5- Duty to Delight

I can think of nothing great that is easy, and prayer is one of the greatest things, so it must be one of the toughest. It is ok. Admit that prayer is very hard, you are not alone.

“When your prayer life finally begins to flourish, the effects can be remarkable. You may be filled with self-pity, and be justifying resentment and anger. Then you sit down to pray and the reorientation that comes before God’s face reveals the pettiness of your feelings in an instant. All your self-justifying excuses fall to the ground in pieces. Or you may be filled with anxiety, and during prayer you come to wonder what you were so worried about. You laugh at yourself and thank God for who he is and what he’s done. It can be that dramatix. It is the bracing clarity of a new perspective. Eventually, this can be the normal experience, but that is never how the prayer life starts. In the beginning the feeling of poverty and absence usually dominates, but the best guides for this phase urge us not to turn back but rather to endure and pray in a disciplined way, until, as Packer and Nystrom say, we get through duty to delight.”

Whether it is here with Keller, or with Packer, Nystrom, Luther, Calvin, or Augustine, all agree that prayer is not easy for almost anyone in the beginning. It is a chore. They all also agree that if one can commit his or herself to getting through Duty, they will always, eventually, arrive at Delight. At Delight, prayer becomes just that; it gets to the point that you long for your time of prayer, when you need prayer to feel right for the day more than you even need your morning coffee. You will enjoy it. You will find it delightful and easy. You will find it consistently day and life altering. BUT . . . IT NEVER BEGINS LIKE THAT.

You must decide if getting to Delight and obeying God is worth your forging on through the mire that often is Duty. No one can make you pray. You must sit down with a chisel and stone and commit yourself to praying, knowing that it will be tough.

The Duty stage can last indefinitely, but it will not last forever. And it is really not just steps from Duty to Delight as we all will return back to stages of dryness even after reaching Delight; but Delight always returns.

When I first talked about this to my youth and college students, one raised his hand and asked, “I mean, is it ok for me to set an alarm on my phone to remind me?” ABSOLUTELY! We have dropped ourselves into this well of misconception that if your prayers are on a schedule or if they are orderly or if you’re doing anything short of speaking with God in a fiery bush then it is not really the way it is supposed to work. This is a great mistake.

We all know the story of Daniel, that he was thrown into a den of lions precisely because he insisted on praying the 3 set times a day as he had always done. MAY WE BE SO CONSISTENT AND FAITHFUL!

Commit to praying. Set an alarm on your phone. Sit down and rest in God, talk to God. Confess your sins. Let your mind go to the areas of your life that you don’t want God to bring up. Read scripture, respond in prayer.

You will worry that you aren’t doing it right or good enough; you aren’t, no one is. Do it anyway.

Deuteronomy 4:7

What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the LORD our God is near us whenever we pray to him?

4- The Primary Purpose of Prayer

Colossians 1:9-12

 “From the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.”

Paul opens up almost all of his letters by telling the recipients that he has been praying for them, and this is what his prayers look like.

Isn’t it interesting that Paul doesn’t pray for a change in their circumstances? The churches he is writing to are living in a time of immense suffering, oppression, disease, and were facing and would face some of the worst persecution that Christians have faced to this day; yet, we don’t see Paul praying for their profiting, their health, or even their safety. What do we see him praying for?  He prays repeatedly that they may “know” God more.

Now this doesn’t at all mean that we should not pray for profit, health, safety, and all the other things that we think about; Jesus himself tells us to pray “Deliver us from evil” and Paul prays in 1 Timothy 2 for peace, good government and the needs of the world.  It does means that, in Paul’s eyes, those things are not the primary purpose of prayer.

What does it mean to “know” God? This word and idea is prevalent throughout scripture.

We learn with this word used in Matthew 11:27 that it is more than just having knowledge about something or someone

All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

If “know” just meant having information about, then many people DID know the Son, but it means much more than that.

In Genesis 4:17, this word is used to mean the most intimate kind of relationship between Cain and his wife.

Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch.

In Hosea 13:5, we see it being used to refer to how God cared for the Israelites in the wilderness.

It was I who knew you in the wilderness, in the land of drought

In Amos 3:2, we see it used to show how God had chosen the Israelites as his special people.

You only have I known of all the families of the earth

In John 10:14-15 & 27, we hear Christ being very clear and emphatic with this word and his people.

 I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.

My sheep hear my voice, I know them and they follow me.

Paul makes it clear how he values this in Phillipians 3:8

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ

We see this word used in the negative light in 2 Thessalonians 1:8 and Matthew 7:23

(He will come back) in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.

And then I will declare to them, “Depart from me, I never knew you.”

Keller says to “know God” is “to have the eyes of the heart enlightened.”

