just talking to the wall, let me urge you to persevere. It's not a true sense. God is present when we come to Him in prayer.

Mother Teresa had her letters published recently. And I haven't read them yet, but I read an article about them. Apparently she would begin each of her days (and you know, she did this incredible work of mercy on the streets of Calcutta, among the poorest of the poor) spending time with God, which I think she said in other cases enabled her work during the day.

What these letters revealed was that for her entire ministry she never felt God's presence as she came to him in those times. She cried out for it. She begged God for it. But she never felt the presence there. Near the end of her life she said that if she was ever to be a saint, she would probably have to be a saint of darkness. Because that's been her experience of God being with her.

It isn't true. God was with her. God did enable her work. But her experience was, in a sense, talking to the wall.

A few decades ago there was a prominent woman who had a gift of healing - Agnes Sanford. She used to gather ministers together to teach them about this. And one of the things she would say to them was,

"When you pray, invariably there will be this little voice that comes in at some point and says, 'Ah, come on. Who are you kidding?', that's the voice that comes from years of skepticism and years of seeing the world through a material lense. Here's what you do with that voice: you ignore it. You pray right past it. You say to God, 'This is how much I believe. Help my unbelief.'"

God will be present when we turn to Him in prayer.

I think one of the reasons that I often felt like I was just talking to the wall was because I was looking for a certain kind of response from God. You know, when I have a conversation with Margie, I talk, she listens. She talks, I listen. The conversation just kind of builds on itself.

And so people would say, "You know, you have a personal relationship with God. You can go sit down and talk to him, and then listen." And so I'd talk, and expect to hear back. And I can probably count on one or two hands over the course of my 35-40 years as a Christian the number of times that I had anything that was even close to an audible sense of hearing the voice of God.

I don't think our relationship with God is exactly like our relationship with other people. God is big and mysterious and wholly other, even at the same time as He is intimate and personal. And one of my problems, I think, is that I have been listening for God to come to me this way, and I have been missing other ways that He is very present to me and speaking.

Now I'm a little better at this. And I can see that, for example, if I am praying and a name pops into my brain that I haven't thought of for awhile, that's God calling the person to my attention. Asking me to pray for them. Or perhaps call them.

Or if I'm praying and explaining to God how my side of an argument is right with Margie. And then, in the middle of that, I suddenly see that from a different perspective and realize, "No, actually I was wrong, and need to apologize." I think that is God, present, and turning me.

If I sit there sometimes and finish praying and am quiet, but suddenly feel a momentary sense of real peace, I think that's God there holding me.

If I spend time reading a psalm or reading a chapter from a devotional book, and suddenly I feel myself liking God more, I think that's God present with me.

I think God does show up, and sometimes we miss it because we're looking for the wrong thing.

The other thing I would say about talking to the wall is that these quiet times just start the conversation that then ripples through and continues through our days.

Henri Nouwen says he knows and has positive proof that prayer works. And the proof he points to is the way he is different on days that he prays and days when he doesn't pray. He says, "When I don't pray in the morning, I become irritable, tired, cranky, spiteful, full of resentment, full of desire for revenge. And on those days and weeks when I have a consistent time of prayer, it's all different."

But he also says, "During those times of prayer, there are often moments that are distracted. Restless. When I don't sense any great things happening. Boring. Confusing."

So a lot of times we need to recognize that what we start in these daily quiet times will ripple through and carry the conversation on for the rest of the day.

I will tell you that, in these last few years as this has become more of a regular part of my life, more times I go into the day and specific situations looking for what God is going to do. I find myself praying, "God, as I meet this person, what are you doing in this person's life? How can I participate in that work?"

It's a small change, but I think it grows out of starting the day with the conversation. We are not talking to the walls. God is present.

So those are three of the big challenges that I've had to face:

1. making time and space
2. dealing with distractions
3. getting over the sense that I'm just talking to the wall

As I was finishing up this sermon last night, I ended up feeling like maybe the message I'm signaling is that this is all really big, hard stuff. And honestly, my own experience of it is that there is an element of just needing to work at it. I suppose you could say that that's a little bit hard.

But I do want to end with a couple of encouragements for you. And this will be true of all the spiritual disciplines.

As we stick with them, as we practice them, as they become more habit for us, they will become easier. The sense of commitment and perseverance and discipline gets met (though not ever fully replaced) with joy and anticipation. And you find yourself looking forward to these practices. Looking forward to prayer.

And then the other thing I would say as an encouragement to you really links to the quote that's in the front of your bulletin from Peterson. He said, "We pray because it is the only language we have for speaking to God and it is the only language we have for listening to God."

I think of prayer fundamentally as the language of longing. Prayer is the language that expresses the deepest longings that we have:

• Our longing to be fully alive.
• Our longing to be fully human.
• Our longing to be fully loved.
• Our longing to be fully with God.

And when we pray, and when we set aside these times, these longings get expression. But also when we pray, we're able to hear and listen to the longings of God's heart.

And as we listen to those, we understand that His longings are that we be fully human, fully alive, and fully present with Him. And His longings and our longings mesh in prayer and begin to be met. And that changes everything.

Let me invite you now, for just a minute, to close your eyes and ask God if there's anything in particular that He wants to call your attention to about your prayer life. And then I will close us with a quick word of prayer.