Ephesians 1:16-18

 I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him,  having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints

“Biblically, the heart is the control center of the entire self….. To have the eyes of the heart enlightened with a particular truth means to have it penetrate and grip us so deeply that it changes the whole person. In other words, we may know that God is holy, but when our hearts’ eyes are enlightened to that truth, then we not only understand it cognitively, but emotionally we find God’s holiness wondrous and beautiful, and we naturally avoid attitudes and behavior that would displease or dishonor Him.” -- Keller

Paul prays in Ephesians 3:18 that we may have the “power to grasp” God and all He has done for us. Paul does not see prayer as merely a way to get things from God but as a way to get more of God himself. Prayer is a striving to (Isaiah 64:7) “take hold of God.”

We are to pray not primarily so that things in our lives will change, but so that we may know God more, which in turn will change everything in our lives.

Grace and Peace

3- You Can Run and Hide, But I Am Begging You Not To

We look at Adam and Eve, attempting to hide from God, and we laugh. "How could they possibly think that God does not see them, exactly where they are?" 

Yet we do the same thing every day.

Christianity says that human beings are not inherently good, but inherently selfish and sinful. To illustrate this, think about this:

What if each morning as you woke up, a sign was placed over your head that throughout the day would show every thought that ran through your mind. Every judgmental thought upon meeting someone new, every stereotypical generalization, every lustful image and scenario, every time that you are being even slightly deceitful, every time that you are desiring to portray one image and one emotion when your thoughts contradict the words you are saying.

Do you find that desirable?  Would that do good things for your reputation and relationships?

The truth is that we very often, if not constantly, want to portray one thing with our words and expressions while our thoughts would portray something quite different. I don’t want others to see that I am weak, I don’t want others to see my immense selfishness, my pride, I don’t want them to know how many flaws make up the very foundation of who I am; so, often, I fake it. I hide who I really am behind the words and expressions that I am using to put forth the identity that I desire for the world to see me as.

Our words are who we want others to see us as, our thoughts are who we actually are.

The closer we get to people, the more willing we are to let more of our true selves show, and the more of our true selves that we discover.

When we meet new people, the conversations are very shallow, a little awkward, and not impactful to our lives at all. The closer someone is, the more impactful conversations with them have the ability to be.

I have had many conversations with my best friends, and even more with my wife, that have had a large impact on who I really am, and often leave me saying things like, “I didn’t even know that about myself.” I expose myself and often discover things about me in talking with them that I didn’t know.

Before Ariel and I got married, I expected marriage to be primarily me discovering things about her, seeing more of her flaws, and loving her anyway; however, what describes my experience thus far more accurately would be to say that I have been primarily discovering more things about myself, seeing more of my own flaws, and living in awe of the fact that she still loves me anyway.

I reveal more of myself to her, and I end up loving her so much more and realizing how special she is.

However, I still hide thoughts even from her.

Possibly my favorite quote from Keller’s book on Prayer is this:

“God is the only person from whom you can hide nothing. Before Him, you will unavoidably come to see yourself in a new unique light. Prayer, therefore, leads to a self-knowledge that is impossible to achieve any other way.”

WOW have I found that to be true!

My conversations with my wife are deep and revealing; however, with God, there is nothing deeper or more revealing. Conversations with God make the depth of your conversations with those close to you look like a dew drop compared to the Atlantic. No matter how much I love Ariel, I am still always conscious of how she will hear the things that I say and how she will feel about them, conscious of how I word things,  so I am constantly sending my thoughts through a filter to make sure that the words that come out portray what I want her to see and hear. With God, there is none of that. It is heart to heart. Created being to Creator. It is the only true direct line that you will ever experience. We cannot filter our thoughts to make sure God only hears the words that we want Him to hear, He hears it all, He knows it all. I kneel before God completely exposed, unable to hide anything; I kneel before God as the real Rene Zeringue. I cannot hide any of my foundational flaws, my evil thoughts, or my selfish ways. HERE, WITH GOD, YOU DISCOVER YOU, WHO YOU ARE, WHO GOD IS; HERE YOU WILL GAIN MORE SELF-KNOWLEDGE THAN ANYWHERE ELSE! And you will wonder how this Almighty All Knowing God still loves you anyway!

 “The heart experience of the gospel’s power can happen only through prayer.” – Keller

Those that have healthy prayer lives know this to be true: Through prayer, you will see the Gospel and God’s love for you in a way that you have never seen before, regardless of how long you have been a Christian.

Prayer will lift you up and prayer will break you, ALL because of God’s desire for your abundant life and your relationship with Him, which must go hand in hand.

“Prayer is the only entryway into genuine self-knowledge. It is also the main way we experience deep change – the reordering of our loves…. It is the way we know God, the way we finally treat God as God. Prayer is simply the key to everything we need to do and be in life. We must learn to pray. We have to.” - Keller

Grace and Peace

2- Access

As you have probably studied, the Old Testament temple was divided into various sections which could only be entered by certain people. The innermost section of the Temple was where the presence of God himself was said to be, called the Holy of Holies or the Most Holy Place. This Holy of Holies could be entered once a year by one man, the High Priest.

I can only imagine how much I would have longed to see behind the curtain that separated the Holy of Holies from everything else. The PRESENCE OF GOD? The God that spoke light into existence and breath into my lungs, the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, the God that parted the Red Sea and the Jordan as He showed his power over Pharoah and freed my ancestors from slavery, the God that made Mt. Sinai shake and who’s voice I could not handle, THAT GOD IS THERE! How amazing would it be to peak behind that veil!

In what almost seems to be a passing statement, Matthew says this,

“And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.

And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split.”

We will never be able to grasp the full magnitude of this statement! The veil that separated the presence of THAT GOD from us because of our sin was torn from top to bottom. No longer did we have to wonder what it was to peak behind the veil, upon becoming a Christian we are all thrust behind this veil to know God in a way only dreamed of even by such men as Abraham and Moses.

We now, because of Christ, have unlimited access to THE GOD!

My dad is a pretty big deal. He was the State Champion in Gymnastics in Louisiana all of his high school years, He was an All-American gymnast at Memphis and Jacksonville State, and was even close to making the Olympics. He is now one of the greatest and most desired tumbling coaches in the country; people around the country pay large amounts of money just for small amounts of time with him. Dad owns a gym in Gadsden, AL called ACE of Gadsden. On the door that leads into the gym itself, there is a sign that says “NO ONE IS ALLOWED ON THE FLOOR EXCEPT FOR COACHES AND ATHLETES!”

But guess what . . . . . I can walk through that door whenever I want. It doesn’t matter what he is doing, whether he is coaching a class or working in his office, at any moment I can go to him and spend as much time as I want to talking to him, and he is always overjoyed to see me. People around the country spend so much to just spend a little time with him, and I get to spend as much time with him as I want, whenever I want, for free.

You know why? Because I am His son, and because of that, I have unlimited access to Him.

People around the world, throughout all of history, have spent their money, their time, their very LIVES seeking just a glimpse of the divine and great being that we call God, and we get to go in and talk to him whenever we want, for as long as we want, and He is ALWAYS overjoyed to see us taking time to come to Him.

You know why? Because Christ, The Son, has made us his brothers and sisters, and has opened the door to the gym for us, to our infinitely loving father. He has given us unlimited access.

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. 2 Cor 3:17-18

Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Heb 4:14-16

This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him. Eph 3:11-12

Christ has won you access to approach God whenever you wish, and assures you that God, because of Christ, is always overjoyed to see you.

Grace and Peace

1- Whatever You Do Is What You Really Believe

You show what you believe by what you do. If you say, “I hate dogs, I can’t stand to be around them and I think they make the worst pets,” and you then buy a dog for your children instead of any other kind of pet, you probably didn’t REALLY believe what you were saying about them being terrible pets.

Whatever you do is what you believe.

With that in mind, for most of my life, I didn’t believe in prayer, not really. I know that because I didn’t do it.

I have been teaching on Wednesday nights to my youth and college students on prayer for the past few months. I have been using Tim Keller’s new book “Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God,” and I have enjoyed this series and found it more impactful than maybe any series I have ever taught. As often as I can, I am going to write short articles here about what I have learned in that journey and what I am learning as I struggle through the mire that is the beginning stages of prayer. I promise to keep them brief as I desire for them to actually be read.

I never really got prayer. I never really understood it. I never really knew how to pray. I never really trusted that it had any power at all. Sure I’d throw one up before a test and would often be the one called upon in my youth group to close us out; however,  I often viewed prayer, though I never would have said this, in a similar way to how outsiders view Christianity: all kind of hokie, not REALLY relevant to spiritual life, just a checklist matter that I obviously didn’t see as important enough even to check off. I would talk away prayer saying things like, “Yeah well really I pray all day every day as a Christian walking with God,” but that wasn’t true. Very rarely did my mind focus exclusively on God like prayer calls for. Sure there is a sense in which every Christian lives every moment in prayer, but biblical prayer calls for more than the divided mind prayers that I was offering.

I would be hard pressed to find an area that I feel more incompetent in than this one. I have only just recently began to pray, actually pray, and I feel like this just born baby deer that has just managed to stand for the first time. I am still not confident where to place my feet, I am still being convinced that walking is worth the struggle, I am still constantly stumbling and falling backwards. However, I have seen so much fruit from just the short time that I have been truly praying. I have never experienced the growth and self-knowledge that I have seen over these past months and have seen a massive amount of growth in outside things that I am involved with. Things that I have known intellectually for 20 years have now, for the first time, begun to sink into my heart, and it has changed me forever.

I am convinced that God paid an immeasurable price to grant me day and night access to Himself, and I am committed to taking advantage of that gift.

I have decided to pray.

Join me.